Кэрол Дуглас: Cat In An Aqua Storm

Midnight Louie Lets His Hair Down

Now that I have a literary reputation to consider, it is time to get a few facts straight.

An ugly rumor is circulating that I have a ghost writer. This is what I get for being magnanimous and not demanding a coauthor byline. I am not against those of a spectral persuasion, but state here that I am fully responsible for every word attributed to me. (Not to discredit my collaborator, but I must report that some observers have even suggested that I should take over the entire narrative. Suits me.)

Although I am now something of a literary lion, having been critically embraced to a heartwarming degree for my debut piece, a limber little four-paw exercise calledCat in an Alphabet Soup, there is also some confusion about my literary antecedents. (There has always been confusion about my biological ones, a hazard of my species.)

I have been compared to such divergent dudes as Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Mike Hammer, "an aging mobster with a checkered past,” and a “hep cat" who “fancies himself another Philip Marlowe.”

Listen, I come by my expressional elegance the same way I do my uncanny sense of balance—naturally. Forget all those has-been dudes like Marlowe and Hammer. There is only one Midnight Louie. It is true that I have dozed off over a few tomes in my time and left my marks on a book or two. (I particularly recommend hardcovers. The corners are unsurpassed as a scent deposit site and double as a good muzzle scratcher. Fortunately, my associate author has plenty of those lying about the office library.)

Anyway, these so-called critics are getting my influences all wrong, as usual. Even Miss Carole Nelson Douglas puts it about that my origins blend generic gumshoe with Damon Runyon, Charlie the Tuna (the TV ad huckster, not the comic) and Mrs. Malaprop.

I do not know this Malaprop individual from atom, but I have a bone to pick with this oversized Tuna dude (in fact, I would be delighted to discuss our differences over a long literary lunch—yum-yum). And, speaking of good taste, Mr. Damon Runyon had some admirable trends in that direction regarding the fair sex, so I will accept that comparison. As for the generic gumshoe charge, I do not share Miss Temple Barr’s affection for footwear, whatever the height.

As long as I am on the subject of petty annoyances, someone once accused cat mysteries of being “fatally cute” and even—shudder—fluffy. They have obviously not walked my mean streets. I have not answered to “cute” since Reno Ravioli tried it in nineteen-eighty-seven and has been known as Scarface ever since. Not even little dolls so presume. And nothing has been remotely fatal to me but charm since birth, with the possible exception of Free-to-Be-Feline.

Speaking of little dolls, I am told that the purpose of these mutual “About the Author” assignments is to mention a thing or two about my necessary associate, (I am physically challenged and need a little help in transcription, but she puts it down like I tell her. Period, semicolon, asterisk, et cetera.)

So here is some skinny about Miss Carole Nelson Douglas’s private life, and I am in a unique position to know plenty. (After all, she did find me in the Classified ‘‘Purrsonal" column under “pets.”)

I am sure you have been dying to know: the only thing she has in common with my delightful roommate. Miss Temple Barr, is a shoe collection that would choke a trash-removal vehicle (in my humble opinion all they are good for). Imelda Marcos is an amateur. As for the literary significance of such a fact, I leave it as a fit subject for the critics.

Very Best Fishes,

Midnight Louie, his mark

Tailpiece

Carole Nelson Douglas Untangles a Few Snarls

Midnight Louie islike the Force: he is always with you. I am indeed supposed to shed some biographical insight here on Louie’s life and times, but he seems to have taken that over, too.

There may be a misconception about Louie and me that I should correct before the ugly rumor he is so concerned about crops up on another front. Our association is not physical (though 1 would hesitate to call it spiritual). Perhaps metaphysical is the word. He does not cohabitate with me and mine, and never has. Our relationship is purely platonic, for good reason. We have not seen each other since 1973. That was when I wrote a newspaper article about him being saved by a Minnesota woman from a trip to the animal pound in California. Her intriguing classified ad searching for a new home for a cat who was “as at home on your best couch as in the neighbor’s garbage can,” made me write a feature story on him for the daily newspaper I reported for. A home in the country was indeed found, and we went our separate ways.

So my introduction to Midnight Louie was a brief encounter that, nevertheless, made such an indelible impression that years later I found myself drafting him as a part-time narrator for a series of novels. Like all cats, Louie is eternal in a psychic sense. To put it in New Age terms, we communicate despite barriers of time and space. I may even be channeling Midnight Louie’s parallel life, or lives both past and to come.

Louie would scoff at such trendy theories. Yet how can he explain away the feet that the only feline presence in the author photo on the hardcover dustjacket is “a stuffed shill,” as he once described the soft-sculpture substitutes for the missing corporate cats, Baker and Taylor, in Cat in an Alphabet Soup ?

This substitute Louie (a contradiction in terms in the extreme—there is no substitute for Louie his own self) is, by the way, a cat-shaped, black velvet evening purse (a zipper at the back reveals a coral satin lining) with rhinestone eyes and a midnight satin bow-tie. It’s my favorite evening bag (of a large collection—so there, Imelda!), being convenient and even comforting to hold—and easy to stash under my arm when going through buffet lines. (Louie would much approve of aiding another’s food consumption in any form.)

That purse gets a lot of comment and coos, so it was only natural that I should start calling it Midnight Louie, and even more natural to let it stand in for Louie.

Come to think of it, I know exactly how Louie would explain his lack of physical presence in the photo: because of his semi-shady past (“expeditions of a law-deriding nature”) he must remain anonymous despite his new literary fame. That’s why he allows me to maintain my self-deluding little fiction about him keeping his distance. He has also hypnotized me with his deep, emerald, Mystifying Max eyes into overlooking his very real presence. After all, a dude who is his own witness protection program can’t afford to be too noticeable.

See what I mean? In person or in print, Midnight Louie maintains a feline Force field all his own.

P. S. If you enjoyed this novel, please consider putting a good review on Amazon.com,

Goodreadsand other online bookselling sites. :)

NEXT

Excerpt from Cat on a Blue Monday

Book 3 of the Midnight Louie Mysteries

1

Louie’s Dog Day Afternoon

I like nothing better than playing the role of Sage in the Shade.

I am well suited to the part, particularly when I tuck my four limbs underneath me—I am the agile type, and double-jointed to boot. Then I let my limeade-green eyes narrow to inscrutable and attractively tilted slits. Just give me a Number One Son and a sackful of fortune-cookie sayings and on a clear day I’ll find Judge Crater, or maybe even Jersey Joe Jackson.