Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

Tailpiece

Midnight Louie Sounds Off

Call me Speechless. Which is my default setting anyway.

Who knew I was in for a career revival? When my Miss Temple comes home and falls on her knees before me and nuzzles my neck I know something fishy is up and it is not Chicken of the Sea.

I also know I am not Bast with a gender adjustment and do in no way merit bowing and scraping.

“Oh, Louie,” she exclaims. “It is so exciting.”

Yeah? Say Fancy Feast is importing sea scallops on the half-shell for my personal supply and that would be exciting.

She then unrolls this media deal and tells me what a star I will be and how we will work together again and be able to use the new zebra-stripe carrier I abhor while flitting from city to city to do talk shows.

At last! My previous on-camera brilliance has been identified. I have even been able to drag Miss Temple along in a bit role, obtaining her a certain fame and a slew of new high-heeled shoes for me to embrace in a little game of Kick and Bite the Leather. Plus she will get a payment almost as handsome as I am, and residuals. Perhaps a Pixar movie someday.

But then…she starts sweet-talking me into the infamous plan to conceal my svelte athletic form in a stupid zebra-striped zoot suit, not to mention a matching new version of the previously offending fedora hat. Using the Fontana brothers as a backup act in similar baggy pants and zebra-print lapels does nothing to assuage my sense of being presented as a figure of fun rather than of 007-level rakish charm. Is this proper attire for one who has been favorably compared to Sherlock Holmes (without the aversion to females), Columbo, and Mike Hammer?

Who does she think I am, Lord Peter Wimsey?

I turn my head and look at the ceiling, all disinterested like, so she will owe me. However, after my transcendent experience with Elvis and the gang at Zebra Zoot Suit Choo-Choo, I figure I owe it to my public to get out there again and cut a rug and earn my treats. Karma is not the only one who can channel the past.

Now on to the nitpicking. No good deed goes unpunished, it is said, and here all we of Las Vegas Cat Pack nation are indeed going unhailed and unheeded.

After running our footpads off on the piping-hot Vegas pavements from the edge of Downtown to the Lower Strip turf to track a murderer, tail sleazy purveyors of naughty entertainment and foil scheming mobsters, we have been left high and dry. With not even a little catnip to make the “high” part of the state pleasant.

And these are not the only sins Miss Temple has committed recently.

I can eavesdrop on a cell phone call. My burning ears tell me Miss Temple may be rushing off to an alien clime called Wisconsin, leaving Mr. Matt Devine in the lurch and surely miffed. I cannot blame him. My Miss Temple may mean well, but she can exhibit a shocking disregard for her nearest and dearest in her quest to solve everyone else’s problems personally. I too suffer from this tendency.

I am mightily miffed myself, and have hied myself up a floor to Mr. Matt’s residence, where we can hang out together as two wronged bachelors. Miss Midnight Louise argues that only Miss Temple can “compensate” for Mr. Max’s memory issues on the momentous occasion of reuniting with his family and his newly found-alive cousin Sean. Miss Midnight Louise was always partial to Mr. Max, who has always been overrated in my opinion.

We shall see whether my candidate or hers will win out in the end.

Very Best Fishes,

Midnight Louie, Esq.

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