Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Gosh, Matt thought as he allowed the front seat leather to wrap around him, and the engine to clear its expensive throat, he couldn’t even match Max Kinsella at attracting psychos. He’d always been a substitute for the real object of Kathleen’s warped affections and now he felt as impelled to protect the newly vulnerable Max from Kitty the Cutter as to save Temple.…

Still, he scanned his surroundings, checking the rearview and side mirrors until the red blinking light atop the WCOO tower was zooming away behind him like a suddenly shy retreating UFO.

Matt saw nothing in the rearview mirror. At 2 A.M. this was a deserted stretch. The person who’d followed him several times by motorcycle months ago along here knew that.

Out of nowhere, the rearview mirror showed what Matt hoped was a car with a burned-out headlight. Spotting those had been the object of a classic car-traveling game called padiddle.

“Padiddle,” Matt said to the road-level Cyclops. Nobody else was riding along to give him points for spotting it, and, frankly, newer cars didn’t seem to burn out their perpetually “on” running lights. Only the old junkers.

Wait. Some crook in a junker could be interested in carjacking the Jag.

Matt sped up, but the light behind matched him. The radio station was situated in a semi-industrial area pretty dead at night. He’d noticed that more when he rode the Vampire motorcycle for a time.

Back when the phantom motorcycle had shadowed him.

Had that rider been pursuer, or protector? Those episodes had ended. Matt had never known whether he was haunted by the ghost of Elvis, who’d been “calling” in to his show at the time, or whether he was escorted by Max Kinsella. And, if so, whether Kinsella had been guarding Matt’s skin or the prized Hesketh Vampire motorcycle’s sheen.

And, of course, it could always have been Kathleen O’Connor.

Or … considering how Max Kinsella swore she’d died, in a motorcycle pursuit of his car, Miss Kitty’s ghost. Both Max and he later swore they’d seen her dead, but they both had been wrong.

Or … a cop. His reverie had upped his speed well beyond the limit—easy to do without noticing when driving a car designed to slip through wind resistance like an eel—and he could have run afoul of a speed trap.

Any possibility he considered was a trap of some kind he wouldn’t like.

So he pulled over under the nearest streetlight to stop. And wait.

Chapter 58

Domesticated Species

Aaah.

I do love it when an act of derring-do has made me the solo King of the king-size bed once again. I omit the white-tie wedding nonsense and finally recall our shared adventure at the Oasis.

Here we recline in the very wee hours, my Miss Temple and me. She has showered off any remaining Essence du Elephant and I have given up my gilt-brocade throne for a simple zebra-pattern throw.

I have arrayed myself along her side, permitting her easy access to stroking my noble brow, my masculine shoulders, my svelte sides and back. I do enjoy a good massage, and contemplate rolling over for an undercarriage petting, except I am opting for the dignified, superior, and mysterious role at the moment.

Miss Temple sighs. “Here we are, Louie, alone together by the phone again. What a long, big day, from Marriage Bureau to wedding banquet. No wonder Matt was a little distracted at dinner and headed off to WCOO early, but he should be on the way and calling to let me know now. I am beginning to get why he wants a daytime talk show.

“Louie, would you ever want to return to Chicago after those nasty thugs kidnapped you?”