Cat In An Indigo Mood

Chapter 52

A Nose for News

"Goodness, how absolutely cute!"

I awake, cringing, to these demeaning words.

Daylight has broken to reveal Electra Lark and muumuu standing in the open doorway, looming over us like a Hawaiian moon that has been into the Easter egg dyes.

"Louie and Louise, together again. And who is your little friend?" she croons.

Louise and I disentangle ourselves as swiftly as dignity will allow and leave Nose E. standing alone, like the cheese of song and fable.

He hops to his feet, shakes his disreputable mop and lets his topknot sag over one eye. How absolutely cute.

"Why, it is a little dog! I thought it was a hamster or something. What are you three doing on my doorstep? Do you want to come in? Why, certainly."

Easy as pie (except for being repeatedly insulted in cooing tones), we are in.

"Imagine you using the door. Louie! This is quite the red-letter day. I suppose you and your guests want to visit Temple. Yes, hop in the elevator. I will hit 'two.' You do know enough to get out when the elevator door opens. . . ? Well, thank you very much for the glare, Louie. I was just trying to help."

The doors ease shut on Miss Electra Lark's jolly face.

"We want 'three,' " I point out sourly, "but we can take the stairs the rest of the way."

"You have never been gracious to those who assist you." Miss Louise observes, staring fixedly at the numbers over the door as the lit-up one fades and two begins to glow.

"I prefer the elevators at the Crystal Phoenix. At least the ride lasts fourteen floors."

The doors open and Nose E. is the first to leap over the dark crack plummeting down to the Hitz's hidden basement depths. Louise and I check each other for failing courage. We cats hate to jump elevator gaps, a foolish superstition no doubt, but inbred.

We leap together, to find Nose E. trotting away from the service stairs.

"Wait!" l holler. "We want to go up one more flight."

"Following a trail, following a trail." he carols happily.

So we follow the perky plume of his tail cocked over his back like a horsehair fly-switch.

He disappears down a cul-de-sac near and dear to me.

"That is interesting," Miss Louise observes. "Apparently Mr. Matt visited Miss Temple after he had picked up the murderer's scent. You would have thought she might have noticed something."

"Scents are not her strong point; suspicion is."

Nose E. retraces his steps, nose to carpeting, to veer back down the hall and to the stairs we were supposed to climb in the first place.

The fire door is shut, but Nose E. stops obediently at the barrier. Dogs really are startlingly shy of initiative.

"Back off, l am coming through." With a running leap, I bound into the door, which swings wide.

While Nose E., sits staring at the phenomenon. Miss Midnight Louise encourages him to spring through the temporary opening with one well-aimed swat to the posterior.

A moment later, Nose E. turns with a belated snarl, which dies on his little black lips as he sees the door swoosh shut.

"That could have caught my tail," he whines.

"Not if you move fast enough," I say. "Now, mush upstairs. Follow that trail."

He does, and we do, and shortly after we are standing before the door to Mr. Matt Devine's digs.

After some heavy pawbeats on his door, Mr. Matt Devine opens it to admit Nose E. and me and Miss Louise.

"Hey, Louie. Have you found a friend?"

Stooge is more like it, but I practice my cal smile for the greater good of several species.

"This dog is a purebred."

Yeah? So we cats are not? I am pure black, am I not?

"Hey, little fella! Quit jumping up my leg! Are you wearing Slinkys for shoes, or what? Hey--

!"

When Matt Devine bends down, Nose E. is licking his face like it is a stamp. What a pro!

"You must be lost, a purebred like you."

Like cats cannot be lost because we do not have a pedigree? Please!

Mr. Matt Devine sits down on his long red couch (so like a giant, lolling dog-tongue!), on which I recently reclined to great photogenic effect, and plops Nose E. on his knee. These Lilliputian dogs will stick at nothing to curry favor.

"Let us see, little fella. Do you have a tag?"

Does Nose E. have a tag'? Does Basset have whiskers?

I wait impatiently for the obvious to unfold, while Midnight Louise slinks into place beside me.

" 'Nose E.' Odd," Mr. Matt says. "Someone ought to have come up with a more appropriate name for you than that."

Yeah, and Mr. Matt Devine is such a great expert at naming things?

He laughs as Nose E. slides down his leg to worry tooth, nail, and nose at his pant leg. "Come on. No wiggling. Got to read this thing---ah, a phone number." Muttering the numbers over to himself while trying to keep Nose E. corralled, Mr. Matt also tries to punch the telephone buttons one-handed.

I watch in stupefaction. Who says humans are manually dexterous? But finally my hero has the phone receiver pinched between his cheek and numbing shoulder, has Nose E. penned in his lap, and is waiting for an answer.

I am waiting anxiously myself. I do not know what hours Earl E. keeps or where he hangs his hat when he is not selling wax-museum platters.

"Hello," Mr. Matt says suddenly. I notice that since he has become a radio idol his voice seems to be deeper and more deliberate. Pretty soon he will be sounding like a Crawford Buchanan clone. You do remember Crawford Buchanan? The sleazy reporter for the slimy Las Vegas Snoop who always has it in for my Miss Temple.

"I have a"--he pauses to rear back for a good look at Nose E., lo make sure he has the species right; cannot blame him- "a small dog here. Called 'Nose E.' Oh, you do. Yes, well, he showed up on my doorstep just now and he is sniffing and chewing the devil out of my pant leg.

Uh, no, I am not 'smoking dope.' "

A long silence.

"I can understand the dog is valuable to you; it looks like some kind of ... purebred. Well, I work night, so I don't know I can get him to you so fast. Um, is this address near downtown?

Uh-huh."

Human conversations! So unoriginal. So stop-and-start. So hard to interpret from one side of the fence only!

"Actually, he was with a couple of cats that are known to me. One's from this neighborhood and one is from the Crystal Phoenix up the Strip. Does not usually like cats? They seem to get along fine." Another silence. "I would rather not give you my phone number just now. Ah, I work a high-profile job and I like to keep it as private as possible. An entertainer'? I guess you could say so. Oh. The saxophone. Cool instrument. Well, Nose E. seems fine, other than digesting my clothing. Let me call a couple people I know and I will see if someone can get him back to you tonight. I know you must miss the little guy: he is quite . . . active. Yes, I know he is very valuable; I will take care of him, and call you back in a half hour or so."

He hangs up and addresses me for some reason. Perhaps it is my wise, nonjudgmental expression. "Whew. That guy was a little too anxious for my name and address. Should not be so suspicious but . . . a dog. Sort of. Hey, cut that out! I know--" Mr. Matt looks both happy and inspired as he picks up the receiver again. In a moment he is smiling, though not for us. "Temple! You are in, thank God.

"I have acquired a dog. Or it has acquired me, rather. Little white thing. Looks like a long-haired rat, maybe three or four pounds. Maltese? If you say so. Anyway, Louie and Louise escorted it to my place. It looked a little lost and it is eating my Khakis. I called the number listed on the lD tag and the guy there, I do not know. He sounded kind of. . .fishy. Do you think you could--? Great!"

Mr. Matt dumps Nose E. into my and Louise's custody and runs around the place stacking newspapers and moving coffee mugs into the kitchen. Like Martha Stewart was coming up for a white-glove inspection or something. I am just glad I am not in the apartment below watching my Miss Temple scurry around.

About five minutes later, a discreet knock at Mr. Matt's door has all our ears pricked. She is so thoughtful. No doorbell gongs to disturb Nose E.'s tiny ears. Mr. Matt opens the door cautiously so Nose E. does not run out, but Nose E. is too busy having conniptions over the scent on his trousers to run anywhere but at the nostrils.

"Matt! Is this the dog'? Or a renegade cotton ball?" Miss Temple storms in, a pair of dangly earrings swinging at her neck and her high heels clicking, and is on her knees to Nose E. as soon as you could say "pushover."

"What a darling dog. Definitely a Maltese. Well, it certainly likes you."

"Not me. My wearing apparel. How do you suppose it got here. and in such good company?"

It is only then that Miss Temple deigns to notice Midnight Louise and myself. "Louie and Louise . . . Louise is a long way from home. Maybe the dog lost its owner at the Crystal Phoenix, and Louie somehow picked the both of them up and led them here."

"No." Mr. Matt has sat clown on the sofa again, happy that Temple's petting has kept Nose E. at bay for a while. "The dog's owner lives, or works, near downtown. I have the address and phone number, but the guy was weird when I called. Asked if I was smoking dope at the moment, like I might be crazy or something."

Miss Temple sits back on her heels, the better to fawn over Nose E. One would think sitting back on high heels would be like cozying up to a beaver-tail cactus, but l have never tried such a feat, either sitting back on high heels or cozying up to a cactus.

"And then," Mr. Matt adds, "he wanted my address and phone number in the worst way.

Kept saying the dog was invaluable."

Miss Temple frowns, already showing the suspicion she is justly famed for. "Might be some kind of 'lost-dog' scam. You go to the address like a good citizen to collect your reward for returning the dog, and they jump you and take all your money, and the dog."

"Very creative," Mr. Matt says approvingly, smiling at her like she has just delivered the answer to the year-2000 computer glitch.

Meanwhile, Nose E. is trying to lunge from Miss Temple's custodial grip and shouting the obvious to all who would listen. "The sick-sweet smell, it is all over him. I cannot be sure, but there is even a trace in his hair. Let me at 'im; let me at 'im."

"Nose E.," Miss Temple notes, disinterring the tag from the animal's plentiful hair. "You would expect anyone who names a little fluff-budget like this 'Nose E.' to be weird."

"Yeah. So l put him off about giving my name and phone number and called you right away.

What is going on here?"

"The dog might be legitimately lost," Miss Temple says sensibly, "and Louie took him back here to hit up the local patsies. It worked before," she adds significantly, with a long look at yours truly.

At last I am getting some credit for masterminding this operation, even if she only sees the surface of my grand plan.

I must admit that it has a ways to go. Somehow, we must lead these incredibly dull-wilted humans to the conclusion that what Nose E. finds so attractive about Mr. Matt's pants is the trace of a killer and that Mr. Matt must lead us to everywhere he has been of late, so Nose E.

can finish his sniffing duties before poor Earl E. thinks he has been kidnapped.

While we are all contemplating worst-case scenarios, one that nobody has yet thought of makes itself painfully clear.

The taint shriek of police sirens--nowadays a scale of loud and soft yodeling that would chill the blood in a crocodile--comes hurtling toward us like a meteorite.

Apparently Earl E. is no dummy, and he has concluded that Nose E. is in the hands of a dangerous drug lord or a mad bomber. That little hairball is about to get the Circle Ritz surrounded.