Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Chapter 50

Night Stalkers

Am I slicker when I am on a running streak than wet tar!

I race through the Goliath down to the entry, happy to see Mr. Matt’s very tailable blond head bypassing the main exit for the route to the big outside parking lots. After that, it is easy for me to ease unseen around the base of gaming tables and out into what is left of the night.

I am Louie-on-the-spot to eel inside the Jaguar by the last hairs on my second loftiest member and settle down for a smooth glide into my home plate, the Circle Ritz. My tootsies have done all the walking tonight, and they are aching for a time-out.

Mr. Matt Devine is obviously disturbed by his shock-and-awe moments with Miss Kitty the Cutter. I say, sock it to her! But being a kinder, gentler soul than the average thug, he is making penitential murmurs to a higher power.

I have never found making penitential murmurs to Bast too productive. To the contrary. Being a female goddess, she likes her subjects to scrap and scratch and bring her sacrificial prey in her honor.

Anyway, I have long been out of the Great Black Hunter game and am longing to sprint up the palm tree when we arrive home for some world-class snuggling and snoozing before dawn.

In not too long, the Jaguar pulls into its home lot. I crouch behind the driver’s seat to leap out at the first crack of the steel door, or whatever they are making cars out of these days, but the door remains shut. Come on! I need some shut-eye tonight.

I hear the automatic hiss of the driver’s side window going down and pounding footsteps heading our way.

I immediately assume flat-belly posture, ears down and eyelids at half-mast to better blend with the dark carpeting. (I certainly do not want my glittering greens to betray my presence.)

“Temple!” Mr. Matt says, sounding both relieved and perturbed.

She is breathless to see him herself. “Haven’t you checked your cell phone lately?” is her lovesick greeting.

Already it is down to the little things of life, even before the wedding. Tsk tsk.

“No,” Mr. Matt says, sounding guilty.

“There’s a weirdly urgent message from Max. It is like it was cut off,” Miss Temple says. “We have to get to his place right away.”

“I have never been there,” Mr. Matt says as I hear Miss Temple running around to the passenger side in what sounds like the flap of flats.

Things must be dire if she is going out in around-the-house shoes.

“I know the route. Get to Highway 95. And floor it.”

Ooof! My cheek and jowl are pinched by pain as my head and body are slung back against the backseat base and then into the back of the driver’s seat.

Belatedly, I curl my shivs into the luxury carpet and hang tough.

While Miss Temple backseat drives from the front seat, I rapidly sum up the Cat Pack situation.

Miss Midnight Louise will be on-site, since she elected to follow Mr. Max. Who took on Miss Kitty? Ma Barker. I told her that was a rough assignment for a senior citizen, but after she had slapped the starch out of my whiskers, she told me seniority meant she had the savvy and clout to slap the stuffing out of any sniveling psychopath on the planet.

I sure hope so, because I know of no way to notify the rest of the Cat Pack that something dark and dirty is going down on Mojave Way.