Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

Prologue

Founding Fathers

So there Is Howard Hughes standing on the corner talking to Bugsy Siegel.

Now this is not just any old corner. According to the prominent street sign, this is the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road.

And this is not just any old Howard Hughes. This is the young HH before he adopted a hippie lifestyle. You know: long hair and fingernails, no clothes and a stockpile of Kleenex for hangers-on. This Howard Hughes looks bathed, shaved and saved. In fact, he is quite natty-appearing in a lime-green zoot suit with matching fedora.

Bugsy Siegel is nothing to hide in your guest closet, either. His zoot suit and fedora are watermelon-pink, and his feet wear two-tone shoes of black-and-pink patent leather. I believe that the pink part is shaped like a flamingo.

Now you may think that Midnight Louie is dreaming, or is still lost in the La-La-bye Land of his last case, which had overtones of the paranormal so loud they might have outshouted the clothing of the two gentlemen under discussion, or description, here.

In fact, some may dismiss this vision as a nightmare in neon-brights.

I grant you that I have a tendency to dream in Technicolor--how else is a born carnivore like me to see blood? (I admit that in these latter days most of the blood I see has been spilled by somebody else. That is what happens when one trades the role of mean-streets prowler for that of private investigator.)

So now my prey is no longer the puny operators I used to tangle with: fishy small-fry, midnight nibblers and noshers, Dumpster fungus. Now I hunt Big Game, which is carnivorous on a scale to make my poor previous food-gathering expeditions pale. This game usually sports two legs instead of four, and has occasional pretensions of humanity as well as chronic tendencies toward homicide.

Anyway, my new occupation puts me in the way of seeing many strange things, so I greet the vignette of Howie and Bugsy chatting it up with a blase yawn. Frankly, I wish the pair would knock it off so I can get down to business. I am not here to file my fingernails, you know. I moonlight these days as a media personality. I have more important things to do than watch two dead guys togged out in Popsicle colors, even if they happen to have pretty much founded the town I trot my tootsies through, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Of course, there may be some question of who is alive and sane here: Howard Hughes yakking in the bright lights, or me huddled behind bars in a comfortless cage, watching the proceedings.

I had heard that being a star results in a confined lifestyle, but had no idea it involved long periods of imprisonment.

If Miss Temple Barr, my solicitous roommate, knew in what conditions I were being kept, she would never allow it. Unfortunately, she is off around the town, working at various public relations projects, while I languish here in the lap of lassitude.

The only consolation is my cellmate. Or, rather, the prisoner in the adjoining cage. She is my co-star, and not for her the anonymous plastic shell of a carrier right off the pet-warehouse shelf. No, this diminutive doll is zippered into a pink canvas carrier with her name embroidered on the side. Yvette, in fancy cursive letters. (Divine is a descriptive adjective that I alone use to embellish her name.)

I believe that someone has scrawled the name "Louie" on a torn piece of paper bag and taped it atop my carrier. As if enough twenty-pound, muscular, wet suit-black, green-eyed hairy dudes with the acting instincts of Al Pacino were hanging around to confuse the matter of who is who.

Stardom feels more like serfdom, so far.

"Ah, Louie," the Divine Yvette sighs next to me as she lolls on the pink satin cushion in her carrier. "Do not fret. We will have our time in the sun. The acting life is always 'hurry up and get there, then wait an eternity.'"

"Do you mean wait an eternity as in 'for us to get together'?"

"We are together now," she answers demurely.

The Divine Yvette is nothing if not demure, a trait I generally do not care for unless it is accompanied by big blue-green eyes framed in natural black mascara along with a full-length platinum-blond fur coat that would make a silver fox gnash its fangs with envy.

"You know what I mean," I growl, but she does not answer.

The Divine Yvette does not address the more earthy facts of life, I have discovered. I doubt she has ever raised a paw and stretched out a razor-sharp shiv to do more than manicure it.

So we wait, she and I and our director, trainer and stylists; also Miss Savannah Ashleigh, the little doll who claims to own the Divine Yvette. We wait for the gaudy ghosts of Howard Hughes and Bugsy Siegel to finish their shtick and clear the stage so the real performers can get to it.

For one sure way to save a shekel in an A La Cat commercial is to borrow someone else's set.

Once Howard and Bugsy exit, the stage and the spotlight are ours!

There is only one fly in the ointment, in this case a feline in the fe-tuccine. Either way, you have a pretty unappetizing menu.

The dude's name is Maurice. He is large, yellow in color and used to have my job before I edged him out. There is no reason for him to be present at the filming, other than mischief.

There is definite reason to believe this dude would love to do away with all of my nine lives.

And I am not talking brands of cat food here.

Chapter 1

Voices of the Dark

At one o'clock in the morning, under the overhead fluorescent glare, night was a memory rather than a reality. It was as if a miscegenated moon hung from the bland ceiling, sun-bright yet pale as Dutch cheese.

Matt felt like a hothouse violet being kept under constant artificial illumination, something forced into the unnatural state of flourishing at night, like a vampire. Still, he'd come to enjoy working the night shift, especially in a city like Las Vegas that blurred the lines between night and day at every opportunity.

"One of yours," Sheila sang from the next cubicle, leaning out far enough to show her shy-violet face. "Line four."

Routine callers seem a contradiction in terms for a crisis phone center, but some clients'

lives are serial crises, so they become serial callers. Like serial killers, they most often come calling at night. Maybe that's when nerves and negative emotions run hottest.

Matt adjusted his headset and pushed the right button, wondering which of his regulars he would hear. He had more than the other counselors, because he was so "understanding," the supervisor said.

Matt knew that being understanding was merely the result of doing time listening to other people's troubles, and doing an even longer stretch at being too nice to dump those who most deserved it.

"ConTact. Brother John," he said. Tonight, as on some bleary, weary nights lately, he had almost said, "Saint Rose of Lima. Father Devine."

"You're there." A voice both remarkable and unmistakable.

The big, booming basso made the phone line thrum like a contented cat. That voice, so smooth and confident. Hard to believe this man was hooked on anyone else's voice over the telephone. But he was. Matt smiled to feel his spine straighten at the sound of that voice, that Chamber of Commerce, boot-camp sergeant, motivation seminar leader, preacher, actor vocal command.

In a way, confidence was the core of this man's problems. Too much and too little. And his problems . . . Matt found himself mentally quoting a rabbi friend's "Oy vey." How could the caller know that Matt was the least qualified person around to deal with his particular hang-up?