Douglas, Nelson - 2Golden garland

By the time I get to the Algonquin at Sixth and Forty-fourth, I am pooped, but only in the sense of being tired. I have not littered once upon the streets of New York, despite the stress of the chase. However, my breath blows frosty smoke rings and my sides are heaving. I collect myself outside the Blue Bar next door before attempting the final stage of my mission.

The Algonquin doormen are attired in long, full winter coats like the Wizard's guards wore in Oz. But I can work with long full coats. My wits and stamina gathered, I dart under the longest model on the shortest doorman. Within seconds I am within inches of the opening double doors. It is nothing for an old Las Vegas hand like myself to calculate the odds down to a whisker's breadth. I leap between the closing pincers of glass and brass without losing a tail-hair, then sprint through the inner set unscathed.

I am spit out into a lobby of the old school . . . say the library of Princeton University.

Luckily, the lobby resembles Mr. Robert Frost's wood: lovely, dark and deep. Age-darkened wood looms all around, providing excellent camouflage for a swarthy fellow like me. The carpeting, tastefully worn to a dull red, is less amenable, but no one seems to find my feline presence remarkable.

"Oh, look," says a lady with a Southern accent. "The famous house cat."

I bow and stroll into the eighteenth-century ambiance of the lobby-bar, moving among wing chairs and tea tables, head and tail high. At last, no hubbub. No dogs. No doo-doo. Just the tranquility so dear to the feline soul, and a smidgen of respect.

I am so pleased to be recognized despite the fact that none of my ads have run yet, that I fail to scan the ambience with all of my senses. Imagine my surprise to scent an odor of the most delicate feline nature.

A female of my species is very near.

Naturally, I cannot resist discovering if the Divine Yvette has accompanied her mistress for a cocktail, yet the scent is . . . foreign, if no less intriguing. I reconnoiter, arriving finally near a mahogany niche, a bookcase with the doors removed, which has been remodeled into a cat accommodation.

"Matilda's Suite" reads a plain brass marker. I study the decor beyond the red-velvet curtain held back by a golden rope. For a moment, the golden rope reminds me of recent unpleasantness, then I focus on the charming scene: rose-striped wallpaper, four-poster bed, a handsome parquet floor covered with scattered throw rugs, including a Persian of impeccable pedigree, a hanging candelabra, and the piquant touch of sock toy with a bell affixed lying on the parquet.

This Matilda must be one pampered pussycat. I sniff around trouser legs and pantyhose-clad ankles until I find the missing minx of the house.

There she lies, curled fast asleep on a tapestry-upholstered chair, a petite gray and buff tabby clad in an aqua leather collar.

"Pardon me, miss," I say in my best out-of-town manner. "I hesitate to disturb you, but I am a stranger in town."

Her golden eyes slit open, then she sits up, yawns and widens her pupils to take in my appearance.

"Well, I do not meet many of my kind here. Are you just stopping in for a drink or thinking of registering at the hotel?"

"I am visiting guests."

"Oho," says she, settling on her haunches. 'Those high-fashion models on the ninth floor, no doubt. I have only glimpsed them coming and going. I doubt that you will get an audience with such snooty celebrities."

"My dear lady, I am a sort of celebrity myself."

"Oh? You do not look like Maurice."

"Him. He is dead meat. The name is Louie, Midnight Louie, and you will see more of me."

"I would not think that could be possible," she says, surveying my girth.

Well, she is a scrawny thing, and no doubt jealous. So I take my leave, knowing at least what floor to seek. Still, I do not wish to attract untoward attention, and the bellmen, at least, would recognize me for an unauthorized interloper, even though I only need to stroll in this relatively feline-secure environment. So once again I am forced to duck behind potted palms and semi-potted persons to make my way to the elevators.

Here I am served by my nose. Speaking of potted this and that, I am sorry to say that the Divine Yvette's many stresses have led to a relaxation of potty procedures. And one of Miss Savannah Ashleigh's spike heels has managed to step into the scene of the crime.

I would be ready, willing and able to follow my Fair One's scent over the far Himalayas.

Tracing it to the proper elevator and then up to the proper floor is merely a matter of dogged persistence. By the time I am sniffing along the ninth-floor hall carpeting, I am reeling a bit, but still game. Or is that gamey? Certainly the spoor has hardly become cold. Or dry. I wobble down the hall until my nose directs me to a certain doorway.

The French are great believers in Nose. A well-trained Nose can discriminate between various vintages. A persnickety nose can tell a rose from a radish. A fine old feline Nose can follow a queen to her castle.

Number 917 it is. I pause to give the accomplishment of my quest a proper moment of reverence. I pause another ten seconds to gird my loins for a delicate mission. Wherever the Divine Yvette goes these days, so go the scurrilous offspring of the now-fixed Maurice. And also so goes the Sublime Sister Solange.

The average nomadic hero usually has only twain terrors to survive, like Scylla and Charybdis. I get Solange and Yvette and unknown offspring. It will take all the diplomacy and experience at my command to avoid playing favorites.

I decide to cut the suspense down to a reasonable time limit, and paw the door.

True, I have in times not far enough past felt the wrath of She Who Must Be Dismayed. But I am ready to face anything in hopes of putting things right with the Ashleigh girls.

At last my pathetic pawings are answered, but by nothing human.

A petite paw slips under the door to play padsie with my own. I am much encouraged that this is a "claws-in" pursuit.

In time, our machinations are jiggling the door in its frame. Then there is a mighty crack! And the door pops open like a jack-in-the-box.

I enter, the lion king in basic black, to discover Miss Savannah Ashleigh out, and both ladies at my beck and call.

"Oh, Louie," cries the Divine Yvette, who is on a first-name basis. "We have been robbed."

Robbed? Have some little kittens lost their mittens? I look around for the beastly little rug rats. I spy the offspring of Maurice treading carpet toward me with their needle-sharp nails. Cowards breed cowards. I catch the one in the lead by the nape.

"Slow down there, Sport," I mutter between my clenched teeth. "Did you see the perp?"

A flat-eared little head turns to mine, and comes back spitting.

"I am only five weeks old," she squalls, "and no 'Sport.' I cannot see shinola, you big bullyboy. Now release me before I scream kit abuse."

Obviously, she is blind if not unprimed in politically correct defensive systems. I drop her like a hot coal. Sheesh. What a grouch.

"I meant by 'robbed,'" the Divine Yvette explains, "that I fear that Maurice and my sister will be the Allpetco spokescats."

"Neither one should count their kittens before they, er, hatch. Chin and whiskers up, my lovely. It is not over until the fat lady sings."

"What fat lady? My mistress would have a fit if she heard you use that phrase. It is true that she has been hitting the chocolate bonbons lately, but--"

I extricate myself diplomatically to pay my respects to her sibling and my likely costar, but first I trip over an encroaching youngster. I am fast deciding that Miss Savannah Ashleigh deserves a medal rather than a law suit for her actions toward myself and my now-impossible progeny.