Unknown - Cat_In_A_Midnight_Choir-spaces_ru

Kinsella had been honest about one thing: a woman in danger.

At least Temple Barr was just dandy, and neither she nor Kinsella would have her damage or death on their conscience.

That would be something in common with Max Kinsella that Carmen Molina absolutely could not bear.

Serial Chills

“I did not raise you,” my mother says, “to leave a lady lying in the street, even if she is human.”

“Look, Ma, you did not raise me, period. It was six weeks and ‘You are on your own, kit.’ Besides, I know my Miss Temple and she is fine, especially after we sang to high heaven to attract attention to her plight. I do not know that Miss Midnight Louise is fine.”

“Usually something ‘stinks’ to high heaven,” Ma says.

“Well, we were not the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but it got the job done.”

We are trotting along at the head of a feline brigade, if a brigade can be as motley a crew as this is.

Only my mother’s stern matriarchal influence on the cat colony has permitted this rare outing en masse, so I am best off if I do not irritate the old dear too much.

“So this Midnight Louise is your kit, Grasshopper,” she says.

“We have not had a DNA test,” I grumble, “so I am not about to claim relationship. She was known as Caviar until some humans got the funny idea she looked like me and renamed her Midnight Louise. You know how it is, humans think all us black cats look alike.”

“Hmph. Caviar is a pretty fancy name for a nobody. I do not have any grandkits, that I know of.”

“Thank your lucky whiskers! Young kits today have no respect.”

“They did not in your day either,” says she with a sidelong glance. “This will be good for the colony,” she adds. “To leave the safety of their turf, to venture into the Dead Place. They were getting too complacent with the Fixers leaving them food.”

I can see that my mama is a leader of cats.

“The days of free-range cats are ending,” I say. “It is too dangerous out here and there are plenty of humans to be educated into giving us posh retirement homes off the street.”

“And you would be content to sit inside twenty-four/seven and watch the world through a window?”

“Sure.” Again I get the green sideways stare. “If I were retired. But I am a professional. There are not many PIs of my persuasion — although sometimes I think there is one too many trying to muscle into my territory — but for the average cat, which is everybody else but me, the domestic life is the best bet. Even dear old Dad has left the seafaring life for a sweet berth with some old guys who run a restaurant on Lake Mead. Heck, they even named it after him. What more could you want?”

“So Three O’Clock is nothing but a house cat. I am glad he left me for that calico floozy from the pawn shop.”

I am not about to touch parental history, particularly when it is mine, so I keep trotting and keep it shut.

The pale stucco walls of Los Muertos gleam in the moonlit distance like the white cliffs of Dover. I expect bluebirds any moment, though I have never seen such a mythical beast.

I could use a few helpful Disneyesque birds. They could scout the upper stories and peek in windows and then coming peeping back about what is going on to me.

When we get to the gate I turn to address the mob.

“Okay. Listen up. There are Rottweilers in there and they have a hair-trigger temper…mostly triggered by our kind of hair. We want to get in, and then up on whatever we can climb.

“Also, you will find that a couple of major players also occupy the grounds. They are our kind of folks, but they are not used to seeing us types close up and personal. They might mistake us for an appetizer in the heat of the moment. I know these dudes, but they do not know you. So keep your distance if you want to retain your whiskers and any other vital bodily parts.”

“These are the Big Cats?” asks poor Gimpy, who has managed to keep up with our march despite his desperately disabled leg. “We will see Big Cats?”

“Yes, but do not let them see you first. I need to explain our mission to them. I am hoping that they will keep the Rottweilers…entertained while we approach the house.”

“We will see Rottweilers?” Gimpy asks like a kit who thinks dragons are cool.

“The important thing is that they do not see us, kit,” I tell him. I cast a significant glance at Snow Off-white, who ankles to my side with a minor hiss.

None of this gang is eager to bow to my leadership, but since I know the way, and the Big Cats, they have to.

“Keep an eye on Gimpy when we get in,” I growl sotto voce to her.

“I am not a kit-sitter! You keep an eye on him.”

“You ferals need to look out for each other. Cooperate, or kiss your whiskers good-bye. When we get Midnight Louise out of that house of horrors, I will have the Big Cats tell you a little story about what intraspecies cooperation can do.”

“They are not so big.”

“You have not seen them yet.” I cuff her lightly to get her on the right track and turn back to Ma Barker.

“You want to take on the Rottweilers, Ma?”

“You bet.”

“Remember. Lead them to the arrangement of rocks and fountains in the middle of the grounds.”

“They should have park privileges? I would like to lead them off a cliff.”

“There is not much here in the way of cliffs, but if you get them to that place, they will wish they had a cliff to jump off of.”

“And the colony?”

“I would like to deploy them at high points around the house and grounds.”

“And you?”

“I will go in, solo. I am counting on backup when Louise and I escape that place.”

“You expect pursuit.”

“Yup.”

“Worse than Rottweilers?”

“Worse than dogs.”

“Hmmm. You are sure that you do not want me to lead the Rottweilers out into major traffic?”

“I do not want them hurt. They are only ignorant indentured servants of a corrupt administration. I just want them out of the way.”

“Mercy to dogs? You have been off the streets too long, Grasshopper.”

But I think that the old dame will do as I say, instead of as she wishes.

In ten minutes I am past the snoozing snakes, up Sleeping Beauty’s hedge of thorns, and doing the Twist to make Chubby Checker plaid with envy as I slither my way down the aluminum vent pipe.

I hit bottom…and a unexpected impediment.

The way is blocked!

I do not like the feel of this. It is something solid like…wood.

Yuck! It is the head of the dead dummy guy.

Well, I am not Woody Woodpecker so I am momentarily stymied.

Then I tumble. (I am after all, on the ghostly site of a once-proud dryer.)

Aluminum is no different from what they make some food containers out of, and I was busting into garbage cans and aluminum foil and food containers since I was a punk kit.

I manage to get my business end — my powerful hind legs — into position and began rabbiting away at the edges of aluminum surrounding the wooden noggin in my path.

I cannot say that it does not require time, energy, and rhythmic persistence, but in a bit I have managed to kick out a flange of aluminum, a most malleable metal, all around the blockhead.

Then it is merely a matter of drop-kicking the old oaken noggin to Kingdome come. Let us play a little ghostly touch football, Elvis!

The head pops out of my way like a ripe melon meeting a sledgehammer.

I am back in the closet.

But not for long.

The fact that the entry hole has been plugged leads me to believe that Miss Midnight Louise has been forced to admit her route of entry.

This gives me a chill. I do not like to think what it would take to force Miss Midnight Louise to do anything.