Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  With great self-control, I refrain from turning Westie into Scarface, from now to eternity, for calling the Divine Yvette vermin.

  "And where did you see this creature coming and going?" I ask sweetly.

  "In the elevator. A great imposition. Your kind smells, you know."

  "So does yours," I growl back, "and if you want to retain a sniffer to smell with, I would watch your lip."

  I dart away before the little sucker can do me any damage, leaving him bouncing up and down on his short little legs and barking up a storm.

  "Wescott, be quiet!" his mistress urges, looking around to see what might have got him yammering.

  Of course I am invisible behind my palm pot once more, and a good thing, because I think if Wescott spies me, he will take off after me and drag his mistress right along for the ride, he is that mad. There is nothing like a Scot for making much over nothing.

  Vermin, indeed!

  I straighten my coat sleeves, then ponder another route to my destination. Elevator encounters hardly betray the floor and room number of my sweetie.

  I manage to dive beneath the long marble registration desk, which is done up to resemble a banquet table decorated with goblets of fake wine and dishes of wax grapes set here and there.

  The reservation staff is dashing back and forth attending to a long line of eager guests, and I have to keep a sharp eye on all five of my extremities. There are few occasions that I envy human beings anything, but the facility for strutting around on two legs, with only ten toes to get stepped on, does sometimes make me a teensy bit jealous.

  I pace back and forth, dodging the swift and unpredictable footsteps of the personnel. I hear many names bandied about above me, but none that make my whiskers quiver: "Costner, Branagh, Schwarzenegger . . ." These bunch of nobodies are wasting the desk clerks' time when the staff could be answering inquiries for Savannah Ashleigh, the movie star.

  Alas, the bell does not toll for her, proba bly because she is already checked in. And the Goliath has forty-eight hundred rooms. I will check out each and every one, if I must, but it will put me sadly behind schedule. At this rate, I will see Yvette on the set Tuesday sooner than I will find hide or silver hair of her here.

  I have resigned myself to curling up on a box of Goliath maps (the hotel is so big each guest gets a map to follow around), and am yawning widely when my ears come out of the temporary deafness a good yawn induces to hear the magic word: "... leigh."

  Now that could be Lee as in a last or first name. Or "lee" as in Levi's jeans. Or it might even be somebody talking about what nobody doesn't like, which is Sara Lee the dessert maker. Or someone could be discussing the Kennedy assassination and have dropped Lee Harvey Oswald's name into the hopper. Still, hope is a frail thing with feathers, and I go for things with feathers. I perk up both ears and smother my second, world-class yawn.

  "Photos for Miss Ashleigh? I'll have a bellman take them up."

  Yes! I leap up with joy, forgetting that I am reposing under a marble counter. Ouch! Then I hear the sharp ping of a bell. I wiggle down the underbelly of the counter and keep a sharp eye out for a bellman uniform.

  Here I almost make a fatally wrong calculation. I am hunting for the usual uniform, navy with gold buttons, or perhaps a tasteful maroon or hunter green. What have I done? For a moment, I have failed to remember that I am in Las Vegas. Here a bellman can look like a bodybuilder and often does.

  So I almost miss the guy in the thong sandals, the thong diaper and the sheet-swathed head.

  But he is carrying a manila envelope and I have seen containers of that description all over Miss Temple's desk, full of photos, documents and what have you.

  What I have is a lot of catching up to do before this desert-dude hops aboard one of the palanquin elevators and leaves me below, watching him defy gravity through the elevator's glass facade.

  I make the same flight by the skin of my hocks and heels. Of course I am noticed, but I act like I know where I'm going and when a woman near the control panel asks, "Can I hit a floor for anyone?" I merow a very clear 'four."

  She apparently does not hear me, which is lucky as the manila envelope is going much higher. In fact, it is going so high that all the other passengers exit beforehand, so while it is really hard to hide from the bellman, no one else is aware of me.

  But the bellman begins doing muscle flexes in the rear mirrored wall as soon as everybody has exited, concentrating so hard on his biceps that he does not look down far enough to notice me. Miss Temple frequently bewails her short stature, but I must say that sometimes it is better to keep a low profile in this town, and this is one of them.

  Once the elevator doors open at the twentieth floor, the bellman struts out, looking in every hall mirror he passes. There are quite of few of these, as the passage is tricked out li ke the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

  (Some may wonder how an exceptionally short P.I. in Las Vegas, who has no formal education except what can be picked up on the street, can know about such ritzy foreign attractions. Quite simply, I am an autodidact, which means that I taught myself all I need to know and a good deal that I do not, but the non-need-to-know comes in handy to throw into my conversation now and then. I have read a lot of books in my time, under the pretext of snoozing on them. I use a technique called feed-reading. First I consume a meal generous enough to make me drowsy. Then I curl up on a newspaper or any old tome I can find. Once I am suspended in a state of absolute relaxation, I absorb the contents at my pawtips by a kind of osmosis.)

  This is a tricky bit for me. I must "shadow" the bellman while remaining far enough behind that my mirror image does not show up in his view. This I manage until he stops at a door and knocks. Then only boldness will work. I sidle up right behind him, counting on the dim hall and the dark carpeting to camouflage me.

  The resident is slow to answer. I wait, twitching my whiskers with impatience. So near and yet so far from my Divine Yvette.

  At last the door is cracked open, with the chain lock still on!

  "Miss Ashleigh."

  "Yes," comes the breathy, foggy reply.

  The front desk sent up a manila envelope for you."

  "Slide it through the door," she requests throatily.

  This will not do! It has been years since I have been able to shimmy through a door crack that is only as wide as a chain. Perhaps if I had been more dedicated to working out, I might manage it. But I have never embraced unnecessary movement.

  What to do? I reach up with an unadulterated mitt and snag a claw on the glued flap at the envelope bottom. As the bellman reaches up with the envelope, I drag down. Bicep-pumping aside, I win, thanks to the surprise element coupled with my fighting-sharp talons.

  "I dropped it, Miss Ashleigh, and the envelope is partly under the door. Maybe you could open the door just a little bit?"

  "Oh, rats. Did you have to be so clumsy?"

  But the door shuts and I hear the chain-lock slide being operated. The bellman bends over to lift the envelope (thus giving me an unwanted close-up of his thong diaper). By the time he straightens up, Miss Savannah Ashleigh is standing in the open doorway in a flowing black chiffon negligee bordered with black marabou feathers on every edge.

  The bellman is so startled he forgets about his own anatomy for perhaps two seconds.

  That is all the time I need, especially with the made-to-order camouflage I see before me. I dart through the door as the envelope exchanges hands above me, and dash into the shady shelter of Miss Savannah Ashleigh's floor-dusting negligee. In my haste I allow my tail to brush her leg, but she merely twitches a bit, no doubt assuming that the tickling marabou has wafted against her epidermis. That is the trouble with wearing clothes trimmed in the fur and feathers of animals and birds. The wearer grows accustomed to the feel of foreign bodies, and cannot discriminate between the lifeless outerwear and the real thing.

  Now I must navigate the area in perfect tune with the Ashleigh doll's high-heeled baby steps. (I no
tice that she is wearing satin pumps with more marabou on the toes.) Tickling her gams with whiskers or tail is not my biggest problem now; I will have to be nimble to avoid being speared by those lethal satin heels. Miss Savannah minces over to a desk, where she sits to slit open the envelope.

  I sit beside her, naturally, trying to make myself as small as I can, which is akin to compressing twenty pounds of muscle and bone into a five-pound bag of liquid litter.

  At this juncture, when things are very cozy under her skirts, Miss Savannah Ashleigh commences to tap her dainty foot.

  "Of all the nerve," she huffs, tapping the other toe.

  I switch my tail from side to side like a metronome, trying to avoid a painful pinning to the floor. Unfortunately, Miss Savannah Ashleigh has not a rhythmic bone in her body. There is no rhyme or reason to her toe taps. I decide to make a break for the far wall under the desk and whisk through a fragile curtain of see-through chiffon.

  "Ooh! Yvette! Is that you, sweetums?"

  Any expert would never confuse the coarser, shinier texture of my black topcoat with the airy, fluffy feel of the Divine One's silver fur. But I fear that Miss Savannah Ashleigh has the sensitivity of a sponge, not to mention its capacity to retain water.

  I slip along the wall while she is lifting her skirt to hunt for a phantom Yvette. Soon I am patting open the door to the boudoir. My pulse races. Here the Divine Yvette must lie. Lay?

  Languish? Sure enough, I spot the familiar pink carrier and race for it. Empty! Has my lovely flown the coop before I could play the hero and release her?

  I survey the fringes of the room, then leap atop the dressing-table stool for a better look. On the king-size bed, smack dab in the middle, the Divine Yvette reclines in a faint pucker of coverlet.

  My heart leaps up and so do I. Despite the treacherous footing on the down comforter, I wade my way toward the feline of my dreams. Those round, aqua e yes widen at my approach.

  The Divine Yvette rolls onto her back and draws her curled dainty forefeet up to her chin. What a pose! I would even buy Free-to-be-Feline from the little doll.

  She yawns, exposing tiny sharp white teeth and rosy tongue and palate.

  "Louie! What are you doing here so late?"

  "It is never too late for us, my love," I tell her. "I have come to free you for a night on the town."

  The Divine Yvette puckers up her adorable face. "I would so love a few hours of frolic and sight-seeing, but my mistress is exceedingly distraught, and I dare not leave her at this critical moment."

  "You will excuse me for saying so, but Miss Savannah Ashleigh is often distraught about this or that. If one were to put off one's own pleasures to wait for her to experience a few of her own, I am sure that one's whiskers would go white and drop off in the interim."

  'That may be true, Louie, but this is a genuine crisis. My mistress visited her Las Vegas plastic surgeon yesterday and apparently the news is rather dire. I believe that he found it too soon for another laser wrinkle lift, but gravity and the desert sun wait for no woman." The Divine Yvette sighs. "These are the times I thank Bast that I was born in furs, not flesh. I would have to be shaved for any wrinkles to be visible."

  "Do not speak of such a travesty! I have heard of a case where a cat was shaved, and the result was not a pretty sight."

  Yvette's plumed tail pats the down comforter beside her. "But stay and talk awhile, Louie.

  My mistress is drowning her wrinkles in the astringent called alcohol, which must be taken internally. She gets even more boring than usual at such a time. I do long for a good bit of street gossip."

  I leap into plavr beside her, letting my tail entwine with hers. She stretches out long front gams and bats her eyelashes. I know that I would be getting the blue-green light if the rotten Miss Savannah were not in the adjacent chamber. I wish on her the sudden explosion of a nasty zit--

  that ought to have her sprinting to the hotel health club for a facial.

  "So," asks the Divine Yvette, "where would we have gone if we could have escaped for a few precious hours together?"

  "Nothing earth-shaking," I reply.

  "Good." The Devine Yvette's ruff shakes wholeheartedly. "I spend most of my time with my mistress in the better neighborhoods of Los Angeles. I face a good deal of earth-shaking there, and prefer a more quiet climate."

  "Exactly, my dear. I thought we could take another peaceful ride on the Love Moat. I could show you the spot where my signature shoes were found. Then we could trot around to the Crystal Phoenix, where I have an in, and we could nibble on steak tartare fresh from the meat cleaver of Chef Song. For dessert, we could hie to the Desert Inn, to relax in there A-one spa are, where we could give each other body massages and finish up with a tongue-bath."

  "Sounds divine! Perhaps my mistress's unhappiness is somewhat catching, but I find myself out of sorts too, and evincing strange, obsessive behaviors, like sudden headaches and a cettain mental restlessness. I cannot think what is the matter with me!"

  "Nothing is the matter with you," I pronounce confidently. "You are perfect! And you would be even more perfect were you able to slip away for some feline-to-feline resuscitation."

  "Your confidence is so inspiring, Louie. I do not doubt that I am being infected by my mistress's discontent. Does your mistress not transfer her burdens to you?"

  "Not really, but then I am not around long enough to function as a transferee. And Miss Temple's burdens are pretty small stuff, just like her, though she would be furious to hear me say it. Fortunately, we do not speak the same language."

  "Yes, it is a comfort not to have to speak to humans. Imagine how they would burden us with their troubles if they thought we could understand them. It is bad enough that they sniffle into our freshly washed fur on occasion."

  "Indeed. But their weakness is part of their charm."

  We are thus contemplating human behavior in perfect harmony, each emitting a gentle, back-of-the-throat purr, when we hear a clatter and crash and our ears flatten as one. I leap to the floor in one cheetah-size bound.

  I am not a second too late. The bedroom door is flung fully open to frame the black-draped figure of Miss Savannah Ashleigh. She stamps her foot on the thick carpeting, nearly breaking off a heel on her satin slides.

  "Imagine!" she tells the room and the Divine Yvette (and me). 'That rat had the nerve to turn me down. What an ego! Who does he think he is? Who does he think he can get, at his age and with his track record? We go way back, but I'm not about to forgive a snub on the grounds of old times."

  She stomps her way to the bedside table that holds a clock, and picks it up to squint at the tiny dial inside double rings of blue rhinestones. "However, the night is young yet," she snarls.

  "When Mr. Darren Big Deal finds out how hard it is for an aging Romeo to find the proper Juliet in Las Vegas nowadays, perhaps he'll settle for Hamlet's mother!"

  I can see that I had better scram, especially when Miss Savannah Ashleigh starts mixing metaphors. I slither out to the other room when her back is turned, and find a sheltered hunkering-down spot near the entrance doors. Surely someone will come or go one of these hours, and then I will skip out the door to my former freedom.

  "Ooh, Mommy's sweetest 'ittle pussums," I hear crooned from the bedroom. "You would never let Mommy down, 'ould you? No, no, no."

  I am afraid that the Divine Yvette is getting one of those saltwater baths that are so damaging to her fur coat.

  Will humans never learn the proper care of their boon companions?

  I think on other dark and disagreeable subjects for a couple of hours. Imagine my surprise when the person that finally frees me rustles, fully dressed to kill, from the bedroom. Miss Savannah Ashleigh does not even look down, her nose is so high in the air. She jerks open the door and struts out of it. I have to be quick to avoid getting a tailectomy as I bound through the door with her.

  Well, I was this close to the Divine Yvette, and once again her puzzling devotion to her straw-heade
d mistress has foiled our perfect union.

  I am beginning to think that the Divine Yvette and I are not meant to be. That is such a depressing thought that I hurry back to the Circle Ritz, planning to snuffle on Miss Temple Barr's shoulder.

  Chapter 16

  Fly on the Wall

  Eleven o'clock on a Sunday night, and the ConTact help lines were still.

  Matt sat facing the three white sides of his cubicle. He watched a fly crawl over the hole -

  studded soundproof tiles, adding a random element to the perfect pattern of perforations. Matt kept waiting for the fly to crawl into one of the round black holes, and disappear.

  But it didn't. Its splay-footed legs moved delicately over the aisles of white between the perforations and never made a misstep. If only people had the discriminating instincts of a common fly!

  But they didn't, and that's what made his job interesting, even on tedious nights like this.

  "Want me to call you up and pour out my troubles?"

  Matt leaned back in his stenographic chair to eye the only other counselor on duty right then: Bennie Cordova.

  Bennie was grinning over the plastic frames of his glasses, highly magnifying half lenses that made the bags under his sixtyish eyes look like they were packed for an around-the -world cruise.

  "You have troubles?" Matt joked back.

  No doubt Bennie--whose baptismal name was Bienvenido, "Welcome"--had been a cool guy during his sixties heyday, probably thumbing his nose at authority when it wasn't busy inhaling pot. If anyone had told Bennie then that his dark hair would gray and retreat screaming from his forehead with the inevitability of an ebbing tide, that he'd someday wear grandpa glasses and cardigan sweaters to work on a chilly Las Vegas night, Bennie probably would have beat him up. Now, time had beaten up Bennie, and his knees and neck were stiff, but he s till had his sixties insouciance. No sweat, man. Stuff happens, even growing old instead of up.