Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Hitchhikers

Sorry, Miss Temple, I do not need a pat on the head, I need wheels and some armed and dangerous backup.

The women are still a bit shocked and shaky despite their brave talk, but it is no surprise at all to me that a midnight phone call reveals that the old man is ruff deep in a hotbed of shady women, dangerous men, and murder most sleazy.

I am surprised, though, that Mr. Matt Devine, who provided my first temporary shelter after I showed up as a stray at the Crystal Phoenix, would be in any danger of a murder rap.

No way, Bombay! That is not going to happen with Midnight Louise around.

I let the women-behind-the-men on the hot seat out in the desert run around and mount what passes for a rescue party.

I take careful note of their urgent shouts and consultations.

My sharp ears (both in their external appearance and aural effectiveness) twitch this way and that to take it all in. This Sapphire Slipper is tucked away on the backside of any reasonable distance, but where there is a will, there is a way.

“Won’t we need, uh, weapons?” Miss Kit Carlson asks, sounding as fierce as her frontier gunslinger namesake.

“No. Nicky said not.” Miss Van von Rhine is her sharp, efficient self again, her hair slicked down and smoothed for a rumble. “The brothers were traveling fully loaded, and the mock-kidnapping has turned into a hysterical hen party, he says. The boys will soon be in charge again.”

“When were they ever not?” Miss Temple Barr asks.

Miss Van von Rhine lifts an almost-invisible eyebrow. These pale human show cats have barely any vibrissae over their eyes, unlike my lush black spidery lashes.

“Apparently for a few hours tonight they have been disarmed, bound, and held utterly helpless.”

Miss Temple gives a disbelieving cry.

I agree. No wonder murder was afoot if the Fontana brothers were tied hand and foot. Who would be so stupid as to take the only decent muscle in Las Vegas out of action?

“I do not care what you say,” Miss Electra says. “We can stop at the Circle Ritz on the way for a couple useful switchblades I got from my motorcycle club guys. Forearmed is forewarned.”

Now we are rockin’! My switchblades are built-in, and I do not go anywhere without them. They are my American Excess card.

I follow the rescue party down in the elevator and into the blare and glare of the hotel’s busy gaming and public spaces . . . unnoticed.

Naturally no one would think to take me along, but I cannot allow the senior partner of Midnight Inc. Investigations to stew in his own aging juices. Besides, I can hardly wait to see the old buzzard held captive in a brothel. He will never live that down. Not while I am around.

I must admit that Miss Electra is a pistol at the wheel. She wrangles that well-mannered Brit Rover through the Vegas traffic like a broncobuster. We run over a few curbs and dust a few fenders, but what the hell. We move too fast to hear the curses in our wake.

While the big vehicle purrs on idle in the Circle Ritz parking lot and the ladies race inside to round up items suitable for an impromptu kidnapping-murder party, I hop out of the door behind Miss Kit Carlson and dive into the attractive shrubbery. The oleander bushes, though poisonous to us, make great cover for our kind.

“Paging Ma Barker,” I yowl.

She is in my face faster than a fistful of switchblades. Which she happens to be carrying.

“Who goes there?”

“Your putative granddaughter.”

The word putative stops her colder than granddaughter. I pick this vocabulary up from lawyers around the Crystal Phoenix.

“You are who?”

“We have met. Midnight Louise. Full partner in Midnight Inc. Investigations. I need backup on a freshly cold case with a hot corpse in the desert. It might involve making a certain Midnight Louie look like a pretty lame duck.”

“This would also involve—?”

“A wild ride in yonder Britmobile, maybe some discreet claw work, crime-solving, and saving Mr. Midnight Louie’s assets.”

Ma Barker snorts. “And he has any?”

“A few.”

“Yeah. I have a certain lingering maternal memory of the little imp before he was a big wheel around town. I am game. Let us hop to it. Oh. This Britmobile is a far bound upward for an old dame.”

“Hey! The Brits are ruled by an old dame. Come on, old girl, up and at ’em.”

I give her a friendly spur-prick on the hindquarters and we clear the running board together and hunker down on the dark carpet of the third row of seats.

“Where are we headed?” she inquires while laving her stinging pads.

“The Sapphire Slipper. The finest little whorehouse in the state of Nevada, which supports quite a few.”

“Sapphire Slipper? Shoes,” Ma Barker sniffs between paw licks, “are highly overrated.”

Once we are under way, I loft up onto a third-row seat back. Miss Van von Rhine is now at the wheel, Miss Temple Barr is in the front passenger seat, cursing and trying to operate the built-in map screen, Miss Kit Carlson is leaning over the front passenger seat, backseat driving, and Miss Electra Lark is loading lead into a nasty big black revolver behind the driver’s seat.

“So we are going out to this remote murder scene to do what?” Miss Electra asks.

I admire a dame who can mix bullets and leading questions.

Miss Van von Rhine heaves a sigh large enough for a sumo wrestler.

“Nicky said the kidnapping situation was under control, but that they needed Temple there to solve a murder.”

“Whose murder?”

“One of the ‘girls.’ The connection was riddled with static. I do not know whether he meant one of the girls who work at the chicken ranch, or one of the girls who kidnapped the bachelor party.”

“Chicken?” Ma Barker hisses from behind and down. “I could use a little snack.”

Now I sigh, but a lot quieter than Miss Van von Rhine. Ma Barker may be a tough old bird, full of street smarts, but she has no Strip sophistication. Hang out at a high-end Vegas hotel and casino for a few nights, and you know that sex in all flavors is for sale all over town, and you hear about the legal brothels called “chicken ranches” that dot the outskirts.

“These chicks are not edible,” I hiss back, “unless you like lime-flavored leg-shaving cream and nail enamel with a dash of glitter.”

“That is a funny way to dress a chicken.”

“These are the human variety. Chicks. Pretty women. Ladies of the night.”

“Oh.”

Ma Barker hunkers back down to lick her own toenails. I have been a street cat. There is not much time to master the finer points of human misbehavior when one is scrambling for a mote of food and a drop of water or avoiding imminent death under radial tires.

Meanwhile, in the front seat a debate has erupted over our direction and speed. Of course it is as black as the old man’s nose hairs out here off the main freeways. I risk lifting up to brace my front mitts on the roll of, yum, black leather upholstery under a side window. Full leather interior. My, my.

The night is as dark as always, with those pinpricks of light humans delight in. Starlight is good for nothing. At least the moon can illuminate an outside faucet dripping a little water on the grass. Finding water in a desert city is no picnic for the homeless of any species.

I have never been so far out into the empty desert. It is scary to look back and see Las Vegas as a star-small twinkling oasis in our wake. I am not frightened of much, but immensity. How will we find one small chicken ranch in this Big Uneasy Empty?