Chapter 13
… Maxed Out
It turns out that we turn up a not very interesting menagerie of bored and thus talkative pets on the twentieth floor of the Goliath Hotel. You would think it was the Noah Hotel and we were the head-counters for the Ark.
I make it one snapping turtle, two trilling lovebirds, three twitching bunnies, four porky pigs, and a python in an air duct, five gnawing ferrets, six yapping lapdogs, seven afghan hounds, eight cooing cockatiels, nine hamsters running, ten gerbils a-gyrating, eleven iguanas leaping, and twelve pampered pussums.
Unfortunately, none of them have anything significant to say, so Louise and I pad out through the kitchen again, snagging an errant shrimp and a fallen-by-the-wayside gourmet turkey burger on the way out.
We pause for a snack behind the hotel’s rear Dumpster, which is camouflaged as a mini-ark in keeping with the Goliath’s biblical theme.
“I must compliment you on your restraint today, Miss Louise,” I say after disposing of the shrimp. I have a weakness for seafood, so I leave the turkey burger, unnatural hybrid that it is, to her. She can take it. She is a modern girl.
“How so?” she asks, patting daintily at her whiskers.
‘We encountered a lot of tasty tidbits on the hoof, paw, and belly up there. I imagine during your life on the open road you must have had to dine on their cousins frequently.”
‘What I dine on when or where is none of your business. Certainly now that I have a personal chef I do not need to rustle up my own foodstuffs.”
“So Chef Song at the Crystal Phoenix hotel is still laying down the rice bowls for you in return for his precious koi going unmolested in the hotel pond, is he?”
“Why should you care? I have never cared for carp. By any other name, and price, koi are still carp. And it is obvious that you have converted completely to health food. I saw the bowlful of Free-to-be-Feline on Miss Temple’s kitchen floor myself. It is amazing that you do not lose weight on such a macrobiotic diet, but perhaps your metabolism has slowed down with age.”
I am speechless. The little twit can load a couple sentences with more insults than Don Rickles can pack into a Milton Berle roast.
“Then you had better hasten back to your gourmet Asian cuisine at the Phoenix,” I say finally. “I need to check on Miss Temple.”
We agree to part ways and I hoof it back home, meditating on that full bowl of Free-to-be-Feline Miss Louise spotted. It is always full because I do not eat that disgusting health food, which is probably composed of compressed seaweed and sawdust. Certainly the army-green color would not appeal to anything other than a buck private and I have never considered military life.
Back at the Circle Ritz, I let myself in through the trusty French doors on the patio, having vented my temper with Miss Louise, tooth and nail, in climbing the palm tree that so conveniently shades the building.
My dear roommate is in residence at the moment, and greets me with happy little cries. I respond with unhappybig cries, and am rewarded when she opens a can of baby oysters and shuffles them over the Free-to-be-Feline in a succulent chorus line as an encouragement.
I wolf them down. Several hours in Miss Louise’s company is very draining.
“Now do not eat just the oysters, Louie,” Miss Temple advises me fondly. “The part that is really good for you is underneath.”
That is always what they tell you and you cannot believe a word of it, whoever they are or however well-meaning they are! I am a great believer that the “good stuff” is usually right on top and easy as pie to reach for those who would take it. Observe the case of Adam and Eve, though that turned out badly, but that is only because it was an object lesson. The lesson is that you must be surreptitious in pursuing the objects of your desire. Do not just reach for them and grab them right out of the Crystal Phoenix koi pond in broad daylight.
So I manage to move a few unappetizing pellets around with my nose in such a manner that my movements could be mistaken for actually eating the things. I see that I must export a few to the wastebasket by dark of night. If I do not disturb the underlayment in my bowl, Miss Temple can on occasion get as stubborn as a Yorkshire terrier and hold back on the toppings.
After my bit of domestic undercover work, I hop up on the sofa arm to smooth my whiskers and bib.
A rat-a-tat of fingernails on the glass panes inset into the French doors alerts both me and my lovely roomie. I manage an under-my-breath growl as Miss Temple rushes to admit Mr. Max Kinsella.
When it comes to Mr. Max Kinsella, there are times when I regret that we are rivals for my Miss Temple’s affections. He has much to recommend him.
I heartily approve of Mr. Max’s second-story skills, his surreptitious ways, his magical arts, his limber physical condition, his penchant for wearing black and only black, his skill at keeping his lips zipped, and his impeccably effective way around the female of his species. In fact, he is a lot like me in many ways, as anyone could plainly see.
That may be why my hackles rise when he enters the picture and my Miss Temple’s domicile, even though he once shared her Circle Ritz unit as an official resident.
Things change, and I am official resident now; he is visitor.
“Missed dinner, huh?” he comments, observing my grooming ritual.
“Baby oysters over dry cat food,” my personal chef says. “Scrumptious,” Mr. Max comments acidly.
I flash him an agreeing glance, but not an agreeable one. “May I sit on your tuffet, Miss Muffet, or is the House Cat going to draw claws on me?”
“Louie is just a big lovable lug,” Miss Temple says, speaking from her experience.
The Mystifying Max honors me with a fleeting glance. He does not believe that for an instant, and I must say I like him the better for it.
“So what brings you out in the light of day?” she asks.
‘What else? Seeing you. How’s the working world going?”
Miss Temple sits down on the sofa, much closer to Mr. Max than to me. In fact, she is close enough to lick his whiskers for him, if he had any.
“Good. That Crystal Phoenix job may have been all-consuming, but now that the revamped attractions are up and running, I’m getting calls to handle public relations for big events all over town.”
Mr. Max runs a few pads down Miss Temple’s arm. “Are you not going to miss Elvis? I hear he haunts the Haunted Mine Ride at the Phoenix.”
“Where does Elvis not haunt in Las Vegas? It used to be his town, so why not? I’ve got a big gig this weekend. Not your style, or Louie’s, but I will have fun. It is the Woman’s World expo at the civic center. Miles of stuff that bores men but enthralls women. I wonder why we’re so different? Do you ever?”
“Never.” Mr. Max does what I cannot, no matter how hard I try. He smiles.
“So what are you working on nowadays, besides writer’s block?”
“Writer’s block. I love it. It sounds so intellectual. There’s never such a thing as ‘magician’s block.’ “
“Actors ‘blank’ onstage sometimes.”
“That is momentary amnesia. Writer’s block is long-term, from what I can tell. I went online and you should see the sites that spring up from those two little words. I have never had a trendy malady before. I enjoy it.”
“You would. You still have not told me what you are up to.”
“I am following your clues, Miss Drew, and looking further into the Synth.”
“Progress? You are making progress?”
He is by now nibbling on her neck, so I suppose he is making progress indeed.
“Some,” he finally says, a weasel word that does not describe the thorough inroads upon her person he has just engineered. “Have you heard of a new club in town called ‘Neon Nightmare’?”
“Sure,” says my Miss Temple, retreating from the abandoned purr-in with visible effort. “PR people know all, like fortune-tellers. A strange outfit is running the place. It is part disco, performance hall, magic club, bar. If you want my professional opinion, the owners have diversified their image too much. Neon Nightmare is a cool name, though.”