Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

Global politics is not normally my bailiwick. (Bailiwick is a good old-fashioned word for “arena of operation.”) My arena of operation for the nonce (another good old-fashioned word) is the New Millennium and the White Russian exhibition. By now, I have found a handy ground-floor entrance: the back area where they download the Big Cats every day for rehearsal.

I merely hop through the bars of their cages—all right, I have to shimmy-shimmy my midlife male middle through the iron uprights—then I can hunker down between their extended forelegs and pass as a shadow. We are all big black dudes, after all.

Kalúha is cool, but I have to watch Lucky, as he is new to the act and at times does not realize his own strength. Sometimes when he yawns, his lower jaw knocks my skull sideways. But a few blows to the cerebellum does not stop the streetwise shamus, as all the noir detective novels point out ad nauseam.

By the time the boys are transferred to their holding cages up top I am freewheeling and hard on the trail of crime and punishment. First, I need to know if the Big Cats have any insight on Russian politics.

Zip. Nil. Nada. These guys are huge and brawny and cooperative, but not much in the little gray cell department.

So I slink about the upper area, blending into the matte black paint job as long as I keep my eyes slitted almost closed, looking for some high witness I have missed interviewing. See, the guy was found dangling just above the apex of the exhibition area. That was sixty feet below the magic show staging zone. I figure somebody up there was not only watching, but pulling the strings.

CC and Miss Shangri-La are not on the scene yet, so I edge to the rim of a ledge to gaze down at the busy work below. It is way higher than an elephant’s eye up here and is in no way a beautiful morning, so I am not surprised when a cold bolt of fur and claws bowls me over and has me hanging by my flimsiest nail sheaths from the wooden platform.

I gaze up into celestial blue eyes rimmed in predator red. Before I can blow my cover and whimper “Squeaker,” I watch those Babyface Nelson–blue eyes blink.

“You!” Miss Hyacinth hisses. “I would help you up but my curare claws might bring you even farther down. Now we will see what upper foreleg strength will do for a common street fighter.”

She steps back out of sight, leaving me to heave myself up on semi-solid ground sheath by sloughed sheath. I hear their tiny clicks hitting hard surfaces below like invisible hail.

Panting, I have regained my footing and stare my sudden tormentor down. That is just an expression. She remains with me up here, on this pseudo–crow’s nest perch. I wish one of those bigbeaked black birds were up here. They would teach Miss Hyacinth a thing or two.

While I catch my breath, she eyes me up and down, no doubt regretting that my “down” was not fatal. That is always the thing with these feline fatale types: they have to establish their street cred.

“Midnight Louie,” she acknowledges. “I thought you had taken a few days off to bury your impertinent daughter after our encounter at CC’s estate.”

“Hmph,” I say, “more like her burying me. I see you survived her onslaught.”

“Easily.”

I look into those crystal blues and know she is lying. Her set-to with Miss Louise is why a body double is in this new show. And . . . she might have enjoyed the superiority of helping me back up on the platform, except I can sense a certain delicacy in the joints on her part.

For a moment a soupçon of sympathy vibrates through my vibrissae (that is whiskers to you!). A domestic-size cat is always at a disadvantage on stage. Hyacinth is struggling to keep up with the Big Boys despite suffering a world-class catfight a few weeks back against my purported daughter, Miss Midnight Louise. I would have to say Louise may indeed be my spawn, for she won that one, pads down.

So, Hyacinth had thrown her weight around on me because it is her best weapon at the moment, curare-painted nails or not. Besides, she probably has a soft spot for me, anyway. Who would want to off the only reproductively harmless macho housecat in Las Vegas? The Big Boys would have her for lunch, or elevenses, if it were left to them.

“I did not know you were interested in high-wire acts,” she says from her usual defensive crouch, which emphasizes the sharklike sharpness of her shoulder blades. Her coat is the same pale cream shade but her dove-gray trim shows slight scars.

“Me? An aerial act? Bast forbid.”

“You do look a little bottom heavy.”

“Physique has nothing to do with it. I am an earth sign.”

“Oh, really? Which one?”

“Well, I do not believe in that astronomy stuff so I cannot say. Maybe, uh, Taurus.”

“Ah. The bull. As in slinging lots of it. Why are you here? This is my mistress and my new gig. Intruders are not welcome.”

“I am not an intruder.”

“Then what are you?”

For one thing, fast on my feet with a good story. “Ah, I represent the boys.”

“Boys?”

“Yeah. The Big Boys. I am their agent.”

“I do not have an agent.”