Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

“When I want to pass as French, I will eat some pâté de fois gras .”

“Goose liver is not my favorite appetizer. Neither is it the goose’s. So you accompanied the Circle Ritz ladies home last night?”

“I accompanied them home early this morning. They barely missed coming through the parking lot ahead of Mr. Matt Devine.”

“Why, that would be almost three a.m.”

“I am stunned by your adept math skills, Daddy Densest.”

“What would the ladies be doing out at such an hour?”

“What ladies of the night do.”

“What? Not my Miss Temple.”

“And your Miss Electra. They visited a party who was checked into the Araby Motel.”

Now I am sitting up, nursing my indignation. “That is a low-brow haunt of lowlifes and the ladies of the night they attract.”

“Or the ladies of the night attract them. It is not fashionable, and especially not French, to bad-mouth ladies of the night nowadays. That is a lifestyle choice.”

“Not for my Circle Ritz ladies.”

“Chill, dude. From what I heard, they were there to admonish a certain resident named Jay Edgar Dyson.”

“So this human was of the male persuasion?”

“In a very understated way.”

“Huh?” Louise can get on her high horse to the point of vagueness.

“Like you, only in human terms. Old, fat, and apologetic. A good role model for you.”

“Most amusing, Louise, but untrue. I am merely middle-aged, solidly muscled, and never apologize. That way lies the low road to cringing and whining like the inferior canine species.”

Louise fans her fore-scimitars to show off their exquisitely curved points. “You are right that this Jay person alternated between whining and bluster. I had to listen at a steel door, so some comments were slightly garbled. Jay Edgar is a former mate of Miss Electra Lark and is allowing shady characters about Vegas to buy property of his that adjoins your landlady’s holdings.”

“I knew she was upset about neighborhood interlopers, but am surprised Miss Electra owns enough real estate to have it considered ‘holdings’. This is beginning to sound like a game of Monopoly. That should be fun.”

“Not for Jay Edgar. Miss Electra cussed him out worse than a rabid wolverine. She was mad enough to end his leash on life, and as much as said so.”

“That does sound like no chance of a reconciliation.”

“Both of your Circle Ritz lady friends gave him the two a.m. shuffle, and left him flat. He came out shortly after to try his luck with the lurking ladies of the evening, but they said his tastes were too peculiar and moved their business operations to the motel down the street.”

“Well, that is a whole lot of nothing to report.”

“It would be, if that was all I observed.” She flicks a crumb of Free-to-Be-Feline from one long whisker. (Why has Miss Midnight Louise bought the party line on that putrid excuse for kibble? Sometimes I think she does things just to annoy me.)

“Okay. Spill,” I tell her.

An elegant mitt-sweep sends an anthill of army-green pellets tumbling around my toes.

“Consider it spilled,” she says. “And here’s my last nugget of information. A weasely dude with ungroomed long hair and a soul patch came slinking along as soon as the ladies of the night left. He knocks and is admitted after Jay Edgar says something about getting out a bottle. I figure they will jabber until dawn, which is already paling the night sky, so I ankle out of there.”

“How did you get back to civilization?”

“I hopped a ride in a seventies Cadillac Eldorado with a custom pearlized white and metallic magenta paint job, padded gold vinyl top, gold hubcaps on Gangsta whitewalls and interior black shag so long the three lady and two guy riders did not even notice me.”

“Louise,” I say, “you hitchhiked in a pimpmobile. Not classy. How close to home did that ride get you? You must have had to hoof it from the Strip.”

“Not to worry. The Eldo stopped in our own backyard and I slipped out with the occupants.”

“Our backyard? Where?”

“Right by that big old deserted building that has your favorite Circle Ritz ladies in such a tizzy.”

15

Cat Track Fever

“It’s a good thing,” Max mused from under the face-shading brim of a tweed hat tilted low over his eyes, presumably to aid sleep, “that airlines banned the use of metal knives after 9/11.”

His six-foot-four frame was stretched almost full-length as his torso leaned back on maximum recline in the plane seat, but his knees were folded so his feet were braced on the bulkhead wall dead ahead.

Thinking of “dead”, he opened one eye to take in his seat partner by the window. “Otherwise,” he added, “I might have a miniature table knife between my ribs by now.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she answered without turning to look at him. “I would never use a weapon on you that had touched airline food.”

She pointedly gazed out and down through the small window, which Max knew showed only darkness lit by the tiny, lonely lights of big ships now and then. Max had made this flight many times and found the drone of a trans-Atlantic plane’s engines a lullaby. Not that he would sleep a wink on this flight, no matter how lazy and laid-back he appeared to be.

Unlike Max, who’d shed his trademark black designer turtlenecks and slacks for blue jeans, a disgustingly casual plaid flannel shirt, and the narrow-brimmed Trilby hat that was often seen on elderly male Brit pub-goers, Kathleen O’Connor had only semi-reclined her seat for the sixteen-hour flight from Las Vegas to JFK to Dublin, Ireland.

She wore a microfiber emerald pantsuit. A purple velvet beret tilted to the right haloed the panther-black hair that made her delicate pale profile into an exquisite cameo The flagrant hat somewhat distracted from the still-enflamed scratches flaring on her left cheek. Her schoolgirl-stiff posture made the dramatic outfit seem a costume, Max thought, and the injury a piece of stage makeup. Max had always told Temple that naked was the best disguise, and Kathleen, a.k.a. Kitty the Cutter, was the perfect example of that.

As for Max, he was perfectly content to let Kathleen’s boldness distract from him. Besides her, there were plenty of people in Ireland, north and south, who wanted to kill him.

“I’m disappointed,” she commented, almost as lazily as he’d been speaking.

He waited.

“No private jet? No shadowy international counterterrorism sponsor? Not even First Class?”

“Bulkhead seats, though,” he said, proudly.

“A perk for you . I don’t need that.” She was five-three, tops, and her feet in kitten-heeled black patent leather shoes were propped on a huge black tote bag.

Max smiled again. Kathleen dressed as innovatively as his ex-fiancée, Temple Barr, except Temple was shorter and would have worn three-inch heels. Temple had also come up with the “Kitty the Cutter” nickname, and Max had to school himself to use the formal version now.