Chapter 25
One Less Orphan Animal
"This is great!" Chortling, Cleo Kilpatrick pointed to the photos of bizarre-looking cats in both Las Vegas's Saturday morning and evening papers.
Temple nodded at the naked Sphinx on the Review-Journal second front and the semi-naked curly coated Rex in the Las Vegas Sun. She hadn't noticed her successful handiwork, mainly because she'd skimmed the papers for news of the possible killer's successful handiwork--the death of Blandina Tyler.
Beyond the two women stargazing at the local papers, cats, cages and breeders were bustling around the huge exhibition space in the process of shutting down the cat show. An entourage passed. From their midst, the exiting Maurice, the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy cat, gazed out majestically from a carrier emblazoned with his name and a portrait of the product he represented.
"I'm so glad," Cleo went on as her glance paused on the procession, "that you didn't get any more publicity for that dreadful Maurice. Frankly, commercial cat foods are not the best feline nutrition."
"Oh, are you a Free-to-be-Feline advocate?"
"Most definitely."
"Then tell me one thing: how am I supposed to get a cat to eat it?"
"It will take a bit of patience at first--"
"Wrong. It takes patience to the bitter end."
"Cats can be finicky."
"Louie isn't finicky. That's the only stuff he refuses to eat."
"Sometimes they have to be encouraged to do what's good for them. Don't feed him anything but Free-to-be-Feline. If he gets hungry enough, he'll eat it."
Temple nodded, not bothering to say that if Louie got hungry enough, he'd leave home. She wanted to avoid explaining that Louie was free to eat elsewhere, lest she get another lecture on roaming cats. Miss Tyler's cats seemed happy enough confined indoors, but they had been abused on the street. Louie hadn't; he had survived quite nicely without Temple or her Circle Ritz condominium. Any cat that showed the ingenuity to ensure that he could come and go deserved his freedom and whatever free lunch he could find, Temple thought.
Then her eye fell on another exiting cat. "What about that little black one?" she asked, pointing to the undecorated cage near the front registration table.
"You mean the Humane Society cat? Apparently no one adopted it. It'll go back to the shelter."
"Oh." Uh-oh. Temple edged over on tentative heel clacks. She didn't need another cat. More untouched mounds of Free-to-be-Feline. More black hairs all over her off-white sofa. As soon as she approached, the cat rose from its sitting position and began rubbing its face against the grille, gazing at her with big harvest-gold eyes, its little pink mouth opening in a series of silent meows. "How old is it?"
"Looks about nine or ten months," Cleo said.
"What is it?"
"Basic domestic shorthair in basic black. An ordinary alleycat", in other words."
"I meant the gender."
"Oh. Probably female. It would have to be fixed."
Temple read the small card affixed to the cage, "Caviar" Forty-five dollars with shots and a discount on spaying.
Temple reached out a hand, which the cat's jet-black nose instantly nudged. She stepped back as if the cage grille were electrified. This is how it began with Miss Tyler, she told herself: such a pretty, sweet cat; such a shame that no one would take it, that it would have to go back to the Humane Society. What was the matter with people? No one would probably take it there, either. Not a kitten, too old already.
Cats in cages were streaming out the open rank of exhibithall doors in their owners' firm grasps, fancy cats that were guarded, groomed and displayed like expensive dolls. Louie would probably go nuts with a competitor in the home place, but he was gone so much. She would enjoy having a calm, spayed female, a loving homebody, around.
A woman stepped up to the table and began gathering the Humane Society literature that surrounded the cage. Temple watched her resentfully.
"Excuse me." The woman stepped in front of Temple to take the card from the cage and stuff it into a canvas bag with the other unclaimed pieces of paper.
She opened the cage door, a pushy woman who didn't care about shoving a potential customer aside, so sure was she that it was too late and little Caviar had lost her last chance.
The woman reached in and took out a stainless-steel bowl of water, a small plastic litter box, somewhat used. Then the cat was trained. The Humane Society woman, who certainly didn't seem that humane if she was going to snatch this poor cat right back to a place where its life expectancy was maybe three days, reached in and removed a stainless-steel bowl of unappetizing green pellets.
Temple experienced an epiphany of the cat kind. "Oh," she heard someone saying in an enchanted voice, Hers.
"Does she really eat Free-to-be-Feline?"
The woman, who would have had a perfectly ordinary, nice face if she hadn't been intent on whisking a caged creature back to its doom, looked at Temple oddly.
"Sure," she said.
"Well, then--" Temple dug in her tote bag for her checkbook. "I've got a whole case of Free-to-be-Feline at home."
"Temple, are you sure?" Cleo Kilpatrick asked in an undertone at her elbow. "What about your other cat?"
"He's very . . . versatile. I'm sure he'd love a little friend."
Cleo drifted back to supervise the chaos of the disassembling cat show while Temple bent over the table to make out her check. The little black cat rubbed and purred like a wind-up toy behind the silver grille.
Temple soon discovered that purchasing a homeless cat was a lot harder than finding one. The Humane Society woman went from Madame Defarge to Lieutenant Molina, reeling off a roster of highly personal questions. Was Temple married? No. Were there any children under seven in the household? No, Temple said, surprised by that question after answering the first in the negative. Other animals? Only Midnight Louie. What was he? A stray cat she had taken in. How old? Possibly eight or nine, said the vet.
Madame Inquisitor did not inquire into Louie's sexual capabilities, which was good, for Temple had to sign a document stating that she would have the female called "Caviar" spayed at the first opportunity. Of course she would have done it without signing her soul away to the Humane Society; with Louie around in an unaltered state, it would be irresponsible not to.
As for what Midnight Louie did in his unaltered state when he was out and about on his rambles, Temple tried not to think about that. She supposed she would have to bite the bullet one day and deal with Louie's rampant masculinity, but he was such a fine, clever cat the way he was, and quite valuable as a bodyguard. She would hate to ' 'alter" any of these desirable characteristics. Maybe he was too old to get into much trouble; certainly he never showed any signs of having indulged in a cat fight for the favors of a lady.
While Temple rationalized away her worries about Louie, the Humane Society lady accepted the check, gave her a copy of the adoption agreement, then handed her Caviar, who, recognizing this as her big audition for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--and Free-to-be-Feline--was still purring madly.
The cat fit atop the flotsam in Temple's tote bag, hardly adding to its weight, unlike Louie. Also unlike Louie, she showed an admirable inclination to sit still and be carried.
Temple, heart pounding as if she'd just left the biggest designer-shoe sale in six states, couldn't help showing off her impulse purchase. She trotted down the aisles cooing at her tote bag and oblivious of stares until she came to Peggy Wilhelm's stand.
Minuet had been taken home after her assault, but the other Birmans sat calmly in their carriers and regarded Temple and her animated tote bag with delft-blue saucer eyes while Peggy broke down the show cages into flat pieces for easy transport.
Peggy looked over her shoulder to register Temple's approach, then brushed a hand through her mop of grizzled hair and shook her head, "Such a sad show, in every respect."
"Not every." Temple tilted her tote bag to show its contented contents. "I've adopted the Humane Society cat."