Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

So I leave her alone in the theater seat, mooning over who knows what, as I am borne to my fate. I have heard, of course, every bit of dialogue that has transpired in my vicinity, from the hiss-and-spit between Miss Temple and my darling's obnoxious mistress, to the strange request from the star of the show.

I fear he is less interested in Miss Temple's sleuthing abilities than in her scarlet hair and trim little ankles. Oh, that I could escape this assembly-line carrier and tend to business!

However, I have worries of my own. It also has not escaped me that Maurice Two is not only usurping my rehearsal role, but he has apparently been freed of confinement for some time, while I still languish in the calaboose.

Not a good sign. This dude has gotten away with murder before on a cat-commercial set, and that was not even on location, but at the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy plant. Now he has all the confusion and clutter of a backstage production number to disguise his nefarious doings, the exact same cover that made the romance convention such an ideal site for serial murder.

Naturally, I would be Maurice Two's second victim (that we know of, I add ominously), so he is a practiced paw at murder most feline.

I am lugged, rather clumsily, up the thirty-nine steps of the set. (I do not actually count the number of steps, but it feels like a lot, and thirty-nine is a nice mystery number.) The chorus has parted for my arrival, so I have an honor guard of flashy dudes in lurid suits. Once I arrive at the pinnacle, I see an assistant hovering with a loathsome object in her hand: it is a miniature fedora in a color I can only call blushing-salmon pink. In other words, even a sockeye salmon would cringe to see an article of clothing in that extreme shade of pale orange-red called flamingo. No wonder these birds often hide their heads under their wings. I would too if I had to run around all day looking like a sunburned posterior. Schiaparelli did not call it "shocking pink" for nothing.

I am removed from my carrier while the fedora is tilted over my right eye and held on with a black elastic. Out of the corner of my left eye, which is the only functional one at the moment, I see Maurice sitting on the sidelines snickering. He is footloose and fancy-free and could have arranged all sorts of booby traps for me during the perilous descent ahead.

For the script is simplicity itself. I look far below to see the Divine Yvette being primped by her personal stylist as well as Miss Savannah Ashleigh. Someone has wrapped an ostrich-feather boa dyed in this same flamingo-pink color around her fluffy little ruff and diamond dog collar.

(You would think the truth-in-advertising laws would prevent using ostrich feathers in flamingo guise, but I suppose no one besides me cares about the fine points anymore.) Besides aggravating the cast by clothing them in interspecies articles, the producers of this little epic are calling for me to speed down the thirty-nine steps, half-blind, right toward the Divine Yvette.

They have imported a number of barbarian devices with the supposed purpose of encouraging me to follow stage directions whether I will or no. Little do they know that I do not need to be a Method actor to zero right in on the Divine One as fast as my four lightning limbs will permit me.

Perhaps you have heard of a "cold bolt" of lightning. I understand that this is a rare phenomenon: a gray-black lightning ball that streaks through a room. Well, put the Divine Yvette wherever you wish, give me a glimpse and Cold Bolt Louie will be there in a flash. They do not need their ostrich-feather whips, their bell-laden bouncing balls, their clickers, their crouching trainers and assistants huddling along the camera route to herd me back onto the right path. I can take direction without being hit over the head with it, especially if it is something I would want to do anyway.

I see that they have mounted a track device on which the camera can coast alongside me, capturing every graceful, cheetah-like leap as I run down the thirty-nine steps.

I also see that it would have been easy for Maurice to plan some dirty work. The steps are painted black, and smudged with the tracks of many human hoofer feet. A bit of spilled oil in the right place would do wonders. My sharp eye (remember the foolish fedora!) does not spy any slick places, but Maurice Two managed to leave no trace at the site of his last job, or rather, Maurice One's last job. If it were not for the feline seance that took place during my previous case, I would not even suspect that Maurice Two is not the original Maurice, but the successor who moved up through caticide.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed, as by taking arms against a sea of troubles we end them. My sea of troubles is the rank of human faces in the chorus, who will all be doing their tap-dancing thing on the sidelines as I and the camera hurtle past.

I watch like a hawk when the director cues the animal trainer to send Maurice down the steeply inclined gantlet. I feel a little like an Aztec priest high on my step pyramid watching the feline sacrifice plummet to the deadly ground below.

A plastic ball is set bouncing down the stairs, then the trainer at the bottom whistles and rattles a plastic container of Yummy Tum-tum-tummy. You notice that the operative word here is "plastic." Such is the falseness of show biz. Then a clicker sounds.

Maurice takes out after that pathetic plaything like Pavlov's pussycat. I watch his rump bump and grind down all thirty-nine steps while the camera keeps pace on its elevator glide mechanism. Now that is how I would like to make my entrance! This running one's gaiters and mittens off is for the birds, preferably flamingos. I am not much fond of flamingos at this point.

But, no, I am expected to risk life and limb on those damned steps. The camera is hauled up to the top again. Maurice, panting, is carried back up and placed beside me. As if there were anything that I could learn from this bozo besides murder methods.

"Piece of cake," Maurice says between huffs.

"Yeah? Frosted with arsenic or strychnine?"

"You are a suspicious sort, Louie. How would I be able to hurt you with so many witnesses looking on, including a camera crew?"

"You managed to do in Maurice One in equally public circumstances. I will warn you now; if anything happens to me, my little doll will be all over this stage with a laser-light. She will examine every centimeter of film and find the means and the culprit. She is my insurance."

"Your little doll is an amateur who got lucky a time or two. Besides, she will not be suspecting feline felony."

"Maybe not, but if you should by some odious chance be successful, I will come back to haunt you, and so will Maurice One."

"I do not believe you! Who saw this ghost besides you? Only some bats in the haunted-house attraction, which is a pretty good assessment of your mental state . . . batty! Okay, sucker. Time to play your part. Break a leg, buddy!"

By now we are snarling and the crew is hushing us and acting as if I am somehow responsible for it all.

'That," the A La Cat honcho harrumphs loudly, "is what we get for working with a tomcat."

I cannot tell you in what degree of loathing the word "tomcat" is spoken. Hey, were it not for tomcats, there would be no cats, although there are a few million too many, I grant you. I tell you, we middle-aged, unfixed, free-roaming dudes are a downtrodden minority these days. It is almost enough to make one go off and join a survivalist clan out in the boonies.

But social criticism is not my main problem at the moment. How to save my skin is. When the director yells, "Quiet!" everybody shuts up except the chorus, who clatter around like nervous horses. They are supposed to lip-sync their number, the A La Cat jingle, which will be recorded in the studio later.