Never ask a cat for moral assessments.  When I insinuated that the coppers in Waynesville did wrong in targeting the town’s unlovelies.  Bart and Fielding jeered in unison, “Do nothing?  Preposterous!  When cats work to establish law and order in their realm, do they kill only the guilty.  That’s an invitation to lawlessness.  We kill all mice we catch as a warning to the others. Keep in mind to that we mete out justice to the slow and the stupid first. They’re easiest to catch.”

But let’s get back to the chase.  Constance loathed the idea of Lucky escaping.  Constance decided to let her driver take her to Saint Louis.  From there, she decided to fly to DC.  Once in DC, she would hightail it to the Chinese embassy near Kalorama, and just back from where Connecticut crosses over Rock Creek Park. If the gods were with her, sooner or later Lucky would present to the Chinese embassy.  

The plan had one obvious defect. Lucky might scoot out of the US via some other route; however, as Constance saw it, Lucky would stay in the US until she knew that Team Xi had a usable bot for reverse engineering.  If it didn’t, Lucky would have to steal another.  Wolverine explained it all to me weeks later.  

Meanwhile, part of Wolverine’s posse had convinced themselves that they had met an informant with news of Lucky.  The informant described a Chinese woman driving an MB S90 at high speed.  The fink also said a cat was sleeping on its dashboard.  What’s it to him?

Lucky had got to Saint Louis in good time.  Instead of pushing through to the east, she took the cutoff for Memphis.  It took me until we hit I-40, where she headed east, that I got the feeling she was headed to DC or even NYC, instead of the big port at New Orleans.  Personally, I favoured heading to NOLA, but Lucky told me she had other plans.  If she wanted my opinion, she gave it to me.

Lucky listened to a combination of classical and techno as she drove.  By now, I wished I had figured out how to escape from her company in Saint Louis.  Instead, I was now with Lucky having catfish in Jackson, Tennessee. 

When she found Reggi’s BBQ, she pulled in.  She ordered a Pitmaster Platter (picking ribs, brisket, and pulled pork) with coleslaw, fried okra, and onion rights.  She ordered me smoked pulled chickee and some pulled pork.  Bless her heart, she also demanded they give it to me unsauced and told the waitress “No, she didn’t care if they didn’t do that.  Just do it.”  For dessert, she got strawberry shortcake and a side of whipped cream for me.  She washed her chow down with sweet tea and demanded a bowl of water be placed at her feet for me. 

After dinner, we went to a Hilton Garden Inn where she had a reservation.  She sniffed at the look of it and turned the car around.  After driving back 70 miles, we checked into the Peabody.  

Okay, I’ll confess.  It was off-putting for Lucky to drive to Franklin, discover that the hotel failed the needs of the plus rich, and then drive back to Memphis to take a suite at the Peabody.  To make matters worse, her detour cheated me of getting to see the ducks do their parade in the hotel’s lobby.  I was so inconsolable that Lucky restored me by arranging a tour of the ducks’ quarters. So, maybe I wasn’t quite inconsolable.

The suite was old-style southern.  Why not?  Some say the Mississippi delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel.  All this fancy southern stuff appealed to Lucky’s girlie side.  Like many women, she has watched, even in China, Gone with the Wind way too many times.  The room was comfy.  Lucky shoved her 1911 in the nightstand’s drawer next to the Gideon Bible and shoved her Walther PPQ under her pillow.  When she undressed, I noticed a black Spyderco Police knife drop from her trouser.  Lord knows what other killer knick-knacks she had in her outfit and suitcase.  

Once she fell asleep, I crawled under the covers to snuggle next to her.  Her bod had a lot more muscle on it than I was used to.  I didn’t mind.  The bed was comfy soft. 

When we checked out, Lucky saw something or somebody she didn’t like the look of.  I don’t know what.  she put me in the Mercedes, and then, “Darling, I have a quick errand.” I noticed she had put a raincoat on, attached a silencer to her Walther, and put it into an inside pocket of the Mac.  Whoosh.  Off she went.  There was a staircase she took. I thought I heard a muffled shot.  She walked back to me all smiles.  “Sorry, darling.  I just had to do a bit of pest control.”  Off we went, got onto to I-40 heading east. 

A few days later, I read a report in the Memphis Daily News of a shooting of a Missouri man in a stairwell of the Peabody.  His name was Mitch Cheshire.  

After I read it, I asked about it.  Lucky rolled her eyes.  “Such an amateur, darling.  I noticed him in the lobby checking out.  It took nothing to lure this Wolverine stooge to a stairwell. If I had more time, I’d drowned the rat in a women’s restroom toilet.  You don’t like finks, do you, darling?”  

By then we had already motored through Nashville where we supped, after some shopping at the Bluebird Cafe.  Lucky felt lively, so she drove on to Knoxville, where she smuggled me into a suite Oliver, a hotel that was on square and that had a hall that led to a Sweet Magnolias Restaurant.  Lucky complained about the absence of any real luxury in Knoxville.  “We’re slumming with the hillbillies, darling,” she told me.  After that, she took I-40 to the I-81.  She headed north on I-81.  We got off at some point, traversed pathetically low mountains, and stopped to dine and sleep at the Inn in Little Washington.  At last, Lucky had found a joint that pleased her.  She had preordered a 1975 Petrus that cost a few times more than mike’s car.   Per her instructions, the chef prepared foods that went with it. The chef also had an assortment of the finest fish for me.  Lucky permitted the sommelier to enjoy glasses of what she ordered.  For all her sermons on Marxism, Lucky felt right at home with the Haute bourgeoisie.  On the other hand, I can’t even pronounce the chow that Lucky consumed.  I tell you this, she had better taste than the Trumps.

As Lucky was finishing her dinner, I heard a familiar voice.  “Well, hello, Lucky, what a surprise.  I do admit I thought I might find you here.  Tell me, Crockett, has she introduced you to my boy Wolverine?”  

“But I already know him, Constance.”

“Of course, you do.  Maybe you all got to spend time with him in Waynesville.  It’s such a dangerous place, though.  I wonder why anybody would go or stay?”

Lucky’s eyes narrowed.  “I wouldn’t guess you’d like Waynesville.  There wouldn’t be enough young sailors for you.”

“Nor enough stuff to steal for you.”  Constance played with her pearl necklace as she said that.  “Wolverine told me you omitted to visit him.  Maybe he was wrong.”

“I don’t think so.  Didn’t I last see you naked on a yacht whilst a Russky oligarch was playing with your bottom? You were groaning rather loudly.  What an error I made.  I slowed my speed boat down and got too good a look, you know, with my love of binoculars and all.  And what noises you made.”

“Yes,” purred Constance, “I recall how much you enjoy watching . . . and hearing.  You’re rather like that fellow Chance in Kosinski’s novel.  You’re hard to recognise without blood on you.  We had a brief chat when you were losing money with a pretty boy at a gaming table at the Casino de Monte-Carlo.  You still had clothes on.  Toodles, I must go.  I just had an urge to say hello”

The next morning, she drove to a large place with lots of horses that she told me was Warrenton.  From there she wished to do preliminary work that would get her to the embassy.  Be very, very careful.  Constance is hunting.