Chapter 29
Trespasser and Transgressor
After my fruitless explorations at the cathouse next to the convent, I pad my weary way back home. Interrogating some threescore possible witnesses--or do I mean witlesses?--I am eager to lay my considerable length on the cool black-and white tiles of the kitchen floor and contemplate the full bowl of Free-to-be- Feline while I decide which of Miss Temple's food stores I should raid instead.
Actually, the challenge of finding a suitable substitute for this odious health food has added a piquant character to my several daily meals at the Circle Ritz, providing an element of uncertainty reminiscent of my untrammeled days on the streets and sidewalks. I need to keep my survival skills sharp, just in case my current cushy situation becomes too confining.
I scale the buildings outside along my usual, well-worn route, lofting from patio to patio to decorative cornice ledge to open bathroom window in the twinkling of a private eye.
My street-worn tootsies make a four-point landing on the bathroom's cool ceramic tiles. Ah, home, sweat-free home, after a hot day on the job.
I hightail it for the kitchen, partly because the tiles there are cool, too; partly to indulge in my daily stare-down with the unbanishable Free-to-be-Feline.
I crouch before the elegant glass-footed banana-split dish that my attentive companion has seen fit to heap with Free-to-be-Feline. There it sits, an army-green mountain of pellets that would serve equally well entering--or exiting--a rabbit. I have seen more appetizing vitamin pills from the health food store.
I will, of course, not touch one crude pellet. I contemplate busting into the lower cabinet for a raid on Miss Temple's hidden stock of Finny Flakes, a toothsome, sugar-coated cereal product thoughtfully shaped into the miniature likeness of our piscine friends. Yum. I can put away whole schools of these little nibbles.
Then I notice a new variation in the unspoken food war that has been waged between us ever since my usually sensible roommate saw fit to introduce the foul Free-to-be-Feline to my menu.
Another bowl--in fact, a pink Melmac saucer from the upper cupboard--of the questionable comestible sits beside mine, this mound of pellets surmounted by a suggestive valley at the apex. Has some intruder been at my rejected food? My rear extremity swells to irritated proportions as I growl to myself, "Who's been eating my Free-to-be-Feline?"
The usual suspects come quickly to mind: the invasive mouse (but my alert presence alone would banish any vermin of that persuasion); the rapacious insect (but even the largest cockroach could not dispose of the apparent amount of missing FtbF); the unexpected visitor (but neither Mr. Matt Devine nor Miss
Electra Lark has previously shown the slightest inclination to snack on my food, whether I favor it or not).
There is, of course, one party so depraved, so predictably greedy, so . . . unclassy as to vacuum up any foodstuff to be found on a floor. I refer, naturally, to the domesticated dog.
I have become lax on my own turf, I realize, and did not sniff for intruders before bounding to the buffet. I lift my head and sniff for dog. Actually, dogs possess an overbearing scent that I should have noticed even in my mad dash for the eats.
I do not sniff dog. Instead, I detect a delicate scent of an unknown nature, not unpleasant, but not native to this environment. I press my sniffer to the floor near the second bowl of FtbF and reel at the flagrant trail of a foreign feline.
Now that I am alerted to the intruder, I race into the living room . . . to find a stranger ensconced on the off-white sofa, fast asleep.
My proprietorial instincts have given way to something quite different. Both my nose and my eyes are right on target: the individual who has been tastelessly filching my Free-to-be-Feline is a dainty, nubile number who is not hard on either of my prime senses, who is, in fact--free, black and female!
In an instant, I bound up beside her, anticipating a most enjoyable interrogation.
In the same instant, she is awake and transformed into a hissing banshee with a croquet-hoop back, bushy tail, poisonously slit golden eyes, bristling silver whiskers and as many sharp white teeth--all showing--as a barracuda with an overbite.
"Whoa! Wait a minute, Miss," I soothe in my best growl, which is only slightly intimidating.
She is having nothing of it, but backs against the rear sofa cushions, her admirably unclipped claws snagging the fabric, a phenomenon that will not please Miss Temple Barr.
"These are my digs," I point out diplomatically, "although I do not mind an occasional attractive visitor."
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law," she responds without softening her defensive posture.
I hold my temper and back off to the sofa's far end. It is obvious, despite her furry fireworks, that my intruder is of a tender age and experience; so young, in fact, that she has not yet had that odious operation known euphemistically as "fixing." Obviously, she needs someone to show her the ropes.
"You must have sensed my previous possession," I point out.
She shrugs, allowing the ebony halo around her head to settle down a bit. "It was either this or Murder Inc."
"I take it, then, that my tenderhearted roommate has saved you from the animal pound."
"I encouraged her to intervene, yes."
I nod sagely. "She is a delightful companion, Miss Temple Barr, but not the best cook. Did you really eat that Free-to-be-Feline?"
"It is a highly nutritious food, well balanced in all essential vitamins and minerals."
"I can see that you and Miss Temple hit it right off," I note sourly. "I can be magnanimous. However, I must insist that you desist from eating Free-to-be-Feline. I am training Miss Temple to forget it."
"I will eat what does me the most good." She looks me up and down with less than an admiring flick of her long, black mascara-coated eyelashes. "It would do you a lot of good, too."
"Listen, I am head dude around here. You'll do as I tell you.
If you're nice to me, I might even let you stay a while."
"What does that mean?" she snarls quickly.
I have never heard such ugly sentiments coming out of such a beautiful little doll-face before. I wonder where she got her feisty temperament. A life on the streets can do that to some, but it is a shame to see such a comely little doll so warped.
"I mean that it is my place, and if you want to stay, you have to play to my hand of cards, and right now I am holding all the aces."
"If you mean to imply that I must extend you any personal favors because I happen to need a home for the moment, that is an extremely sexist and patriarchal statement, not to say coercive. I am sure, however," she adds with a satisfied purr, "that you did not mean any such thing."
"Uh . . . no." I frown, which wrinkles my broad forehead and is--I am told--a dignified, attractive expression. Her last statement sounded oddly like a threat of some kind, which I am not used to hearing at my size and age, and especially from a petite little doll of tender years. No doubt her rough months on the streets have made her somewhat . . . touchy.
"What is your name, kid?" I ask in a kindly, avuncular manner that it costs me much effort to produce.
"They call me 'Caviar.' "
I nod, savoring the moniker. "A tasty choice. I sampled some of the best beluga from Russia when I was house dick at the Crystal Phoenix. You have heard of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino, of course, the classiest joint in Vegas?"
"No," she says shortly, sitting down to lick her luxurious rear extremity into shape. I admire her tongue-and-teeth work.
"Anyway, this beluga stuff is like little black pearls, very costly and quite succulent, full of the salt of the sea. My old man has his own yacht, and is quite an expert in seafood, wherever he is."
"How nice. My old man was a scamp and a tramp and he left my mother flat. I do not care where he is, and I do not judge anyone by paternal lines. We cannot help who our fathers are."