Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

“Are you sure that phony label will stick on?”

“I printed it out on my laptop on glossy adhesive paper. Looks like the real thing.”

Sure enough. I crane my neck up and can read the name of a popular brand of hairspray. Makes one wonder what is really in it. Of course I have to follow them, and that involves backtracking to … Miss Temple and Miss Mariah’s room!

The pair of evil blondes turn the knob about as slowly as they can think, which is very slowly indeed and quite impressive for sneak thieves. Only they are leaving something rather than taking it.

I tail them past the sleeping innocents. The kitty pillow is cast away on the floor, I am happy to say, both for my Miss Temple’s taste’s sake and because I will come in and squash it with my own body after my nightly rounds are made.

They sneak into the bathroom and leave the can on the sink ledge, among a skyline of similar products. It is called “Hair Today.”

Right. As soon as they sneak out again I drag in the massive pillow from the bedroom (no easy task, even for a muscular chap like myself), then position it under the sink.

Then I leap atop the sink rim, balancing precariously, and bat the suspect can off its perch.

What a stunt director dude I would have made! It lands, soft and soundless, on a particularly cloying image of a striped kitten dead center on the pillow.

I roll the can to the floor under the sink, where I can direct Miss Temple’s attention to it in the morning.

Then I take the pillowcase in my mouth again (wet flannel, ugh!) and wrestle it back to its original position beside the bed.

Now I can begin my true task of the night. I retrace my steps to the Ashleigh bedroom but draw back when I hear voices inside.

It must be one A.m. Who would be yammering at this hour?

I press an ear to the door.

“Can you believe it?” Miss Savannah Ashleigh is wailing into her cell phone. “We are cooped up in here all the time with nothing but Teen Queens and a bunch of middle-aged judges and consultants and camera people. I am dying for a Rodeo Drive South Beach latte. Also a decent lay.”

And the Persian sisters have to hear this sort of talk!

“Indecent would do,” she agrees with the friend on the receiving end of her conversation.

Luckily, Miss Savannah is as careless with her door locking as her conversation, so I am able to ankle through the slightly ajar door.

The Persian sisters are languidly polishing their nails with their tongues when I arrive, and both perk up immediately.

“Want to go exploring down those dark and mean streets?” I inquire with a couple struts past their empty canvas carriers.

“Oh, no, Louie,” Yvette replies. “We are ready for our beauty sleep. But we will distract our mistress for you, if you wish.”

This was not quite the scenario I had in mind. Since their mistress is not in Dreamland but lusting after latte, I shrug and go to the mirrored wall panel.

The girls loft themselves onto the bed like the plumes de ma tante, which must have been pretty soft stuff, and start rubbing back and forth on Miss Savannah’s phone-holding hand, waving their full-furred tails in her face and generally blinding her to anything that is going on in the room. Long fur can be useful as well as beautiful.

I leap up, hitting the secret panel right where it bows to pressure. I am through the slight opening before I can say, “Hey, there is no light in here!”

There is no light back there, either, as an obliging Persian girl, perhaps the over-thoughtful Solange, has run over to cast her weight at the door and shut it. Tight. It does not give to my exploratory nudge.

Not that I wish to return to light and softness and Persian girls when dark and hardness and danger call.

So I look from left to right, which is equally and utterly dark, and plunge ahead until my whiskers hit wall and I can follow the tunnel.

I soon also follow the hard narrow curl of electrical cable along the seam of floor and wall. A high pinpoint of red light freezes me for a moment. I think of the reflective eyes of a cougar on a rock, ready to leap down on me.

But further reflection convinces me the light only indicates the electric eye of a recording camera.

And then one wonders, why set up a camera to record the action in a secret passageway? Someone on the crew must have made a unilateral decision to film the crew itself, who are the only persons who would have a reason to lurk back here.

Hmmm.

Like all nocturnal sorts, from vampires to skunks, I find the dark only enhances my other senses. I sniff the mixed scents of the grounds … bark chips, leaves, sandy soil. Not unexpected. The technicians who wired this place for 24/7 snooping would be the same crew ranging from grounds to house, back and forth.

There is one odd scent: a sweet, fruity one. Could it be a trace of the Razor’s Edge shaving spray that clung unnoticed to a shoe sole? They put some awful fragrances in human toiletries, possibly because most people do not take daily sponge baths as we hipper cats do.

I seem to be alone in these passages now but I sniff the presence of plenty of people coming and going. In fact, as I turn a corner I spot a faint light.

I am not pleased to see it because that means that someone might see me in this oversize airconditioning vent.

When a faint sound comes from around the next bend I freeze like an ostrich. There is no hiding place in this purely functional conduit, not even the huge veiling spider webs beloved of horror films. I unlatch my shivs and practice snapping them in and out, in case I need to resort to a kamikaze attack.

As I hunch there, ready for epic battle, the sound that I hear begins to take on an air of familiarity. In fact, it is a song half-sung under the breath. “Suspicious Minds.”

Well, that fits this place to a T.

The mutterer in motion rounds the half-lit bend and I view a human figure all in white, glowing like a ghost.

I am not a superstitious fellow, despite my breed and color. It takes but three seconds for me to recognize the Elvis impersonator judge who has been drilling the singing candidates for their big debut. (Miss Kit Carlson is handling the acting coaching and I am all atwitter over what my Miss Temple will come up with in the persona of Xoe Chloe.) Anyway, the faux Elvis spots me and stops cold. “Well, hello there, little fellow. Anything I can do for you? Need a new Cadillac?”

Only for sharpening my shivs on genuine leather.

This is not the first time I have encountered the likeness of Elvis Presley in this town. On some occasions, I was even convinced I was seeing the real thing.

So I amble over and rub my nose on the brass studs decorating the bell-bottoms on his jumpsuit. This is better than a sisal rope scratching post, let me tell you.

The costume, and the leg beneath it, are completely solid, by the way.

“You better git while the gittin’ is good,” the ersatz Elvis advises. “This joint will be jumpin’ with bad mojo pretty soon.”

I manage to meow plaintively. I hate to meow plaintively! It is the resort of cowards and kept cats! However, at times I must play dumb.

Elvis bends down and scratches me behind theears, as if I were a hound dog. Red-neck dudes are always more dog people than cat people. Their loss.

“I am tellin’ you, cat. You better whiplash your ass outa here. Things are gonna get ugly.”

Now what does Elvis know about it?

I pause to stretch low and long, doing a floor-dusting belly touch. Then yawn wide enough to swallow a Chihuahua.

Then I amble along past the dude and around the corner he rode in on.

It is suddenly darker there. I have to wonder why the light was following Elvis. Was that the real unreal thing? The ghost of rock ‘n’ roll? Or was it a pale imitation?