“Okay.” He was smiling at her, she didn’t understand why, after all the empty years, but it made him look handsome and even kind. “Can I ask—within limits—if you’ll stand up and sing with the band tonight? Just a casual number. They’ve been glancing our way every sixty seconds. They miss you.”
She gave them another regretful glance. So much had been expendable in her life.
“And Carmen,” he said as she rose. “I’d suggest you start working up that oldie, ‘Begin the Beguine.’ That would get this place on the map.”
“And me?”
“On YouTube for sure.”
He laughed as she made a face and walked toward the guys in the band.
They were grinning like idiots and she had missed them and the music so much, she could scream. She guessed she’d sing instead.
Chapter 23
The Second Coming
Planning a triumphal return is where I excel, particularly when it is my own.
I have no doubt that consternation must be running amok, particularly on my Miss Temple’s part, when the residents and visitors to the apartment in Pulaski Park discover I am not merely hiding out in an insanely clever spot no human could discern with the naked eye or nose, but that I am totally gone … kit, caboodle, and carrier.
Knowing what dismay my kidnappers caused my nearest and dearest led me to annihilate them without mercy and to literally “nail” them. Street smarts now have led me into the proper neighborhood. Finding the exact address is no problem, since I am an … ahem … eidetic-savant.
Now, if Miss Midnight Louise were here, she would jump on that assertion, as well as my back. No, I did not mean “idiot-savant.” That is a human stunted on all sorts of everyday knowledge but a genius in one particular area, usually music or mathematics. This eidetic-savant just never forgets a thing, especially my own scent and trail.
Anyone who knows me also knows that I do not much do mathematics past the number of fighting shivs on each foot. As for music, my nocturnal jazz riffs are as well known among the furred contingent of cultural cognoscenti as are the classic stylings of the singer known as Carmen at Vegas’s Blue Dahlia nightclub. Let us just say that crime-solving and caterwauling make good partners.
Meanwhile, I am marooned in Chicago, on the outside looking in.
My next trick is to enter this alien apartment building and get to the appropriate floor.
Were I in Las Vegas, I could accomplish my surprise return in a minute flat, since the round and layered Circle Ritz building is a piece of cake to scale and infiltrate. Here, not so much. I stroll around the brick exterior. The rear Dumpsters are not appetizing as a stepping-off place for a second-story assault. I have nothing against Dumpsters. They are to be admired for daily serving the homeless as well as the discriminating customer in search of a rare tidbit accidentally consigned to the scrap heap.
However, this is Chicago, folks. Here you find a trend to corned beef and cabbage, baked beans and bacon, sausage and dumplings, and other odiferous, gassy foods.
I am maybe the returning prodigal son; however, I do not really want the fatted calf, but only 99 percent lean. I decide that the velvet glove rather than the hooded claw is needed for the last leg of my epic journey.
So I groom my always elegant formal black suit to satin perfection, tame my prone-to-be-bushy eyebrows and whiskers with a patina of saliva, and go to sit patiently by the front entrance. This place is not high-hat enough to have a doorman, so I am looking for a female of the species. They have an inborn soft spot for dudes of my sort.
Luckily, in Chicago, a lot of them live in apartments.
“Well, well. You are a sleek, handsome fellah.”
When will men learn the lure of meticulous grooming? Too late. I am happy to fill the gap. Also, big tip here: The ladies adore soft furry ankle rubs. If you cannot afford to bestow faux fur-lined boots on your Chicago ladylove, grow a mustache and use fabric softener on it.
My figure-eight moves around this particular lady’s calves escort her to the elevator doors, never impeding her footsteps.
“Did you get left out of your home somehow? You are in far too fine condition to be a stray.”
Yes, frequent fishing expeditions in the Crystal Phoenix koi pond, marathons down the Las Vegas Strip avoiding overbuilt guard dogs, bouts of rappelling down the handy palm tree at the Circle Ritz. All this is fine “conditioning.”
I slip through the open elevator door with her. Her finger pauses over a floor button high above my head. “But where do you belong? I do not know every pet owner in the building.”
Hmm. I will have to come up with a Stupid Pet Trick to communicate with a stranger. What would David Letterman do … or applaud? I turn around. Once. Twice. Then sit and cock my head like Fido.
“Two? Floor two?”
I circle again, twice more.
“Four.”
Two more circles add up to …
“Six? Oh, pussycat, I must get off at five. I cannot send you up all alone in the elevator car. Who knows what might happen to you?”
Not boredom in just one floor.
I have imparted my message. I hold my place and sit tight. She will either send me on to floor six, or not.
Her forefinger hits a button and I wait to see what she has decided. Which floor she has selected is a mystery to me. If she insists on bringing me to her own place, I will do the gigolo bit, dine enthusiastically, pretend to be perfectly enamored, and sneak out first thing in the morning never to be seen again.
“Here we are. Floor six. I hope you were not simply annoyed by vermin when you kept turning around.”
I step out without commenting on that slur and sniff along the hallway until I have reached the right door. How do I know it is the right door? I always leave a hint of mint on every exit wherever I am likely to be locked in. We of the superior breed may not be as finely tuned for following scent trails as the ordinary dog, say, but we are adept at leaving our extraordinarily individual colognes on surfaces.
My new escort pauses to shake her head, then knock.
I wait. I know the small round fish-eye hole in the door will allow inspection of my companion. She strikes me as the ideal pickup: a totally respectable lady of a certain age.
The door opens.
“Is this yours?” my companion asks.
It takes a moment for Miss Krys to interpret the woman’s hand gesture and look down.
Her eyes and mouth both make cute O’s of surprise.
Her head turns over her shoulder as she broadcasts to those within. “Call off the dogs and the police. That damn cat is back from the dead.”
I am not displeased by my dramatic introduction, but I am sure that poor lady at the door has been badly shaken.
Chapter 24
A Tale Untold
Temple had never before had a full-house audience for eating crow in her career as a public relations specialist.
She did now. Matt and his mother were seated at the small kitchen table, rapt with unspent tension. First the Effinger revelations, then this. Louie had lofted atop the kitchen counter to suddenly lick at a twitchy shoulder blade when he wasn’t staring implacably at Temple.