Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

There had to be something more to the attempts on his life than ancient history, Ireland’s or his. Something as contemporary as last month or week.

The Vegas Cat Pack!

A seasoned sleuth senses when too much is going wrong and it is time to call in reinforcements.

Much as I am concerned about Midnight Louise’s puzzling disappearance from the Neon Nightmare’s secret maze of club rooms, I know I need to put executive decisions in motion before looking into her whereabouts.

I leave Miss Temple’s quarters and ratchet my way down the claw-marked slide of the Circle Ritz palm tree trunk to hit the hot parking-lot asphalt at a jog. I handled a murder case once, in the desert, for a coyote clan, and learned something from the lesser species: the endurance possibilities of the so-called dogtrot.

After my recent stint with the dance competition at the Oasis Hotel, I have also mastered the fox-trot. So I am now well seasoned with a new feral canine flavor—carrrumba!—and am perhaps the fastest so-called domestic cat on four feet in Las Vegas.

A secondary advantage to this pace is that my natural black sole leather is not getting singed as badly as it would on naked paving materials in this climate. Ordinarily, I can travel from scant oasis of shade to oasis of shade, be it of greenery or Detroit origin, but I do not have the time now to take a zigzag route.

Who knows what those Synth freaks would do in the Satanist way if they caught an eavesdropping quadruped of midnight hue?

Speaking of such a dastardly situation, I am now entering the Men in Beige zone and need to tread extra carefully. One does not go rushing into police custody, even if they seem friendly. Often they have extradition agreements with the local Animal House of Blues, aka the city pound.

This particular police substation near the Circle Ritz seems to have been civilized pretty well. Officers Shrimp Combo and Miss BO, short for Bicycle Officer, are fast-food aficionados. Not the ubiquitous doughnut, mind you, but a heap of protein in a slick waxed wrapper on a bed of mushy white bread that can be torn off and distributed to our feathered friends, who appreciate not being the Catch of the Day at these McDonald’s moments.

(Normally, I do not resort to brand names other than the occasional Las Vegas landmark, but in this case the fast-food place is a mere two blocks away. Also, I am well aware that chichi modern narratives are now fashionably littered with the best in clothing and cuisine. So far, my works have only contributed my roommate’s shoemeisters to that trend, except for a few painfully fashionable details from Mr. Max’s recent grueling European fling, which is entirely in my collaborator’s materialistic hands. You will note those episodes are decidedly and solely inhabited by bipeds and are the poorer for it.)

“Mr. Midnight, sir!” My advent through the cloaking oleander bushes is joyfully hailed.

I brush off my shoulders from young Gimpy’s greeting. He can certainly hurl himself over a lot of ground on those three legs. I straighten him up by the scruff of the neck. He wears a sporty striped suit that serves to downplay his handicap. It is bum luck to be hit by a car when you are a homeless kit and no one is around to get you to the hospital, so you lose your misshapen foreleg in a charity ward months later.

However, misfortune leads to improvisation, and little Gimpy could eke out enough free food to swamp the whole clowder, like Oliver Twist beseeching “More” from the local church choir instead of a villain of the piece.

As it happens, I have set up the entire Ma Barker gang pretty sweet here at the police substation, which I am peacefully explaining to Gimpy when a sharp-nailed mitt curls into my thick shoulder pad.

“The youngster does not need to hear your fairy tales,” Ma Barker spits. “I am the one who copped to this location, and now you have burdened me with my ex.”

“It is only a temporary thing,” I say quickly. “He has had a retirement gig as a restaurant mascot, but these trying economic and ecological times has erased his last employment situation.”

“Great Bast, son! You sound like one of those boring talking human heads on the nightly news. Forget the philosophy. When do I lose the loser? I already gave him the first heave-ho ages ago.”

It is trying to hear one’s sire discussed in such scathing terms. I fluff up my ruff and get to the point.

“The old guys who ran Three O’Clock Louie’s at Temple Bar on Lake Mead have snagged a hot new venue.”

“Is a ‘hot new venue’ something edible?”

“It will be: Three O’Clock Louie’s Speakeasy subterranean bar and restaurant at Gangsters, the underworld departure point for Vegas’s coolest high-speed underground mobster run.”

“I am confused here. Is this a seafood restaurant? With lobsters?”

“Naw, Ma. Not lobsters, mobsters that run with gangsters. Kinda like you,” I add slyly. “Gangsters Hotel and Casino is amping up its theme with an expanded mob museum and cosmetic redo.”