Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

It was like opening the doors onto a series of stage sets. The entrances were set back in niches. Every room had its theme, although shades of blue decorated each one. The colors reminded Matt of the Virgin Mary, hardly the idea here. After three “visitations,” he realized that a blue glass Cinderella slipper was a feature in every vignette.

Some rooms teemed with vintage froufrou from the Gay Nineties to the 1940s. After that, nostalgia faded and the décor was showy modern, furnished with sleek mirrors and stainless steel and suede. Every room was pristinely neat, lavish and gaudy in whatever its style, and empty.

How unnerving to think that each room had hosted a paid-for thousand-and-one one-night stands . . . several times over if the bordello was a few decades old.

Some rooms had Jacuzzis and brittle little fountains everywhere. Some rooms, both Victorian and modern, housed strange devices of leather and metal that looked as if they’d been imported from Inquisition Warehouse.

Matt was glad his knowledge of the darker shores of sex for sale was pretty limited.

As he suspected, the hall ended in a back service stairway. He eased the heavy metal fire door open and padded down a few steps. Muffled voices!

He crept down a few more risers.

Several voices. The captives wouldn’t be jawing away like this. The gang must have taken over the back rooms as their headquarters while the Fontana party and the residents were held hostage in the front parlor and the adjoining barroom he’d glimpsed through the double interior doors before he’d ducked out.

Not good. He leaned against the wall, holding up the oil lamp and hitting redial on Nicky’s cell phone. No bar graph showed up, nothing but a message that the phone was “searching for a signal,” and then nothing.

Matt was searching for a signal too.

Call it a sign.

Courtesans on Parade

Of course, nobody notices a couple of cats roaming the premises.

Some of my breed might be a bit miffed that humankind is so ready to overlook the species the ancient Egyptians worshipped. Unfortunately, any remaining Egyptians have lost the faith. Besides, being overlooked has always been my ace in the hole. Especially if you are black and low-profile. Now we are two.

So Satin and I ankle into the main parlor. I must say I shudder at what I see.

One by one, the Fontana boys have been gestured at major gunpoint into this room. All I see of the gangsters are black boots, leggings, turtleneck-sweater sleeves, and leather gloves. And black 9mm guns to match. I must admit I admire the unknown perps’ color choice, although it has long been the uniform of cat burglars, including myself.

Satin and I follow the latest Fontana brother to suffer this indignity, unnoticed.

One of them, maybe Ernesto, is being patted down, front and back—intimately—by agile gloved hands, and relieved of his signature Beretta.

I shiver as I observe this. This is not something a guy ought to undergo in front of witnesses, particularly several older brothers.

I growl my protest to Satin.

“Yes, Louie,” she comforts me. “It is most ignominious. My ladies here exist to coddle the male ego. They devote their lives to it. Such violation is . . . unthinkable. Males egos are such delicate flowers.”

“Uh. I am a catclaw cactus kinda guy myself. Violate me and I dig deep. These guys are merely playing along for the moment until they figure out the who and why of this high-handed, high-artillery assault. The Fontana family goes back to the days of Thompson submachine guns. True, these bozos got the drop on them, but that will not be all she wrote. Trust me. This is not over.”

“So who are the gangsters who hold your male compadres captive?”

A good question.

Inside the room, I see the perps are wearing spandex masks that would make them as unrecognizable as Spider-Man’s evil twin. However, they have accessorized even that full coverage with large sixties-style black sunglasses, which gives them a creepy bug-eyed look.

Additionally, they range from tallish to six-foot size and say not a word, letting the long lean metal barrels of their guns do the gesturing for them.

All in all, this is a very disturbing and sinister mime act.

Beyond the fussy parlor, I glimpse an empty bar area with the usual clubby look, carpet and leather chairs, mirror and bottle glass. I suggest we remain in this “debriefing” room in our guise of helpless domestic pets.

My description is not half wrong. The masked thugs stripping the Fontana brothers of their weapons are also making unwarranted searches of their underwear.

“Oof!” Emilio objects, avoiding an illegal forward pass with a swiveling hip movement that would do any running back proud. “There is nothing resembling lead there.”

I bite my tongue. The nature of this disarming is suddenly all too evident to my super feline senses. The “gangsters” are all of the female persuasion.