Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Buchanan looked around. “Well, he was making eyes at the strangest little critter I ever saw.”

“Female?”

“How do I know?” He was indignant. “It was like a miniature sled dog. You know, a husky, only a foot by a foot, say, and that thing was with a woman I interviewed.…” He craned his neck and even went a bit on tippytoes in his height-assisted ’70s-style platform shoes. “That woman, there.”

Temple released the mic from her now sweaty hot little hand and started edging past ridged spinal frills and fairy wings (fairy wings?) to the relatively normal-looking woman twenty feet away.

A sound of labored breathing behind her revealed she had not quite shed the intrepid dork called Crawford Buchanan.

Temple immediately began scanning the ground, but the woman wore deck shoes unaccompanied by any miniature Siberian huskies or a particularly large black cat.

“Excuse me,” Temple said, by now a trifle breathless herself. “This gentleman”—that hurt—“says when he interviewed you earlier, you were accompanied by a small … dog? And a black cat was in the neighborhood.”

The woman gazed at her with shock. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life. And, frankly, if I had, I’d make sure I didn’t see him again. He looks like a really self-satisfied aggravating twit.”

Buchanan was sputtering again. “I must disagree, ma’am. I did a brief stand-up with you not fifteen minutes ago.”

“‘A brief stand-up’! What a phony accusation. I am not that sort of woman at all, and even if I was, I would not be that sort of woman with you.”

“You don’t understand, that’s a technical term,” he said hastily. “And I don’t understand. You were perfectly cordial when I talked to you earlier. Surely you remember me.”

“Surely I would do my best to forget your manners.”

“I have it on film. Where’s that cameraman?” Buchanan gazed around wildly.

A crowd was gathering again.

“You would actually film yourself making such offensive overtures? I saw some police people here just a moment ago.” She gazed wildly around this time.

By now, even Temple was gazing wildly around at both foot and head level.

“This is a misunderstanding,” Buchanan was saying. “I interviewed you. You must remember me.”

“There’s no law that I have to!” she shouted as the missing videographer, a tall portly guy, appeared and ushered Buchanan away. “What a putz,” she told Temple.

“Thanks for getting rid of him. I’m Temple and I’m looking for my cat.”

“I’m Penny, and I’m looking for my dog. He slipped the collar of his harness.” The woman pulled up her left hand, holding a leash and empty harness.

Temple had a feeling Midnight Louie had been the harness undoer. “That’s a tiny harness. What kind of dog do you have?”

The woman chuckled. “He’s a husky Chihuahua.”

“I’ve seen a few overweight Chihuahuas, but that would be big even on them.”

“Rens is not overweight, but he does look more like a Siberian husky, only tiny.”

“Gosh, he could get lost underfoot.” Temple looked around at the carelessly milling crowd taking photos of Area 54.

“He has a lot of sense, small body, big brain. But I do want to find him.”

“What brought you and Rens here?”

“We like to see the passing parade, and this sure is a doozy. I don’t believe in this stuff.”

Temple nodded.

“Besides, if aliens did decide to enter our solar system and check Earth out, I believe they’d be galactic conquerors or so different than us, they’d regard stamping us out the way we’d stomp on a scorpion.” Penny’s shoe stamped in demonstration.

Temple jumped. No scorpions were underfoot, but a cat tail … or a little dog paw could be.

Then she spotted a familiar street sight. “I’m going over there to look for Rens and Louie.”

Penny turned her head. “Good thinking. I’ll go the other way.”

Glad she’d hadn’t had time to don the hat before her impromptu “face time” in front of Awful Crawford’s videographer, Temple tied it on. The wide brim softened the glare and made searching the scene easier, and Buchanan—and Molina—might not recognize her, always a good idea.

When Temple reached the mobile “pop-up” hot dog stand, a little dog, who did sport the coat color of a husky, was sitting up behind the counter with the operator, getting hot dog bits from time to time. It was amazing. He had the bigger breed’s widow’s peak coloration on his forehead, and carried his feathered tail over his back in a wolf–spitz curl. Yet he was the size of a Chihuahua.

Temple’s sigh of relief could have launched a model sailing boat. This was definitely Rens.

Temple eyed the deep black shadow under the truck. She spotted a flash of iridescent green from a cat iris before it winked out.

She was willing to bet that Midnight Louie would be back at the Circle Ritz before she was.

Meanwhile, she needed to reunite Rens with his Penny.

“Hi,” she told the pop-up stand operator, a burly guy who could have played a marine recruiter in a movie.

“You want a dog, lady?”

“Yes. That one.” She pointed at Rens.

“This little fella?”

“That’s the one.”

“He just showed up, so how do I know he’s yours?”