Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

I do not normally buy this psychic hokum anymore than I regularly eat Free-to-Be Feline, but it is true that Karma’s breed is descended from the cats that defended the Dalai Lamas in Tibet, back when it was a sovereign and mystical place that harbored legends like the earthly paradise of Shangri-La (from which a naughty lady magician of Miss Temple’s and my acquaintance took her performing moniker).

The legends say that the souls of departed Tibetan priests inhabited the beige-colored temple cats. Frankly, they share much in common with the late Shangri-La’s performing Siamese, the evil Hyacinth: cream beige body with brown-masked face, brown legs, and tail, and stunning blue eyes, except they are longhaired (and have that uppity longhair air, as if they listen to harpsichord concertos all day on velvet pillows). The legend is that their coloring, especially the four white mitts, were awarded by a god when they tried to save a long-ago Dalai Lama from being killed by mountain marauders.

So I have to keep all this stuff in mind when dealing with Karma, as she is supernaturally sensitive.

“You do not know what I want,” I argue.

“Of course I do, Louie. I know what you want before you know it. And I am telling you that had you contacted me first, when you sent the clowder to their various far-flung posts, given the fact that you are related by blood to three of them, I could indeed have invoked Bast to lend you the mystical and ancient power called Oneness of Overmind so you could communicate long-distance.”

“I am related to three of them?”

“I can count.”

“Then Midnight Louise is indeed my—?”

“The product of your littering, yes. And now you are right to fear for her well-being.”

“How would we, uh, three, do this Oneness of Overmind thing?”

“I would perform the ceremony, but the effect is only temporary. It would require burning a whisker each and a few drops of communal blood, not to mention the sacrifice of one life apiece.”

“Cell phones are much more humane,” I say, shocked.

“Had our kind pockets … I sympathize with your concerns, Louie. Part of the permanent wave in my whiskers is from absorbing the danger haloing your recently departing human like the scent of death. I hope her recent departure does not become permanent.”

“But she has already left, and it will take time to summon the Cat Pack. I need paranormal help.”

“And I am giving it to you. I have consulted the stars, particularly the sinister sign known as Ophiuchus, and looked into the future, and I have this urgent advice for you.”

“Yes?”

“Run like hell.”

Room Disservice

“Somehow,” Gandolph chuckled as he hung up the room phone, “I doubt a room-service dinner with me will be as enthralling as with your friend Revienne.”

“I never said she was a friend,” Max objected, using his hands to lift each leg onto an ottoman and stretch out more than three feet of chronic ache.

“The over-the-counter pills help at all?” Gandolph asked, sitting in the upholstered chair.

Max shrugged. “I’m used to the discomfort, but those dank Old World buildings must have been built to make people uncomfortable, like that bloody convent.”

“The church probably inherited the manor house a couple centuries ago, and the Magdalen operation was a leftover from the age of Dickens, Max. The Old World was always harsh compared with the New. You’ve forgotten our small travails when we lived abroad. Daily comfort is an American concept. Think of all the toilet paper American tourists trekked on European tours for decades.”

“I spent enough time this unscheduled trip ‘roughing it’ in the Alps.”

“With a hot blonde waiting on you foot and foot.”

Max shrugged in surrender. “I’m spoiled. I know it. Speaking of which, I can’t believe these ‘recovering’ IRAers haven’t tumbled to the fact that ‘Michael’ Kinsella is the ‘Mystifying Max.’ ”

“My European counterterrorism associates and I kept your original identity up-to-date all these years. Comfort may not be their game, but subterfuge is. They’re way older at it than we are, living right next door to ancient enemies without any massive moats of ocean.”

“How the hell—?”

“According to the record, Michael Kinsella returned to the U.S., graduated from a state university with a … biology degree, and got a high-school teaching job.”

“I’m amazed. Maybe I should drop back into that phony life. Start over. I do seem to have a gift for biology,” Max added with a wicked glint.

Gandolph was perusing a folder. “What do you want to start with, duck soup or cream of potato?”

“Are you talking about my fake life, biology, or the room-service menu?”

“The menu. It’s quite decent.”

“High praise from a gourmand like you.”

“How did you like the kitchen in my former Vegas house?”

“Good grief. A memory of that room just flashed through my mind.”

“Excellent, Max! Good progress.”

“Your online redhead was in it, sitting on your granite-topped central island sipping a bubble glass of … probably merlot wine. Not a bad picture. Interesting composition of reds.”