cat in a crimson haze

by Carole Nelson Douglas

''Matt! All right. Come on, run! They're armed.''

  The flashlight snapped off. "Who?"

  "Miners. The Seven Dwarves. The ghosts of the Glory Hole Gang. I don't know! Look!"

  The twin flashlight beams blinked into view.

  Matt's third beam flashed on again, aimed at the middle of that bullet-ridden white face. It was impossible to read surprise on a mutilated mask, but the flashlight beams drooped with surprise, and then Matt was a shadow interrupting the light.

  The pursuer fell with a grunt of surprised pain, his flash-lights rolling from limp hands and crossing beams on the floor. Too bad an "X" wasn't the mark of Zorro, Temple thought with irreverence, maybe Zorro could put in an appearance in the J. J. Jackson underground theme park.

  Footsteps and fresh light came from beyond the first man's fallen form.

  "Come on," said the dark that rushed back to Temple, taking her arm. "It's a good thing I went back for a flashlight."

  They ran together. Matt using the flashlight intermittently to scout the tunnel's curves. No more overhead light bulbs betrayed their position. After the sounds collided with the fallen man, there was a pause, then renewed pursuit.

  Suddenly Matt was pushing Temple ahead of himself.

  She stumbled forward, stubbing a toe on a steel rod, flailing through a fabric curtain she thought she'd never see again, beating her way into the light and familiar surroundings of the basement hallway.

  Matt bounded through after her, throwing down the flashlight to turn and pull the costumes closed. He snatched up the flashlight again, answering her questioning look.

  "Found it in a dressing room."

  They glanced around. Temple saw that the hall was still deserted, drat it.

  Costumes trembled and swayed.

  Matt and Temple bolted down the passage, peering into deserted dressing rooms.

  ''Hey," a voice shouted from down the hall.

  They ran faster.

  "Hey, Miss Barr, what is the big hurry? You're going the wrong way. Your skit is gonna start any moment."

  Temple looked over her shoulder. The voice was calling from the foot of the stairs, where a flotilla of Fontana brothers in penguin colors was gathering in puzzlement. Twenty feet ahead of them, a horror of hockey-masked felons were streaming out of the wall and between the costumes.

  "Fontanas," Temple gasped to Matt. "The odds are even."

  But the pursuers were aware of nothing except prey. Temple heard the same pounding feet that had set her heart's tempo for the past six minutes: about two hundred beats per minute.

  Like a vision from a dubious television documentary, the huge prop UFO loomed ahead of them.

  The show was over. Temple knew with a sinking heart. The show was over and there was no place to hide.

  Matt had twisted his head back and glanced at her, shaking it. ''Out for blood," he warned.

  There was no place else to go. They charged up the plywood ramp and circled the UFO

  following the upward spiral. On the other side, the floor was a full fifteen feet down, with no ladder.

  Footsteps were vibrating the ramp as six or so pursuers jumped aboard. Matt and Temple exchanged a stunned look, then she dived for the only exit ... an oblong door into the UFO.

  After the normal light of the hallway, the UFO interior was blackout-dark. Matt had Temple's wrist in a firm grip, but as they pushed into the interior they encountered resistance. A wall of resistance.

  A human cordon, in fact.

  ''Hey, watch it!" a woman's voice grumbled. 'That's my foot."

  "Yeah," a man objected, "you're creasing the knife-pleats in my zoot suit. If you're not in the cast, get out."

  Little did he know. The UFO doorway darkened, both actually and metaphorically. One hulking, goblin-faced man after another bounded inside. The population explosion pressed everybody further into the dark, crowded and somewhat pungent space.

  Temple and Matt were jammed into a wall of flesh.

  "I didn't know anyone was still in here," Temple whispered. 'They could get hurt."

  "Not in this mess."

  Mess indeed. Barely had the inadequate light streaming through the door brightened, then a new storm on the horizon darkened it. Fontana brothers piled onto the UFO like a team of football players.

  People were complaining and elbowing and mixing it up as one aggravated anonymous mob.

  "Shut up," a woman's authoritative voice rang out. "Anyone who ruins this entrance is ground round. Now settle down, people. We'll straighten this out later." Her words ended with a bang, rather than a whimper, when the UFO door slammed shut at the prompting of some mysterious outside force.

  Temple huddled against the hull. Matt shielding her from the front. He still had her wrist in custody and could no doubt take her pulse, which was now about two hundred and forty. The crowd, the overcrowding, the uncertainty, the heat had everyone crammed in like sardines.

  "Where are the dancers?" Temple wondered in a whisper she meant Matt only to hear.

  An unsuspected male voice at her ear, evidently belonging to an Elvis, answered.

  "The UFO was too heavy for the elevator to lift the whole cast, with the addition of those hotel babes, whoever's bright idea that was."

  Temple did not volunteer her own identity, under the circumstances.

  "Danny Dove decided at the last moment tonight that the chorus line will enter from the wings, under the cover of the crimson mist," Elvis managed to reveal before being shushed by the woman with an interest in raw hamburger.

  Temple winced, in the dark, where no one could see her.

  A full load of Fontanas and the tunnel people made the UFO overweight again. Lord knows what would happen when the stage elevator tried to uplift them.

  "Hold on," Matt advised softly as a motor whined and they began to rise ever so slowly.

  Temple sighed. Whoever these tunnel people were, they were ruining her grand finale.

  What a disaster! What a quandary--forty-some innocent people trapped in a UFO with armed thugs..

  Gridirons were supposed to spoof the news, not make it.

  Somehow, she decided, it was all her fault. Perhaps she had been too mean to Crawford.

  Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa, Mea Max. Right. It would take a magician to get them all out of this safely. She pictured the spectacular conclusion of the Gridiron: an on-stage shootout between the Fontana brothers and the forces of underground evil. Innocent bystanders dropping like swatted flies onstage and off. She might as well fall on a spike heel right now and get it over with. Even if she survived, she would never live down this ignominy.

  At least she would perish with Matt Devine holding her hand.

  Sort of.

  Chapter 40

  Louie's Last Bow

  Naturally, I have not been a slug-a-bed during all this hullabaloo.

  The Instant I detect that Miss Temple and I are about to encounter unfriendlies in the tunnel, I improvise a brilliant plan.

  Since I am in perfect camouflage gear for the situation, I huddle in the shadow of the sandbags.

  Once the interlopers spot my dear roommate in the glare of their twin beams, they head right for her. I must say that the males of her species certainly are crazy for Miss Temple, with the lamentable exception of Mr. Max Kinsella, who has been all too successful at keeping well away from her.

  So everybody streams past me, while I have plenty of time to size up the predicament with my specialized infra-green night-sight equipment.

  Certain inalienable facts are self-evident. One, the lads on Miss Temple's tail are a gang of thieves. The hockey masks are the first tip-off. The second is the cash cart, which I study for a half-second in their flashlight beams, especially the affixed steel plaque that is engraved with the tattletale words, "Goliath Hotel."

  After the crowd has galloped down the tunnel, I pause a moment in the contemplation that so becomes my kind. We are not about to bestir ourselves to no avail. Perhaps I would better serve my bele
aguered roomie by following the tunnel forward to whence these villains have come. I could then lead the forces of law and order--who are no doubt well aware of the missing cash cart, if not this underground escape route--after me ... and the crooks, thus saving my little lady's hairless skin yet once again.

  Or I could follow the evil-doers and Harry their arrears, but the fact is that, though I possess the heart of a tiger and the liver of a lion, I am slightly outnumbered here, not to mention outweighed, despite my finest efforts in the eating department.

  Clearly my superior brain is the best means of insuring that all ends well.

  Now that I have selected my weapon of choice, I am all action.

  I rise, carefully concealing my razor-sharp shivs about my person, and race down the tunnel after the absconding dramatis personae. I am not so over-concerned for the safety of my little doll, for she is light on her feet and quick with a kick, thanks to lessons from Mr. Matt Divine.

  However, she is not bullet-proof. I see my mission as insuring that no lead poisoning pollutes the air around my little doll and the Crystal Phoenix. Given my superior bursts of speed owing to a Cheetah strain a few thousand years ago, I am but a whisker behind the perpetrators by the time they wrestle their way through the costume curtain into the full light of the Phoenix basement. I am relieved to see no sign of my lovely assistant in crime, assuming that she has maintained her lead in this race of life and death.

  When I cautiously peek my snout out from under a white feather ruffle, I am rudely battered about the head and face. I was not expecting thugs and draw back with a snarl.

  "Pantywaist!" a too-familiar female voice hisses. I view the sour little kisser of the supine Miss C. "Why are you slinking along in the rear guard? Is that the best you can manage? What are we going to do about those gangsters?"

  It is, of course, my darling daughter, here to cheer on her old man. I peer out and down the hall.

  "Leave it to me," I inform Miss Caviar in no uncertain fashion, giving her a love tap on the nose. "I have a plan."

  "And?"

  I eye the disappearing heels of six thugs of unknown identity pounding after the .fleeing forms of Mr. Matt Devine and Miss Temple Barr. At least my poor roommate is not alone during her hour of need. The company of Messrs. Derringer, Colt and Beretta would no doubt be even sweeter comfort, and while Mr. Matt Devine brandishes a flashlight, I doubt that he is packing blue steel.

  However, I do see a hardware factory on the horizon in the personages of Fontana Freres, who are gaping in surprised indecision at the foot of the stairs.

  This must stop.

  "Run when I do," I growl at my errant apparent offspring, "and stay down."

  I take off down the center of the hall, hoping that Miss Caviar is on my tail.

  "Hey," opines a brother Fontana in an aggrieved tone, "that looks like Midnight Louie.

  Louies. Am I seeing double?"

  "Something is up," another brother concludes. "Could it be that all the action is not at the Goliath? Let us go."

  They do, hallelujah!

  I sprint after the bad guys and arrive in time to see them hurtling into the silver-painted UFO

  that has been built with much expense for Miss Temple Barr's Gridiron skit.

  "Under the ramp, kid," I order my offspring.

  We leap into the shadow and soon are panting in the welcome shade while thundering black patent leather loafers pound up the ramp.

  "You seem to spend a lot of time under decks," Miss Caviar notes.

  I do not pause to answer, but romp up the ramp behind the last Fontana and bound at the open door, thus sealing one and all. inside the UFO. It is true that I have shut my foxy lady in with her hounds, but I figure that being confined in the dark will confuse these bozos enough to allow the good guys to get the upper hand.

  There is a flaw in my reasoning, and that is that it depends on the Fontana brothers doing the right thing at the right time.

  I strut down the ramp, well aware that I look particularly awesome against a silver metallic background.

  Little Miss Carp-spurner is waiting at the bottom.

  "Now that you have canned them all like sardines, what will you do? Send in the boiling oil?"

  I hear gears grinding and sense an imminent upheaval.

  "Off the ramp," I order gruffly, "unless you want to be trampled by a herd of human hoofers."

  The floor beneath us rises like a piston. She jumps off and makes a perfect four-point landing on the basement concrete. The platform on which I stand is now five feet about basement level, and rising.

  "What is the scam?" she demands. "What are you up to?"

  "About six feet now. Too high for a youngster like you to jump back aboard. I am off to see the stars and give my regards to Broadway. See you later."

  She is dwindling to a small, uncertain figure as I levitate like a legendary god into the black sky of a darkened stage. I could get used to such dramatic exits, not to mention the forthcoming surprising entrance.

  An eerie orchestration of computerized music is swelling above me. I run up to the ramp's highest point, then scale the UFO's silver-bubble top with a trio of well-chosen leaps. I now sit atop the vessel, with a 360-degree view of everything, which at the moment is a lot of nothing.

  High above me sabers of blue, red and green light stab the darkness and a rising cloud of stage mist--dry ice by the bucket. When the UFO jolts to a stop, and it does, a stream of happy hoofers flows from the wings under the fog cover and ankles up the ramp on tiptoe. Unseen at the back of the ramp wait the number's surprise packages, which I am privileged to preview before the audience. I gaze down on a ludicrous trio of headdresses incorporating elements of the town's latest theme hotels, the Luxor, the MGM Grand and the Treasure Island.

  There is not room enough for me and two ersatz pussycats up here, I think, eager to pounce on the likenesses of the Sphinx and the Leo the Lion. We will see whose stuffing will fly in such a set-to. But I control my temper, well aware of the boiling temperaments that must be erupting within this plywood prison.

  As the stage lights come up, the ramp vibrates to the tapping of two dozen size six-to-nines equipped with silver metal soles and heels. From the audience on whom this spectacle is slowly dawning, I hear gasps, then laughter and smatterings of surprised applause.

  Ah, if only Miss Temple were present to hear this! Well, she is present, but not within hearing range.

  I wait with interest, bending my attention to the UFO door that I have shut. It occurs to me that if the people inside were able to open it they would have done so already, so that part of my plan is proceeding nicely.

  By now the tapping chorus is singing a parody of "It's a Small World After All."

  The ladies caparisoned as the featured hotels strut their stuff at the front of the UFO, each earning thunderous applause mixed with uproarious hoots.

  I lash my tail. With all the fireworks, no one has noticed me. Of course my coloration blends into the black velvet curtain backdrop, but that is no excuse. One would think a modern audience who was forewarned by numerous national touring companies of CATS! would be more discerning.

  Two actors on the fog-choked ground to whom this UFO has appeared approach our happy, dancing little craft crammed with surprises.

  "Ah," says one in a stagy mike-amplified voice reminiscent of the fake Wizard of Oz, "I was right. These are the latest out-of-state investors in Las Vegas."

  "And I was right," says his companion. "Elvis is not dead, but kidnapped by aliens. They have cloned him and been performing liposuction at a secret government laboratory under Nellis Air Force Base. See for yourself."

  She points with a broad stage gesture. Two chorines stop ball-changing long enough to whisk the UFO door open and proudly stand at attention on either side.

  Out pours (and I do mean pours) a plethora of Elvii. They leap to the stage and their knees and begin singing "Heartbreak Hotel."

  "I told you the mob is behind the
alien takeover," claims the Chamber of Commerce shill on the ground.

  Out jump about eight guys In zoot suits and key chains long enough to leash a Bengal Tiger.

  They begin jiving with the jitterbugging Elvii.

  "No," says the second Chamber of Commerce type. "It is G-men."

  And out leap the guys in the pin-stripe suits.

  By now it is obvious to the audience that the UFO contains an obscene number of individuals, none of them particularly alien to the planet.

  They hoot and clap and stomp.

  While they are doing so, a spate of masked men squirts out like an afterthought.

  There is a moment's silence as the audience wonders if they are regarding the real aliens at last. Can you imagine a gang of crooks popping out of concealment to face the house of a theater filled with several hundred happy show-goers?

  The perps stand there gaping and gulping just long enough for the first four Fontana brothers to pop out of confinement. Naturally, in their snappy tuxes they look like a phalanx of Fred Astaires. They leap down to the stage and disarm the robbers before the bad guys even have the wits to know what is happening.

  By now the audience is rolling over in their seats and clapping, especially when each Fontana brother puts a crook in custody by the simple method of forcing him to the stage floor and sitting on him.

  The Elvil are hip-swiveling, the chorus girls are posing on the ramp and the applause is deafening. These amateur actors do not know quite what to make of the additional cast members, but someone has sternly told them to go on with the show no matter what, so they are dancing and singing as if their lives depended on it. Which they no longer do, thanks to Fontana, Inc.

  The most satisfying moment is when Miss Temple Barr pokes her curled red head out of the UFO to observe the scene, particularly the corralled tunnel people. She then eyeballs the audience, expresses shock and is about to dive back in, when something comes caroming out of the wings like a white tornado.