Cat In An Aqua Storm

She would wake him up. She had a purring, slightly smoky phone voice. Some people thought it was sexy. How far do you go to break down someone else’s barriers? Maybe she’d find out. It wasn’t much different from those long, coy teenage conversations. Boy/girl, girl/boy, practicing for the real thing.

The phone lifted. “Hello,” Matt said in his best professional hot-line voice. Not a bad voice, but she’d rather hear it less controlled, and more surprised.

“Hi. This is your neighborhood hot line calling,” Temple purred. “This is your wake-up call. Are you ready to give some lessons? Martial arts, I mean.”

Midnight Louie lounged on her bed, watching with calm, catlike neutrality. But when she caught and captured his glance, she winked.

It was night, and Matt picked up the phone, as he always did at that hour.

“ConTact?” the woman’s hesitant voice asked anxiously.

“Yes.”

“I—I feel I should give my name, but—”

“Names aren’t necessary. Make one up if you like.”

“Really? That simple? Mary Smith, then. Do you buy that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, only what you do.”

“Oh, God. I don’t know what I think. I met a man. He was so sweet. How... what do I call you? I can’t talk to you about this without a name.”

“How about ‘Brother John’?”

“Why do you use that?”

“Because I am your brother, and everyone’s a John, or a Mary.”

“Yes, maybe so. I can’t understand. He’s so thoughtful. So sweet. He hit me, Brother John. I don’t know what to do. It only happened once. Only... it’s never happened to me before. You should see the candy and flowers he sent. But he hit me. It made me feel bad... wrong. But I liked it when he apologized. I kinda got a kick out of it. I don’t understand why he has to say I’m so stupid, why I have to feel so superior and inferior at the same time. Brother John—? Are you there?”

“I’m here. I’m listening. What do you want to talk about?”

“Him. I’ll call him Jim. That’s not his name. But I’ll call him Jim. I just met him. . . .”

Tailpiece

Midnight Louie Lets His Hair Down

Now that I have a literary reputation to consider, it is time to get a few facts straight.

An ugly rumor is circulating that I have a ghost writer. This is what I get for being magnanimous and not demanding a coauthor byline. I am not against those of a spectral persuasion, but state here that I am fully responsible for every word attributed to me. (Not to discredit my collaborator, but I must report that some observers have even suggested that I should take over the entire narrative. Suits me.)

Although I am now something of a literary lion, having been critically embraced to a heartwarming degree for my debut piece, a limber little four-paw exercise called Cat in an Alphabet Soup, there is also some confusion about my literary antecedents. (There has always been confusion about my biological ones, a hazard of my species.)

I have been compared to such divergent dudes as Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Mike Hammer, "an aging mobster with a checkered past,” and a “hep cat" who “fancies himself another Philip Marlowe.”