Temple, in the meantime, fished out another sheet of paper from her tote bag. “The veterinarian has written a statement about how unlikely it would be for a solid color black father not to produce any black offspring.”
This too was brought to the judge’s bench, which was really more of a high desk.
“Anything else?”
“Only that on the very flimsiest of suspicions, Miss Ashleigh had Midnight Louie abducted and taken to a facility where he was physically altered without my knowledge or participation, and obviously against his will.”
“His will does not matter. He is a cat.”
Louie stopped his contented sashaying back and forth against the grille of his carrier—such a nice side-scratching post—and regarded the judge balefully.
She seemed well aware of unfriendly fire when she saw it.
“An animal is property,” she said, leaning forward to address Louie directly. “It does not have free will, and it has no more than demonstrable market value.” Her glance skipped to Temple, but her tone remained stern. “I do hope, Miss Barr, that you are equipped to prove demonstrable market value. I can only award you damages in the amount of the animal’s intrinsic value, and he is not even a purebred, like little Yvette there. Is he?”
“No, Your Honor, but he is a performing cat who earns a salary and residuals. I have here a videotape of his TV commercials.”
The judge nodded, impressed for the first time. “Yes. I would indeed like to see this fellow performing. But you have not yet proven that Miss Ashleigh had anything to do with what you term ‘permanent tampering.’ I assume you mean that he was neutered without your permission.”
“He was kidnapped, taken to a facility, altered, and then dumped on my apartment doorstep in a groggy condition inside a white satin pillowcase.”
“White satin. That does sound like a Hollywood touch,” the judge said, glancing Savannah’s way.
Temple reached into her tote bag with grim satisfaction, soon flourishing a limp white article stained with small portions of red.
“The bloodstained pillowcase in which a drugged Midnight Louie was returned to me. It is embroidered with these initials: S. A.”
A gasp filled the courtroom as the camera operator zoomed in on the lurid trophy.
“Bailiff.”
Once again the kindly man clomped over to convey evidence from Temple’s table to the judge’s bench.
“S. A.” The judge looked judicial. “This could stand for “South America, Miss Barr.”
Temple could hardly cite the most damning evidence: that only Savannah Ashleigh was dim enough to return an abducted cat in a Porthault pillowcase bearing her initials. That would sound like libel, even though it was the unvarnished, uncollagened, unteased and sprayed, and unlipo-ed truth.
The judge’s eagle eye had rested on Savannah’s table now. “Your complaint is that your cat was unwillingly impregnated.”
“Well, we will never know how unwilling she was,” Savannah said. “I cannot believe that a Persian of her breeding would run around with an alley cat like that Louie, or even that Maurice. But they are both big, nasty bruisers. Yvette is only seven pounds, and delicate. It would not take much to overpower her. As for the striped kittens, it so happens that tabby-striped cats were used to give white cats that faint silver-fox striping, so of course it might come out in the kittens. That tabloid photo proves nothing, except that I am a subject of such interest to the national press that even my cat cannot have kittens without an event being made of it.”
Temple refrained from making gagging sounds, but Louie did not forbear from having a hairball attack.
“Must he do that?”
“I’m afraid so, Your Honor. Hairball attacks are unpredictable. And it is upsetting for the animals to come to court.”
“You can’t say they’re not used to hot lights and attention. So. Louie was returned to you minus his, ah, hairballs.”
The audience hooted.
“No.”
“No! I thought this case was about unauthorized neutering.”
“Not neutering. Louie was the victim of a vasectomy.”
’Vasectomy. Honey, they do not do that to cats. They do that to dudes.”
“Well, Louie must be a dude, then, because that’s what he got.”
“Now, wait a minute.” The judge sat back against her chair, frowning. “You’re saying that this cat had a human operation. What kind of vet would do that?”
“A veterinarian did not perform the procedure, which further points to Miss Ashleigh as the one behind it.”
“This cat was vasectomized by an unlicensed individual? By some amateur? You may have a case here, after all.”
“Not only that, I have a witness!”
“To the surgery?”
“Yes.”
“Who is this witness?”
“The surgeon.”
“But you just said the cat was not vasectomized by a vet.”
“No. He was operated on by Miss Ashleigh’s personal plastic surgeon.”
“I object, I object,” Savannah jiggled up and down in high-heeled indignation, one of her best camera angles.
“This may be a hostile witness, Your Honor,” Temple warned.
The judge’s gavel rapped the benchtop as Savannah jiggled, Yvette began hissing, and Louie yowled. “This is civil court, Miss Barr. We don’t have hostile witnesses. Either you’ve got a witness who will support your story, or you don’t. Where is this ‘expert’ who is not a veterinarian?”
A slow shuffling started from the back of the courtroom.
If this were a horror movie—and Temple was not sure that it was not—you would have heard the oncoming shuffling for a long time before any clue to the shuffler’s identity came into camera range.
But this was court TV, and this audience was unwilling to wait.
A man in a two-hundred-dollar haircut and an antipasto of Italian designer clothing shuffled forward like an eleven-year-old truant.
“It is I, Your Honor,” he said.
Savannah shrieked as if cut to the heart. “Dr. Mendel! Et tu, Brut?”
Temple didn’t think Savannah’s mangled Shakespeare had any relevance other than betrayed trust until Dr. Mendel sidled up beside her and she smelled his aftershave cologne. Brut. Unmistakably. Savannah was evidently astute in some very minor matters.
The doctor thrust his hands in his pockets until only a hint of his high-karat bracelet showed on the right wrist.
The judge leaned forward, glasses practically sliding off the tip of her nose. “Did you do this cat, Doctor?”
“I performed some procedures on him, yes.” He directed a misery-filled glance at Savannah, whose toe was striking a furious beat on the courtroom floor.
“Procedures?” the judge demanded. “Is that what we call castrating nowadays?”
“I do not perform castration. Miss Ashleigh brought me the animal. I naturally refused to do anything, but she became quite hysterical.”
“Ohhhh!” Savannah screeched.
He shrugged. “She insisted that I was to make sure this cat—”
“The black one here?”
“I’d have to examine the animal, Your Honor.”
“Make it so,” the judge barked, Captain Jean-Luc Picard style.
Both cats jumped and arched their backs.
Temple tried to hold and calm Louie, but he growled furiously as Dr. Mendel gingerly explored his hindsection.
“Yes, this is the cat. I see that my tummy tuck is holding up well. One of the best I’ve ever done, actually. The skin of cats is not attached to the underlying musculature, you know, so a tummy tuck can make a real difference. Especially in front of the camera, eh, boy?”
“A tummy tuck. So the dude got a free cosmetic procedure?”
“Unnecessary,” Temple said. “You will see from the videotape that Midnight Louie’s handsome coat of hair hides any presumed flaws.”
The judge was uninterested i
n Temple’s testimony. She was more interested in Dr. Mendel’s.
“So you did not remove anything from the cat?”
“I merely snipped segments from his vas deferens and siphoned some ugly excess fat from the abdominal area. The incisions were so tiny they didn’t require stitches.”
“Impressive. I think you may have happened on a profitable two-fer for your human clients. I know more than a few gentlemen who would like to get fixed and lipo-ed at the same time. Why did you bother with the tummy tuck? That wasn’t in Miss Ashleigh’s instructions.”
He shrugged. “I am a plastic surgeon, a perfectionist by nature. If I see something ungainly that’s easy to fix, I do it.”
Louie growled again and showed his fangs at Dr. Mendel’s hand. The surgeon quickly moved both hands back to his pockets, out of Louie’s snapping range.
“Some would say that Dr. Mendel, and Miss Ashleigh, had done you and Louie a favor, Miss Barr.”
“Louie is a television star, Your Honor. Who is to say his breeding potential is not valuable? Not only that, the pain and suffering I underwent when he was missing, and then returned in such a savage manner, in a drugged and altered condition—”
“Pain and suffering are not awardable conditions, Miss Barr.” The judge turned to Savannah. “All right. What’s your defense? It appears you had no evidence but prejudice and contact to blame your cat’s pregnancy on Midnight Louie. It also looks like you abducted the wrong Romeo. This Maurice fellow seems the far more likely suspect for Yvette’s delicate condition.”
“Well, later on, Your Honor, it did. But at the time…besides, I know my Yvette would never participate willingly in such an event.”
“Wait a minute. We are talking cats here. Female cats who are not neutered—and the evidence is clear that Yvette was not and still is not neutered—do go into heat, don’t they? You do know what heat is, don’t you, Miss Ashleigh? Haven’t you portrayed a human variation of that condition on film often enough?”
“Your Honor has seen my films?”
“Seen them? I’ve had them presented in evidence.”
“Surely not as evidence of violating the ratings system? They are clearly marked ‘R.’”
“No, Miss Ashleigh, I’ve seen them as evidence of fraudulent filmmaking. Some investors said the films were made with no intentions of being distributed, but merely to divest them of their money. But that was a while back, when I was a Hollywood judge, not a TV judge. Luckily”—the judge showed clean white teeth but did not smile—“I am not hearing that kind of case anymore.”
Temple was trying to keep herself from jiggling up and down in triumph, even though it wouldn’t have the gelatinous effect of Savannah Ashleigh’s jiggles. Things didn’t sound good for the Tinseltown floozy.
Judge Jones swept all the papers and Temple’s videotape into a pile. “I’ll adjourn to view all the evidence and then return with the verdict. “Ladies. Control your…cats.”
The admonition was well deserved. Both Louie and Yvette, unobserved by their distracted human chaperons, had each come to their separate table edges and now leaned over the brink of space that kept them apart, sniffing futilely at the unkindly air that separated them.
“Get back in your carrier, you sssshaded ssssilver sssslut!” Savannah hissed. “Issssn’t one mongrel litter enough?”
“He’s fixxxxxed, thankssss to you,” Temple hissed back. “And poor Yvette isssss only a victim in all thissss. She would have never chossssen Maurissse over Louie.”
The kindly silver-haired bailiff stepped into the space between the cats.
“Ladiesssss, pleasssse,” he hissed so that the microphones wouldn’t pick up the catfight.
They each grabbed a peacefully purring cat and moved them back to the center of their tables, as if separating enemies.
The judge’s “few moments” for the viewing audience was twenty foot-tapping, nail-nibbling, cat-herding minutes for the combatants.
The biggest problem, Temple found, was trying to keep the two cats apart. Louie and Yvette, that is.
Chapter 16
Hissy Fit
What an exercise in frustration.
Not allowed to testify on our own behalves.
Treated like nonpersons—okay, this is not new.
And kept apart like rabid monkeys.
I do not think much of human justice!
So I decide to take matters into my own mitts.
While Miss Savannah Ashleigh is busy inventing stage business for the camera, huffing and puffing and tapping her tiny toe and pushing her fat hair off her shoulders, she has neglected to fully zip shut the Divine Yvette’s carrier.
I glance at my Miss Temple. She is fussing over her various papers, no doubt looking for the key piece of evidence she forgot to give the judge. She obviously is counting on me to be the little gentleman I have been for the past hour or so.
She should know that an hour is too long for the average cat to remain docile and obedient. As for an above-average dude like myself, I am ready to bust out of this low-rent trial-by-television.
In one graceful leap I am airborne and land on the opposition’s tabletop.
With a swift flourish of my front fang, I hook it into the hole in the carrier zipper tag and rip the teeth apart, a maneuver I have performed before in less public circumstances.
My darling’s adorable face pops into plain view, although nothing about the Divine Yvette could ever be called plain.
“Louie!” she mews with delight. The dames can never resist a swashbuckling kind of guy.
I assist her out of the collapsing pink canvas, ignore shrieks and admonitions from two sides, and urge my little pet into a leap to the floor. A quick flight through the onlookers creates a stir in our wake, but too late to impede our progress.
Then it is out the imposing double wooden doors (mostly painted plywood) and into the great concrete space that houses the technical set.
We speed over welts of black cables snaking across the floor and into the shadows behind the curtains used as room dividers in the massive space.
I can hear human footsteps and voices and consternation all over the place, but we snuggle down next to a cooler and are instantly alone on our own desert isle.
“Oh, Louie.” Yvette sighs. “You are très unpredictable. Such a merry chase we have led them. I was feeling so cramped in my carrier.” She catches her breath with a little gasp. “Oh! I am not used to such a sprightly romp since I first contracted my unfortunate condition.”
“And how are the little stripe-heads?” I ask, feeling it necessary to bow to the maternal instinct.
“Gone to the neighbors, one by one. I cannot say that I cared to be reminded daily of the criminal proceedings that led to their birth.”
I murmur sympathetically. I would not wish to be reminded of Maurice’s ugly mug either, even if that likeness was now adorning the faces of my own offspring.
“I am glad that they have found good homes.”
“Oh, yes. Unlike my mistress, her neighbors find having the offspring of Yvette and Maurice, the cat food mascots, quite a plume in their tails. They do not care about pedigree, as my mistress does.”
“And who are her blue-blooded antecedents, I would like to know?”
“Perhaps that is why she so prizes my own,” the Divine Yvette notes in a flash of perception and loyalty that is especially touching coming from one born and bred to think only of her pedigreed self.
Perhaps I have been a good influence on her.
“Will we ever work together again, I wonder?” I say.
“Will you ever see my sister, Solange, again, you may be wondering too? Do not deny it, Louie! You are as weak as any of your gender when it comes to those brassy blonds.”
“No, my sweet. You know that I prefer platinum blonds.”
That remark permits me to rub cheeks with the Divine Yvette as a purr of satisfaction ripples through the luxurious fur ruffling her shoulders and chest.
&
nbsp; “I am sorry, Louie,” she says instantly. “I am in a bad mood because some foreign hussy is muscling in on my Á La Cat deal just as I was recovering from my…incapacitation and getting ready to resume my career. And the scandal had died down until your roommate gave it a kick-start again with this silly suit.”
I grit my teeth. I cannot tolerate my Miss Temple being criticized, but neither can I condone any actions that put the Divine Yvette into a less than flattering spotlight.
“I am sorry also,” I say. “There is no stopping these humans when they get a flea in their bonnet, or a bee in their ear, or whatever.”
She nods sadly, biting her shiny little black lip with one pearly fang tip. “I cannot excuse my mistress. I had no idea how harshly you were handled by her. Kidnapped! Falsely imprisoned! Operated upon without permission. Altered inalterably! I am tempted to leave Pretty Paws litter all over my mistress’s satin sheets the next time she is entertaining a gentleman friend.”
“Ah, your commiseration is welcome, my dear, but I must quibble about one point. I was not ‘altered’ in any crucial way. I am unable to sire kittens, but certainly am able to go through all the motions needed for that end. And then some.”
“Then why do anything?” she asks with touching innocence. “I cannot say that the actual act is anything to write home about. And, on top of the painful unpleasantness, one is labeled a naughty girl for doing what one did not even wish to partake of in the first place.”
There is no explaining to dames that they should like what guys like just because.
“But apparently your reviving good looks and the passage of time had restored you to favor with our sponsor, Allpetco.”
“So I thought, and what is worse, so did my poor mistress. She finds film work scarce these days, and depends upon my income a good deal, so you can imagine how upsetting it would be if I lost my position. I would even accept my sister’s replacing me if it would assist my mistress’s finances.”
“You are both beautiful and noble,” I say, “but what makes you think this foreign interloper stands a chance of replacing you? I will refuse to work with her if they try anything!”
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