Cat In An Alien X-Ray

I can spot Miss Midnight Louise’s narrow gams through the forest of lower limbs. She is putting in an appearance to make sure that there can be no question that I am the culprit. Talk about family solidarity, not that we are family.

People are cooing over the disheveled bride, and they include some of the Fontana brothers. Is there no loyalty?

My name is indeed black. My reputation is in as many tatters as the gown wilting on this so-called statue of a bride.

The murmurs are getting ugly and I am hearing words like “cage” and “tetanus shots” and “isolation.”

My Miss Temple is pleading for my life and freedom. I am thinking Marty Scorsese is the director for the biopic. He can move beyond fiction. He did a great documentary on Bob Dylan.

While they are all so exercised, plotting evil retribution for my apparent sins, I sneak out a long limb and stretch my shivs to the max. I am nearing the bride’s stiffly starched skirt.

I put in a paw and pull out a plum … the sparkly bit I saw her bridal slipper toe sneaking under the giant white umbrella of her skirt.

I pull it across the smooth marble and into the custody of my folded forelimbs.

“What have you got there?” Trust my Miss Temple to keep a steady eye on me and my well-being in the midst of this mob. She bends to retrieve what I have captured. “Anybody in this crowd missing a screw-back ruby earring?” she asks loudly.

A muted shriek comes from the rim of the mob.

No guillotine for Midnight Louie today.

*   *   *

In another hour, hotel security and the Metro Police have hauled away the larcenous lovebirds in powdered sugar white. Only the inner circle remains, which does not include the Mystifying Max and Miss Dr. Revienne Schneider.

I am sitting atop one of those high chairs that surround tiny tall cocktail tables, lapping up an all-fat cream used for cocktails from a bell-shaped champagne glass that better suits my drinking method than those tall narrow flutes.

Miss Midnight Louise has done a disappearing act, so I get all the credit.

“Imagine the nerve,” Miss Van von Rhine is telling the gathered Fontana brothers, including her husband. “I cannot believe all you crime experts had no idea a pair of pocket-pickers were working our party.”

“Well, uh.” Mr. Nicky Fontana eyes his sheepish bros. I have never before seen a Fontana brother looking sheepish. “Obviously we needed an undercover operative on the right level.”