Cat With An Emerald Eye

Chapter 25

All the Pharaoh's Phelines

I am reclining on my bed when Miss Temple returns from her sojourn above.

Actually, Miss Temple thinks that it is her bed, as Mr. Max used to think that it was his bed, but ultimately it is my bed, and I am willing to share. I have learned a lot in five thousand years.

She looks a little dazed, and I understand that these are trying times, but look at all the times that I have been through, and I am the same simple accommodating soul that I always was. Which is remarkable, considering my antecedents.

"Louie," she says, looking at me like Bergman looked at Bogart at the end of Casablanca, a bit dazed but really appreciative at long last.

"I guess I should ask how you got out and up to Electra's place, but frankly, her so-called psychic cat was such a dud that it was a good thing you showed up. I was so tired, though, I sort of dozed off. I'm afraid that Electra has delusions of grandeur. That cat Karma of hers is a dust mop. Pretty as can be, but pretty useless too. She thinks it's sensitive, but I think it's just lazy."

I cannot say how these words thrill me.

Of course, I know that the annoying Karma has been riding herd on me so mercilessly of late, that she has worn herself to a nub of her former powers, which is why she was making like a doormat and I was able to walk right in and kick Kitty Litter in her face.

Not that I like to rub all that sand into the eyes of a noble feline descended from a hardy and once worshiped desert race, like myself.

Now the genie is out of the bottle. Midnight Louie has antecedents, after all, and they are not too tacky. I have it on unassailable authority that one of my great-great-greats many times removed, and perhaps many lives and reincarnations previous, was a palace favorite.

I am talking about that honored Temple of Karnak cat, that Pharaoh's firstborn friend, the unofficial house dick at the pyramid and environs, that Sphinx's first cousin, Louie Sr. Sr. Sr. Sr.

Sr. et cetera. No wonder I am associating with a Temple even today.

As for the languid Karma, she has fallen down on the job.

Those nouveau Burmese haven't got the family tree that goes back to the real roots of our Kind.

Just wait until I tell the Divine Yvette, who is no doubt the reincarnation of one of those Queens of the Nile.

I am not just a contemporary cool-dude detective. Once, I was King Tut's bodyguard.