Cat In An Aqua Storm

The puppetmaster who abandoned her will rue the moment he meddled with the Divine Yvette, or my name is not Midnight Louie.

9

Perfect Recall

“Brother John,I’m scared.”

“So am I. You’ve got to leave.”

“Five more days. If I can just make it for five more days! I’m trying to be so quiet, so perfect, but sometimes that makes him worse.”

“You can’t win with him, whatever you do. Except by leaving.”

“Yeah, but I’ve held on this long. Thirty-five-years-old last April. You’d think I would have learned something by now.”

“You have. You’ve got an economic way out now. All you have to do is take it.”

“They hang on, though, just like the last one. They treat you like scum, call you a slut, but the minute you try to leave, you’re suddenly too good to let go of.”

“He’s sick. He needs you to be sick, too.”

“But I’m not gonna let him drag me down, not anymore. Damn man. He’s not nice like you. He doesn’t listen, just... slam, bang, pow.”

“I’m paid to listen.”

“That’s not why you do it, though, is it? That’s all right, don’t answer. We’re supposed to be talkin’ about me, not you. Me and my ‘problem.’ It’d be nice to meet you, though, someday when I’m outa here, Brother John. Maybe I’ll call you up and we can have lunch and talk about the bad old days.”

“I don’t think—”

“Probably rules against it. Maybe it’s better. I’ve told you things that make me ashamed.”

“You don’t have to feel ashamed for what someone else does.”

“No, and it’s him, isn’t it? Always him. Always mean, always running me down. They always seem like Prince Charming at first, and then, Godzilla. Maybe Godzilla’s too nice. He’s been real quiet lately. He hates what I’m doing Saturday. He wants to stop me. I can see it building up. He’s yelling about the country going to hell and no chance for white men and women are nothing but whores—why does he hate so much?”

“He’s afraid some of what he hates might be inside him.”

“Him? Afraid? Excuse me for laughing. But yeah, maybe laughing will help. He’s pathetic, really, big son of a gun with nothing better to do than beat up on some little woman. He’s scum. Guess you can’t comment on that. I’m not going to be afraid of him anymore. I won’t!”

“The best thing would be to leave now. Tonight.”

“Oh, not tonight. Not tomorrow night, or tomorrow night, or tomorrow night. But a couple nights after that, yeah. Whether I win or not. Yeah, I’m gone. Thanks. I feel less... nervous now. If I didn’t have you to call, and be silly and scared to, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“I’m here to help.”

“You do, you do. You help me not be afraid all the time.”

10

Vamp of Savannah

First thingTuesday morning, the aqua Storm idled silently at the driveway leading to the Goliath Hotel, the engine struck with what Temple imagined was automotive awe.

Against the bright blue sky loomed the silhouette of a man straddling the road and sidewalk—a giant three stories tall. Between his braced legs must pass pedestrian and passenger alike. Temple gazed through the deep-tinted windshield at gargantuan thighs vanishing into the shadow of what charitably could be called a kilt, though it more resembled a sumo wrestler’s diaper.

Lines about “that colossal wreck,” Shelley’s fallen statue of Ozymandias in the poem of the same title, filled her head. The actual inspiration for this overblown anthropomorphic archway was the Colossus of Rhodes, a lost wonder of the ancient world. Beyond the huge figure sprawled the garish bulk of the Goliath Hotel, a Theme Park from Hyperbole dedicated to the purging of any iota of good taste impertinent enough to rear its modest head within view of the Goliath’s blissfully gauche patrons.

Temple tapped the Storm’s gas pedal. The sleek little car whisked under the colossus and up the sweeping drive (hotel drives in Las Vegas are compelled by law to sweep). It stopped under an entry canopy lined with yawning ribs of mirrored copper that reminded Temple of the whale in Pinocchio about to devour the unwary. This was as apt an image for the entryway to a Las Vegas hotel-casino as any.

Eight a.m. sharp, read her Big Ben-size watch face.

“I’ll be getting a ramp pass from hotel PR,” she told the uniformed valet who leaped to open the Storm’s door.

“Uniformed” was overdoing it. Valets at the Goliath wore gilt sandals, white linen Egyptian-style pleated kilts and short blond Bo Derek-dreadlock wigs. Tens, unfortunately, they were not.

Temple pushed the seat all the way back to wrestle her overloaded tote bag out of the car, then waited to see how the valet would maneuver that getup into the diminutive Storm. His efforts showed almost as much hairy leg as the colossus, but Temple was more interested in making sure his brass wristbands didn’t scratch the dashboard. She still had forty-three months left to pay on the car.