Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

And I am not feeling very cavalier right now. There we are, the Divine Yvette and me, together on a glamorous assignment; workmates, co-stars. There are our separate carriers, into which we are placed for hours on end without even an opportunity for a little sniff and whisker-tickle.

And there is Maurice, the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy spokescat who was originally supposed to have had my part (that of love struck swain) in the new A La Cat commercials. He should be back in some Sherman Oaks compound chatting it up with the other trained animals. But, no, he is along for the ride. On the scene of the crime, so to speak. In the wings. I wish those wings were the real thing and on his back.

For this is a very dangerous dude. I have it on good authority (albeit incorporeal) that Maurice Two is an imposter, like I told my old man. Poor Maurice One!

Imagine drowning in Yummy Tum-tum-tummy! What irony. All those dead fish doing you in.

Poetic justice, I suppose, but I have no intention of falling into a carp pond stocked with piranha.

And when Maurice Two is around, any set piece or prop is a potential murder weapon.

I am seeing potential for disaster everywhere I look.

Take the human chorus line that is supposed to back up Yvette and me when we finally get our few, brief moments on the stage. All those size nine and ten shoes (and I am talking just the girl hoofers here; the boys probably wear elevens and twe lves), all those tap shoes, armed with steel plates. Say I slipped (or was pushed) coming down the long flight of stairs on which I make my dramatic entrance.

I would make a dramatic exit under a hundred tapping feet. They could then market a new brand of cat food: Midnight Louie Pate. To think of it is to shudder, save there is no room in this cramped crate to so much as sneeze.

So, in one respect, my incarceration offers a certain protection.

But is life worth living under a constant threat? More than one human has pondered this question. I suppose I could seize the moment and endeavor to off the miserable Maurice Two before he offs me. This was the suggestion of Maurice One's pathetic shade. (Shade is a fancy word for ghost.) This dude came to me in a seance-dream. Although all the cats at the seance were actual felines, not another present was honored with a vision of Maurice One, so I know that our karma is irretrievably mixed. (And I am not speaking of the psycho cat named Karma who shares Miss Electra Lark's penthouse at the Circle Ritz. Okay, Karma is a psychic cat, but I prefer the other spelling.)

Anyway, what to do? Watch my back, obviously. Take out Maurice Two if given time and opportunity, well ... no. I have spent too much time of late on the right side of the law. I am not a vigilante, just an ordinary street dude who happens to have a nose for trouble. Still, it is hard to play a sitting duck when you would rather be eating one.

As for the Divine Yvette, she is happily ignorant of the dead-serious byplay. She gives me the baby blue-greens at every opportunity, although I detect a subtle change in her attitude. Her glances seem to be more of an appeal than a come-on. I think that she has sensed the tension and feels a corresponding distress.

All of this does not bode well for the A La Cat commercial. But then, can a television commercial that combines a purebred Persian with an alley cat and a human chorus line i n Easter egg-colored zoot suits possibly go right? Especially when said Persian is wearing a diamond collar and said alley cat is forced to have a flamingo-pink fedora affixed to his head in ways that are too embarrassing to mention. And must it tilt down over one eye, so I cannot see when I am pussyfooting down all those stairs in front of a tidal wave of tap dancers also wearing fedoras tilted over one eye so they cannot see when they run me down and pound me into chopped liver? And kidney and tongue and tail.

If you want a recipe for disaster and murder most musical, you could not find a better formula than at an A La Cat commercial filming in Las Vegas.

Color me History.

Chapter 9

Call Her Stage Mama

If ever a child of hers were in the school play, Temple would never show up at rehearsal to embarrass the poor thing, be it boy or girl.

But Temple didn't have a child, she had an it. A cat.

And supervising a cat's participation in a television commercial was more akin to being an animal-rights activist than a stage mother.

Stage mothers were the pond scum of the earth and the dust ball under Sir Laurence Olivier's bed, for good measure. Animal-rights watchdogs were assertive, altruistic people.

Why, then, did Temple feel like the fifth wheel on somebody else's little red wagon just for being back here at Gangster's, hovering over Midnight Louie's carrier like a loan officer expecting an imminent repossession of the family farm?

Maybe it was the stormy look on the face of her competition for the stage -mother sweepstakes.

Savannah Ashleigh, chic in an acid-green satin spandex jumpsuit, glowered at Temple and Midnight Louie's humble discount- store carrier as if they both were infected with the plague.

Temple wished that it were so, but only for the privilege of passing on the lethal germ to the film star. On the other hand, a nice dose of plague might spring Temple and Louie from the tedium of waiting for the hours and hours it took to set up a TV commercial.

Temple flipped down the empty theater seat to the left of Louie's big beige carrie r and sat.

Savannah Ashleigh, glaring, did likewise on the right side of Yvette's carrier, a small pink bit of baggage like her mistress.

"I'm here," Savannah announced to no one in particular, and thus to everyone, in her breathy ersatz-Monroe diction, "to see that my Yvette gets the proper number of potty breaks."

"Funny," Temple said. "I am here to see that my Louie doesn't get pointless trips to the box.

He has such terrific self-control, you know, due to his sturdy proletarian roots."

"He is a Communist cat?" Savannah's heavily powdered brows, clashing together, raised a small dust poof of disapproval.

"I was speaking of his vigorous bloodlines."

"You mean alley-cat stew!"

"Exactly. Louie's genes have not been watered down by generations of over breeding. No wonder your Yvette . . . wets."

"Yvette is a sensitive, delicate creature who takes her responsibilities before the camera to heart. Has your cat had any on-camera experience?"

"Quite a bit, lately," Temple said loftily, thanking her unlucky stars for the recent Halloween-seance filming that had put Louie in the spotlight. For once Crawford Buchanan and his cursed Hot Heads kamikaze camera lens were good for something. "And, of course, Louie's done a good deal of still work." Like the newspaper photos recording his exploits in the body-finding and death-defying departments.

"Still studio work means nothing these days." Savannah's dismissive shrug further dislodged her off-the-shoulder neckline.

"I guess you should know," Temple conceded politely.

"At least Yvette can benefit from my vast experience in the film field. Your Louie is not so blessed. Cats are not often called upon to do--what is your line of work?--oh, yes. PR."

Savannah might as well have articulated the childishly dismissive word, "Pee-yew."

"Somebody has to do it," Temple said cheerfully, "and Louie is actually quite good at it.

Guess he was born with cat charisma."

"We shall see when the film begins to roll," Savannah retorted dubiously. "No director can afford expensive delays and reshoots for an amateur."

"You should certainly know," Temple answered again, much less politely.

An even more impolite silence ensued, just as a lull in the onstage action arrived. The previous day's dress-rehearsal cast was scattered around the dramatically tiered set, a symphony in sherbet-colored costumes.