Bad luck.  Bad, bad luck.  I had dropped down to Hotel 27’s gorgeous bar.  As I entered, I heard an unwelcome voice off to my right.  Lo, the fruity Tucker Snarlson was holding court.  In front of him, he had the Queen’s favourite drink, a Dubonnet Cocktail, a drink made with lemon, a large ice cube, gin, and Dubonnet.  If that is what they drink at the palace, no wonder it brims with inverts. 

Before I could escape, Snarlson motioned me to his table.  I asked for a large order of cream herring without any vodka.  The barkeep obliged my unusual order.  Snarlson, as if on orders from Peregrine or Wolverine, began to lecture his lackeys on the purity of Putin’s intentions.  He sang a hymn of praise to me. 

Anybody within earshot heard about the Pulitzer-level journalism I had done for L’Afrique Aujourd’hui on the love of Putin that was the mark of anybody living in central Africa.  Like our President, whom some of you know as the Orange Jesus, the man on the street in Kinshasa, Goma, or Kigali knows Putin as a man of peace.  

Hence recent insinuation of murderous Russian activity in Somalia was contrary not only to reason but to experience as well.  No doubt the Russians were victims of a conspiracy.  It was not Putin’s fault if some Russian malcontents, some bad apples from the army had killed al Shabaab terrorists.  Just ask Crockett, a cat with first-hand knowledge of Africa and its people, a cat fresh out of Africa, who committed this recent enormity.

“It’s the kind of thing that the Germans, French and Belgian would do, isn’t it, Crocky?’ snarled Snarlson.  Never one to miss an opportunity to spread a baseless rumour, Snarlson conjectured that no country had easier access to Ice-10 and Lithuania than the German, adding the Germans specialise in killing innocent people.”

Snarlson was warming up. “But you know, Crocky, we mustn’t overlook the Jews either. I heard rumours of Mossad retrieving two notorious assassins from Entebbe, a place where the Jews have a history of dirty business.  Perhaps you or your China woman consort know them.  Aren’t they the killer Jews Saul Cohen and Daniel Levi?”  

He had crossed so many lines I didn’t know what to say.  So, I said the obvious, ‘Saying it doesn’t make it so.”  I mentioned too that perhaps a few too many of the Queen’s favourite cocktails might have made him careless in his use of language. 

Never one to shun a fight, Snarlson stared at me and then asked, “Are your chums so ashamed of being Jews or a China woman that  they want people to use euphemisms?”  I was tempted to answer but instead heard Lucky’s voice from the door, “Perhaps Crockett hasn’t mastered teaching prissy closet queens about modern forms of address.”  She sashayed to the table, grabbed Snarlson’s nose, and began to twist it. 

Snarlson responded wiht a cascade of tears. Lucky kept her grip. “So let’s get this straight. You may call me Ms Ming and you may refer to the other two as Mr Cohen or Mr Levi like a well-manner crybaby girl,” Now Snarlson was blubbering, but Lucky didn’t let up.

Instead, she patted his head while advising, “You should drink fewer cocktails, though I’m guessing you know a lot more about cock than tail, and mind their manners better the next time you see me.” She then reached down to his crotch, grabbed it savagely, and ordered Snarlson to squeal.  As he made his wee-wees, Lucky warned, “And do yourself a favour. Have better manners whenever I’m in a room unless you want an abbreviated life.  Remember who I am.  You know.  Don’t forget it.”  

Then Lucky scooped me up and walked me back to our room. The blubbering Snarlson’s friends were trying to console him.  They were saying things like “As far as we’re concerned we never saw this.  It never happened.”  etc.   A fellow in a tight leopard print shirt and leather pants whispered in his ear, then stroked him behind the ear, helped him from his chair, then led him from the bar.  The fellow had the sensitivity not to use his leash.

When Lucky and I got back to our suite, she detected disapproval in me.  “What is it, darling?”  

I told her she was as bad about poufs as Snarlson was about Jews and the Chinese.  Lucky rolled her eyes.

“You’re divinely funny, my sweet.  The Chinese didn’t legalize guys doing each other until 1997.  Most Chinese still disapprove.  Besides, darling, look at it this way.   You imagine I’m failing morally because I’m hard on faggots.  Darling, don’t you remember I kill people for a living? If I get nasty with an obnoxious prissy closet femboi, that’s a misdemeanor at most.”

 Perhaps she had a point.  When I caught Snarlson on the telly the next day, he was shouting about lawlessness in Holland.  He complained a man can’t have a cocktail in a Dutch bar without putting his life on the line.  He assured his audience that Holland was worse than the Bronx or southeast DC.  He didn’t say a word about gays or Israelis or the Chinese.  He had returned his commentary to his beloved tropes on the criminality of blacks in Americas ghettos.  

When I was in the suite, Lucky had gone out.  Without warning the suite door swung open.  In strolled Chaucer.  I got a dirty look, then he said, “The holiday is over. I want you back in Saint Louis.”  I then got scolded for having done so little to move the project of applying more pain to Wolverine and his crew.  According to Chaucer,  life with Lucky was making me lazy and fat.  He had been talking to Behemoth about it the other day in Moscow.  Once Chaucer laid eyes on me, he agreed with Behemoth’s diagnosis. Lucky was ruining my initiative.  I was not keen on Chaucey’s project.  His eyes glowed like molten iron when he told me so.  

What’s a cat to do?  With Mr C’s ghost as an escort, I headed to Schipol to mooch a ride on a corporate jet.  Fortunately, my dear friend Carl Icahn was headed to National.  I bounded on board.  The billionaire pirate hugged me.  What a guy!  You got to like a Princeton man.  Six hours later I was in DC.