Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

First and most important, the Las Vegas Convention Center is far from my normal purview. How I got here is like this: I am undercover house detective at the Crystal Phoenix, the classiest little hotel and casino to flash its name in neon on the Strip. This is a tasteful, if not tasty, sign with a mythical beast of an avian nature exploding its pinfeathers in blue-and-magenta neon with a dash of emerald green; in other words, a first cousin to the NBC peacock, another mythical beast of more recent manufacture.

Some around town find it unusual that a dude with my, shall we say, pinstriped, if not actually checkered, past would snag a responsible job like unofficial house detective. I owe it to the Crystal Phoenix’s founder, Nicky Fontana, a sweetheart of a guy and the only one in his large Family to go as straight as the Las Vegas Strip itself.

Nicky inherited eight million in legitimate dough from his grandma's pasta factory in Venice (California, that is). So he throws this considerable yeast into remodeling an abandoned hotel into a showpiece of what Vegas could be if the whole town had the taste to employ a marzipan little doll like Van von Rhine to manage the joint.

This pint-size doll also managed to marry Nicky, and therein lies the source of my present disenchantment. The union, while profitable to the hotel, has produced an offspring. The Crystal Phoenix, an around-the-clock palace of high-stakes poker tables, glitter, glitz and free food, now knows the Patter of Little Feet.

Time was when my little feet were the only ones welcome in the establishment, from the chorus girls’ dressing room to the owners’ penthouse. However, the newcomer—who has no obvious attractions other than the dubious ability to scream like a harem of Siamese in heat at odd hours of the night—is the center of an epidemic of cooing that leaves myself cold.

I express my distaste by strolling far from my now- unpleasant turf to the Las Vegas Convention Center, which I see by the local rags is hosting the ABA, aka the American Booksellers Association.