Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

“If I help my clients too much and too often and too openly, they will not take pride in their own prowess. They will not believe they have such a thing. There are times when a guy-guy must step aside and let events happen for themselves. It is not about claiming credit, it is about the outcome.”

Ma nods her scruffy head. Being a feral female is a tough—and usually not a long—life. Ma has held our gang together for longer than most, but it has taken a toll on her health and looks. Not her attitude, though.

“What do you make of that bit of folderol-spouting fluff? Karma Chameleon or whatever, some fancy purebred hokey name? She insisted on telling me I had used up eight-and-a-half of my lives and should think about retiring while I can.”

“She fancies herself some kind of prophet, but she does not know Bast would not dare call you over the river Nile onto her own turf for at least a dozen more lives.”

Ma gives a cat laugh, which sounds a bit like uncontrollable coughing to humans, who rush over and try to give us the Heimlich maneuver. So much for having a sense of humor.

“One thing I might consider,” Ma says, looking sideways at me with her yellow eyes.

“Yeah?”

“I might let those UFO abductors catch me some night, with a full dish of sardines.”

“Ma! Why?”

I know they are actually Trap, Neuter, Return do-gooders hoping to end the overpopulation and species cleansing afflicting our kind since forever, but I am not sure Ma cottons to the concept of “neuter”.

“Sardines are hard to come by, and I am hoping to get what you did from a similar kidnapping,” she confides out of the side of her mouth.

“What? A vasectomy?” I am horrified.

“Silly boy. Of course not, but I will have to get one of those unnecessary hysterectomy things humans go on about. I am hoping to get a tummy tuck thrown in, as you did. That improved your profile a lot.” She winks. Or her one eyelid is habitually a little haywire.

There is no way to explain to Ma that only human miscommunication saved my, uh, assets. So I was not neutered, not by a long shot. I see I am going to have to somehow maneuver Ma into the hands of B-movie actress Savannah Ashleigh’s equally dense plastic surgeon. That will be a very demanding operation in more ways than one.

To say the least.

So I do not say anything further. That is always an option and, with Ma, often the best one.

43

License to Lose

Temple sat back on her bare heels on Electra’s Chinese rug. She’d neatened the papers Electra had flung every which way in a desperate search for anything that might placate Karma’s catnappers.

Electra sat on her vintage cocoa-colored couch with the fringe border along the floor and Karma out of sight beneath it.

“Nothing resembling what the creeps wanted,” Temple said. “Have you considered that we might have to search every storage locker for it, and never find it? Why didn’t you tell me your cat was kidnapped?”

“I can’t understand how anyone knew about her. I don’t advertise I have her, really,” Electra said, pleating her voluminous muumuu skirt into folds. “She’s so shy. I provide her asylum.”

“From what? Crooks like those nappers?”

“From overstimulation. I think she’s a psychic magnet.”

Temple gave up. “Well, she is beautiful. It’s too bad the Lust ‘n’ Lace gang, when arrested, didn’t fess up like crooks on TV and blab about what Jay Edgar had that was worth killing for.” Temple moved another insurance document to its proper pile. “J. E. didn’t seem so bad, from what I saw of him.”

“He wasn’t.” Electra pursed her lips. “He just had a weakness other people liked to exploit. You know…” Her voice broke.

Temple got up to sit beside her. “What is it?”

“He didn’t tell them what they wanted. He…died. I can’t help but think, in some way, that paper he wanted to save, whatever it was, was meant for me , for my golden years. He’d already left me all the real estate he had, except the house for Diane, which was really sweet. Oh, Temple, I wish I hadn’t cussed him out before he died. Why can’t we know these things before we rant and rave?”

“We’re not all Karma,” Temple said, hugging Electra’s plump shoulders. “And even the police can’t always solve these cases. It’s really not procedure for Molina to want to meet us at the building. Are you up to going back?”

“What about you, Temple? You nearly toppled down the stairs racing to my rescue. You were so cute in your little slippers with your curls and tote bag bouncing, coming on like Bruce Lee if he were a girl.”

Temple shut her eyes. So much about that description was so wrong, but if Electra needed to think anything but crazy fear and rage had motivated her, fine.

“You know,” Electra said, “watching Matt ram my old Probe into the doors and up the stairs like he was General Patton was worth the angst. Those would-be cat-torturing rats went white as sheets. We really taught them not to mess with the Circle Ritz.”

“Right.” Temple stood up and grinned. “Let’s find out what Molina is doing to them dirty rats. She wouldn’t have asked to meet us on site unless she has some info to torture us with.”

In ten minutes they were standing inside the old building, gazing at the ruined lower stairs. The chandelier was gone after the police had photographed and fingerprinted it once again.

All five-foot-eleven of Molina came in through the open double doors, wearing one of her khaki pantsuits, loafers, with a badge on her belt, not around her neck, since this was not a “live” crime scene.

“Good morning, ladies. I hope, Mrs. Lark, revisiting this site is not too much of stressor for you.”

That was Molina, Temple thought, using words like “stressor”.

“I’m not a ‘Mrs.’ Lark. Lark is my maiden name. Luckily, I kept it all through my legal life.”

“What’s happening to the creeps who stressed her?” Temple asked.

Molina moved toward them in casual, sweeping strides that nearly matched her almost six-foot height. A smile kissed her lips and immediately left for the coast.

“Legally, we don’t have much evidence besides kidnapping, extortion, and animal abuse to charge them with. The real question is what they wanted so badly that it involved so many for so little apparent profit.”

Molina looked at the top of the stairs, to the absence of the shabby but spectacular chandelier. She regarded Electra with sympathy.

“Ms. Lark. I have to tell you that your ex-husband’s murder is an open case. There’s no doubt he was brought to Vegas by Nemo and his associates because they wanted to get something out of him.”

Electra looked up, and sighed at the emptiness.

“There’s no doubt,” Molina said, “that they bound him, and later you, over the drop from the chandelier to threaten you both into divulging what they wanted. But. We can’t prove it was murder in his case.”

She came closer to Electra. “The threat to you was nasty, but hardly homicidal. As for Jay Dyson, they were rougher with him. I don’t doubt the rope was around his neck. Poised over the staircase, he was a desperate man. He had not yet given them what they wanted.”