Cat In A Topaz Tango

He was so studly he could satisfy with a riveting personal appearance and then stay gone for whole days at a time. There were no nightly assignations to muss the bedspread and my territorial imperatives.

He remained totally protective but at a discreet distance, leaving me to do the daily bodyguard work and also lie guard on said bedspread.

In other words, for a significant other, he did not significantly get in my way. He exemplified the highest ideals of the Alley Cat Code: friendly, fierce when necessary, and fancy-free.

Mr. Matt Devine, however, is a much more domestically inclined breed of cat. Having no secret missions of an international nature, he lays about the place, especially in my spots!

He discusses “their” possible move to his apartment right above us on the third floor, no doubt hoping to erase all bedroom memories of Mr. Max Kinsella. I am not as young as I used to be. A three-story climb is much more demanding than a two-story climb. Show a little consideration for the aging frame.

So move. Fine! I will continue to occupy Miss Temple’s rooms all on my lonesome then. I am happy to entertain guests of my ilk in complete privacy. I could use a bachelor pad as much as the next guy. Just because Mr. Matt Devine is from a churchy background and actually considers matrimony holy does not mean those of other denominations, such as myself—I am a devout follower of the Egyptian female cat deity, Bast—must live by his rules.

But this is an empty threat. I have come to appreciate a feminine touch about the place, and also frequent ear stroking. The thought of being edged out of my Miss Temple’s bed if not her affections is most distressing.

I fling myself through the flimsy patio doors that Mr. Max was always urging her to fortify, and scramble down the single old leaning palm tree that is my land bridge to the ground-floor parking lot.

The asphalt is hot on my pads as I skitter across it to the hedge of oleander bushes. They are poisonous eating to critter kind, which is why Ma Barker, my long-lost mama, and her feral gang shelter in here for the time being. No wise street dog will disturb them here. I could use a friendly ear.

Instead, one of my own ears is boxed as soon as I am in the safe shadows within.

“Disappointing boy!” my venerable dam spits in that very now-ringing ear. “This is what you call a safe haven? With gourmet food and distilled water? We have seen nothing but aluminum pie tins full of those awful dried green rabbit droppings.”

“I have been busy, Ma. I have not had time to train the human waitstaff on what to serve in which manner. They constantly involve me in the criminal community. And Free-to-Be-Feline is a prime New Age health food.”

“Food! It is already in a condition to be eliminated before one can touch fang to its odious smell and texture. When can we expect something juicy and tasty that does not run away on four legs?”

“Soon, Ma! The only crimes transpiring around the Circle Ritz these days are crimes of passion,” I add sourly. “As soon as I can interrupt these proceedings for a few minutes, I will get your needs tended to.”

“You had better, son. We might just have to rumble nights in protest if you do not push these people into line. Free-to-Be Feline! If we were really free to be feline, we would run this town.”

You would think I had led them into forty days and forty nights in the desert. Or was it years?

I slink away, caught between the conflicting needs of my kind and my kind of girl.

A Moses of my people I am not.

House of Max

When Matt got back to his empty but beautifully redone apartment—no thanks to himself, who’d lived contentedly for years with rectory furniture donations—his answering machine winked its low-tech red eyelash at him. Message waiting.

Most of the few people he knew in Las Vegas reached him by cell phone. He sat down on his scarlet suede fifties couch, courtesy of Temple’s secondhand store expertise, to listen to it.

A good thing he did.

The call from homicide Lieutenant C. R. Molina was a shock. Her rich contralto voice was soft and low and secretive. The formidable policewoman wanted a clandestine rendezvous with him. Pronto.

He was an almost married man, he wanted to protest to the recorded message. Still, romance was the last thing anyone would suspect was on the no-nonsense officer’s mind.

And she didn’t want him to call her anywhere on any phone. She would meet him at her house at 7:15 P.M. Her house was in Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, near the iffy north Las Vegas neighborhoods. He would stay in the car. She’d come out.

Hey, she didn’t want even her thirteen-year-old daughter and the two shelter cats to spot him? What was he, a pariah? Or did she want to avoid “talk” now that he and Temple were engaged?

Oh, and erase her message from the answering machine.

Matt did, wondering like crazy what was up.