Douglas, Nelson - Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

Actually, I think that Miss Savannah Ashleigh would stoop to a good deal in the pursuit of a spotlight, and probably has, if rumors of her early blue-movie days are true. But I do not wish to disabuse the Divine Yvette of her commendable loyalty to her less-than-commendable mistress.

"I am sorry that you are forced to labor for a living," I say. "Especially when it means chowing down quantities of that awful Free-to-be-Feline. Can you not employ a body double to do the dirty work?"

"Alas, no one can be found that precisely duplicates my coloration and bearing."

Amen, say I, and I have seen a few.

"Also," she goes on, "I like Free-to-be-Feline."

"You like it! But it is dreck!"

"What is 'dreck,' Louie? I am not familiar with the term."

In my amazement, I have allowed a crass street expression to pass my lips, and I do my best to repair the damage to the Divine Yvette's sheltered little ears. "Dreck is ... distasteful stuff, like" --I cannot think of anything one could cite in polite company that would convey how awful Free-to-be-Feline tastes--

"like lizard droppings."

"Oh! What a vulgar thought. I will do my best to forget it. I have other things on my mind today, anyway. I am soon to meet my co-star."

"Co-star? Oh, you mean the human who pours the dreck ... that is, the culinary delicacy, into your bowl. Usually only the feet and hands are visible. Perhaps your mistress could land that part. You could refuse to cooperate with any other pourer until the producers get the idea."

"How ingenious you are, Louie! It is true, now that I am to be a star, that I should show some temperament. However, my co-star is not human."

"Not human? Is this an advertisement where an alien descends and deposits a wad of Free-to-be-Feline before your very nose? I find that appropriate."

"No, no UFOs, Louie. Just the spokescat from the company's other line of food products."

Other line?" An awful suspicion stirs my soul.

Just then I hear approaching feet and dive back into the canna lilies. The Divine Yvette is no dummy.

She curls up in her carrier as if nothing had happened, and indeed it has not.

My midday naps in Miss Temple Barr's closet have made me an expert in the styles and scents of human shoes. A jazzy high-heeled gold lame pair can only shod the feet of Miss Savannah Ashleigh.

Beyond a second, hard-shelled carrier that has been deposited beside the Divine Yvette's home-away-from-home, I spy some stodgy men's wingtips that speak of points east, like Chicago or New York.

All these feet are shuffling around, except Miss Savannah Ash-leigh's, which are doing tricks, such as arching the foot and rubbing a toe on the back of her shapely calf or on the calf of one of the wingtip wearers. Again her breathy voice is wafted down to me on a passing breeze.

"We must keep Yvette in the shade. I do not want her getting a freckle on her nose, although I suppose we could consider it a beauty mark. It was good enough for Marilyn. ... Is this the other animal?"

The words, "other animal," are pronounced in a distasteful tone I cannot quarrel with, for I suspect the identity of the Divine Yvette's performing partner sight unseen. Sometimes it is most depressing to be able to put two and two together. One comes up the odd man out. I have no doubt that I will momentarily be in this most unhappy position.

"Yes, Ma'am," answers a fellow whose voice has all the manly resonance of a hornpipe.

"Well, remove him from that... box. I want to keep Yvette protected in her carrier until we know he is reliable."

"He is very well trained, Miss Ashleigh."

"Still, I don't want that brute attacking Yvette for some reason. She is very sensitive."

"Perhaps she will not work out for the commercial, then."

"Nonsense. My Yvette always rises to an occasion. Still, I intend to see that nothing disturbs her. She is not some trickster cat bailed out of an animal shelter at the eleventh hour and kept by an animal trainer. She is a personal pet, as well as the result of decades of the most persnickety breeding."

"Yes, Ma'am," says Mr. Macho.

So I see him bend down to unleash the fate I fear awaits the Divine Yvette. The carrier's metal grill (how well I remember the other side of that noxious barrier a time or two when Miss Temple got carried away and carted me off to the House of Dr. Death for some unfortunate procedure or the other) opens.

I see a garden-variety pink nose poke through. This is not the delicate shell-pink that adorns the Divine Yvette's face. This is a big, bold tongue-colored nose in a big, bold face of yellow stripes, which clashes with the nose. Pink and yellow. Ick! A long, horizontally striped leg thrusts from the carrier. Then another. Soon all of the Divine Yvette's co-star is catching rays.

"He is so big," Miss Savannah Ashleigh complains. "And ... yellow. And ... striped. I had hoped for a more elegant cat."

"He makes a hundred-fifty thou a year," Yes-man answers, with feeling. "I guess he does all right. He has his own fan club, calendar and video. We plan to release a 'Cat Carols' cassette for Christmas, featuring his meows and a chorus of sleigh bells. Your Yvette will be lucky if she tickles the public fancy like our plain old alley cat Maurice here."

I am still toting up the probable dimensions of the fellow's financial empire when out slips the name I love to loathe. Maurice. Of course it is he. What other commercial cat is so infamous? That lolling-about, unemployed camera-hog who represents Yummy Tum-tum-tummy feline food. Have you ever heard a more obnoxious brand-name? All this, plus a singing career. It is enough to make an ordinary alley serenader, well... spit hairballs from here to Needles.

Maurice stretches until his belly touches concrete, then ambles past Miss Savannah Ashleigh's trim ankles (though they are not so well-turned as my roommate's). He gives her the brush-past, then sways over to the main event: the Divine Yvette's carrier. After an initial sniff along the side seams, he pokes his big mug up against the screen.

The Divine Yvette peeks through. I see the blue-green glimmer of her gemlike orbs.

She reaches up a silver velvet paw.

Then she swats Maurice across the intrusive nose, and follows up with a savage hiss.

That is my girl!

Chapter 15

Hocus Focus

Temple came to a dead stop just inside the hotel lobby, her mind in public-relations brochure mode: Picture this.

Picture walking into a Las Vegas hotel and casino.

Picture twinkling lights and clinking slot machines.

Picture Frank Sinatra leaning over a lobby balcony to greet the clientele.

Caesars Palace, you say? The new MGM Grand? Some other high-profile Strip hostelry?

No.

This is the only Las Vegas establishment to bear a woman's name, a woman whose forty years of film, song and dance put the E in entertainment of the old school: glitz before grunge, talent before attitude.

Aha! Shirley MacLaine, you think.

No, it isn't that Rat Pack token woman of yesteryear turned

New Age guru. It's--

"Debbie Reynolds's Hotel and Hollywood Museum," Temple mused aloud as she and Kit gazed up at Frank, who gazed right back without blinking a blue glass eye. "Why are we meeting your author friends so far from the Crystal Phoenix?" she asked her aunt.

"Security," Kit said. "This hotel is off the Strip, so convention-goers aren't as likely to wander over here. We want our instant little focus group to feel free to dish dirt. Besides, the group will adore touring the hotel's Hollywood costume museum after our little cafe-au-lait conference."

"I see," Temple said, though she didn't, "but here, even the walls have ears." She gestured to other celebrities lining the upper level.