Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

Brothers Under the

Fur Skin

I go through the usual contortions to slip into the New Millennium Hotel unobserved. The word “observed” is very apropos, as the hotel exterior is ringed by a giant neon solar system. Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and that goofy little outer quasi-planet, Pluto, shine luminescent red, blue, green, pink, white, and yellow.

This decorative hallmark hangs about six stories above the Strip, the better to be seen. So a lightweight but heavy dude like me is risking life and limb and family jewels to be crawling around on the hotel signage in the blinding and alternating dark of night and glare of blinking neon.

Still, I have found and used the hotel service channels before, and I do so again. Before you know it, I have slid down the interior laundry chute called a service hatch, and immediately head for the hotel’s backstage area.

This is not hard. I need only follow my nose. Few of us felidae rove and ramble inside a major Las Vegas hotel. Luckily, Vegas hotels are built like anthills or Egyptian pyramids: high and imposing, and slicked up with impressive façades, but basically three-dimensional puzzles riddled with hidden entrance and exit tunnels.

Instead of worker ants constantly plying these routes in service to queens of the insect world, the hotel conduits are so seldom used that I end up with a cobweb mask over my puss by the time I find my quarry.

Calling two acquaintances of the Big Cat family “quarry” is a little nervy on my part, but my part has always been nervy, or I would not be where I am today. Which is in the belly of the beast, in the offstage areas below and above the theater and museum arena, going nose to nose with dudes who outweigh me by twenty times. At least.

If you are going to be intimidated by the canine incisor advantaged in this detection business, you have no business being in it.

Besides, they are caged and I am free range.

I amble over to the bars that separate them from me.

“Hi, boys. I was in the neighborhood and decided to check in. I hear you will be the centerpiece of another custom-bustin’ Las Vegas show.”

“Where is the delightful Miss Midnight Louise?” Lucky, the black leopard, asks.

He will never forget that she finessed him a fine shank of beef when he was being kept in chains and underfed for nefarious purposes during one of my previous adventures. It is one of my previous adventures, and not his, because I am the pioneering feline PI in this town and he is just a main attraction.

“She is having a manicure at the Crystal Phoenix,” I say.

Because she is the house detective there since I moved up to bigger and better things, like heading our own firm, Midnight Inc. Investigations, it is fair to say that her nail sheaths are getting a workout, even as we speak.

“That is one feisty little doll,” Kahlúa, the other black leopard, puts in with a baritone chuckle.

These Big Boys are way too indiscriminating, in my opinion. They have no idea what I have done for them. But a PI is most effective when he is most unnoticed, so I do not belabor the point. Besides, their “points” are way bigger than mine are. An effective PI is not a dummy.

“You are still working with the Cloaked Conjuror?” I ask.

“So far,” Kahlúa says, growling a little.

Lucky adds a bit of a roar in support of his foster brother. I am getting the impression of discontent under the big top.

“What is going on?”

“The Boss has gone soft.”

“No!” This I say with a straight puss, for there is hardly a human on the face of the planet—even the neon ones outside the New Millennium—who is not capable of leaving an animal companion down and out . . . flat!

“He is all taken with this new dame in the act,” Lucky says with a snarl.

“And her damn housecat—no offense,” Kahlúa adds.

“None taken.” I am many things, but housecat is definitely not one of them.

“I am,” so I inform them, “a street cat who happens to maintain an in-town condo and a live-in girlfriend. That is a whole different kettle of moray eels.”

“A live-in girlfriend, really?” Kahlúa is practically panting.

“Yeah. You have seen her around. Cute little thing. She used to be a ginger-top but she has recently gone platinum, like a record.”

I cannot tell whether they are purring or growling. That is the trouble with the really Big Boys. You walk a narrow line with them. Irritation and agreement often sound the same.

“We have seen nothing,” Lucky notes with a disconsolate purr turned groan. “We have been in rehearsal, but have not been allowed to strut our stuff on the stage here. It will be our first aerial act.”

“Aerial act!”

I am impressed, though I do not wish to let them know it. Nobody uses these Big Boys higher than a few piled drum pedestals. This idea is so innovative, I half suspect Mr. Max Kinsella of being behind it. But he has been AWOL of late. Not even my Miss Temple knows that he has been moonlighting as the masked Phantom Mage at the Neon Nightmare nightclub. The Shadow, however, knows. That is me.

“So,” I speculate, “the Cloaked Conjuror is going up, up, and away. He always struck me as the earthy sort.”

“He is.” Kahlúa shows his teeth. The big white vampire fangs in front are maybe two inches long. That is almost as long as my . . . never mind.

“It is that Oriental longhair dame he started associating with all of a sudden,” Lucky says. “We were doing fine as an all-guy act. CC is not built for aerial acts. He is all bone and boots and heavy-metal costuming.”

“You got that right,” I tell the boys.

If Mr. Max onstage and off as the Mystifying Max floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, the Cloaked Conjuror thumps like an elephant and lands like a sledgehammer. His shtick is outing magical illusions, not creating them. And creation takes brains, guts, and elegance. “Outing” takes greed, anger, and envy. My opinion. So sue me. I will see you in People’s Court, where I recently won a case, paws down.

“We think this is a mistake,” Lucky tells me.

No kidding. “So what will you guys be doing up there?”

“Jumping from black-painted platform to black-painted platform and vanishing.” Lucky boxes a huge black-gloved mitt over his prominent cheekbone. “In the dark. Black light. With mirrors.”

I whistle low through my quarter-inch front fangs. “Sounds like a suicide assignment.”

“For our faux master.”

They are speaking of CC, for whom they actually feel great affection. He is a big galoot but he treats them well. I understand that they think little of this new act; that they are risking their own hides for his sake.

“It is all her fault,” Kahlua murmurs bitterly.

I know that “her” well and concur. She has done my Miss Temple and me no good. And so I tell the Big Boys, who are all eyes and ears and fangs.

“Shangri-La,” Lucky hisses, showing his awesome fangs. “What can we do? Our faux master is besotted.”

“It is more than a business arrangement?”

“He is hated, threatened, masked, though feared and famous,” Kahlúa says with some fellow sympathy. “He has no friends but us, and does not understand how loyal we are. He falls prey to a capering female.”

Well, I have fallen prey to a capering female or two in my day, so I do not add anything to their summation.

“He is human,” I say finally. “The breed requires constant shepherding, more subtle than a mere dog’s. We will just have to do our jobs and theirs too. As usual.”

“Amen,” the Big Cats growl in unison.

You would think I was leading a revival meeting. But then, I am in a way.

“I will be in touch,” I say airily. “I have a delinquent human to mind too.”

“Awww,” they growl in sympathy.