Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

6

Off-Campus

I, of course, escort the ladies. Unlike Miss Temple, I savor my short stature and being overlooked. The canny investigator does his best work under those circumstances.

As I take up my discreet rear guard position to watch the Circle Ritz ladies wonder and wander, I muse on the fact that my Miss Temple needs a foot system like mine, whereby I can retract my hidden shivs in a nanosecond. I would look ridiculous if I tottered along on extended tippy-claws. I am not sure why my Miss Temple does not when she is doing so, but if her fancy shoes had retractable heels, she could have it both ways, as I do.

Like Miss Temple, I am used to entering and exiting the Circle Ritz by the parking lot. I had never strolled around to the building’s side entrance to view all that wedding chapel traffic. Now I notice the block of shops opposite the wedding chapel entrance. Many are empty, rental signs in their blank glass windows, but others cater to the marriage enterprise. The window of Making Marry showcases wedding cakes and champagne glasses, fresh floral bouquets and “instant engraved” napkins.

“Oh, look,” commands my Miss Temple as we pass another going establishment.

So I do, then nearly bite off my tongue in shock.

“I did not know,” Miss Temple is telling Miss Electra, “a bookshop was so nearby.”

Neither did I.

She goes on. “I would have dashed over for the latest Anne Perry and Elizabeth George novels.”

I would have dashed over to find out when Miss Maeveleen Pearl’s Thrill ‘n’ Quill bookstore relocated here, next to my stomping grounds, with Ingram, that snooty tiger-stripe, still in residence.

The women have stopped to study the window, so I am forced to pause and be IDed by its resident alien.

“Look,” Miss Temple says. “A cat in the window. How charming.”

What a lazy, lay-a-book dude he is! Just because I consulted Ingram on a matter or two in the past and he lies around all day on the likes of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, he considers himself my intellectual superior. Even now his acid-yellow eyes descend to half-mast as he spots me. Then he yawns and fans his prized six toes against his lower jaw in a most condescending manner.

If he were human, he would wear a bow tie, in plaid, like they put on Scottish terriers, which breed happened to be involved in my last case. Ingram is reclining near a magnifying glass in the display, but I would not put it past him to affect a monocle, should he ever get his paws on one.

“Look at Louie,” Miss Electra chortles. “His tail is bristled up like a tumbleweed.”

She should talk. Her hairdo is puffed up like a plate of pastel-tinted marshmallows.

We resume walking, thank Bast. I give Ingram a quick nod over my shoulder, but he has curled up into ball resembling a very large pair of rolled-up stripped socks. I must admit that his camouflage options are impressive.

“You know,” my Miss Temple is saying, “this is such a cute little shopping area, but it needs some sharp PR to get the word out on it. Then the area would attract new shops.”

“I know,” Miss Electra says as grimly as a bouncy personality like hers ever manages. “I own the whole kit and caboodle, but the Great Recession hit Las Vegas so hard I lost a lot of renters.”

Miss Temple has stopped abruptly, causing me to smash my tender nose into her calf. I may have been distracted by giving Ingram a dirty look over my shoulder.

“Louie! Are you still with us?” she asks.

I should hope so.

However, she is more interested in Miss Electra’s revelation than my stubbed nose at the moment.

“Why did you not tell me, Electra, that you owned some nearby commercial sites too? Drumming up business is my, well, business.”

“The rent was welcome, but these shops mostly cater to wedding chapel customers. The newest one is the bookshop, which got priced out of its old location and lease after clinging on through the worst of the recession. Maeveleen Pearl, the owner, tells me independent bookstores are making a comeback. But when Vegas ‘comes back’ it is with more topless pools at the big hotels and more blue businesses in offbeat corners.”

“Blue businesses?” Miss Temple asks my question for me.

Miss Electra laughs, patting the naturally white part of her coiffure. “In the old days, in the very old days, anything that was a bit smutty was called ‘blue’. Blue humor is a satire on the bawdy ways of the world.”

“Which are major in Las Vegas,” Miss Temple notes.

“Yeah. When it comes to commercial ventures, I guess we are all ragtag hangers-on about to be drowned in Las Vegas sleaze.”

“Electra! That is no way to think.” Miss Temple paces back and forth in a two-foot range like a caged Big Cat, only she is a little cat. “You own the block of shops across from the wedding chapel. Anything else?”

“A few lots here and there. Most everything here was razed when the Strip expanded south years ago and this area is not on any main drag. You know the Vegas Strip still has odd pieces of property beside and behind and be-shadowed by the huge hotel spreads. That is where tacky tourist shops spring up.”

We are all walking again, but Miss Temple has not walked back her pep talk.

“A smaller commercial space does not have to be tacky, Electra. It can be charming. It can be an urban village. You already have a bookstore and wedding accessory shop that complement the Lovers’ Knot. You are halfway there.”

“Urban village?”

“Yes! A destination inside the biggest destination city in the country, Vegas. A laid-back shopping and eating area within an encompassing metropolis.”

“The only people who could see and patronize these few shops are my wedding chapel clients. And with even the Mob Museum downtown doing elaborate weddings, my place is not splashy enough, and I am losing customers. I was thinking of closing down.”

“Closing down the Lovers’ Knot? Not! You do not want splashy, Electra. You want charming. Trust me.”

“Well, you are charming, so I suppose I gotta trust you.”

“Urban villages are popping up in San Francisco, Seattle, out east.”

“Las Vegas is not really a metropolis, Temple. It is a super-duper commercial roller coaster ride from a very small Downtown ‘Experience’ that has a very long and narrow tail, the Strip, thronged with a massive array of adult Disneyland ‘attractions’. I do not see how you plant a viable ‘village’ in some forgotten corner here.”

My Miss Temple sighs. This means she is sure she is right, but is going to have trouble proving it. When she thinks she will have trouble proving something, whether it is a commercial venture or a murder case, she will only work harder to do just that.

“Vegas already supports one super successful urban village, Electra.”

“You are kidding. I have not seen one.”

“Think. It is north of the Stratosphere but south of Downtown.”

“That area is a kind of No Man’s Land, Temple, with a hodge-podge of small downscale enterprises.”

“Not the Pawn Star development.”

“Oh, that freaky reality TV pawnshop show?” Electra pinched her nose in a gesture of disgust. “Way too low-brow to be considered a normal business.”

“That is why it is popular. So popular they have four thousand tourist visitors a day and are putting in restaurants and shops to hold them as fast as they can.”

“The title of the show has pre-cheapened the concept, Temple. So. You think a Pornucopia offshoot coming in down here will provide that Pawn Star draw? Lord knows what they will call that, and, on second thought, I am sure He would not want to know. Are you saying we should get aboard the X-rated sleaze train?”

“No. The opposite. I am saying we need to close that family-unfriendly puppy down so you can build your own urban village. You said you want to get a protest group going. That is a start.”

“Temple.” Now Miss Electra has stopped walking to pace in her cushion-soled flat-heeled shoes. She does not make a sound, whereas my Miss Temple always sounds mucho macho, brisk and businesslike, like say, a rattlesnake, when she gets her low-riding castanets clicking. “We do not have a reality TV show gone viral to draw fans.”

“Not yet,” says my Miss Temple. She likes mowing down obstacles the way a tsunami would if it had red hair. “Now. Let us see what is what with those would-be ‘Porn Stars’ down the block.”

She turns to make sure I am bringing up the rear of our little party, my own rear member held high, supple, and handsome. Of course I am.

“From what you are telling me of this new kid on the block,” she tells Miss Electra Lark, “I am not sure Louie should tail along. He is underage.”

“I am sure he should,” Miss Electra insisted. “I believe is it several human years to every cat year. At that rate, Louie should last—”

“Too much information, Electra.” My Miss Temple plants her heels in place and holds up a traffic-cop palm. “I refuse to hear that Louie has an expiration date.” She shudders dramatically in a manner I find most personally satisfying.

Miss Electra shrugs. “I was about to say I think if anything reincarnated, it would be cats. Especially Louie.”

“Even worse. I do not want a retread. I want the real and original.”

“In Vegas? You are an optimist, Temple. But maybe you are right. Maybe we can turn X-rated into X-iled.”