Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

17

Holy Cats

“I think we need to go to church,” I tell Miss Midnight Louise, intending to shock her.

We of the cat persuasion are not notable pew occupiers. They are usually made of uncushioned wood and hard on the back (and also the soft underbelly).

And some of us remain faithful to the ancient goddess of our kind, Bast, who lent her noble feline head and fancy headdress to a slinky Egyptian woman attired during a time of an apparent linen shortage in the Nile delta and standing twenty feet tall. The younger generation are not so observant of the old ways.

“I applaud the idea,” Miss Midnight Louise says, shocking me. “I assume you have a Catholic Church in mind, since you can confess all your many sins there.”

“So much for your assumptions. It is not called Confession anymore, but the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”

“Sounds like a mealy-mouthed substitute. How do you know all this churchy stuff?”

“My Miss Temple brought me to a Blessing the Animals ceremony at Our Lady of Guadalupe shortly after we first hooked up together.”

“I also was there and blessed, but as ‘Caviar’, a Humane Society cat. Thankfully, I did not notice you there at the Big Moment. But your Miss Temple quipped I could be ‘Midnight Louise’. And so they sadly named me after you when I became the Crystal Phoenix unofficial house detective. How could you forsake the Las Vegas Strip and the run of the entire Crystal Phoenix hotel and grounds to share a second-story flat with a nosy Nelly who cannot even decide which high heel shoe to wear, much less which man to marry.”

“At least she has a choice. Females of our kind are at the mercy of their hormones.”

“Exactly why I was thrilled to be ‘fixed’.”

I just shake my head. “I too am ‘fixed’, but by a fancy human procedure that leaves my anatomy intact in all its original glory, yet unable to sire unwanted kits.”

“Yes, you have a smidge of political correctness. Not voluntarily, though. I assume you wish to visit the scene of the forthcoming crime.”

“By ‘forthcoming crime’, I assume you are referring to the wedding.” I hiss out a sigh. “Yes, I heard at home a few nights ago it is a done deal. Miss Temple will marry Mr. Matt at Our Lady of Guadalupe. They will honeymoon in San Diego and stay at the Crystal Phoenix afterward while their respective rooms at the Circle Ritz are combined into one larger unit.”

Miss Midnight Louise’s golden eyes squint at me sideways. “And where do you plan to live after all this ceremony and during reconstruction? In the Circle Ritz parking lot? Do not expect to move in on my territory. Your day as unofficial house detective at the Crystal Phoenix is done. You abdicated the job to me. Looks like you are homeless again, Pop. That is human loyalty for you. Maybe Ma Barker will let you sleep in the basement of her favorite abandoned house.”

“Tut, tut, Louise,” I manage to mutter in a calm tone. “It will all work out. Meanwhile, we both know unsavory individuals are circling our human friends. Time to hie our hides to Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

“Lucky,” says Miss Midnight Louise as we watch from behind an oleander bush while the white van zooms away on to its next stop, “that the church linen service truck happened to be passing so we could slip inside during the next delivery. It will take a week to get the odor of starch out of my sensitive nostrils.”

“Luck, my rabbit’s foot. I have been staking out the place. I calculated the routine.”

“And we dropped off at the convent. The church is around the corner.”

“Ironic,” say I, “that a laundry service provided us transportation, given that those hateful laundry asylums for fallen women and girls unleashed Miss Kathleen O’Connor on all our friends.”

“‘Miss’ Kathleen is it now? She does not deserve the courtesy, but she did deserve the four-shiv right-cross to the face you marked her with when she tried to shoot Mr. Matt. That was a righteous move.”

“Why, thank you, Louise. You are mellowing in your full young adulthood, like our Miss Mariah.”

“At least I remember where I am going. Where are you going? The church is that way.”

I look over my shoulder. “I am heading to the convent garden. I am a nature lover. I am also here to see a cat about a surveillance job. He owes me one.”

“One what?”

“One of his nine lives.”

Louise looks shocked at last.

So I am first to bound over the concrete fence. By the time she has followed me to a blazing sunny spot on a bench beside the convent’s back door, two well-fed middle-aged cats, plain yellow tabbies, spotless white paws, but other than formal gloves no marks of distinction, like my white whiskers on formal black. Nevertheless, these guys are swarming me like their long-lost littermate.

“Come on, boys.” I shrug them off. “It is too hot for the one-paw Hollywood littermate hug routine.

“Peter,” I nod to one, “and Paul. This is a young apprentice of mine, Miss Midnight Louise.”

“Wow. Is this trim little number any relation to you?” Paul asks. Unfortunately. The boys direct their greeting sniffs and sideswipes to her.

“No,” I say.

“Not acknowledged,” Louise hisses back.

“Oh, you poor dear girl.” Peter casts rebuking yellow eyes at me. “I am named for one Simon Peter, who denied a storied relationship in the Garden of Gethsemane. I cannot in all good conscience recommend doing that.”

“Now you get a conscience, Peter,” I point out with my first shiv waggling. “Miss Midnight Louise was named after me by humans who thought it would be ‘cute’. There is no genetic proof.”

“Ah,” Paul says. “She is the fruit of one of those impulsive back-alley alliances and now she has renounced such irresponsibility. When we entered the order of nuns here from the Humane Society, we too took vows of chastity.”

“Abetted by a good vet,” Louise says sourly.

I must say that she does not take moonshine from anybody. I enjoy being not the sole object of her scorn.

“What can we do for you, Louie?” Paul exchanges a glance with Peter. “We have seen you stalking about the property.”

“Evil-doers may lurk.”

“We too have observed strangers on the grounds. We are cats of peace, and since the brutal attack on Peter, we keep close to the convent.”

“Attack?” Louise perks her ears straight up.

Both boys shift their eyes to the side at the memory.

“Yes, it was when we first joined the convent, some time ago. Someone tried to crucify Peter to that back door.”

“A crazy man who hated godliness.” Peter hunkered down on his haunches. “I fought, but he had bagged me first and I was knifed.”

Louise gives a short, angry growl.

Paul nods. “The act was discovered soon after and Louie’s human, er, cohabiter happened to be visiting the convent. Not from any intention to join, I must add. Peter was rushed to the Lord High Veterinarian.”

“Who was a female,” I point out, to win favor with Louise.

“Louie saved me,” Peter mutters into his whiskers. “I had lost too much blood. Louie donated his. He is a hero.”

“Him confined in what carrier under what tranquilizer shot?” Louise demands skeptically.

“Louise,” Paul says with a stern brush of what I would consider my second-most-valuable member, although his first is now pretty useless to him. “You are a cynical young female. We will never forget the bravery Midnight Louie showed here at the convent and church when we were besieged by a killer. He did nothing under duress, but was a heroic and kind volunteer.”

What can I add to that? I give a Mr. Spock eyebrow-hair lift—there was something very catlike about that beloved character—and fastidiously preen my shiny black hair. I must look farther into the Vulcan nerve pinch. I believe it is a variation of the firm way a mother cat will gather her kitten’s nape into her mouth for discipline and transportation.

Transportation! Another parallel universe conjunction.

Indeed, I believe all felines have a bit of the Vulcan in them. And do not forget the slinky, ebony feline fatale in the Gary Seven episode of Classic Star Trek.” Wowsa! I would put the remote control on permanent pause for her!

“Well,” Louise says with one of those damned Vulcan eyebrow-hair lifts. “Not to fear. We are here. Midnight Investigations, Inc. will inspect the grounds and the major buildings for traces of intruders. Totally gratis to you, dear boys. Is that not right, Louie?”

I was hoping for payment in custom-minced delicacies from the convent cook, Sister Mary Deli, named for Saint Delicius, virgin and martyr, but so heavenly manna slips away.

Lucky it did.

Miss Midnight Louise and I are heading to the parking lot, hoping to hop a ride, when I signal an urgent halt by curling my shiv-tips into her shoulder.

“Cut the unwelcome paternalistic guidance, Pops. I know where I am going.”

“Sssst!” I nod to the sleek familiar silver car. Of course, a renowned automotive model would be named after a cat.

“Mr. Matt’s Jaguar,” she whispers.

I look around the lot. “And over there, in the Juniper shadows. That low-brow guy’s junker. Now he is following Mr. Matt, and my Miss Temple. They must be seeing Father Hernandez, so the wedding is not only on, but imminent.”

“Why would the wedding be of interest to shady characters like that guy?”

“I do not know, but steps must be taken, Louise.”

“But what? How?”

Recalling the dozens of felines from The Case of the Cat Hoarder, an early investigation I assisted Miss Temple on before Louise’s day, I realize they still inhabit the neighborhood and have a churchly turn of mind and meow. That gives me an idea, but I cannot share it with anyone.

One thing I do know. No shady criminals will make mincemeat out of the happiest day of my Miss Temple’s life if I am around to make mincemeat out of them.