Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

13

Enter Ingram

The lady said it herself; she requires a private eye.

So I leave Miss Temple Barr paging morosely through the Las Vegas Yellow Pages, which offer every service that can be sold and quite a few that should not be, and am on my way.

I exit the convention center by my secret route; I can only say that it involves air-conditioning ducts and certain adept but undignified motions on my part. It is the usual hot, bright day outside, but my tootsies flat-foot over the heat-polished parking lot asphalt as if treading black satin sheets.

I have not had an assignment of an investigative nature for some time. Such is the way of things. A fellow begins to be taken for granted when he is about the place day and night. And my past exploits around this town remain unsung, no doubt due to the lack of a good press agent.

That celestial masseur, the sun, beats hot hands on my head and back until I reach the Hilton and slip into the shade of its extensive, also expensive, landscaping. A noxious scent of cocoa butter and human sweat slaps my sensitive nostrils like a fly swatter. Tourists splash in the huge chlorinated pool and soak up ultraviolet rays and frozen margaritas. But I walk soft and I walk silent and nobody notices me unless I want to be observed.

I can move fast when necessary, and I know where I am going: to check out a reliable source of mine. If any foul play of a feline nature is abroad in this town, this gent will know about it.

Soon my hot-trotting feet have slipped the surly bonds of the Strip’s endless asphalt. I approach a small shopping center not far from downtown. Like most desert burgs, Las Vegas is laid out plain, not fancy: the long angled line of the Strip, otherwise known as Las Vegas Boulevard, shoots like a cocked elbow as crooked as Saturday night dice from McCarran International Airport to Downtown.

Otherwise, a few north-south avenues and a lot of east- west cross streets divvy up the four-square monotony of town planning. Except for the angling Strip and Highway 15 that parallels it, the street layout resembles a tic-tac- toe board, which may be why some call the old place ticky-tacky.

Once away from the Strip and Downtown, where all the high-rise neon sprouts, tourists express surprise at the city's modesty. Few buildings hit three stories; most houses are one-story bungalows with rocks on the roof. You heard me, stones are a roofing material of choice. Maybe the people who like to live here—and a lot do—have just got rocks on their heads.

In fact, were it not for the unique drawing card of legalized gambling, you might say, one would not find so much as a spitball out here. I might say more, but it does not become me to disparage the place of my birth.

My destination comes into view: the Thrill 'n' Quill bookstore, which occupies a narrow storefront. I pause to review the alphabet soup of tomes displayed in the window. Crimes from A to Z, you might say. Although the menu here is murder and mayhem, it is more tastefully presented than on the front of the Pennyroyal Press booth at the ABA.

Thrill ’n’ Quill book covers feature tangled gardens and shadowy figures, lengths of pearls and open bottles of sinister prescriptions, a lot of letter openers—or are they daggers I see before me?—and the occasional depiction of a noble feline, usually in silhouette. (I am getting to an age where silhouette is not always my best angle.)

The most ignoble feline of them all reclines in the window, white-socked feet tucked under his bib and a look of complacency on his tiger-striped mug.

I pace back and forth on the hot sidewalk to indicate my interest in entering the establishment. He yawns, showing not very white teeth. That is how the domestic life degrades an ancient breed; not enough natural fiber in the diet to keep the physique sleek and the teeth lethal.

In his own sweet time the lout at last rises, stretches and bounds down into the shop proper. I race to the door with high hopes and corresponding cries. Soon there comes an urgent call from within, then another. Shortly thereafter, the door opens, but instead of yours truly strutting in, a firm foot in high-top Reekbok (at my nose level it does) bars the way.

“Stay out, you old reprobate,” a reedy male voice admonishes.

In a moment my acquaintance sallies out, whiskers smooth and hound’s-tooth-checked collar turned around so the rabies tags chime at center throat. It is enough to make a red-blooded street cat puke.

Ingram, however, as this guy is known to his intimates, is a savvy sort about some things, for which I am willing to put up with a lot of hogwash. We ankle over to a shady spot around the side, which Ingram first dusts with his tail before sitting. I have never seen such a fastidious dude in my life, but then a bookshop existence does that to some. I remind myself not to spend much time around the ABA, in case this sort of thing is catching.

I fill in Ingram on the missing fancy cats. He has heard of these Scottish-fold geeks (apparently the Thrill ’n’ Quill also stocks books on related subjects) and, in fact, reveals that a mug shot of the pair adorns the bookshop bulletin board.

I say I already know what these missing persons look like, I want to know where they might be at.

Ingram spreads his rear toes and examines one neatly clipped nail. Then he commences to tell me he has not heard a thing. If they are on the town they are keeping a low profile, says he. Nobody has reported a midnight serenade with a Highland skirl to it, and nobody's domestic life has been interrupted by the appearance of foreign suitors. So Ingram tells me.

I suggest that these out-of-town types might have been surgically prevented from that last sort of thing.

Ingram eyes me slyly through his amber peepers and begins one of his more boring lectures, to the effect that not all felines are rabble-rousing ladies’ fellows like myself. He remarks that, given my aggressive amatory proclivities, it is a miracle that my ears do not have a decidedly Scottish-fold look by now.

“Listen,” say I, "I know how to keep my ears pinned back and outa the way in a set-to. Now are you saying you do not have a clue to the absent Baker and Taylor?”

Ingram admits as how he sees one of my ex-lady-friends lately, purely on a platonic basis, he adds. This particular acquaintance is just out of the hoosegow, otherwise known as the Animal Pound, and mentioned that a couple of out-of-towners had gotten rounded up.

Scottish folds are out-of-towners, all right. I inform Ingram that this is not much of a lead and inquire as to the appearance of this so-called pal of mine.

Ingram is not flattering. Two-tone low-life with a grizzled mug and a tail kink, says he.

Sassafras, say I, that being the name of the cat in question, not an expression.

Ingram yawns again. He is openly dubious about Sassafras being a genuine nomenclature and implies that my friends trade names as often as they switch humans and in general are a promiscuous lot.

I am forced to growl my disagreement. Ingram can be a schnook with whom I find my temper growing short. I point out that “Ingram” is a somewhat less than riveting moniker also, and that his usual ready rumor-mongering has come up pretty thin soup. He gets on his hind horse and says that he is named for a major wholesaler in the book business and that Thrill ’n’ Quill owner Maeveleen Pearl has a computer that instantly connects her to Ingram Central and takes the name quite seriously, or she would not have conferred it upon him.

Further, it has been a slow week, Ingram admits, rising to rub his chin on the corner of the building. He complains that he does not get as good info with The Substitute on duty while Maeveleen Pearl is trudging around with loaded book bags at the convention center. She returns every night with bound galleys, catalogs and more posters of Baker and Taylor. It is obvious by now that Ingram does not care if those two bozos ever show up again, in person or not.

I glimpse the green-eyed demon in Ingram’s expression, even though his eyes are old-gold-colored. If one is a bookstore mascot it would no doubt be a trifle aggravating to find some outside pinup boys tacked to every wall. Me, I would not give you an empty Tender Vittles bag for any of them, including Ingram, but there is no accounting for tastes.

I bid Ingram an insincere goodbye and pace back to headquarters, pondering. No matter how I shake it, an unauthorized call on the city pound is in order, if only to eliminate possibilities. I am not overjoyed. I also have not failed to note what number falls on this chapter of my reminiscences. Thirteen does not look like a lucky number for Baker and Taylor. Maybe not for Midnight Louie, either.