Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

23

Just Hanging Around

As the saying goes, “A cat may look at a queen”.

I get a bit confused by that. A pedigreed lady-cat who is breeding stock is called “a queen”. And then there are England’s Elizabeth the First and Elizabeth the Second, queens of England. And though one was and one was not breeding stock, they are called queens too.

I mention this to Miss Midnight Louise when I drop by the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino to look her up.

I had slipped back into the Gangsters limo when we passengers were unloaded at the Circle Ritz. The lovebirds were distracted by “discussing” Miss Temple’s Unsanctioned Midnight Adventure. When I followed Ernesto into the driver’s compartment, he and Julio just shrugged at my presence. They know me well from my Crystal Phoenix days of old and have learned to accept that my druthers are the equal of theirs.

“We would not want to continue in the middle of that lovers’ spat either, Louie,” Julio said, chuckling.

And there I am back on my chauffeured way to the Crystal Phoenix and Miss Midnight Louise, as planned. I was unofficial house detective there before she showed up—from who-knows-what no-name littering and dismal alley—so I have no trouble locating her office in the lavish indoor flowering greenery surrounding the Crystal Court eatery.

I am thankful Louise scorned my old outdoor stand beside the hotel pool’s canna lily and koi pond for office use. I can visit it to commune with my old pals, the koi, and see if they require any services, like population control, I might be happy to provide.

“What,” Miss Midnight Louise inquires, “has bestirred you to make the long hike from the Circle Ritz to here?”

“Hike, hah! I was chauffeured here, but I am seeking a companion for a long hike back to the Circle Ritz.”

“You are as out of luck as any empty-pocket gambler, Daddy-o. Why should I wear out pad leather on your impulsive say-so. An elderly screen queen traveling with a pair of afghan hounds has just checked in, and I must ensure her high-strung canines do not disturb the other guests.”

This is when I bring up the queen/queen conundrum.

“Well, that is off-topic to both our jobs. The definitions of ‘queen’ have nothing to do with our firm, Midnight Investigations, Inc.”

“I beg to differ. I am keeping in mind that whereas crime scene tape prevents all curious humans from crossing invisible thresholds, we as a species have a particular free pass.”

“I have responsibilities. I cannot go gadding about just because you have found some Crime Scene tape to violate.”

“Ah, well. I suppose I will have to clear Miss Electra Lark of murder by myself. I work better alone anyway.”

I have already turned away, and would have been out of hearing range, except that I have spotted a bit of Shrimp Diablo a guest has dropped on the floor. Such culinary carelessness is not tolerated at the Crystal Phoenix, and would not be allowed to lie undealt with for a second during my administration.

While I am tsking over this sad state of affairs, Louise catches up to me, snags the tidbit with one front shiv and pops it into her mouth. “What do you mean ‘clear’ Miss Electra. I was not aware that she was cloudy.”

“What? I cannot understand you when you talk with your mouth full. And Miss Electra is indeed under a cloud, a cloud of suspicion. Of murder.”

“Ridiculous,” she comments. I am not sure to what precisely she is referring. Usually it is me. “Of course we must observe the crime scene, but we need not walk. I just saw a Fontana brother passing… There is sure to be another around.”

She bounds off, expertly threading through milling tourist feet and ducking behind hotel floral displays and luggage carts until we near the main entrance. There we slip out on a trolley, hidden behind piles of leather-scented luggage ripe for a thorough and joint shiv sharpening. I even leave my initials on one. Customizing indicates the finest brands.

We go public at the curb, where Miss Louise blatantly sits at the valet’s desk, curling her long black train around her dainty front feet. Normally, I prefer to come and go undercover, but now am forced to join her. Luckily, people are concentrating on wrestling tips and baggage and we go unnoticed.

When a low black sports car pulls up, Louise trots across to the closed passenger door. “Come, Louie,” she calls me (like a dog). I follow with a feline slink in time to see a Fontana brother unpretzel his long, pale-attired legs and stand. It is the Crystal Phoenix Hotel boss man himself, Mr. Nicky Fontana.

Miss Midnight Louise looks up at him, and blinks her round gold eyes. I back her up with an unblinking green stare.

“What is this?” Mr. Nicky asks.

The driver comes around and turns out to be Mr. Julio Fontana. My Miss Temple seems to have some difficulty telling the ten suave brothers apart, but it is no problem for me and Louise. Every human has a different scent, including traces of recent meals. Umm. Sea bass in a white wine and herbed butter sauce. I could do without the white wine, but it is nice to see adult litter-brothers socialize—whether in Ma Barker’s clowder by the police substation or on two legs along the Strip.

“Louie and Louise,” Julio says. “Seeing them making the scene together would sure get Carmen Molina’s hackles up. Have you had a recent murder at the hotel?” He chuckles.

“None, thank God,” Mr. Nicky says.

“Are you sure?”

Mr. Nicky is looking a little worried, but not too worried to jibe his brother. “And…’Carmen’ Molina, huh? She does not give out that first name for public consumption, bro. Is the Iron Maiden of the Vegas police force moving from Mexican to Italian cuisine?”

“Not drastically, but she is definitely weary of black cats cluttering up her crime scenes. Why are these two together? The big guy usually hangs at the Circle Ritz.”

“And our dainty house cat does not leave the premises.”

(Little does he know.)

We listen to the brotherly byplay and keep mum. We are the strong, silent types.

Unlike dogs, we do not have to yip, gurgle, scratch, whine or paw to make our druthers known. We just stare straight at them until the people figure it out. Maybe it is some secret power known only to Bast, but if we wait long enough, and stare long enough, we will get what we need or want.

“You know,” Julio says, nervously jiggling his car keys. “Maybe I better get Midnight Louie back to the Circle Ritz.”

Midnight Louise finally stirs. She nestles her shoulder against mine—ugh, and blinks her short black lashes.

“She wants to go with?” Julio asks his brother. “I thought she was fixed.”

“Sure is, so no harm done. Just make sure you bring her back after the visit.”

“So I am chauffeuring a cat? Crazier things have happened in Vegas.”

“And stayed in Vegas,” Mr. Nicky adds. “I wonder what got into these two? They nailed a pickpocket at the hotel recently, so we better let them do what they seem to want.”

Louise and I have minded our manners and ridden on the Tesla Roadster’s black floor carpeting, not the leather seats, in case a claw should snag. When released in the Circle Ritz parking lot, we scamper for the surrounding oleander bushes, leaving Julio scratching his head as Miss Electra, happening to exit her own car, jumps as if she had just seen a ghost. (The electric-powered Tesla arrives as silently as a stalking lion and tends to startle people, which the Fontana brothers appear to enjoy doing.)

Among the oleanders, Ma Barker awaits us with a voice as sharp as her claws.

“About time,” she growls. “I have stationed all the shades and patterns of brown and gray from the clowder around the building in question. That’s the best camouflage color inside and out, and the police seem to have it in for us black cats lately.”

“So no Black Cat Ninja Brigade?” I ask. Browns and grays are, well, pedestrian.

“This is a dead scene,” Ma answers. “The crime has been committed and the forensic team has recorded and dusted and scanned the place from asphalt to attic. As you suggested, Louie, people have come lurking around. Perhaps word of suspicion falling on your clowder leader at the Circle Ritz has disturbed her charges.”

(I should point out here that Ma Barker is feral to her fingernails and not attuned to human social structures. Since she is the female leader of the pack, she considers Miss Electra Lark as an equal, and considers Miss Electra’s human residents as both Miss Electra’s underlings and responsibility.

That is not much different from my position inside the Circle Ritz, or indeed, any of our breed’s. We all have underlings and thus responsibilities.)

Louise and I hustle around to the other side of the Circle Ritz, strolling by the half-occupied shopfronts to the huge abandoned building where Jay Edgar’s body was found. The police are keeping the COD top secret. That means Cause of Death, not Cash On Delivery. Although, it could have been a hired hit, who knows?

Even now Ma is pacing toward the banned building, strutting under the yellow crime scene tape like she was queen. It is a cakewalk for us to survey and sniff the perimeter, then slink inside through a sloppily boarded-up back door.

“Hmm,” Ma pauses to note, wiggling her skimpy black whiskers. “A rodent-rich environment. I see why people find this a desirable property.”

Louise and I exchange head rolls. Ma is a product of her times. She even thinks the cages of the Trap, Neuter, Return groups are alien UFOs landing to abduct our kind and her gang to some distant planet. She will complain about not seeing a clowder member for a day or so. Then sniffing alcohol on him or her (or should I say, the new “It” cat?)—after said abductee returns dazed and unsteady, she will accuse the poor soul of cozying up to a human out on a binge.

Still, no one has better scouting instincts than Ma Barker. We follow her somewhat bent tail. Ma has paced far down the long corridor between the first floor stalls. The place is reminiscent, if not redolent, of a horse stable.

At last we reach a point where the floor grunge has changed from a patina of dust into a carpet of actual refuse and dirt.

“Hmm,” Ma opines. “Some homeless humans had a clambake here.” She sniffs the area, between sneezes. “Only the usual street filth ground into shoe soles. Unfortunately, humans do not lick those clean.”

“Meeuw,” Louise comments in disgust. She follows the disturbed filth to the edge.

I have an idea inspired by my out-of-body mind experience here. “These marks in the grit. Reminds me of old-time ballrooms, when humans shuffled around on soap powder they dribbled on the floor.”

“You are an old-style gigolo, all right,” she accuses me. “You know what I mean.”

“This could just be the usual CSI: Las Vegas shuffle, Louise, but what puzzles me is that I detect no smell of blood.”

“But why is the floor disturbed here in the middle of things?” Louise has moved to the first step of the central staircase. She gazes farther up. “Was the victim pushed down these stairs, and therefore the fatal injuries were internal?”

“This mountain is made of steps.” Ma Barker sounds puzzled.

I have forgotten the only Vegas structure Ma has ever entered was when I recently smuggled her into the Crystal Phoenix. As a life-long feral, she has encountered curbs, and even perhaps a back step or two, but an entire one-story flight is utterly foreign.

“You want to watch yourself, Ma,” I warn. “Those boards may be shaky.”

“Hah. I have excavated Dumpsters the size of boxcars in my day, sonny.”

I still worry, because she is creeping up the outer edges of the steps, quite a balancing act for one of her years.

“Louise,” I hiss under my breath. “Go up and shadow the old dame so she does not fall.”

“Fall?” Louise’s burning look singes me. “She is preserving the crime scene evidence. Even from here I can see that many footsteps have been dancing up and down those stairs.”

I take another squint and am shocked. My standing as primo private eye is about to be eradicated by dames of two different generations. How could I miss the faint disturbances on the steps? Rats! I mean, I took them for rat and mouse scratchings.

After giving a backwards sneer, Louise has obeyed me and is following Ma’s trail. I take the other far side of the stairs and shoot up it like a rocket, arriving up top first, at least.

Looking down, I notice ladders leaning against some deserted cubicle walls. S-shaped trails through the dust show they have been moved and replaced.

Meanwhile, Ma and Louise contemplate the ragged ski slide to death from their perches atop the stairs.

“My Bast-blessed side whiskers,” Ma mutters under her breath, “this manufactured mountain deathtrap has my head whirling worse than playing on the giant Jungle Jim at the Neon Graveyard museum. No wonder this Jay Edgar person with his pathetic, useless, slippery soles skidded right into the Clark County Morgue. I could strike the killing blow myself with one good leap at the back of his knees with all claws out.”

“He must have been inspecting the property,” I muse as I circle the disturbed dust at the top of the stairs. A jerking plunge to one’s death should produce some blood, though, even if it is only the artistic dribble out the side of mouth TV crime shows excel at creating. And I smell no blood at all, which means I smell a rat.

I must admit that my girl assistants have treaded carefully around any human traces, leaving plain imprints of their neat little feet.

Then I spy a strange symmetry in the stair-top markings. Parallel lines here and there, some brushed across, others clear as ice skate blades. Skates up here? Was some daredevil human so stupid as to attempt to skateboard down the staircase of an abandoned building?

I leap atop the newel post at the top of the stairs, confident I am disturbing no evidence.

“Louie!” two yowls reprimand me.

It does not matter. From my higher perch I have spied evidence for my unique and undoubtedly correct theory.

Poor Ma. Poor Louise. Their vision is limited by their born-feral perspectives.

Mr. Jay Edgar Dyson did not fall to his death.

He was not pushed to his death.

I nod my head at the dull, dust-coated glass chandelier hanging above us and disappearing into the high cathedral ceiling above. Random glints on one of the chandelier’s giant, strong, curved branching arms indicate where a rope or heavy drapery cord rubbed the glass clean.

Mr. Jay Edgar was hung. Hanged? Whatever. He was strangled, ergo no blood. And ergo the several straight marks of a ladder’s feet, made by the killer to string him up…and made by the authorities to bring him down.

“Our guy,” I tell the ladies, “was turned into a human chandelier pendant.”

“Then your keeper’s clowder chief cannot have done it,” Ma says.

“For once and for all, Ma, get it right. My roommate, Miss Temple Barr, is a client of my detective business. Miss Electra Lark is a landlady for the Circle Ritz residents. I deign to live there and also to provide personal protection for Miss Temple. For the last time, I am not a kept cat. I rule my own roost. And I am an independent private investigator. I will not compromise any investigation. As for Miss Electra, I must consider she could have done this killing if she had a coconspirator.”

“She could have made someone do it if she had a gun,” Louise says. “And by the way, Ma, I am a full partner in Midnight Investigations, Inc.”

“Junior partner,” I say.

She huffs and puffs. “A female cannot be a ‘Jr.’, although you certainly are a senior citizen.”

“No quite yet, you little ingrate.”

“How I put up with your senile maunderings, I do not know.”

She waps me across the nose. I wap her across the nose.

Wait. That nose-wapping was not us. It was Ma Barker doing a one-two rowdy-kitten slap-down. I have not felt the like in years.

“Sit down and shut up,” Ma growls in a disciplinary basso that lives up to her canine name. “If this is the way you two run your business, you will soon be pulling guard duty for those pesky alien abductors. I suggest if these so-called abettors to a hanging are a real possibility, you start looking for, and finding them.”

I fear that Ma Barker is right. With Miss Temple’s private life all in a lovers’ knot wad lately, I fear she has forgotten me and my crime-solving prowess. Hopefully, her affairs will get much simpler post haste and finding the murderer will be number one on the menu.