Cat In An Aqua Storm

This cuts no ice with Miss Maeveleen Pearl, proprietress of the Thrill 'n' Quill. She bustles over to let the poor sot out. “Oh, Ingram,” I hear her croon as the door opens. (Miss Maeveleen Pearl never speaks but in a syrupy tone that would glue most people’s lips together.) “Your little friend has come calling again. Isn’t that sweet? Besides, I wanted to arrange Baker and Taylor in that window anyway. There you go."

Ingram, out the door in a jiffy, is still growling when I approach him. He sits on the concrete stoop and angrily boxes his muzzle with his mitts. This ritual of keeping his nose clean seems more along the lines of slapping some sense into himself, which he could use, in my opinion.

He is in no mood to thank me for his sudden furlough, but watches the display window sourly as Miss Maeveleen Pearl sets about arranging a pair of stuffed Scottish fold-type felines amongst the books.

Her devotion to these inert bozos, Ingram tells me, borders on the psychotic.

“A human must have her hobby," I reply, reaching out to give Ingram’s rabies tags a jingle. "Now quit whining and tell me what is happening in this town of late."

Ingram is the scholarly sort who thinks nothing of drifting off over the entertainment section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It is amazing what he can commit to memory without even trying.

Well, he says, spreading his toes so as to count off on his six digits (Ingram’s forebears are prone to quirky genetic modifications), the Cat’s Meow shop across from the Sands has quite a few layabouts on the premises, but the word is the proprietor is kind of a Carrie Nation teetotaler.

This is bad news. While I have no time for Scottish folds, in the flesh or the fabric, I am partial to a touch of scotch in my milk now and again.

"What kind of Carrie Nation is she?” I inquire. There is a cute kitten or two at the Cat’s Meow I have my eye on.

“She is a crusader, and not the rabbit kind,” Ingram replies. He tells me certain dudes of an uninhibited nature have been disappearing from the alley behind the Cat’s Meow and when they show up again, they are singing soprano. Not, Ingram adds snootily, that there is anything wrong with a higher register.

He is one to talk, having long since sacrificed his masculine prowess to the dubious joys of being a kept cat.

"Dudes are being swept off the street and returned minus their operative parts?” I demand in horror and something of a Magnum PI falsetto. My imagination is hitting the roof too.