Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“If you wish to sit your unprotected rear down on the sizzling hot asphalt, I can remain in the shade and regale you with a long and winding journey through Vegas hot spots more noted for sin than fever.”

Aaah. I have bounded onto the cooling dirt and sand surrounding the oleanders.

“How was Chicago?” she asks.

“All right. There is a lot less street-level action and entertainment value there. I could get all my exercise jumping up to hit elevator buttons in the high-twenties and up.”

“Home is the hunter, home from the five-star hotels and the lure of hot studio lights,” Miss Midnight Louise observes. “At least you managed to keep your two fragile human charges in one piece.”

“Them? Fragile? Yeah, they were facing family matters more incestuous than Ma Barker’s clan, aka clowder, but, Louise, you have no idea how imperiled I was in life and limb and carrier in Chicago.”

“Where is that leopard-spot carrier fit for a reality TV Chihuahua, by the way?”

“I left it as a headstone for a couple of Chicago gangsters.”

Miss Midnight Louise’s airy whiskers lift above her censorious features. (This censorious features stuff means she has a scowl on her puss that would sour a Green Appletini. Not to mention a decent dude who has only been doing his guard duty out of town.)

“Were they dead or just happy to get you out of their nightmares?”

“Let us simply say that, thanks to me, they knocked themselves out to commit mayhem and got snagged by the cops.”

“Meanwhile,” she notes, “Mr. Max has been out on the town performing acts of derring-do that threaten to undo his precarious healing process. Can you say the same?”

“My acts of derring-do have threatened to undo other entities’ healing processes. It is the Chicago Outfit, zero; and Midnight Louie, two.”

I push closer, not to get cozy, mind you, but to exchange privileged information.

“I am happy to hear you have been sticking closer to Mr. Max than a coat of black graffiti spray paint while I have been transported across state lines to eavesdrop on some amateur episodes of The Old and the Restless. My Miss Temple and Mr. Matt are a done deal, whether you or I like it or not. What would occasion Mr. Max to greet the network-approved lovebirds on their return to the nest? He does not live here anymore.”

“He is lucky to be alive and not-living somewhere six feet under after last night.”

“Last night? There was some more hot homicidal action in town while I was gone? No!”