Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“Hah!” comes an unwelcome greeting from the rear that has my tail hair as stiff and splayed as a radiator brush.

“Hanging about your old haunt, hoping for a job offer?” Miss Midnight Louise speculates. “I could use a pool boy.”

I shudder as my flagship member settles back into its usual sleek condition. “Water is not my medium, Louise, especially chlorinated water. It is hard on the eyes and coat.”

“Just saying. Your old spot by the canna lilies bordering the hotel pool is vacant, and the fishpond is teeming with fat, out-of-condition koi.”

Of course, she knows just how to evoke my sentimental side … schooling fishies glittering in the sun, high-heel-sandaled bathing beauty feet passing to and fro. Bronzed bodies baking in the sun, and scaled golden torsos swaying just below the water level, plump and tasty …

“I no longer crave the swim-spa experience, Louise,” I tell her. “I am on guard duty. If you had your ears perked right, you would know that the most dangerous female in Las Vegas could very well be within eyesight.”

“I spot several suspicious females, including your roommate. She is dangerous to be around. Dead bodies have a habit of suddenly appearing.”

“She is just curious. It is a characteristic of the human breed—only my Miss Temple has a double dose of that personality trait. Which other suspicious female has your hackles twitching?”

“There is that smooth blond foreign number.”

“Are you talking sports cars or human beings? Miss Van von Rhine has not lived abroad since she came to Vegas after her father died and she met and married Nicky Fontana.”

Miss Louise gives my whiskers a slightly exasperated boxing. “I know who the Crystal Phoenix boss lady is. I have been unofficial house detective here longer than you ever were before you decamped with Miss Temple Barr to the Circle Ritz.”

“Oho. We are going into past history and ‘he said/she said,’ are we?”

“We are going into ‘I am the law of the paw around here now.’ And I say Mr. Max Kinsella’s new girlfriend looks like the calico that ate the cream cheese.”

“Mr. Max has not already transferred his affections from my Miss Temple?” I feel indignant hairs stiffening all over my body. “The cad!”

“Or just absentminded,” Louise says. “Like you sometimes.”

Before I can get huffy about that comment, my sharp eyes focus on a movement as minuscule as a mouse might make. Mmm. I have glimpsed a white-slippered toe moving behind a snowy waterfall of bridal skirt.

I could swear I saw that toe pushing something not white out of sight.