Cat In A Topaz Tango

Where would the Miss Lieutenant go? we are all thinking. Mariah will not forsake her little friend who is in the finals of this contest. EK is her new “cause.” And the contest itself helps seriously ill kids. Even a hard-nosed police lieutenant cannot bow out of that, despite having to play a personally repugnant undercover role with her ex-boyfriend, least favorite female amateur detective, and her own kid, who has gone star-mad.

I count myself blessed to have evaded this horrible, hormone-hyped state called teenagery. My kind goes from litter to littering in a heartbeat, with no awkward in-between stages but hunting homes or eking out sheer survival.

Maybe human kits would be better off if they did not believe that life offers more than constant struggle, danger, deception, and death, as those of my ilk have long known.

I have just returned from a leisurely inspection of the suite’s three bedrooms, deciding on my lodging for the night, to find that my Miss Temple has claimed the big central chamber with the black marble bathroom.

She says it will “look odd” if the celebrity did not take the biggest bedroom. Not that anybody is going to come in here and ruminate on who is in what bedroom. Still, right on! So Baby Bear gets the biggest bed. I do find the black-and-gold brocade coverlet a bit overdone, but a suitably splendid backdrop for one of my coloring.

Miss Carmina Carmen strides into the bedroom to my Miss Temple’s left without inspecting it first. “The usual tawdry high-roller taste,” she declares.

That leaves Mr. Rafi Raphael to shrug and take the bedroom on Miss Temple’s other side.

“Ah,” I hear him say, “a really big plasma screen.”

I pad in after him. The décor here is royal blue and gold, a bit downscale from the central bed-and-bath combo, but cushy nevertheless. I frown at the wall-mounted screen, already on some sports channel. I prefer House and Garden, being the domestic sort when I am not trodding mean streets. Bye, bye, Papa Bear. I whisk around the corner and sneak up on Miss Carmina Carmen.

She has slung her hobo bag atop the black-glass-topped dresser and is examining the assorted luxuries with hands on hips. She is still frowning. The mounted plasma TV screen is black and shiny like my coat. It will be quiet in Mama Bear’s retreat tonight. The coverlet is ruby velvet. In fact, this is the royal red room.

She spots me and holds out a pointing finger. It is not tilted upwards at least. I take the hint and leave. Despite the striped pair among her household, I can see that Mama Bear is no mammal to cuddle up to.

It looks like I will have to fight my Miss Temple tonight for the primo square footage of bedspread, as usual.

Rafi is in the living room, roaming the vast space as he talks on his cell phone.

“Mariah is safely settled in,” he announces loudly, nodding at whoever is talking to him.

The two women hustle out from their respective retreats.

Rafi-Raphael gives them the “okay” sign of circled thumb and forefinger.

Manx, once again I wish for an opposable thumb! There is not much I can signal with a dewclaw and four shivs except a desire to rip and roll.

He clicks the cell phone dark. “That was my head of operations, Hank Buck. He reports that Mariah has been registered as EK’s roommate, but all four competing girls and their mothers—or mini-manager in EK’s case—are sharing a suite with multiple bedrooms, like this one.”

“Why did you hang up?” Miss Carmina Carmen demands. “I want a full report on Mariah’s setup in the contest. Where she will be when.”

“I will get you a schedule, but she is completely safe with the teen contenders, Carmen,” Rafi, aka Raphael, says. “The hotel has provided high security for all of the girls. Trust me.”

Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina, now back in action, does not think so, and says exactly what she does think, which resembles the third degree.

“Just who is chaperoning the contenders? What is the security level? Mariah should be up here with us for complete safety.”

Mr. Rafi is staring at Miss Carmen with blank disbelief. “Did you not hear me? She is folded in with the junior competitors. You would jerk her away from her new friends and the excitement and responsibility of helping EK through the competition?”

“Mariah ran away. She took a terrible risk. She deceived her custodial parent and took advantage of—”

“Took advantage of what?” Rafi asked, as quick as I to notice that Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina has suddenly gone quiet and pale, as if remembering something she should not say.

“Took, um, ad-advantage of my being distracted by a very de-demanding job,” she finished.

By now my Miss Temple is also staring at the stuttering lieutenant, and frowning.

“You really want to do that?” Rafi asks. “Take away what she has helped someone else earn, another kid’s dream? Right on the brink of it maybe coming true?”

“The odds against EK winning are huge.”

“But they are the odds Mariah helped her earn.”

“She took a horrible risk and needs to pay a major price.”