Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

34

Cat and Mouse

I like my routines, especially at mealtime. If anything could be more aggravating than the human propensity for impulsive changes of routine it is realizing I must beat the Circle Ritz ladies to the Thrill ‘n’ Quill and get Ingram to set the stage there.

Since my unearthly experience at the abandoned building, I realize I must direct my charges’ attention to the exciting but deeply obscure days of yesteryear in Las Vegas. That is the only way to put them on the path to solving the puzzling murder that occurred just last week.

“Zoot Suit Choo-Choo” is not a search term I can easily persuade Miss Temple to input into her computer. Although I have in the past shown some digital dexterity over the operation of a printer, answering machine, and even rather creative arrangements of the alphabet on a keyboard, I am not suited to conveying long written messages.

No, it is my curse and gift to find creative ways to prod these unobservant humans into making leaps of logic. As it happens, a bookstore in the neighborhood might turn out to be a boon.

I am on the sidewalk outside the Thrill ‘n’ Quill in five minutes. I expect it to take me at least fifteen to get inside and set about my business. Even then, I am counting on luck and Ingram’s encyclopedic memory of every item on the store’s shelves. Bast knows, he has slept on every book and shelf in his long (and lazy) pseudo-literary career.

Still, a mean-street walker like me can use a sedentary assistant to consult, a feline kind of Mycroft to my Sherlock Holmes.

Ingram is in his usual spot pursuing his usual occupation. He is sound asleep in the store window. I leap up to tap the window glass. One striped ear tip twitches. I leap again, using the points of my shivs to turn a dull tap into sharp rap. One yellow eye-slit opens.

And shuts. What you might call an open-and-shut case. I do not have time to waste. I shall have to appeal to the denser species.

I go to the glass door, where I am more visible. I sit, clear my mind (which is hard because much is on it) and pretend I am Miss Electra’s cat, Karma, in one of her New Age trances. Then I look into the store where Miss Maeveleen Pearl is bustling about near a row of shelves, back to me, and concentrate on my best weapon, The Stare.

If you Stare, they will come.

Well, maybe not right away. And I do not have time to waste. I twitch my whiskers and Stare Harder. I Stare so hard I am going cross-eyed. My vision blurs and then resolves into the striped brown side of Ingram pacing back and forth in front of the door.

At least his change of position has spurred some inside action.

Miss Maeveleen is bearing down on us like a movie closeup, her face growing jolly pink giant huge as she bends over to study the bottom of the door.

“Ingram,” she says, “you have not seen your friend from the old shop in months, poor fellow. I will let him in to visit, but you are not going out.”

Small chance of that. Ingram does not like to get his white gloves and spats dirty.

I eel through the crack and greet my hostess with a single ankle rub and a small chirp. We are not on intimate terms and I do not want to overdo it. Doling out the demonstrations of affection keeps the mystique going.

Ingram pads over to an overstuffed armchair near a reading table and jumps onto one arm. I notice some fancy crockery on the floor near a wall, but am not here to cadge a meal or a drink, so I loft atop the other chair arm.

And pose.

“How precious.” Miss Maeveleen is there with her cell phone camera and Ingram is quick to offer a practiced head tilt. Then we are rid of her for now as she goes off to Facebook us, and we can get down to business.

“She is right,” Ingram growls. “A year ago you dropped me like a nickel down a slot.”

“My case load turned in a direction not requiring your expert help and depth of knowledge.”

“ Phhtt ,” he says. “Flattery is the resource of the unimaginative.”

“You are right. The information I need and any way of conveying it from one species to another is virtually impossible in this case. I was overconfident to disturb you for such a hopeless task.” I gather myself to jump back to the floor.

“Wait. The least you can do is tell me what crazy tangent you are chasing now.”

“It involves murder, of course, and strange, exotic human rituals that would make a cat laugh, were evil not involved.”

“‘Evil’, you say. Evil under the Las Vegas sun?”

Now Ingram is paraphrasing an Agatha Christie title. He does not realize I know this and know it shows his weakness for a mystery.

“Yes, but extending back decades. Too old to be found.”

“Historical, you say?”

“And far too obscure to convey, even with the photographic memory and wide resources you possess.”

“Try me.”

“And the time factor is…hopeless.”

“Try me.” He is almost begging now.

“If you insist. I hate to set you up to fail, and Miss Temple and Miss Electra will be taking Miss Maeveleen to lunch in less than twenty minutes.”

“Tell me!” Ingram is now almost grinding his fangs.

I shrug and give my thick ruff an absent lick. “I need to find a book with a particular reference. The phrase in question is ‘Zoot Suit Choo-Choo’.”

“I thought-we had discussed that thoroughly. Oh. I suppose you are trying to relive your triumphs in the À la Cat commercials. The Fontana brothers ‘made’ that production number. They wore the zoot suits and you stumbled and tumbled down the stairs.”

“I was tripped by my evil rival, the spokescat Maurice.”

“If you say so. However, the zoot suit, unlike you, has an interesting history and may be represented in books in inventory. Let me think.”

Ingram closes his eyes and rapidly drones, “Zoot Suit. Referencing the Zoot Suit Riots of the nineteen-forties. Not in Las Vegas, though. L.A. So. Nothing in Historical Las Vegas section. Two in Entertainment section. Not in Fiction. Three books in Fashion. Four in Sociology. One in Cat, the Forties. Three in World War Two. Nothing in Trains, History. And certainly nothing under ‘Choo-Choo’ but The Little Engine That Could , Children’s Fiction.”

He opens his eyes and blinks. “Anything sound useful?”

“I know most of that,” I mutter. “I thought Miss Maeveleen Pearl ran a mystery bookstore. Her inventory is long on miscellanea and short on murder.”

“An independent bookstore owner today has to be resourceful. We are hanging on by my dewclaws. You already know about the Zoot Suit and the riots, why come to me again?” Ingram asks.

“Because I need to get the Circle Ritz ladies to trip over something concrete that will get them thinking about the Zoot Suit Choo-Choo club that existed in that abandoned building back in the fifties. I am sure there are clues there to a contemporary crime.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Uh, certain connections.”