Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

A Real Pickle

I wind up in the kitchen with my kisser in Satin’s empty food bowl.

The bored bridesmaids are chowing down chips, no doubt trying to outgrow their gowns before the ceremony at week’s end, just out of spite.

That seems to be their inbred reaction to crisis: flight or spite.

I am getting pretty spiteful myself . . . the more my stomach registers “empty.”

That the only remaining traces in Miss Satin’s bowl sniff of Midnight Louise and Ma Barker, not to mention Free-to-Be-Feline, does nothing to slake my bad mood.

I hang over the bowl, hoping the gesture will inspire She Who Feeds to action. But though the room is packed with shes, none seem the least bit maternal.

Then I hear the soft suck of the rubber seal on the refrigerator door.

I immediately gaze at this Moby Dick-size behemoth with interest.

I spot the old demi-dame who does odd jobs at this place pulling out a package that reeks of roast beef. Rare, just the way I love it.

I amble over, trying to turn the frog in my throat from the dry desert air into a respectable purr. I am prepared to massage the calves in those black slacks, even though I am not sure of their owner’s gender. I am not biased. I am an equal-opportunity mooch.

I am just about to abase myself with a total stranger (sorta symptomatic of business as usual here anyway), when I watch Ms. or Mr. Shoofly slip out the back door, a hunk of sliced odifer-ous beef in one hand, and a longneck beer in the other.

The bridesmaids are the usual self-absorbed and notice nothing.

I am fast enough on my feet to slip through the door under the cover of moving black pant legs.

Alone at last: me, the meat, and the night. And whatever.

The alluring odor is slipping away into the dark beyond the glow of the lamp-lit windows. Yet the cover of darkness is my native element. I slip-slide along behind the butch butcher of the Sapphire Slipper. I do not see why the odd odd-jobber here takes a snack break alone in the dark, but I would not trust those bridesmaids to refrain from stripping away every last, small solitary pleasure a guy might want either.

I do not appreciate the sand that is getting in between my toes. Not everyone here is shod in cowhide.

A flashlight finally flares into action now that we are out of sight and hearing of the cathouse. I can spot where we are heading, the roast beef and I. It is a low outbuilding, probably where the brothel’s vehicles are housed. I suspect most customers drive themselves, or are driven here by cabbies who get a cut of the deal. I overhear that a regular session can run four hundred clams. Or oysters.

But Miss Kitty and Ms. Shoofly must require vehicles to do the shopping and other homely chores a bordello requires. I am betting the laundry is done on-site. Umm, warm sheets fresh from the dryer and more than a dozen beds to make up every day. Miss Satin must be in catnap heaven when it comes to soft, warm places to snooze here.

Meanwhile, I am grinding the sheen off my nails and the skin off my pads trekking over raw desert cacti and choke weed.

At last Shoofly yanks open a barn-type door and vanishes beyond it.

I follow, secure in being behind the flashlight beam.

Well, this is a fine kettle of fishiness.

“Here,” Shoofly’s raspy voice whispers. “Some grub.”

“Beef? Just beef? No bread?”

“Beer is better than bread.”

“It is warm.”

“I did not want to grab a cool one from the fridge and get all those girls thirsty all of a sudden. Will you quit your griping? You were supposed to have been long gone. At this rate, you’ll be picnicking here for the police to find.”

Another flashlight points into the darkness. I spot the silhouettes of a Jeep Tracker, a van, and Gangsters’ own sterling-silver Rolls-Royce.

“Who ever parked the Rolls and disabled the engine did the same to the company cars.”

“Your leggy black showgirl pal did the parking. I am guessing a Fonanta brother slipped out to disable the vehicles once they’d taken over the house party. Did you not hear anything?”

“I was lying low in the Roll’s trunk, the way I got here. I just popped the emergency release and was free as a bird. I knew once the inside scene got going, nobody would remember the limo.”

“Too bad. Someone did. They take something from the ignition?”

“Not the usual cop movie mischief. Something’s got all these motors dead. I might get the Jeep going.”

The man’s voice stopped as I was forced to overhear beef-chomping sounds. Not mine. I then and there resolved that this unknown meat thief, and worse, should face immediate custody.

“What a mess,” the guy complains.

“What, the meat too dry for you?” Shoofly is snickering. “A big-time player like you? Want some pickle with that?”

During the ensuing string of curses I realize who this is: Gherken, the newly hired substitute chauffeur who let Asiah “bribe” him into letting her drive the Crystal Phoenix gang straight into the waiting arms of mayhem and murder.

“If worse comes to worse,” Shoofly is speculating, “you can always ride out of here on the horses you came in on.”

“Unlike when it arrived, that limo is not leaving here without a complete going-over for tracking devices and clues. It may be impounded on the spot. No way am I hiding out in that trunk anymore. Besides, it stinks of Fontanas and cigars.”

Aha! I smell a rat!

Maybe I even smell a murderer.

I have opportunity. I have gotten the meat of the matter, so to speak. Or smell. All I am missing is motive.

But first I have to figure out how to point my slow-tempo human associates in the right direction. That might be tough . . . until I recall a trick from one of my favorite bedtime stories.

No, it is not a mystery, although it was almost a murder case.

Piece of catnip.