Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

“Make one mew out of line and she will perforate your liver from the outside in. Trust me, I know this kit.”

“So you want to keep her to yourself.”

This is seriously not true. “She is a business partner, and that is it.”

“Oho.”

Before I can argue further, a low and hackle-rising growl from the oleanders behind us delays further discourse. Then comes the reading of the riot act.

“You two roadkill bums can forget drooling over anything you see,” Ma Barker glowls. “This is my gang’s territory, and you are trespassing. I can scar your behinds with my initials and give you a sex-change operation before either one of you drifters can muster a rusty shiv.”

Meanwhile, Miss Midnight Louise has scented our presence and is heading our way at top speed, claws kicking up asphalt like it was unclumpable litter-box sand.

“You take the spitfire up front, and I’ll reverse to face the hellion at our rear,” Three O’Clock says.

What is a parent for but self-sacrifice, right? Except I am the one sacrificing my most vulnerable end. Papa is literally saving his ass.

I comply, knowing Ma Barker will recognize her baby boy from any angle and Miss Louise has already ID’d Three O’Clock as the stranger on the block.

“You are in bad company, son,” Ma Barker growls at my rear. “Who is this aging sack of hairballs you have been foolish enough to bring here?”

Meanwhile Louise continues her liberated she-devil act. “Freeze, stranger! Do not turn around to face me or you will be looking up Eye Patches Are Us on the Internet.”

“He is just a homeless guy I found out at Lake Mead,” I say, not ready to make introductions under the circumstances. Family reunions can be so difficult.

“We are all pretty much homeless, except for you,” Louise notes.

“Have a heart,” I urge. “He is a relative.”

“I object,” Three O’Clock growls. “The one behind me who bedazzled my old eyes with her cute not-interested act is too good-looking to be a relative, and the one in front of me now is too ugly.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, awaiting Three O’Clock’s instant annihilation.

“Say,” hisses Ma Barker, “my raccoon shiner does not permit me the crystal-clear vision of my youth, but I am old enough to know you are not so bad yourself, stranger.”

Huh?

Miss Louise goes whisker-to-whisker with me to whisper, “What can Ma Barker be thinking?”

In a moment we, gasp, then know.

“You remind me,” Ma Barker says, “of a smarmy, swaggering, swell-headed young tom who used to come around when I was more receptive to gentlemen callers.”

“I was all that,” Three O’Clock admits proudly, “except I do not know ‘smarmy’ from blarney.”

“They are the same.”

Ma Barker’s right mitt clips him a smart one in the chops. And possibly the loins. She always excelled at one-two punches.

At any rate, Three O’Clock rolls into a ball, spins a few times, and ends up back on his pins three feet away.

“Can that be you, Pool Hall Polly?” he asks. “I recognize the English.”

Ma Barker bats her eyes like a baby doll, including the one that is still at quarter mast from the raccoon incident.

Louise and I exchange a shocked stare and back off to let this play out unassisted.

“So,” Ma says, “sonny boy managed to catch up with your mangy hide. What are you two bad boys up to now that you have twice the chutzpah and half the brains?”

“We are working the case of the truncated shin bones, doll.”

I wait to see Three O’clock caroming off the back wall of the police substation that is now Ma Barker’s hideout.

Instead, she rubs back and forth on the base of the oleander bush. “So you want in on our boy’s private-eye business?”

“No way,” Miss Midnight Louise snarls.

“Right,” I second. “It is bad enough I got saddled with a girl. I do not need a geezer.”

“Pipe down, junior,” Three O’Clock says, “and let your elders settle this.”

“I am not a ‘junior,’ ” I point out. “And you better act more humble if you want to get bed and board at Ma Barker’s headquarters. She runs this outfit.”

“Really?” Three O’Clock noses toward Ma Barker. “I have been retired from the nautical life in Puget Sound for a couple of years, but if you have need of an enforcer …”

“We are all enforcers here,” Ma snaps back. She eyes me and wrinkles her sparse vibrissae, which are whiskers to veterinarians and others in the know. “So you want to hang around for old times’ sake? I can put you on probation.”

“Probation? I ran a fishing trawler. I was the skipper’s right-hand catch-inspector. Then I retired to Vegas and got a food inspector job with the Glory Hole Gang out at Lake Mead. I should be consigliere here, at least.”

“This is a street gang, Three O’Clock, not some fancy-schmancy operation.”

Ma ambles over to me and Miss Midnight Louise.

“So, Grasshopper. If the old guy stays, I will have to call you disgusting pet names, since the ‘Midnights’ are getting a bit thick around here.”

“I am Louie,” I snarl. “He can be Three O’Clock. Capiche?”

“Whatever, you two can duke it out. Meanwhile, who is going to do the honors?”

“There is any honor around here?”