Cat With An Emerald Eye

Chapter 40

The Mother of All Hauntings

I am by no means a fancier of the occult.

I do not wish to see what is not there, and even what is there if it is not readily apparent to the average individual.

I have never been subsumed into the belly of an extraterrestrial vehicle. The only missing time I suffer is when I am snoozing.

I have never walked through walls unless a door or window of some kind had gotten there before me. And I have never walked on water except occasionally in the pursuit of carp, and then only for the tiniest nanosecond.

So I am not enthralled by my recent encounters with things that go bump in the night, apparently having grown myopic in the Afterlife.

Most of all, I am sorry to have been visited by the spirit of the original Maurice. I was really happier not knowing that Maurice is--was--a decent dude I might even have liked in life, with no particular interest in the Divine Yvette, had certain appalling events not come to pass. How am I better off knowing that the yellow-striped dude who struts his stuff on the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy commercials today is a homicidal huckster who has dusted the true spokescat. We are talking a body double with a triple helping of chutzpah.

So, given my distaste for spirit emanations, you will understand that only my great loyalty to Miss Temple Barr could have lured me back to the Hell-o-ween Haunted Homestead on the occasion of the second stance. In television circles this is called a rerun, plain and simple.

However, I got more than I bargained for, least among them the hyste'rical bats bouncing their high-pitched little screeches off my cranium.

Of course the actual goings-on of that event are hardly known to the human participants, who, as usual, missed the main events.

I arrived before the first of the so-called psychics, ready to scout the territory for any unauthorized spooks. My attention was first drawn to someone big in a black catsuit. At first I took it for my esteemed sire, Three O'Clock Louie, but no such luck. Once the little shop of Halloween horrors was closed for the season, the organizers did not need local color any more.

Three O'Clock was returned to his retirement home on Lake Mead. Besides, this new cat is a more impressive dude than my old man, being kept in a cage ... except that an introductory sniff reveals that this is no dude! Her name, I discover after a few gingerly inquiries, is Kahlua and she does a nightly disappearing act at the Oasis.

"So, who's paying the freight on your ruby collars tonight?"

"Colleague of my boss's," Kahlua answers with a quite unnecessary preliminary snarl. (I think she just likes the sound of her own voice.) Like the coffee-flavored liqueur she is named for, Kahlua is strong, dark and heady. Her big green eyes flash toward the catwalk under the roof.

"He is a long, narrow cat all in black, fast as a mongoose and smooth as a velvet glove. I would go anywhere to work with him."

Naturally, I had spotted the Mystifying Max right away, so I never had any delusions about who was pulling strings in the dark wings above the seance chamber. (I feel the word "chamber"

adds a nice touch of the classy macabre to the scene below.)

"So what is on your program tonight?" I ask the lady, who is obviously a primadonna of in-the-body prestidigitation, unlike Karma, who just projects her meddling ditzy little aura into situations that are none of her business.

"Cameo role." Kahlua touches up her manicure. "Nothing to break a nail over. I do my usual appearing act in a fireplace, look gorgeous, exotic and lethal, then bug out as usual. I could do it in my sleep."

"You might not want to," I warn her. "I did a sudden entrance down that same chimney and it is rigged with enough fish line to bag a barracuda."

'Thanks for the tip, but Mr. Max would never let me go into a situation he had not checked out from top to bottom," Kahlua tells me with a yawn that reveals a maw the size of a pink-velvet cave lined with elephant tusks for teeth.

Well, Midnight Louie does not have a devoted frontman to do his dirty work for him, but I am not about to point this out to Kahlua when she is showing her dentures. Those fangs are probably all capped or bonded or bleached. Show biz!

Bidding this she-panther a distant farewell, I explore the rest of the area. That is when I discover an even bigger population explosion at the fringes of the seance chamber. Eightball, Wild Blue and Spuds of the Glory Hole Gang are posted as guards on all three levels, at Miss Temple's behest, I suspect. I am relieved to know that reinforcements are at hand should revelations during the seance prove too dramatic for a guilty party's nerves.

It is while I wander--small (relatively speaking), silent and the same color as the vast darkness that surrounds the seance chamber--that I become aware of disquieting influences.

For there are again Uninvited Guests. I am still seeing much more than I should be. Not a glimpse of Elvis and Amelia and Mae, sadly (to them I could sell tickets), but faint flickers of the phantoms seen before, like photo stills from old black-and-white films. The boy in the Little Lord Flauntleroy suit dangles from a rollercoaster scaffold. The fat old man in black sits in empty air, hunched under a bandit's hat and over a cane--or is that what's left of Edwina May-fair, animated by the spirit of Gandolph the Great? Even Old Doyly, the hearty-looking (for a ghost) chap with pipe who seemed to be urging on Houdini's apparition flickers in and out of view near the baronial fireplace in the seance chamber. As for the reputed Houdini himself, what a fizzle! I do not see even a mote of his previous image, crouched in his seine of chains, a bare pale gray blot on the darkness. Why do all these ghost guys turn up in shades of gray? I wonder. They are a sober-sided lot, unlike Elvis. It is nice to know the King is having a blast even in the Beyond. I hope that when my lives have run their course, I will have as much joie de vivre in the Afterlife too.

I finally find a concealed niche where I can get an overview of the action below without coming into the purview of the Mystifying Max or the Glory Hole Boys. With my natural advantages of coat and color, I am part of the scenery at this scene of the crime ... or crime to be confessed.

And I like the setup: the seance chamber has no roof, which makes sleight-of-hand easy to perform, and easy to oversee. I am not deceived for one moment by the stuffed figure that looks like it escaped from a taxidermist's shop; I have seen soft-sculpture people, and animals, before, and much prefer them to the real things. One by one the dramatis personae arrive. My little doll and Karma's Madame Electra are the last to assemble.

Above me, I can see the Mystifying Max moving like some giant spider to set strands of his hidden web in motion. So I am not distracted by the usual spooky effects below. Neither fog nor knives nor sniff of chlorine will deter Midnight Louie from his appointed duty: to seek out the wrong elements of the bigger picture. I do not know what I expect to spy from my cozy point of view. Another murder attempt, perhaps? A guilty party reacting to the evening's entertainment?

Alas, all of the Mystifying Max's wonders--and they are much more chilling than the previous tricks--do not smoke out the lurking menace we all search for. Kahlua, her throaty voice a symphony of danger and disdain, makes a much more prepossessing apparition in the hearth than yours truly, I fear. The Houdini image actually moves. The dancing cutlery whirls like ninja wheels. And the gathered attendees regard the effects with a certain nervous stoicism that does not bode well for an instant confession.

Then my sharp eyes notice something. Miss Temple Barr and Mr. Crawford Buchanan have gamely joined hands with the dummy in their midst. Call her Edwina Sophie Gandolph. I see her head nodding under its large veiled hat and cannot blame even a stuffed lump for losing interest at this point.

Then I see the figure jerk. Perhaps in the heat of the seance Miss Temple (or more likely Mr.

Crawford Buchanan, the cowardly weasel) is wringing the gloved hand. No one notices the dummy dance, however, and no one notices when the slumped figures straightens and the head turns slightly from right to left, as if by itself.

Oh, come on! We are talking a literal sit-in here. So much fiber-fill and fabric.

Still ... I hear a disembodied voice drift through the chamber and then up to my perch.

"Son," it breathes, whispers, sighs.

Son. Okay. Midnight Louie is bursting with theories to explain the inexplicable. Maybe Gandolph's late mother, the bilked patroness of spirit mediums, has finally been rewarded with a genuine manifestation from the Afterlife: herself. Or maybe Houdini's mater familias has found an empty body into which to pour her frustration with the many failed attempts to reach her darling boy. Or-- hey!--maybe this animated piece of stocking stuffing is really Mrs. Bates of Psycho fame. Maybe our gathered psychics are more psycho than anyone thought.

Only now do the Others start agitating.

What Others, you ask? I wish I did not have an answer, but I cannot deny the testimony of my own eyes.

For the seated figure draped in cloak and hat, who might be Orson Welles late in life, or Gandolph in his Edwina disguise or something entirely different, sweeps closer to the chamber, like a slide that is brought into nearer focus. And Doyly has crowded near one of the etched windows to watch the Houdini image shed his chains, each muscle straining to shrug off the bonds link by link.

"Yes," Doyly says, taking the pipe from his mustached mouth. "I knew you were doomed, poor fellow. Predicted it, but I always knew you possessed powers you never admitted to. I always said that you were the greatest publicity agent that ever lived. Now prove that you are the greatest publicity agent that ever died. Come back."

Poor Ghost. He is so sincere that I feel a twinge of regret. Too bad that the Houdini we both watch is an image manipulated by the Mystifying Max on the haunted house's holographic system, if it is, in fact, the Mystifying Max with Houdini's face superimposed. The real magic here is how a man of six-feet-three can so convincingly mimic a man of five-feet-four. The cramped and chained position aids the illusion to the point of fooling a ghost, no mean achievement, Mr. Mystifying Max! Someone said that there is a fool born every minute, but you can quote Midnight Louie: it also figures that there is a fool dying every minute, too, and the Afterlife must in time get a bit crowded with as much foolishness as can be found on earth.

Meanwhile the draped black figure hovers on the periphery like a mute member of a Greek chorus. At least some people at the seance seem to see him. What a relief! I do not like to think that I am alone in the Twilight Zone.

And now I think I know who Doyly might really be. His full name has something to do with a barbarian warrior and a desert king; at least I picture a camel lot. But even Doyly is fading now as the image of Houdini turns into smoke and mirrors.

"Son," the animated dummy calls again, in vain. "I try so hard to reach you, for so long.

Forgive--"

Poor Mrs. Houdini! Her boy is the only fellow who has not deigned to show up here.

And then the flying mice come pouring down out of the rafters like, well, bats out of hell.

Hell! I would love to snag a few on the wing, but I do not snack on the job. There must be a couple hundred of the furry little gliders, but they seem like two thousand as they swoop down into the roofless chamber and bounce off the windows screeching like bad brakes.

We are talking chaos now, and I notice that the cameraman has gone a little batty, swinging his powerful light into the oncoming bats, at the still air-borne weapons. I expect we will soon have minced bat pie, but the Mystifying Max hastens to anchor the edged weapons so the bats are flopping around solo. Their built-in sonar soon guides them out of the nest of humans and things less-than. As I watch the distant figure of the hatted man comes closer to the chamber, hanging on every word Wayne says and nodding. As I watch I wonder if Gandolph knew that his Edwina Mayfair costume so resembled the huge, dignified, black-draped figure of Orson Welles late in life, or if Gandolph ever knew that he shared his house with a ghost who felt a protective urge for his successor.

And I also wonder something else, as I--and I alone--see the fabric figure of Edwina Sophie Gandolph deflate like an exhausted balloon with every word Wayne Tracey spits out.

A son was asked to forgive. Perhaps others were implicitly asked to forgive a son.

It occurs to me that there might be one other candidate for the brief possession of Sophie the soft-sculpture's passive body: Wayne Tracey's dead mother, the debunked medium, both taking revenge upon the now-dead Gandolph by taking control of the figure that represents him and encouraging her son to purge himself of the hatred that infects the living.

The dead, it strikes me from what I have seen of them here and that is more than enough for me, have had enough of hatred.

Tailpiece

Midnight Louie Encounters Pharaoh Moans

Although I have often had to put up with insults to my decedent antecedents, like many peace-loving individuals I have never had a good answer to the yahoos who bring up my crooked family tree.

Now I do.

I can now direct these low-lives to bow down and take a good look at my roots.

Not everybody is directly descended from foreign royalty, but my recent experiences amongst the ESP set have made it plain that royal blood pumps through my veins. I will not let it go to my head, though the fact that I am Somebody, that is. I will definitely let the royal blood keep rushing right to my head, where it belongs, in my brain. There is no brain-drain in Midnight Louie.

I must admit that I have not been totally candid about the manifestations at the last seance.

It seems that I have forgotten an important fact. With Kahlua on the premises with me, we have the requisite two blacks to form a feline power nexus. And Kahlua and I add up to a formidable pair of blacks.

As the human spirits fade, I retreat to Kahlua's cage to congratulate her on a fine performance. The lady sits upright in her container, still as a statue, her satin coat raised against the grain as if by static electricity.

Her green eyes out glow the blood-rubies on her collar, and she hisses like a fire hose when she sees me.

"You have erred, Midnight Louie," she announces in a hollow voice.

"Ditch the spook act," I tell her. "You're offstage now and I am not impressionable."

"You have seen truly, but you have concluded falsely. She Who Lays Before Pharaoh is indeed a forebear--"

"What are you talking about? The only Pharaoh I know hangs out at the Oasis."

"You have been allowed to see the ancient past of our Kind, but you will not be suffered to misinterpret it: I repeat, your forebear was female. You descend from the Kind by the maternal, not the paternal line. As you would bear the blessing of Bastet, remember this."

Bast! I gulp, watching the emerald fire fade in Kahlua's eyes.

She blinks and yawns engagingly. "I must have catnapped. Did I miss any fireworks?"

"Not a thing," I tell her, taking the scaffolding down as fast as I can.

I have heard it on good authority. My great-great-great etcetera grandmother was King Tut's bodyguard. I wonder if she wore a small ceremonial beard on the job? I do not wonder if I will ever pass on this genealogical tidbit to Midnight Louise. She already has too high an opinion of herself.

As for myself, I have always lived by a strict moral code, and now also will follow the statutes of Bast, which were written down about the time that Hammurabi was entering law school.

There are several of these statutes, but I have not had time to memorize every one.

I believe that they go something like this:

Be kind to animals.

Be kind to humans.

Never leave a whisker unlicked (or a leaving unburied).

Walk softly and carry a big tail.

Do not walk in the rain if you can help it.

Share your favorite resting spots (i.e., every soft, high or warm place in a human domicile) with the human residents thereof on occasion.

Show evil-doers no mercy.

Know how to keep a secret

Of course, it is not easy to abide by this aristocratic noblesse oblige. I have always done it instinctively, and now that I know my antecedents, I will work harder than ever to become worthy of their precedence

Besides, the Divine Yvette will be really impressed when she finds out.

MNL

P.S. If you're not planning any psychic journeys to ancient Egypt, you can reach Midnight Louie at the other end of the spectrum (in Cyberspace) at his (and my) homepage: http://www.catwriter.com/cdouglas

--CND

Carole Nelson Douglas Mulls Black Magic

Now that Midnight Louie has discovered that his ancestors have held such exalted positions as Pharaoh's footstool, he'll be even harder to put in his proper place. Perhaps I can convince him that author's footstool is the modern equivalent of the ancient role, but I doubt it. It's pretty hard to pull any wool over a cat's eyes, yet those beautiful features--particularly the vertical irises--have also been the source of much cruel superstition about cats.

Superstition surrounds spiritualism, too, and people are as easily misinformed and misled.

Arthur Conan Doyle, a doctor by training and the creator of the world's most prominent scientific detective in Sherlock Holmes, later in life became a stout believer in communication with the dead. He was fascinated by Harry Houdini both as the ultimate self-promoter and as a magician, insisting that Houdini's astounding feats of escapism had to rely on dematerialization.

Houdini roundly resisted attributions of paranormal powers. In a superstitious corner of his magician's heart, though, he sometimes wondered if, by repeatedly defying apparent physical laws, he might actually draw on some sort of cumulative psychic skill.

In the end, Houdini's skepticism won out over his emotional needs. Despite his extreme desire to remain connected in death to the mother he had literally adored in life, he left behind the means to debunk any who would falsely claim Houdini had been drawn back from death to perform at various seances. Such claims were often made and never proven.

The magician's personality is even more intriguing than the feats he performs. (And may explain why so few are women.) As Edmund Wilson pointed out, the mythic role of magician combines functions of the criminal, the actor and the priest. I would add to that roster the role of detective, for the magician concocts tricks and always has the means to explain them to the larger community. Few lay bare their own machinations, but many have turned investigator, like Gandolph, to reveal the shoddy hoaxes of spiritualists who want to defraud as well as to deceive.

Criminal, actor, detective, priest. Which of these four roles will prove the key to the Mystifying Max's character? Only time (and perhaps Temple) will tell.