Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Like my old man says, “Kits, do not try solo roaming if you live safe at home and consider a stroll to the litter box a taxing trek. We at Midnight Investigations, Inc., are Vegas veterans and professionals at eluding traffic and tourists and sunstroke.”

Right now I am goggle-eyed at passing the parade of portable three-card monte games of chance; mimes; rap artists and tap, break, and ballet dancers; street musicians and magicians; men on stilts; women on Rollerblades and cops on patrol.

You would think the acts from Circus Circus Hotel and Casino up the Strip had gone on strike and taken their skills to the street. I must keep my tender toes dodging the emphatic stomps of tap shoes and toe shoes and clown shoes and sports shoes.

An endless drone of song and spiel drifts down to my level. My ears are unfortunately geared to pick up every sound, not drown them out. What is going on here? Then I realize this streetside show is not a special event, but a new curse brought on by today’s Las Vegas, which suffers the lowest house values and highest job losses in the nation.

These bustling and hustling theatrical folk are all fancy panhandlers. Begging is against the law on most city streets, so they “perform” for their supper while the beat cops in their beige Bermuda shorts try to please the big venues and avoid irritating the tourists by moving the impromptu show folks along.

I have been known to cadge a meal, or three, a day. Then I won my slot as the Crystal Phoenix house detective, not to mention the services of the hotel’s devoted Asian chef, who has an award-winning hand with what is called the “fruits of the sea” on the best menus in town.

This keeps me far away from the giant fish tank in the lobby of the Mirage, and most of those fish are really too big to consider prey instead of predator. The Mirage is not about to spotlight sardines and anchovies, except on menus or at sushi bars. However, when you are talking about the latest 3-D movie spectacular, that is where you will find me rapt and gazing at the big screen.