Cat On A Hyacinth Hunt

Chapter 11

Midnight at the Oasis

Midnight. Murder. What's the Diff?

When one is short, short of cash, and persona non grata at most of the establishments in town (through no fault of one's own except accident of birth, I might add), finding entertainment in Las Vegas is still as easy as even odds. There is no more democratic town than Vegas when it comes to playing to the rabble of any species.

One just has to get there early enough to ensure a good seat.

So it is that I find myself perched upon the lip of an ancient looking wharf, gazing into the rippling waters of an ersatz Mediterranean Sea. No doubt my Egyptian ancestors sat in just such a pose to contemplate the mighty yellow delta of the river Nile.

My dubious descendent, one Midnight Louise by popular acclaim but no input of mine, sits beside me currying her tail with her tongue.

She makes a great deal of this common beauty routine, rather like a human female applying fresh lipstick at a dinner table in the Paris Ritz. No doubt the grooming fetish is meant to remind me that she has Longhair on the one side of the family--not mine-- for my rear member is long, but bears a buzz-cut rather than a ponytail. This suits me fine.

Not that I am admitting any paternity here. I was not born yesterday, and the Esquire I use after my name on occasion is not just for show: when they use the phrase "street legal" they are thinking of my gaming-house-lawyer nose for what is permissible, performable and preferable.

Although the New Year has not quite turned, I am still in a holiday mood. Thus I attempt a gesture of reconciliation with my namesake.

"These are pretty cheap seats, Daddio," she sniffs once she has deigned to lift her face from her rear quarters to regard mine. My face, that is, not my rear quarters. Miss Midnight Louise has been "fixed" so that her only interest in the aft of the male animal is to see it walking away from her.

"The Midnight Show at the Oasis is not exactly a prime ticket," she adds. Her petite black nose strains out over the water, sniffing again. "This man-made swamp does not even support any game fish, just a lot of rusting underwater gears and tracks."

I resist the opportunity presented by a lonesome stretch of water and an empty wharf; I allow the mouthy Miss Midnight Louise to mince back from the brink with distaste. Were she any spawn of mine, I am sure that I could not resist a disciplinary whap with my despised shorthair tail.

"I thought we could dine later," I reply, unruffled. "At Chef Song's private table at the Crystal Phoenix."

"The Crystal Phoenix is my beat now, and I eat in it all the time. I am sure that Chef Song gives me a higher quality of leftover than he would give you. You do not turn your pockets inside out when you spring for a meal, do you, Daddy dearest?"

"Stop using that dreadful misnomer. We are no relation. I much preferred your shelter nom of Caviar. I cannot understand why Miss Van von Rhine had such a lapse in taste as to rename you 'Midnight Louise.'"

"She was a new mother at the time," Louise returns sourly.

If I had been grooming that longhaired vermin trap of a tail, I would be sour too.

"But, then," she adds for good measure, "what would you know of new mothers? You are the type to hit on, and run."

"Ah, but I am no longer offspring-enabled," I point out.

"No thanks to any doing of yours."

"Circumstances have deprived me of parental expectations, it is true, but I will make the best of it."

"I am sure you will, but not with me."

"Louise! I am shocked. You insist that I am your father. Although I disagree, I must respect your misapprehension. I would never make unfatherly overtures toward you."

"No, you never would, because you know you would get a five-claw salute to the kisser." She shrugs the rusty black fur-piece over her shoulders into neater order. "I do not know why you suddenly wish to share my company, since you deny being my father to the death and you know that I would lacerate your lousy hide to the bone if you tried anything funny with me."

"With my luscious little redheaded roommate, Miss Temple Barr, working on a long-range project for the Phoenix, I feel we should get to know each other better. Bury the hatchet.

Cooperate like the trained professionals we are. We will no doubt be seeing more of each other."

"I am professional. You are a blot on the seedy Las Vegas landscape. A very large blot."

Just because the streetlight behind me flares like a setting sun and I cast a long shadow that blurs the edges of my true, muscle-sculpted form is no reason to affront my size. I do not call her a "puny, anorexic pip-squeak."

By now the foot traffic behind us has picked up. Human feet and legs and body odor crowd us to the brink. Everyone in Las Vegas knows that the Oasis Hotel's "Battle of the Barges" occurs on the hour around the clock.

Being the thoughtful escort I am (even of an ungrateful brat), I have arranged that we see the more dramatic night-time spectacle, held at my signature midnight hour.

"It was thoughtful of you," Midnight Louise admits after turning and delivering a blood-curdling snarl to an encroaching human ankle, "to invite me to the show held at the time that celebrates my new name. Much as I hate to bear a version of your name, at least 'Midnight Louise' is a hair better than just plain 'Midnight.' Humans have no imagination when it comes to naming black individuals of other species. Where did the 'Louie' in your name come from, anyway?"

I fan my nails, which bear an ebony sheen that would do a Steinway concert grand piano proud.

"Some suggest I was named for my distinctive singing voice."

"You do sometimes sound like Louis Armstrong with a tracheotomy."

"Others say I was plucked off the street as a kit and gotten drunk on beer by a group of frat boys, so the name of their song got pasted onto me."

'The infamous 'Louie, Louie,'" Louise growls. "I wish I had been there. I would have signed, sealed and nailed those creeps for introducing alcoholic substances to a helpless minor of another species."

I am touched by her concern, but cannot let a misapprehension linger. 'These were Eastern frat boys, my dear. I was not named after that low-brow drunken bar chorus you mentioned, but rather after 'the Whiffenpoof Song' so dear to Yale University undergraduates."

" 'Whiffenpoof!" Louise practically rolls over the wharf's edge laughing. "Whiffenpoof? What a wimpy name."

"I believe the line is: 'and to the place where Louie dwells, to dear old Temple Bar.'"

"If so, it certainly was a prophetic naming. I believe that your Miss Temple is a female of accomplishment worthy of admiration despite her inexplicable association with you, but isn't she a little young to be celebrated in song by drunk undergraduates of Eastern educational establishments?"

"I notice a distinct improvement in your vocabulary level from associating with me, but unfortunately not in attitude. You are leaping to the erroneous conclusion, as usual. The

'Temple Bar' in the song is not a person, any more than Temple Bar' landing on Lake Mead is. It is a bar."

"Aha! I might have known."

"And 'Louie' is the esteemed proprietor of same."

"Are there any esteemed barkeepers?"

"Apparently in song."

"Speaking of keepers, you are right at least that Miss Temple will be haunting the Crystal Phoenix more of late. Groundbreaking has begun."

I cannot let Miss Louise's latest gratuitous dig go unplumbed. "Miss Temple Bar is not my keeper. I allow her to consider herself responsible for me--though that often entails odious or even torturous visits to the vet--but the fact is that I am the one who keeps her from disaster during her forays into crime and punishment."

Now that I have put Miss Louise in her place, I can inquire into the tidbit of news she has dropped like a guppy into a Great Lake. "So what ground are they breaking at my dear old stomping grounds?"

"They are tearing up the back lot for the latest theme scheme in town," she says, wetting a foremitt to stroke her airy eyebrows into place.

"Oh, yes. The Jersey Joe Jackson memorial ghost town and mine ride."

"The construction site is attracting the usual lowlifes."

I nod. Construction sites mean construction workers. And construction workers mean brown-bag lunches and fast-food wrappers and leftovers.

"I do not mind the homeless making discreet forays into the daily garbage, but the pickings also attract scavengers that cannot be tolerated at an upscale place like the Crystal Phoenix."

I nod again, as the foul word finally slips my lips. "Dogs."

'The occasional dog is all right as long as it does not whine and beg excessively. I am talking about packs."

"Dogs tend to congregate in cowardly gangs."

"I am talking wild dogs."

I lilt my luxurious brows without bothering to groom them first. Miss Midnight Louise is a petite thing, for all her big mouth, and I cannot see her facing off a pack of wild dogs.

"If you mean coyote clan, I could put out the word on the sand that they are to steer clear of the Crystal Phoenix."

"Like they would listen to you."

"Hey. I handled a tricky case for them. For the head coyote, in fact. Mr. Big."

"I have not heard of a Mr. Big in the coyote clan around here."

"This was the Big Mr. Big. The one the Paiute Indians call The Trickster God. He can take on all shapes and all colors and all species. Believe me, he is one awesome dude."

"Oh, Daddio. You and this New Age kick of yours. Cats of your generation are such an old-fashioned and superstitious lot. Coyote clan is a gang of nervy, nomadic scavengers who may be pretty wily, but are basically garbage collectors and public nuisances. My sole problem with them is that the only cat they have the sense to respect is a desert puma. I have to make my point--" here, she flicks out a set of dainty but razor-sharp shivs "--with them over and over.

They are beginning to regard four tracks across the snout as some sort of gang initiation rite and are sending all their young toughs to me. You would think I am a tattoo service."

"You need not act like a puma to make your point. They will listen to me without me lifting a shiv. I tell you, they owe me. I will come over some night and tell them to get lost."

"No! I have enough to patrol with all the construction mess without looking out for you too.

Besides, are you not going to be bouncing in and out of town as a fast-food endorser?"

'That remains to be seen. Miss Temple unmasked a killer at the advertising agency that is deciding the spokescat sweepstakes."

"Not good PR." Louise's jet-black brow frowns. "I hope she does not find any dead bodies in the Phoenix's construction ashes. We do not need the bad publicity."

"She cannot help it. She has a natural affinity for murder."

"Hmm," Louise purrs unhappily, hunkering down for the show.

I settle down beside her. One by one the torch-topped poles lining the opposite shore in front of the Oasis Hotel's Karnak Temple facade are whipping into gas-fired life, the flames rippling and snapping like scarlet flags in the night.

The staffs of firelight play over the thirty-foot-tall statues glimpsed beyond the tall, fat pillars. Naturally, I have selected a

CAT ON A HYACINTH HUNT * 107

viewing spot on the wharf directly opposite my patroness, Bastet. She is a tall stately woman with arms crossed upon her proud bosom, and the dignified head of a Somali cat. The flames reflect like a wink from the gold earring in one erect ear tip.

"You realize," I comment to Louise, "that if you are my daughter, and I make no concessions by speculating, you are descended on the female side from Pharaoh's Footstool."

"Shhh! The show is starting!"

Louise is gazing ahead as if stalking prey, and I see why. Something low is glinting through the water. It looks like a crocodile, but it is the size of the Loch Ness monster. In the flickering torchlight, the head lifts out of the water, a predatory beak on an epic scale. We are talking a bird-headed reptile here. This particular combination of totems is very dear to the feline heart, especially the heart of the desert-dwelling feline. Consider it a feast of Godzilla with feathers.

Of course the entire show is an ancient-world version of the Mirage Hotel's famed pirate ship encounter in a man-made moat farther up the Las Vegas Strip. Let us face it; with all the fresh construction here, it is hard to come up with a new shtick.

Speaking of shticks, long gilded oars are beating the water into ripples, like on sand dunes.

The torch flames skim along every moving surface, turning the lagoon into a black bolt of moire taffeta that rustles with chilling movement.

Behind us, onlookers have crowded into a solid wall, despite the late hour. I would be nervous to have all those human feet straining toward my rear member, except I too am caught up in the spectacle.

Then drums erupt like the distant strikes of a giant. Hollow, echoing beats simulate the heart of the monster barge as its oars cut through the water like dull sheers slicing ebony silk.

A gasp in unison turns all heads in the opposite direction. Another low, dark gilded beast of the submarine night is surging toward its opposite number. Oiled galley-slave arms writhe like pit vipers as they propel the oars in their lumbering rhythm.

Suddenly a fireball erupts in the black sky over the lagoon. I am highly doubtful that the Egyptians had fireworks, but they could have had an unsung Chinese advisor ... or perhaps a well traveled cat who had the ear (and foot) of Pharoah, a cat who had preceded Marco Polo to China by several hundred centuries, a Midnight Marco, so to speak.

While the fallout of sparks showers down upon temple and water and wharf, Midnight Louise stirs beside me. "Hmmph. You would think with all the money for foolish spectacle in Las Vegas they could get a better carver for the figurehead."

Much as I revere Egyptian art, I would have to admit I find it a bit wooden, so I am not surprised that this mockup does not pass Miss Louise's connoisseuress's standards. Meanwhile, I am gazing left at the incoming barge as on-board torches flap into life like tethered birds of prey.

I recognize the jeweled glow of a splendid throne, and sitting on it is that splendid dame of Old Egypt, Miss Cleopatra herself, decked out to make any chorus girl take notes. Her barge boasts a busty figurehead with a jackal head that reminds me of the one at Cleopatra's Barge restaurant at Caesars Palace (the bust, not the jackal head). Since the Oasis is owned by the same lot that run Caesars, it is no surprise they reinforce each other's theme.

By now two sets of tom-toms are striking enough tympanum to raise the dead, which is not to be unexpected in an ancient Egypt-inspired spectacle. The jackal-headed god Anubis strides forth between two pillars, a limp human form dangling from his extended arms. Gore has been selling since Moses was knee-high to a Neanderthal.

I take a quick peek at the statue of Bastet to see if she is undergoing any changes, since not even statues in Las Vegas are permitted to just stand there anymore, but must do parlor tricks, or at least vaudeville turns.

Now Anubis's voice booms out, and he sounds an awful lot like the hairless fellow who does voice-over advertisements on TV ever since he quit captaining a starship. I guess the Brits had their sights on north Africa even back in ancient times.

"Beware the wrath of Osiris," Anubis hollers in hoity-toity tones. "Your kas will walk upon water before they sink beneath the anger of Cleopatra's warriors."

"Our 'whats'?" Louise hisses next to me.

"A 'ka' is a spirit. A soul. The animated remnant of a dead person."

"Oh, come on! The only thing animated about a dead person might be the parasites it attracts."

"Please! Must you be so graphic? Remember, we plan to eat dinner after this."

"People food," she spits with disdain. "You are getting too soft, old man."

I refrain from my usual reply to such lip: a smack in said lip. In this case, given our foggy genetic connections and gender differences, it could be construed as kit abuse, and I could be sued. It is getting in this country so that you cannot defend yourself against even your own (maybe) kin.

I avert my gaze to the forthcoming flash. The intruder barge lobs a fire-bomb over the low-slung bow that explodes above the water and sinks into it like a cargo of shattered stars.

By now the topside fireworks are shooting off in streaks of red, blue, green and pink. Those do not strike me as particularly Egyptian color schemes, except for the blue, and neither does the matching-hued neon hieroglyphs that light up the temple pillars and begin flashing on and off. I expect at any moment to read a neon crawl circling a pillar that advertises "Cleo's Dreadlocks Braided While You Wait" or "Ramses the Bookie" or "Sethos the Cabbie Charioteer."

Though I suppose it would be the Book of the Dead that Ramses would be hawking.

How very odd that when one thinks things Egyptian, one dwells on death. But, then, the culture set great store by death ... or, rather, by ritualizing the aftermath as well as the afterlife.

I find it also odd that only the figure of Bastet remains in the dark, so to speak. Except for the fugitive passage of the surrounding neon blinking over her stony, sarcophagus-shaped form, she lingers in the shadows, calm and dignified.

Then a vagrant shower of fireworks falls upon her shoulder, and her earring burns like a circle of molten lava.

"It is sinking!" an onlooker shouts behind me.

I glance to the water again. Of course the intruder barge is sinking. These water fights always end with the loser taking a bath in the briny deeps. By now the barge is a fiery pyre that slowly douses as it sinks. The galley slaves in their striped, sphinx-style headdresses dive into the spark-showered water like rather decorative rats.

Not long after no trace remains of the sunken barge, Cleopatra's majestic ship glides through the glittering water where it foundered, the queen herself nodding regally to the witnesses, her barge now ablaze with fire-lit gilt and tinsel.

The drums have reached a pitch that makes the wharf's heavy timbers shiver. I shiver myself in the cool January night, despite my heavy fur coat, despite the press of human body heat behind me, cheering the victorious queen, forgetting the fallen crew.

I eye Bastet again across the gaudy gulf of showboat and fireworks and agitated water.

She is shadowed and dark and calm. And ominous, very ominous. My whiskers twitch. I may not yet have a ka, Ra be praised, but I have a feeling that the other services of Pharaoh's Footstool will soon be called into action.

Something is rotten in the Middle Kingdom. And I think Midnight at the Oasis is about to become Murder at the Oasis.