Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Several walkers rush to push the old fellow back onto the sidewalk and applaud as, like the Mississippi, he just keeps rolling along.

They then start looking around for me. Not a chance. Unlike Daddy dearest, I know when to duck the spotlight. My loyal audience assumes the worst, that I have fled to nurse my injuries. Cries of “poor kitty” grow faint in my wake as I work my way through the low landscaping under the Boulevard palms.

“Poor kitty” is right where she wants to be. I have it made in the shade once I thread through the leafy underbrush, past a lot of milling and sniffy sneakers and into the dim, ice-palace air-conditioning of my destination.

Gangsters is a boutique hotel. “Boutique” is one of those fancy French words my senior, very senior, partner likes to toss off in front of certain purebred females he is always striving, in vain, to impress. It means “small and expensive.”

In Las Vegas, it means short-storied and off-Strip. Still, a very snappy neon sign of a fedora and a gun barrel set the theme atop the nine stories.

I am not expensive, but I am small, and black like my old man, so moving around Vegas in the dark and indoors, which is almost always dark, is no trick. I head inside for the signature “fine dining experience” on the premises, which is not the kicky vintage carousel bar on the lower level, but a new top-of-the-tower eatery called Godfather’s.

Yes, this is an ultra-macho venue. You will find no restaurant named Godmother’s here. In fact, I think us Vegas girls of various species should get together and back a female-friendly hotel-casino called Chicklets. I nominate our friend Van von Rhine, lady Exec of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel, as chairman of the board.

Anyway, you work with the hand you are dealt, and my particular ace in the hole at the moment is one large black cat-dude more interested in expanding his waistline than building his sphere of influence. He makes the senior partner of Midnight Investigations, Inc., look junior.

First I have to weave through a lot of waxed legs and spit-shined evening loafers to the rotating restaurant ring with the window views of neon and natural sunsets. It might be impressive to tourists, but I usually have a floorside view.

I meander unseen among the seated lower limbs. How can fashionable femmes walk on these curved, rocking chair platforms and stiletto heels that make Miss Temple Barr’s shoe fetish look like a low-end lace-up sneaker sort of love?