Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

What to do? It dawns on me rather swiftly that the missing Baker and Taylor have likely been deposited in this Auschwitz-on-the-Mojave since sometime Friday. They have less than twenty-four hours of survival left, unless someone does something about it.

I pace the ground outside their prison. I sit and muse upon the moon when it coasts free of passing clouds. I weigh options. I clean my ruff and box my ears, hoping for some stroke of genius to strike.

Nothing occurs. Only one course remains. This will have to be an inside job. I do not kid myself; even a dude of my weight, finesse and manual dexterity has never broken into—or out of—an animal pound cage.

I will have to go undercover, allow myself to be captured and do what I can as an inside man. If all else fails, I have one card up my sleeve. Maybe, just maybe, the little doll I left lonely at the Circle Ritz will tumble to my possible whereabouts and ride to my rescue. Hell, she can even walk. If she is fast enough, we might even spring Baker and Taylor.

If she is not, give my regards to Broadway.

17

Missing Purrsons

 

Eightball O’Rourkewas waiting for Temple and Emily Adcock next to the equestrian statue of Julius Caesar that stood, appropriately, kitty-corner from Caesars Palace.

At a distance, the famous hotel and casino glittered frosting-white in the hot sunlight. An endless driveway from the Strip bracketed fountains that led to a reproduction of the headless Winged Victory statue. A semicircular facade of columns fronted the hotel proper and framed a line of oversize marble goddesses, replicas of world-renowned statues. Cars swept up the curved approach—Mercedes, Cadillacs and costly custom jobs wearing more chrome than paint.

The scene at the foot of Caesar’s statue was more humble. Emily had brought the money, neatly wrapped in brown paper. Temple was impressed by the solid brick formed by $5,000 in small bills.

She didn’t try to pay O’Rourke by check, but handed him three fifty-dollar bills.

“This is our money, Mr. O’Rourke,” Emily said after the terse introductions. “Mostly mine. I’ve got to get those two cats back. What are our chances?”

He stuck the parcel in the crown of the Western hat he carried. “Not good. Odds are never good on kidnapping. Too easy to lose the object of the game once they’ve got the cash. Kidnapper don’t care, and if the victims is cats, well—some folks don’t care for cats. Usually crooks. Hell, crooks don’t care for their kinfolk or womenfolk. Why should they care for cats?”

“There’s no guarantee, then?”

“Nope. But I’ll do my best to make the drop so it looks like this here young lady done it.”

“Me?” Temple said. “If I’ve got to be involved, why pay you?”

O’Rourke flipped up the rear skirt of his shapeless polyester-knit sport coat to reveal the gun butt in the back of his jeans. “I’m muscle.”

“You’re muscle!” Temple snorted impolitely. “Even I can see your bald spot when I’m wearing my Charles Jourdans.”

Eightball O’Rourke most likely had no idea that Charles Jourdan French pumps were not only expensive, but arch-breakingly high-heeled. However, he immediately absorbed the gist of her words.

“I’ll do my best to tail the wrong-doer, ladies. More than that you cain’t ask in a kidnapping. If those cats are safe, the napper’s the only one who can lead us to ’em. Now, you with the stilt shoes, wander along the road there behind me and make a big deal of stopping to fix your heel when you reach the third statue of whazzits from the entrance. If you got the ransom note, they expect you to show some interest in this-here drop.”

“It’s Venus,” Temple said. “The statue. Then what?”

“Then amble off. Speaking of statues, you know what happened to Lot’s wife.”

“Salt?”

O’Rourke nodded soberly. “Enough for a whole box of soda crackers. Don’t look back.”