“Yes, I’ll be safe at home alone,” he heard himself growl. “Damn it.”
“Max. Don’t pout. You’re in far better condition than when we fled the Swiss clinic. I detect no greater memory deficit.”
“Swell.”
“Swell? The wound on your head is swelling?”
“An American expression, like ‘peachy keen.’”
“Max. Go slow.” A fingertip reached out to press his lips. I don’t know all this American patois.”
He refrained doing anything untoward with the finger. “It’s called slang.”
“What a crude word.”
“You’re right.”
“I’ll get you settled at your home when my GPS gets us to Mojave Way. I love GPS! One can be at home anywhere. If only we’d had it in the Alps.”
She’d pronounced Mojave as it was spelled, not with an h for the j. The Spanish way.
It reminded Max she was a stranger in a strange land, as he had been on her turf recently, and he should give her the benefit of the doubt. Why did he have to be so continually on guard?
“Mo-hah-vee.” He corrected her anyway. “The desert extends into Mexico, so it’s a Spanish word.”
She repeated the pronunciation. “The desert is like me, half one thing and another.”
He smiled at her. “French and German.”
“It gets dark so fast here in Las Vegas,” she commented, hunching to stare through the windshield.
“That’s because we’re in a valley. The sky above is bright, but the shadows are creeping inexorably in from the mountains.”
“We will have a desert sunset for your homecoming.” She flashed him a glance. “I can stay, if you like.”
“Can you do something with this industrial haircut?”
“No. Likely no.” There was a lovely foreign lilt to her English, but it wasn’t as hypnotic as Kathleen O’Connor’s Irish mist of an intonation.
Was Molina right? Did he like foreign women, or only possibly treacherous ones? No, Max thought. There was Temple. And there was no one like Temple.
He hadn’t answered Revienne, he realized. He’d always be grateful for her aid and comfort in the darkest moments of his life, and his ego could use some coddling, but it felt dishonest.
“I’ll be all right,” he told her.
The car pulled up in front of his house in twilight.
Revienne made a happy sound at landing on target and got out to circle the car and extract him.
Max squinted at his front door, now shut and not even bearing crime scene tape, so minor the incident inside had been to the authorities.
A cat was sitting there. No, two. Did he have double vision? He squinted hard. It wasn’t a black cat. Its form was pale, and it seemed to be haloed by a … sunset glow. He stared until his eyes watered and he blinked.
“Max,” Revienne asked, “are you all right?”
“No,” he answered, “but I might be getting a long-overdue headache.”
The cat was gone.
First you see it. Then you don’t. The essence of magic. Like Kathleen O’Connor.
Max didn’t view this as a reassuring omen for any of them.
Tailpiece
Midnight Louie Discusses Alien Species
At last! At last I get to speak of alien species in general and specifically in a literary work with which I am associated. Before I begin to strut my stuff, I must take huge exception to one of the canine breed being pictured here in my Tailpiece.
Even if he is unusual and cute.
Nothing personal, Rens. It is just the usual territorial dispute.
Now, I am sure all are wondering if I believe in aliens, ancient or otherwise.
I must admit all the whoop-de-do about the subject during my most recent adventure pretty much deflates the hope of anything of a genuinely alien nature showing up unannounced in Las Vegas, other than the usual cast of tourists blowing off some crazy steam and their out-of-this-world array of eye-blinding Hawaiian shirts.
I do wonder why no one besides the eccentric Silas T. Farnum ever saw that Vegas was made for an all-out alien-themed attraction. That “invisible” stunt fell as flat as Santiago on its unseen nose, though. That was a one-trick pony, and that horse has definitely come in last.
However, I do believe that Earth has been, is now, and will be visited by aliens.
After studying the piles of book covers, posters, and other alien propaganda that popped up around the Area 54 site, I admit my opinion on the subject has undergone a radical turnaround. I am no longer an unbeliever. They are out there and, even more obvious, they are us!
I would have to make many trips to ancient ruins to document my theory (accompanied by a camera crew, of course), but it is completely clear that the ancient race that visited and reshaped earthlings through the millennia are we of the feline nation.
“Little gray men,” aka “Grays”? I beg to differ. Those were large gray cats.
Regard the huge, almond-shaped eyes, all dark pupils. Only cats can expand their pupils so completely.
That uniform gray color. Skin or … velvet-napped gray fur?
When ancient cats walked the earth, they no doubt would be a breed named Felinus erectus and strode upright on two rear legs. If not exactly the hairless breed known as a Sphinx today, their sleek gray fur made them adaptable to various climates.
Even the name “Sphinx” is a giveaway of the ancient alien lineage. For, of course, this superior breed of space travelers first descended on the ancient Egyptians when they were living in mud huts.
The sage Grays saw potential in these large, ungainly two-legs and proceeded to give them the secrets to farming and constructing weapons, chariots, and barges, working iron and gold, and the literal height of civilization then, and still a marvel today, the Pyramids.
Many were scribes who cleverly invented and clawed out the hieroglyphs.
No wonder we cats were worshipped and had our own great goddess in the mighty Egyptian pantheon, Bast.
As for the four-fingered “hands” portrayed on one of these film aliens, E.T., one digit is the opposable thumb. Alas, the instructors the ancient aliens left behind—through centuries of understandable but lamentable inbreeding with species near to themselves—lost the opposable thumb, which became the dewclaw. The three remaining “fingers” then gradually separated into four, producing the classic number of shivs I bear (and bare) proudly today.
And, as history forgot the coming of these wise creatures from far out in the galaxy, their descendents were assumed to be mute, mysterious creatures of a lower order, instead of the emperors of the universe they were and are. (Some perspicacious humans actually do treat us to this day with the proper respect and pampering.)
But I state with full confidence, if one of these so-called little gray men were found in an undecomposed state and examined, it would be proved beyond any doubt that there was a cat skeleton in that alien X-ray.
I rest my case.
Very Best Fishes,
Midnight Louie, Esq.
If you’d like information about getting Midnight Louie’s free Scratching Post-Intelligencer newsletter and/or buying his custom T-shirt, contact Carole Nelson Douglas at P.O. Box 331555, Fort Worth, TX 76163-1555 or the Web site at www.carolenelsondouglas.com. E-maiclass="underline" cdouglas@catwriter.com.
Tailpiece
Carole Nelson Douglas Goes to the Dogs