Cat in a Leopard Spot Read online

  “Now you are being noble, but you may not have an opportunity to put your sit-down strike into action. I hear that this upstart’s trainer favors Maurice as a partner. Not you.”

  “No! Obviously I miss a lot by not being near the scuttlebutt along Rodeo Drive. So we both are to be put out to pasture.”

  “They only put horses out to pasture, Louie. We will be put out to sleeping on sofas watching the Home Shopping Network.”

  “No!” Personally, I prefer QVC.

  “It is true. I have seen it happen in my mistress’s career. And now, with this hussy on the horizon—”

  “You mean the foreign feline the Allpetco people are supposedly considering for the spokescat slot?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Pardon me for being obtuse, but what does any alien female have that you do not have?”

  The Divine Yvette shrugs wearily. “New face, new hair. Younger.” She pauses to tidy her whiskers. “I have heard this upstart has some martial arts abilities. Apparently, underage females who can kick-box are the target media consumers these days. And she is the ‘right’ ethnic group.”

  My blood is beginning to thicken in my veins.

  “This candidate is Asian, by some chance?”

  The Divine Yvette’s almost undetectable sneer draws her luxurious vibrissae, aka whiskers, into a dismissive arch of truly noble proportions.

  “Siamese,” she hisses in disdain. “One of the new breed that is so narrow it looks as if it has been run over and then peeled off the street.”

  I nod, I know the look, and I am afraid I may even know the dame in question.

  “She is apparently appearing in some cheesy cable sci-fi series.”

  I gulp.

  “Something about Khatlords,” the Divine One continues, “although, despite their promising name, they are people, not felines.”

  “This Siamese is not called Hyacinth?”

  “I do not know her name and do not wish to. All I know is that this kung fu feline is being pushed for the next set of Á La Cat commercials. My mistress is worried white. So white that she has purchased a plain white-cotton martial arts gi for me…for me, who has only worn satin and velvet before. I fear that the fashion in feline fatales has changed from sweet and fluffy to sour and stringy.”

  I am so horrified by what I have learned that I have neglected to soothe the Divine Yvette’s injured ego promptly enough.

  “Louie! Have you nothing to say of this interloper of inferior breed who threatens our livelihood, and that of our nearest and dearest?”

  I shake myself free of unhappy thoughts.

  “Only that the Allpetco people would be insane to replace you with an Oriental shorthair like a Siamese. Your aquamarine eyes are infinitely superior to their blue eyes, which are often crossed, I hear. As for coat color, your fiendishly subtle hues of white, silver, and black have a classic art deco sophistication that no other breed can match.”

  The Divine Yvette is not only purring by now, she is rubbing back and forth against me like I am a magic lamp with a genie inside. Ah, bliss. I sense a close encounter in the air. Then I have to go and talk a little bit too long….

  “Compared to your sublime tones, that common Siamese camel coat accented with the mouse-turd brown trim breeders elevate by the name of lilac points is something from the Goodwill….”

  “Louie!” The Divine Yvette has pulled away, something like lightning from Mount Olympus in her heavenly aquavit orbs. “How did you know that this usurper was a lilac-point Siamese?”

  “Just a lucky guess?” I begin.

  Before I can insert more of my feet into my mouth, and I have several—feet, that is, not mouths—the curtain behind which we shelter is jerked open, spilling a blast of light and noise into our hideaway.

  “Yvette! Louie!” our significant others cry in tandem, united in the search for our missing selves. Their long-nailed hands reach for us.

  We are between a concrete wall and a wail of people in full cry.

  There is nothing to do but crouch down and allow ourselves to be plucked up from the floor and into our so-called owners’ arms.

  Miss Temple has a much harder time of it than Miss Savannah, who huffs off immediately with the Divine Yvette, muttering of genetic contamination.

  “Louie, you bad boy!” Miss Temple pants. “I’m just glad the judge is still in chambers and didn’t see you running away like a guilty party. You are the sinned against, not the perp. Act like it.”

  She stomps back to the set with me clasped to her bosom. It is not the triumph in court I had envisioned, but I know enough to act docile and maintain radio silence.

  Chapter 17

  Judgment Day

  The judge’s ill-tempered squint was more pronounced when she returned from viewing Temple’s tape of Louie’s and Yvette’s commercials and reviewing the documents in the case, which were all Temple’s.

  She glared first at Savannah and Temple, and then at Louie and Yvette.

  All four had the abstracted air of the blameless who had nothing to hide. The judge’s glare deepened, then she rapped her gavel once to hush the hissing that had erupted among the onlookers at her reappearance.

  “I don’t know about you two ladies, but veteran viewers know that it is extremely unlikely for claimants to recover any monetary damages in cases involving animals or domestic pets. As we know, the law recognizes no intrinsic value other than as property.”

  Onlookers nodded, while Temple shrank and Savannah’s posture puffed up, which wasn’t hard to do in either case.

  “We all know,” the judge went on, “that however emotionally people may invest in their animals, the court cannot compensate them beyond the literal value of the cats in question.

  “Besides, how much is an alley cat worth? For that is what Midnight Louie is.” The judge stared into the black cat’s green eyes. “About thirty-two dollars.”

  Temple gasped. The fee at stake for the winning party was twenty-five hundred dollars.

  “Give or take a few dollars—or cents—more,” Judge Jones added.

  Temple, horrified, opened her mouth, but a searing glance from the judge stopped things then and there.

  “Obviously,” the judge added, “Yvette is worth considerably more, due to her pedigree. I have, in fact, the sole piece of evidence from Miss Ashleigh: Yvette’s purchase price. “Twelve hundred and fifty dollars.”

  Savannah tossed her shaded silver locks.

  Temple mentally kissed even half of the twenty-five hundred good-bye.

  The judge looked down at the papers on her desk, then up at the camera.

  “However, in this case, Midnight Louie is not just an alley cat. He is a performing alley cat. Thus, Miss Barr’s argument that his offspring might have had value has credence. And although human pain and suffering is not a factor in this or any other case, no one can argue that being abducted and operated upon without the consent of his owner is a severe breach of the animal’s welfare.

  “So I am awarding Miss Barr and Midnight Louie the full damages of twenty-five hundred dollars. You should not jump the gun, Miss Ashleigh, and nail the wrong dude. It does not work with a smoking gun, and it does not work with a surgical scalpel.

  “Case dismissed. Award to plaintiff of twenty-five hundred dollars.”

  The courtroom buzzed.

  Or maybe the buzzing was just the sound of purring cats.

  Temple thought perhaps she was purring. She had won. Made Savannah Ashleigh look stupid on dead (as opposed to live) TV. Got some shoe money! Well, some of it should go to Louie’s Free-to-Be-Feline fund.

  Justice was sweet.

  “I’m not done with you, Miss Barr,” the judge snarled.

  Temple blinked.

  “Whatever the outcome of this case,” she went on, “the fact remains that you are a derelict cat owner. Why didn’t you take care of your animal’s irresponsible condition? Why has only Miss Ashleigh’s wrongheaded intervention kept him from bree
ding irresponsibly? Only luck made him innocent of fathering a litter of unwanted kittens.”

  “It’s—” Temple began. “He just ended up as my cat because no one else wanted him. I’ve never owned a cat before. I thought Louie was too old—”

  “They are never too old, Miss Barr. You should remember that for your own personal protection as well. And what was Midnight Louie doing out where Miss Ashleigh or her minions could kidnap him?”

  “Well, he’s too big to keep in—”

  “They are never too big to keep in, for their own good. Remember that. If pet owners like yourself would simply neuter your animals and. keep them inside, millions of unwanted lives would not be sacrificed yearly. You owe, in fact, Miss Ashleigh thanks for unwittingly—and I do believe it was genuinely unwitting—putting your own house in order on this matter. From now on, if any suspicions of parentage come up, Midnight Louie will not be a likely suspect.”

  Temple nodded soberly. “He doesn’t need a paternity suit. Not with his celebrity status.”

  Chapter 18

  Day of the Jekyll

  I am nursing my injured pride back at the Circle Ritz while Miss Temple is off gallivanting on matters that involve what she calls a job.

  Actually, I am daydreaming. I was not able to get close enough to the Divine Yvette to discover which dive Miss Savannah Ashleigh was honoring with her presence this trip. My chances of finding the proper hostelry in this town of 60 zillion bedrooms are not good.

  All in all, other than enriching my roommate by a fistful of dollars, this outing in search of justice was not a huge success. I get humiliated on national TV, as does my associate, and far too little money was paid for the privilege, if you ask me.

  At least I glimpsed the Divine One, who appears to have fully recovered from the stresses of enforced motherhood. If anything, her limpid eyes are more blue-green than ever, and her coat is richer, longer, fuller. She could be doing shampoo commercials soon. And I have not heard a murmur of my services being requested for future film duties.

  So I am in a pretty discouraged mood, when I hear someone tapping, gently rapping on one of my patio doors. ’Tis the wind, I tell myself, but eventually I force myself off the sofa and to the French doors.

  Nope, not the wind. I spy a blobby black silhouette through the sheer curtains Miss Temple uses to keep unwanted eyes from peeking in at her at night when the interior lights are on.

  Well, the blob is either Mr. Poe’s raven or someone of an even more dire aspect.

  I stick a mitt under the door to pull it slightly off-kilter, leap high up to swat the lever mechanism on the way down, and shoulder open the door against the now-sprung latch.

  After all this athletic effort, I am more than somewhat disappointed when Miss Midnight Louise ankles in, rubbing her shoulder possessively against the doorjamb. I had been hoping for something svelte and lonesome in shaded silver fur.

  “So this is where you hang your flamingo fedora,” Miss Louise comments, moving right on in to deposit her proprietary scent all along the sofa side. Eeeeugh! Give a dame an inch and she will take eighteen square yards of upholstery every time.

  “The peach chapeau was just a prop,” I point out, tailing her. “Hmmm. You have picked up some exotic scents of late.”

  “That is what I get for following your roommate and her exroommate yesterday. Jungle rot.”

  “Did that assignment lead to the Mystifying Max?” I ask eagerly, for I am hungry to know what he has been up to while Miss Temple has been dallying with courtroom drama.

  “Indeed it did, and also to a long drive into the desert, from which I returned only by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.”

  I examine said article of anatomy. Miss Louise seems possessed of every possible hair that could grow there, and then some. Her coat is longer and fluffier than mine, as suits the female of the species, and is another argument in favor of the fact that I cannot possibly be her pater, as the Brits say.

  “Your chinny-chin does not seem the worse for wear,” I note.

  She leaps atop my favorite lounging spot, sniffs, and moves to the loveseat’s opposite end, where she turns around thrice and then settles into a classic meditation position.

  “And what dangers have you been pursuing, Daddy Darnedest, since I was checking out the wild brown yonder?”

  “Uh, I accompanied my Miss Temple while she had an unpleasant brush with the law. We barely got out of there with our skins intact.”

  Miss Louise merely grooms one airy eyebrow with the back of her mitt, a clear signal of disbelief. “I am sorry to say that Miss Temple and Mr. Max had a parting of the ways—”

  “No!” I jump up to resume my accustomed spot, my heart beating with hope. “So they had a spat and are splitting up? I had wondered why I heard no aftermath from their expedition yesterday.”

  “Don’t get excited, Pop. You are not sole king of the comforter yet. I mean that when I followed them yesterday he hopped out of the vehicle at the edge of nowhere and I had to decide who to stick with.”

  “And?”

  “Where he got out was one big litter box. I decided against masquerading as a deposit for the next few hours and stayed with the car.”

  “Hmmm. A dedicated operative would have followed my instructions and stayed with Mr. Max. That was the one you were assigned to tail. You were not asked to take a cushy joy ride with Miss Temple.”

  “Yeah? Well, did you want me to find the missing leopard or not?”

  Miss Louie spits on her fist and boxes away at her face as if wishing she were wiping me off the floor instead of knocking the desert dust off her cheekbones.

  I am speechless, not to mention spitless. I send her out on one tailing operation and she nails the missing leopard. And all I have to show for today is having my undercarriage prodded by Dr. Mendel and my reproductive history filmed for posterity. Of which Miss Midnight Louise is not one. Any posterity. Of mine.

  While I mull over the bitter fruits of fame and fortune, Miss Midnight Louise leans back and honors me with a report. Only it feels more like a lecture.

  “My choice was clear. Did I follow the unreliable and unpredictable male, ruled more by hormones than by head, even though you had instructed me to? Or did I stick with the plucky and intuitive female? Did I have a choice?

  “Your Miss Temple drove, fairly sedately for her, until the road ended at a mountain. I suppose most roads around here do.

  “I smelled the spoor of many beasts, including those of the fortunate feline species, and also enough leavings to knock a sensitive nose to its knees, so it is a good thing I had not invited Nose E. along. This was far too crude a job for one of his connoisseur-level sniffing abilities. I mean, a blind human could have followed the ordure to its origins.”

  “Miss Temple noticed the obvious scent?”

  “I fear not. Superior as she may be, in this case she was totally bedazzled by the structure built at the mountain’s base, and getting into it. It was a modern, yet formidable sort of place, and I made my second momentous decision. I decided that I would sniff around on my own outside while she investigated inside. My greatest risk was that she and the vehicle would depart without me.”

  “From what you say, that would have been a disaster.”

  “Indeed. But as you see, that did not happen.”

  I look hard, but I do not detect the slightest trace of a callus on her dainty footpads. Drat! A long, dry, sandy walk would do her good.

  “So what did you find?”

  “A zoo,” she says, working hard at the tufts of hair between her toes. “It will take me days to rinse off the scents of such a Babel of beasts. And interviewing them all was not a picnic either. I deserve hazardous duty pay.”

  “Cut to the chase,” I growl.

  “Strange you should mention that word. I do not know if you can scent the fear from where you sit, but I have spent the day dealing with animal sacrifices on the hoof. They are there not to be chased but to be easily caught
. There are whole herds of horned beasts born and bred there and kept merely to be killed in their own pens by people who come in solely for this purpose. Fortunately, these herd-running creatures are far less intelligent than our breed, so they do not quite see the big picture, only that men come and lightning strikes, felling some of their numbers. Blessed are the dim of brain, who do not see the ax from the first.”

  I cannot help shuddering. I have never had any problems seeing the ax. I have been hunted in my homeless past by BB guns, handguns, arrows, and, on performance nights, shoes. It is never fun to be prey, and to be penned in for the kill is truly vicious.

  “But the prize objects of these hunts,” Miss Louise goes on, “I find in cages rather than herded into pens.”

  Miss Midnight Louise’s voice has grown deep and ominous. She bites savagely at a matted foot tuft, then spits out a hank of fur.

  “I regret to inform you that our larger brothers and sisters are the most prized victims of this coward’s excuse for a hunt, and it is here that I found the leopard known as Osiris in his stage persona.”

  “He is to be hunted to death?”

  “That may be the idea, but I do not think it will happen.”

  “He is safe?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “Then speak up, girl, and quit beating around the bush!”

  “There is very little bush out in the desert to beat around, and very little for the hooved ones to hide behind. But I doubt that Osiris will live long enough to be hunted and killed.”

  “Why?”

  “When I found him, he was in a wrought and pitiful state. He had not been fed since his abduction.”

  “Not fed? Why not?”

  “I cannot say. Even I could smell the raw meat in the other cages, but he had only a water bowl. A large water bowl, but only water nevertheless. I had no idea these big cats were quite so big. The lions and tigers seemed the size of Mr. Matt’s new car.”

  “They have lions and tigers too?”

  Louise gazes into the distance. “I was forced to, er, negotiate an abstraction of some undevoured meat from a black panther to give to poor Osiris.”