“Crime-fighting, that is what I want to learn about, Mr. Midnight. I was best in my litter at fly-catching, bug-biting, and free-style cactus-climbing.”
“Climbing, huh?”
The kit dances around me, feinting with his tiny claws.
“It is going to be a long, confusing walk in the dark,” I warn, “unless I can catch us a ride.”
“Motor Vehicles of Death?” Punky nods. “Usually they catch us, I am told.”
“An urban legend. It goes two ways with MVDs,” I tell him. “Always a hard call for our kind. Black is beautiful, but invisible on dark streets. White is a flag for sadists who, sadly, go for road kill. Your coat color is almost fluorescent, which makes you a target. Life is hard, but death is harder, Punky.”
“I will be all right. You know your way around.”
“That I do. Can you tote this fancy neckpiece while I look for a quick ride?”
“Sure.” He sits upright as I paw the thing off my neck and lower the white bow-tie around his. He takes a deep breath so his upright posture does not sink.
So I now have an unwanted tail. Can Bast make things any harder for me? I am pretty sure she can.
“A C-A-B,” Punky asks, after we roll out of the backseat of one in perfect low-profile harmony with the feet of a somewhat smashed couple from Kankakee and onto the Las Vegas Strip. “What do those initials stand for?”
“Could Annihilate Babies,” I snap.
“Ouch! Mr. Midnight, are you mad at me?”
“Better give me the ball and chain again,” I say. “First, hang on to it real tight.”
Punky braces his tiny feet and squeezes his eyes shut as I pull the elastic part taut and do a powerful head-duck and neck roll to suspend the black velvet collar and its abhorred attachment again around my neck.
“That white bow tie is very George Clooney on you,” Punky says.
I am momentarily flattered. “What do you know about George Clooney and his taste in ties?”
“I saw him getting out of a limo once.”
“You do get around for your age. Look. We are heading into stormy waters, lad. Best you follow and observe.”
I take stock of the journey.
Once upon a time Las Vegas Boulevard was not known as “the Strip”, but it was always wide. Now, with centerline boulevards and hotel-casino properties reaching for or renting space out right to the curbs, it is one big digesting-anaconda of a parking jam.
Everything designed to be seen from a majestic distance, like the Luxor’s pyramid and Sphinx and even Leo the Lion at the MGM-Grand, are now crowded and seem kitschy, gigantic, gift shop gewgaws.
In one sense, that makes it easier for lower, in terms of stature, forms of life to mingle with the foot traffic unseen, and harder. I herd Punky through.
“Tails high and toes never still enough to smash,” I hiss into one of his half-size ears as we head toward a mob of milling feet in tennies and sandals and flip-flops, all hot and sweaty.
We are heading north, passing the Paris hotel with its half-size Eiffel Tower opposite the Bellagio.
“Look, look, Mr. Midnight!” Punky goes up on tiptoes to snag a claw in my collar, “The Paris hotel’s balloon is so pretty, and across from it the famous Bellagio fountains are starting to light up.”
“Yeah, yeah, the fountains are one of the last free sidewalk spectaculars left on the Strip, my boy. You want to stay well back or your toes could be a canapé. Listen, I am on a quest. I do not need interruptions.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know what a quest is? A quest is a place you have to go and a, a—”
“You need a bathroom really bad and there is no sand close by?”
“Not really, no.”
“Yes, yes. Have to go. These fountains are very helpful for tinkling.”
I sigh. I cannot leave the pipsqueak unattended here and I have to go…keep on walking.
“Look, look, Mr. Midnight. There is a man in the fountain.”
“Crazy drunk. They will wade in sometimes.”
“He is a really big man.”
Now that the lights are flashing on and the water is plashing and splashing, one of the programmed songs starts.
“Vi-va Las Ve-ay-e-gas.”
I have already turned to march on, and would have preferred some Souza as walking music.
“Looky, looky!” Punky shrills, about as loud as a cricket, his needle-sharp nails pricking me on the hindquarters.
I turn with a hiss and a snarl. You have to keep these over-caffeinated young ones in their places.
And in the fountain spray I see Punky’s “really big man”.
Elvis in a white jumpsuit, jewels of all the colors of the rainbow sparkling on his belt. And collar. Hey, Elvis wore really big collars. You would think Orion had come down from the sky. Way better than Ophiuchus.
“You see that man?” I ask.
“Oh, yes.”
I nod. I suspect the wizards who program these spectaculars can superimpose any image they want on pulsing water and light. A really great marketing tool to broadcast the singers of the current song likenesses. Still, it is not such a bad thing to see the King when one is on a quest. And the kit may have some ESP to make Karma’s blue eyes green with jealousy.
“Okay, Punky. We are getting close to my goal. I can use a loyal Page.”
“Page? Some of those are in the big blue carts that do not have good things to eat in them.”
“Not the kind of pages that people recycle. A Page is a youngster who serves a Knight of the Realm…an apprentice.”
“All-righty, Mr. Midnight!” He tries to high five me and misses my mitt entirely with his mini-me version.
“Okay. Here we go. On to Mount Doom.”
“Ooh, this sounds scary.”
The kit is right. Despite the distracting and bright sights and sounds, we are treading into the heart of darkness.
The first sign is the beginning of a distant, low thrum far beneath foot and paw, an inner-earth engine warming up, consuming heat to make motion.
Punky suddenly worms his way under my midsection. None of that mama stuff!
“What is that big monster purring, Mr. Midnight? Is it the Sphinx or Leo the Lion statues coming to life?” He looks around and up into a forest of hairy human legs blending into a ceiling of crowded-together Bermuda shorts hems.
“This way, follow me,” I order.
Soon we have tickled ourselves into the first row of watchers at a roped-off barrier.
“That was hot work, Mr. Midnight.” Punky is breathless, but still with me.
“We are facing the second last, free, spectacular attraction in Lost Vegas, son.”
“Oh, my.” He eyes the dark, humped barrier ahead of us. “Is it that very big fish I hear about in bedtime stories, a whale?”
I have no time to explain that a whale is not a fish, nor a fish story. I nudge him under a baby stroller so no one will step on him.
“Stay here and do not move unless an excited tourist tries to foxtrot over your toes. Watch toward the right, and, no matter what happens, stay where I can see you. That is your trial assignment.”