Cat In An Indigo Mood

Chapter 47

Stakeout

Night has fallen before I see hide or hair of Midnight Louise again, and I would not have done that, except that the canine version of a night light, Mr. Nose E. Byrd, is trotting alongside her.

I have the sensitivity not to ask what trash compacter they hitched a ride in, and greet them in the Circle Ritz parking lot after a wearing day of checking on the whereabouts of Mr. Matt Devine every hour or so.

"Where have you two been? Reno?"

Nose E.'s tongue is hanging down to his droopy ear-ends. "Where is the national emergency, dude? This spitfire has herded me here like a sheep to the slaughterhouse."

I can see that Nose E's coat is sadly bedraggled. His long, usually silky white locks twist and kink as if he has been rode hard---through the Caesars Palace fountains, for instance-and put up wet.

I nod at Louise. She looks like something you try not to see flattened by the side of the road.

"Do not ask and we will not bore you by telling," Midnight Louise snaps.

The normally amiable Nose E. adds his own snap and growl for emphasis. "Our only choice of transportation was a bottled- water service van. Not only did we stop at every other house, but an irresponsible left turn broke a water container. I nearly drowned."

I tsk-tsk my sympathy, but the fact is that an overturned teacup would almost be enough to drown Nose E.

"If I had not nipped him by the scruff of the neck," Miss Louise says, "and clawed my way atop a carton, he would have drowned. Unfortunately, he weighs a lot more sopping wet than he does dry!"

"l fear that my coat is permanently crimped at the nape." Nose E. turns to present his rear.

"Is that true, Louie?"

"A trifle . . . bent. Nothing that a good mother's lick would not cure."

"That is the trouble! I do not have a mother any more, and Earl E. is too nearsighted to notice. I do not suppose that you--?"

I jerk my head at Louise. This is woman's work. She scowls, but leans over to lick Nose E.'s neck hairs into a wet, slicked-down condition that should dry straight.

"Here is the deal," I tell the game little professional sniffer. "I know that Mr. Matt Devine has been near the same scent that we all detected at the scene of Wilfrid's death. Mr. Matt Devine obviously does not know he has been rubbing pant tags with a murderer."

"What is wrong with these human noses?" Nose E. bursts out. "Are they blocks of salt?

Stone? Granite? I do not get how they can rule the planet with such deficient senses."

"It is deficient sense that is their greatest lack," Midnight Louise sniffs, lying down to slick back her toe hairs.

I cannot disagree, but have no time to debate human failings.

"I cannot tell you why humans have such poor excuses for snouts, Just as I cannot tell you why dogs have noses a thousand times more sensitive than a human's, and cats have the edge in the brains and personality department. It is a fluke of natural selection, so I have naturally selected you, Nose E., as the key figure in our desperate attempt to right wrongs and save lives human and feline, and maybe canine."

While Miss Louise continues administering her best tongue- lashing, I inquire, "You do sport the usual dog collar under all that hair, right, Nose E.?"

"Arf course," he admits, then growls, "Damn red tape."

"Looks blue to me," I note as I glimpse the phantom collar through a blizzard of white hair.

"With the usual rabies tag listing the date of injection?" Nose E. whimpers in humiliation. "The ace drug-and-bomb sniffer in the country, and I must be certified sane and disease-free! You would think I had a social disease, just for being a dog." Well, if the stereotype fits . . . but I say nothing. Sometimes a dog can be useful.

"And do you also wear a bright blue aluminum metal tag on which your name and your, er, affiliate's phone number are emblazoned?"

"I would be picked up and subjected to unmentionable indignities if I did not. Besides, because of my sensitive work clearance, all my papers must be in perfect order."

"Stop badgering the poor little rug-rat sniffer!" Midnight Louise bursts out. "Of course he is collared and labeled. He is a dog. He cannot help it!"

I nod. "He cannot help it. And therefore he will be of inestimable value in this case."

Nose E. starts panting hopefully. "Really?"

"Really." I almost give him a cat smile. Almost. Cat smiles are extremely rare, and best noticed in passing, like mirages. Like the Purr of Power, cat smiles are potent beyond imagining, and I rarely employ them. Only in matters of life and death.

I nod, one last question to be asked. "And I also suppose that Earl E. is careful enough to have you wear a tag that lists your name, address, and phone number, if it does not reveal your undercover status?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Nose E. is panting with impatience now and bouncing up and down on the pads of his feet. "Now that I am here, what is my job?"

I glance up at the blank windows of the Circle Ritz. Behind one of them lurks our target.

"The timing is awkward," I say. "Perhaps it would be better to wait until morning."

"Wait until morning!" the pair chorus in pipsqueak indignation.

"After all we went through to get here?" Louise demands all by herself."

"In the meantime," I tell Nose E., "you can put your schnozzola to work and see if you pick up the scent I do, and if it leads where I think it does."

"Hmmf," he yaps, bending head and nose to the ground. After a few circles in the parking lot he snuffles along like a pig after truffles to the small shed at the rear of the lot.

"Sweet smell. Sickly smell," he declares.

"A dead smell?" Miss Louise wonders.

"Tut-tut. Nothing of the kind. It is one of those smells that some humans adore, and that other humans loathe. Odd lot, humans. Dividing smells into likes and dislikes, when they are ail of equal use. Of course, their nasal abilities are nil. I do not know why they even bothered to grow noses. They might as well not have them, for all the olfactory skill they exhibit."

"Yes," Louise says. "We know how superior your nose is. If it were any more superior it would be so high in the air you would trip on your ears and never get anywhere at all."

I can see that several hours in each other's company under stress has raveled the relationship.

"Hush," I admonish. "This shed is locked, but it contains a motorcycle. If we could follow its trail into the past, l am sure that we would ultimately find the human who bears the sick-sweet smell."

"I have not heard of any time-traveling motorcycles," Miss Louise notes. "World-class nose or not, we can only go forward in time. Nose E. cannot follow the trail all through Les Vegas."

He is now in the regulation Sherlock-Holmes-human-bloodhound posture, crawling over the ground, nose only centimeters from scraping itself off. "I could follow it for some distance, but once too many scents overlay the trail, l would be as lost as any housecat. Or even a human."

I ignore the jibe at housecats, because neither Miss Midnight Louise or myself is one, not by any attenuation of the imagination.

"We can only hope that Mr. Matt Devine will once again be in contact with the scent-bearer."

"We can only hope?" Miss Midnight Louise's huge golden eyes regard me with astonishment. "If you are right, we are to hope that Mr. Matt puts himself in the vicinity of a murderer."

"It will not be the first time," I answer briskly. "You forget that he has had that dubious honor before, and survived. Now. Nose E., I want you to follow that scent into the Circle Ritz and to whatever door it leads you."

Marching orders do much for the notoriously undisciplined dog. Nose E. puts nose to the ground and makes circular snail tracks right to the round building's side door.

"You know where he is going," Miss Louise points out from her position at my side.

"I want to make sure that the Nose knows where he is going. If we are going to rely upon a dog, l want to ensure that he is in working order.

"Now," I tell Nose E., speaking slowly and clearly. "I will introduce you into Mr. Matt's domain. It is up to you from there on.

You must . . . doggedly . . . you do understand the expression 'doggedly'?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Midnight." Pant, pant, pant.

Well, they can be disgusting, but they mean so well.

"You must doggedly cling to the scent I mentioned--the scent on his pant leg. You must stop for nothing. You must be indomitable."

"Yes!"

"All right, Sergeant Nose E. I will lead you to the arena. Remember! Sniff, cling, and be cute!"

He nods, sending his topknot into a cascade of cute.

Four pounds. I could snack on him. But there is that world-class nose. Touch not the Nose.

Quelle domage! as the Divine Yvette would say.

"What a sucker," Midnight Louise observes as she watches Nose E. trot up to the Circle Ritz door. "I must say that you have a way with canines, old man."

"Experience," I admit.

Nose E., of course, has no notion of how to open the door. He just sits there as if waiting for Santa Claus, who will not be passing this way again for around eleven months.

"That is the human door," I tell him. "The cat door is this away, up the palm tree to the third-floor balcony."

"Palm tree?" he squeaks. "I may have some rudimentary nails. but these claws were not made for climbing. I will have to find another way in."

Louise snorts. "There is no sense in all of us waiting out here until morning. It can get chilly."

"And my undercoat is still damp," Nose E. adds with a ferocious sneeze. "I am not used to alfresco adventures. I am an indoor dog. I could catch pneumonia."

Louise and I exchange glances. The little canine is right. We do not want the best Nose in the business sniffling its last on the stoop of the Circle Ritz.

We realize what we must do, distasteful as it is.

We curl up next to Nose E., one on one side, one on the other.

"Go to sleep." I tell him. "We will get in tomorrow morning when someone comes out and lets us in."

"I am used to sleeping alone in a flannel bed filled with cedar chips."

"You are sleeping alone." Miss Louise informs him. "Think of us as guard-cats. We are virtually invisible at night. Besides, I will uncrimp your neck hair again in the morning."

"Oh, thank you, thank you! I cannot bear to have my coat mussed. I will try to sleep, even though I have strange bedfellows."

He is almost instantly wheezing softly through his precious nose.

Louise and I shake our sagacious feline heads. What we do for the greater good!

We put our put-upon heads down upon our paws and drift into instant sleep, an Oreo cookie of fur. Only those who have dozed next to wet dog hair know what a sacrifice we are making.