Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Nicky was right. Nobody had mentioned him. He glanced to his left and the floral-carpeted staircase leading into shadows above. Thank God! Midnight Louie stood five steps up, waiting for him. Looking like the cat was concerned about him, rather than vice versa. That was a cat for you.

But Louie was right. Matt got it. In this crowd of large, dark-haired men barging into that crowded and armed and dangerous brothel sitting room, an effacing blond guy might get lost. He had been. Along with an alley cat. The driver-gangster girl wouldn’t forget him, but she was pulling guard duty outside, perhaps for the duration.

He moved swiftly to the stairs and cautiously up the treads. The place may have looked like it dated from the last days of the frontier, but the steps were solid and creakless. All the better for serial hanky-panky in the night. Not that sex was on anybody’s mind anymore. Just its perennial partner. Death.

Only when he reached the dark at the top of the stairs did Matt notice that Midnight Louie was no longer anywhere to be seen.

Déjà Vu

I am relieved that Mr. Matt Devine takes my hint and pulls an instant Mystifying Max-I ike vanishing act. Time to hang loose and regroup. What we have here is a cast of dozens with no guide as to who’s who and what’s what.

What I do not like is seeing such heavy artillery in little dolls’ hands. Some may call me sexist, but some may also call me “Kitty,” so I do not apologize for anything. Clearly, the Aldo Fontana bachelor party has been driven to, and walked into, a serious kettle of sharks.

First, I do my duty by my Miss Temple and stash her amour, Mr. Matt Devine, safely out of sight. That is not hard. He is taking the situation very seriously, and follows me like a lamb. He has never been one to underestimate a cat, especially moi, just like the F Boys do not underestimate the Female of the Species. Felines and females. Together we can tame Homo sapiens.

Next, I ankle back down into the teeth of the “situation.”

Like Nicky and Aldo Fontana and Mr. Matt, I find my way blocked at the bottom of the stairs by a dame.

She is even dressed in a cute little outfit that shows off her gams and high-heeled little claws and her perky little face and figure. She has long black hair, green-gold eyes, and one white vibrissae in a field of black. (Vibrissae is the scientific name for the airy front feelers that allow a fellow or a gal of my persuasion to know where we are going, even in the dark. The human word “whiskers” is too rough-and-ready a name for such a subtle and sensitive attribute of my kind.)

We joust vibrissae for a moment or two, getting to know each other.

“Where are you going?” she demands.

“I take it from your tone that this is your territory. Are you also in the employ of the armed forces occupying the place?”

“Never,” she hisses. “But you are an invader too.”

I eye my soon-to-be conquest. She is wearing a turquoise cape rimmed in matching marabou feathers. This is an irresistible lure for one of my sensitive yet macho nature. I have heard of these show cats in their Elizabethan collars and enhancing capes, but have never encountered one in the fur and flesh so closely. Usually they are caged to protect them from overmuch mauling. If this were a bachelor party for felines, she would be the icing on the fishcake. Merrrow!

Still, something criminal is going down here, and it involves my friends, or friends of my friends, and I must stick to duty.

“Stand aside, my dear lady. I am almost the only one of my party who is still free and free-ranging. I must protect my humans.”

“And I mine!” she spits back. “Until I know you are to be trusted I am not turning even one more Las Vegas scoundrel loose in this place.”

“Ah. Before I ask what you mean by ‘Las Vegas scoundrel,’ which strikes me as a case of blatant geography-ism, I must know what ‘this place’ is.”

“Fair enough, Furface. This is the Sapphire Slipper, the finest and classiest little licensed brothel in Nye County.”

I inhale deeply. A mistake. This kit is drenched in nip and Chanel No. 5. Umm. From what I can tell, she is fully pheromoned and furious, a bad combination.

“And you are the cathouse—?”

“Cat,” she snarls, as if daring me to make something of it.

I take another deep breath, maybe just to inhale that hypnotic and potent blend of feline catnip breath and human high-dollar perfume. I scent something else as well. A scintilla of memory. I have met this lady before, in her younger days, on the Strip.

For a moment I cannot speak, smell, or think. Can it be?

“What do they call you here?” I ask, braced for a shock.

She sighs. “What else? The clichéd cathouse cat.”

“I mean, by name?”

“Here? Baby Blue.”

Baby Blue. It is not a bad name. But not the right one.

“So, before you were a Satin,” I hazard.

Her eyes grow round and amazed. Then she really looks me over.

There is a long silence while our vibrissae tremor.

“Louie?” she says at last.

“The very one.”