Unknown - Cat_In_A_Midnight_Choir-spaces_ru

“I demand satisfaction,” my invisible partner grumbles.

“Fine. There is a floodlight out behind the service entrance. There is also a pretty big Dumpster near it that should offer plenty of satisfaction.”

“I mean a duel. Face to face.”

“You have not sized me up yet.”

“It does not matter. You have stepped on my toes.”

I realize that the doofus means that literally. I have stepped on his toes — and he on mine — and he wants me to fight him over it.

I shrug in the dark. A gumshiv expects frequent challenges to defend his…masculinity.

I head forward again and this time do not run into anything, although I do hear the click of large nails alongside me all the way to the back of the building.

As the broad fan of light thrown by the security bulb grows nearer, I glance sideways to check out my companion. For all I know, I could be accompanied by a stork in tap shoes.

No such good luck. My sparring partner, I finally see, is a Great Dane. Must weigh about one-twenty.

“What is a purebred like you doing loose in Las Vegas?” I ask.

“I have run away from home.”

“There is not much in the way of single-family housing on the Las Vegas Strip.”

“I live at a hotel.”

“I did not know that the hostelries around here encouraged dogs on the premises, unless they were greyhounds and running at the track that day.”

“This is not a people hotel. That is why I ran away. It is a nasty segregationist institution. I am making a political statement.”

The way he says “segregationist institution” I know he has gotten that phrase from someone else. From their brain to his lips.

“What is the name of this joint?”

“They call it the Animal Crackers Inn. You can see that even the name is denigrating. It implies that all animals are crackers.”

“Never assume ill will when idiocy could be a cause. You know that people have a disgusting weakness for cute names when it comes to animal-related businesses. It is nothing we of the superior species should take personally, unless we wish to waste our time on human foibles.”

“Foibles?”

“Ah, quirks.”

“Quirks?”

Why do I think this guy’s brain cells have also run away from home, without him?

“It is their problem!” I say. “My problem is why a big bozo like you has a hair-trigger temper. My shivs need sharpening but I prefer a less lofty target. Not that I could not slice the nose hairs off King Kong if I had a mind to.”

“Oooh.” The Great Dane sits down and still manages to be as tall as Miss Temple barefoot. “I do not feel so well. I have an upset stomach.”

“That is what you get for accosting everybody who crosses your path in the dark.

“No. It is all the rich food that the chef leaves out for me.”

“You ran away from home — okay, a hotel — and you have a chef feeding you? Some political statement.”

“Chef Song means well, but his style of food is alien to my diet.”

For a moment my mind boggles at a Dane subsisting on bok choy and egg foo yung, although I do think that they would have sushi in common, or pickled herring at least.

“So you are another pet of Chef Song,” I say, my mind always on my investigation.

“I am no one’s pet,” he growls, leaping to his nine-inch-nailed feet, which scrape the concrete as chalk does a blackboard.

This gets my back up of course, and it looks like our little back-alley do-si-do is on again.

“Wow,” he says, his artificially perked ears backing off a little. “You look just like those Halloween dudes. Pretty spooky.”

“Now that is an out-and-out stereotype,” I say as I de-arch my back and let my electric hairdo settle down into the usual sleek pompadour. I have learned to speak his language. When that happens, fisticuffs can be avoided. “You should be ashamed of yourself, a denigrated species in your own right, passing on the prejudice.”

He lies right down, snugs his huge black nose between his fawn-colored paws and whimpers. “You are right. I am a bad dog.”

Great Bastet! These self-accusing sessions try my patience. It is too easy these days to chew your own mitts instead of looking around for the mitts that pull the strings.

“Look,” I say. “I do not care if you are a pit bull on speed or Charo on chew sticks, I just want some information. I am looking for a dame. A little doll. Looks a lot like me except she is smaller, fluffier, and, er, meaner. She is one of Chef Song’s favorites.”

“Oh, Louise! Why did you not say you were a friend of Louise’s? She is the cat’s, uh…” He thinks, visibly. “…peignoir. Such a sweet little gal. She is the one who hooked me up with Chef Song after I had fled my life of enforced luxury.”

“Happy to hear it,” I grit between my teeth.

My supposed partner has never lifted a whisker to negotiate a truce between my and my worst enemy on two legs, Chef Song, who is sentimentally attached to a food source, his koi and mine, our mutual gold mine, the fascinating fins in our lives. You would think a chef who serves sushi would understand my wee addiction to koi fresh from the pond. I cannot help it that he has made the odd decision to watch these fish instead of serving or eating them.

“When did you last see the little…dear?”

“Hmmm. Yesterday. It was egg drop soup and szechuan shrimp. Made me sneeze and rub my nose.”

When I look blank he adds, “Lunch.”

“Lunch yesterday.You say that Louise ate this disgusting slop?”

“She is quite the…connoisseur.”

“Why do you pause so long between words?”

“I must remember my mistress’s expressions. She speaks to me only in…French.”

No wonder the poor fellow is so confused and an easy target for extremist political activists. Why cannot his mistress speak his language, Danish? People are so self-centered.

“And what nationality is your mistress?”

“Ah…Californian. Or is it Vegan?”

No wonder! I did time at an upscale Palo Alto motel in my youth, and the sympathetic ladies used to leave out chocolate cake for my starving pals. Maybe to them chocolate is protein. At least it is not fatal to cats, as it is to dogs, though it is hardly the nutrition needed by the starving.

“Well, I will leave you by the Dumpster here. Perhaps you will find something succulent, besides me, inside. You need to get off that foreign food.”

I have what I needed to know, so I skedaddle. I leave the Great Dane torn between two cuisines: Chinese and Chinese, fresh or well-aged junk food.

It is obvious that a rescue mission is called for at Los Muertos.

I recall the trail left indoors by unseen hordes of cats. If Midnight Louise has run afoul of a gang, she could be minced mouse by now.

My pace quickens, though I am not much paying attention to where I am going. It disturbs me that I found no trace of her on my previous visit.

The idea is strangely upsetting. I am almost run over by a skateboarder.

Of course if I can recruit Osiris and Mr. Lucky to my side, I might stand a chance.

But how to get them into the house? It will not be through Miss Louise’s discovered dryer vent pipe, of that I am sure. Unless Mr. Max Kinsella can shrink two Big Cats to the size of Pomeranians.

And of course there is the matter of where he might be even if I were able to find a way to persuade him to come to Louise’s aid. We do not talk the same language, the Mystifying Max and I.

Irreconcilable Differences

“Tess,” Temple said, figuring that she’d react most naturally to the same first initial as her real name.

She glimpsed her shoulder-length ash blond hair in the facing walls of mirror, fascinated by how different she looked. Besides, it was less stressful than eyeing her conversation partner.