Cat In An Aqua Storm

"An alley cat around Las Vegas leaped into literal action last Friday when the Goliath Hotel serial Stripper Strangler went after local PR flack Temple Barr. The cat, an overweight, solid-black layabout named Midnight Louie, fell from atop a costume cabinet where it was sleeping just as the Strangler was about to tie the luscious Miss Barr's neck into a double-Windsor knot. The snoozing puss proved unlucky for the killer when its claws, extended during the plunge, accidentally raked the perp. Talk about a timely pussy foot. Must have been Friday the Thirteenth somewhere.”

Crawford Buchanan can mangle the truth faster than the Goliath killer could strangle a stripper. My plunging to the rescue of my delightful roommate was no accident: I was buying time until Lieutenant C.R. Molina could rush in with the cavalry from down the hall.

Of course, I am used to feats of derring-do, thanks to my back-alley days, now long behind me. Miss Temple Barr, on the other hand, is a tiny thing, though spirited. I fear that the shock of a severe beating followed by the Attack of the Stripper Strangler would make even the heroine of a Roger Corman movie a trifle overwrought.

She now keeps a flashlight beside her bed. This is a sinister implement, sheathed in a black, rubbery material, that would serve well as a weapon in addition to lighting up the darkness. It also stinks. If only human attackers were as sensitive to smell as I am, they would be knocked out

Every time my little doll has one of these midnight misadventures, she performs the same routine. First she sinks her fingers into my warm fur, if I am there, which I usually am these days—or nights, rather. I do have an escape clause: the open bathroom window. Miss Temple Barr’s rooms are on the second floor and the window is small, so no felon larger than a midget is able to enter, although I can both enter and exit with the ease of a garter snake. Nowadays the domestic life suits my more laid-back style. I rarely take a nighttime stroll unless I have business of a crime-fighting or personal nature abroad.

Anyway, Miss Temple takes up her high-tech flashlight and I see the back of her Garfield T-shirt as she makes a tour of the premises, particularly of the French doors leading to the patio.