Kerol Duglas - Cat In A Crimson Haze

Prologue

Lionized Louie

I want one thing on the record, straight off.

Millions have seen a television commercial with a giant, metal-gilded, Art Deco lion-dude striding across the sand-choked Las Vegas scenery. When he stretches out, he hunkers down to become a high-tech Sphinx of sorts. In a touch of computer-graphics magic, the new MGM

Grand Hotel and Theme Park fans out from his hindquarters like a green-glass peacock's tail.

Put down this: I am not impressed.

There is only one major pussycat in this town, and the name is Midnight Louie.

Even now I can glimpse the kitchen bulletin board, where my PR-conscious roommate has posted my Iatest newspaper likeness.

This one is nothing to phone home about: I look like something the dog dragged in. Ears flattened and eyes at half-mast, I am being menaced by what looks like a UFO, but is actually a clear plastic breathing apparatus. This photograph commemorates the moment when I was supposedly rescued from the clutches of the cat crucifier of my last adventure. The fireman flourishing the plastic mask is allegedly administering life-saving oxygen to my air-starved puss after I was given a chloroform muffler and tied into a burlap bag.

In this instance, a picture is not worth a thousand words; it is not even worth a three-day gig at the bottom of a finch cage.

Suffice it to say that I engineered my own escape from the burlap bag. I was even ready to direct an all-feline uprising to save Miss Temple Barr from a premature toasting, when the clumsy firemen interfered. I no more needed oxygen than a fish needs an air hose, but the redundant firemen had to do something to look good in the media. I am not a victim of anything in that snapshot except an ill-conceived photo opportunity.

At present, however, even a prime-time pussums believes in observing the signs of the times. I can read the hieroglyphics on the wall: this televised muscle-bound feline escapee from Virtual Reality City is indeed a poster boy for the Times They Are A-Changing.

Not only has the MGM Grand Hotel resurrected itself far from the ashes of its former location on the Strip (now Bally's), but it has roared back with 5005 rooms, the most in ail the world. Sharing the MGM's hot new scenery are the new Luxor and Treasure Island hotels. Guess what? Las Vegas--the capital of crass ... the headquarters of chutzpah . . . the nerve center of the salacious--has sold out.

The name of the game in this toddling town nowadays is two words that would stop a stripper cold In mid-grind. It might even chill a bookie's soul right where he carries it, in his back pocket with the rest of the cash.

The catch phrase of the day is Family Values.

Call me cynical, but it is my observation that Family Values never come into play with so much enthusiasm as when the bottom line is at stake. And the bottom line in Vegas these days is no longer the thin, white tan-streak left by a thong bikini.

The bottom line is that gambling has become a national sport. Las Vegas is no longer the champion Sin City that it used to be. Nowadays you have your Atlantic City, you have your state lotteries. You also have your Native American version of surround-the-cavalry and take-your-revenge-in-chips, previously known as Reservation Bingo. All these legalized forms of gambling now affect more states than once spangled on the Confederate flag. My home town, the Mecca of the Mojave, must now hustle more than its bustle to draw the same crowds of yore; it must appeal to a whole new wholesome clientele.

What can I say? Las Vegas--the shining-star of the glitz parade--has gone Brady Bunch. It is enough to make a home-grown dude sniffle into his Snapple juice.

Luckily, I touch almost nothing but water these days, or else I would not believe my eyes.

There is much to decry in this town, and I usually have not wasted my breath doing it. An invasion of decency hardly seems worth the bother. I have my own troubles. One floor above me abides a jet-black babe who goes by the name of "Caviar." Her street name Is Midnight Louise, and only I know what that means.

Luckily, she has not yet figured out my own moniker, or I would be lunch meat. I must confess that I fear this feisty, featherweight lady more than any three-story lion-dude outfitted in skin-tight gold lame.

Yet another floor above this Caviar doll lurks the golden-haired Karma, a creature of reclusive habits who also enjoys baiting Midnight Louie. Was ever a dude so beset?

To add offense to injury, my resident little doll. Miss Temple Barr, has been absent from home of late, tending to public relations business.

Does no one care that this town is going to heaven in a handbasket? Does no one care that Midnight Louie has personal problems of a perplexing nature? Does no one care that the eighties economy of fun, frivolity and foolishness has crashed in the Sober Nineties? That changing times are ringing in hype, tripe and gripe?

The answer, of course, is a resounding nyet.

In the silence of one lone whisker waving, I lay my kisser upon my folded mitts and snooze.

Chapter 1

Bless the Beast and Children

''How old is--?" Temple stared at the bald, bouncing, burbling infant, desperately seeking a safe synonym for ''it.'

And failing.

She would have to commit.

Suicide.

"He/she?" she uttered in a rush.

"Cinnamon is five months." Van von Rhine, the no-nonsense manager of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino, spoke with maternal fondness.

"Cinnamon," Temple repeated, dazed. "You can call her. . . Cinny for short."

Temple winced at her own small talk, but hoped that she at least had the gender right. These days, given naming trends for both sexes, one could not be certain. Such uncertainty was no way to impress the boss. The potential boss.

Luckily, fond maternal doting was deaf as well as--apparently--blind.

''Isn't she adorable, if I do say so myself?" Van, a petite pastel blonde who was nevertheless the terror of hotel staff everywhere, and at the Crystal Phoenix in particular, hefted Cinnamon to her shoulder for a back-pat and a burp. ''Nicky wanted to call her 'Nicole,' but I convinced him that French names are too trendy nowadays. Men are so vain."

While Van von Rhine frowned at her husband's natural inclination to give his first child a name that echoed his, Temple recalled a rumor that "Van" was short for "Vanilla." That would make little Cinnamon a chip off the maternal spice rack. Men weren't the only blindly vain ones.

"How's Louie?" Van asked in the tone of one giving equal time to a guest's nearest and dearest.

"Huh?" Temple was seldom flummoxed by sudden subject changes, but pretending to admire babies turned her usually astute brains to, er, pabulum. A PR person loathed nothing more than something she knew nada about.

"Oh, would you like to hold her?" Van von Rhine's tone now indicated that she had been seriously and socially derelict.

"Ah, no thanks. Louie? Oh, you mean the cat!"

"Yes." Van's Madonna like smile matched her bland blond serenity. Princess Grace was not dead but resurrected in time for the evening news. "But Louie would not like being referred to as 'the cat.' There is nothing generic about Midnight Louie."

Yessir, that's my baby. Temple's brain insisted on drumming. "Louie's . . .fine. I'm sorry he wandered away from the Crystal Phoenix--"

Van nodded to a lurking teenaged nanny who quickly removed Cinnamon before Baby burped Gerber's split-pea soup on Mother's immaculate champagne-pale Versace suit shoulder.

Talk about Exorcist V.

"We miss him," she said simply.

"I do, too, now and then," Temple chimed in before catching herself. "I mean, he does come and go as he pleases."