Cat In A Leopard Spot

“I am not here on any trifling errand,” I say loftily. “I was merely doing you the courtesy of checking in before I head out to Rancho Exotica again. I would not wish to be accused of denying you the opportunity for a long ride in a Mob meatwagon. I know how you yearn to associate with the more upscale elements in town.”

“Can the sarcasm,” she advises me. “You still have those two nose jobs with you?”

“Alas, no. Their assignment is over. I now have a witness to the crime and it is merely a matter of returning to the ranch to take a deposition. Dull work, really. I could not blame you for staying someplace safe and luxe like the Phoenix and letting your elders do the dirty work.”

“There is more than one of you? Say it is not so!”

“I was using ‘elders’ in the general sense.”

“You are being very good-natured about leaving me out of this,” she says suspiciously.

By now she is more leery of my wishing her to stay home than my possibly wanting her to come along.

I play her like a two-pound carp. “It is only that I know how unhappy you were last time to miss the bus, so to speak. I wish to give you every opportunity to learn from your elders.”

“Ha! You probably are not sure you can cop a ride on the meatwagon without me to distract the muscle at the wheel. No go, Pops. This time you will have to play decoy. I will try not to let those heavy doors slam shut on anything of yours that you might miss.”

She strikes a tough deal, but getting into the meat wagon solo is a delicate operation.

“So who is this witness?” she prods. (I mean she literally prods…her claw into my paw. Ouch!)

“A secret witness is not a secret witness anymore if I tell anyone who asks.” I also do not tell her that she may be of assistance in wringing the story out of said witness. No sense letting the kit think she is more important than she already thinks she is.

Not half an hour later we are in line behind a Dumpster ready to take the afternoon stage to Rancho Exotica.

“Shhhh!” my darling not-daughter admonishes me.

“That is not me growling. That is my stomach. I neglected to have lunch.”

“You can gnaw on a horse hock once we are aboard.” She casts a baleful yellow glance my way. (A pity she did not inherit my soulful, lettuce-green eyes, not that we are related, of course.)

“Horse! I have interrogated horses. I would never eat them. Is that what they feed the Big Cats?”

“Among other things.” Midnight Louise is squinting at the sides of beef milling around the van…not the frozen meat hunks, the hunks on legs, i.e., the ham-handed human dudes who are manhandling the meat into the rear compartment.

“Those are exceptionally beefy individuals,” I mention.

“Minions of the Mob usually are.”

“Strange that the experts say that there is no more Mob in Las Vegas.”

“Please. You have been out of the hotel business too long, Pops. They still have a good grasp on the wholesale meat business, that is for sure. Were you a drinking dude and prone to hanging out in bars, you would be having guys offering you steaks by the slab at a very good price. The hotels lose their weight in purloined meat every year.”

“Indeed. So these dudes mean business.”

“I would not want to let one of them catch me by the hairs of my chinny chin-chin.” She eyes me. “So you think you can distract them while I slip into the van?”

“Uh. Sure.” I am not as nimble—or do I mean nubile? I suspect both words are somewhat the same—as Miss Midnight Louise, but I certainly know my way around the criminal elements, even when they are packing lamb chops instead of revolvers.

Not that they might not be packing revolvers too.

While the dudes return to the warehouse to load up another cart of cartilage, I dash from the Dumpster to the front of the vehicle. I figure Miss Louise’s trick of yowling has gotten old by now, so I bound up on some piled boxes to the van’s roof and bide my time.

Ooooh. That refrigeration unit is blowing hot air onto the hot metal roof, making it into a steel stovetop. If I do not watch it, my toes will sear and I will be worthless in a five-yard dash.

In fact, my best move would be to jump down the back right into the van, but first I must distract the boys from Syracuse so that Louise can sneak into the meat locker.

I give a low moan.

“Yo, Vinnie,” one guy says. “You getting frostbite? Do not leave any fingerprints on the merchandise.”

“Hey, Manny. You got indigestion or something? Must have sampled the goods.”

I moan again. You would be surprised what eerie vocalizations we furred dudes can produce…unless you had been at one of our community sings or love-ins, and then you would not be surprised at all.

I hear Vinnie clomp around to Manny on the side of the van. “You do not think that some of this meat is still alive?”

“It is fresh,” Manny says, “but I am sure it is also fresh dead. You do not think some of this meat is haunted?”

“Haunted? You mean tainted. Naw, it is all primo stuff.”