Chapter 10

Well, after a bit of wrestling around and one thing and another, we did pick ourselves up off the floor and stumbled to the bedroom for rounds two and three. Nancy came home sometime around then and decided that she wasn't up for joining in the festivities. She quietly picked up our clothes in the living room floor and put them on a chair and went to bed by herself in the guest room. I noticed that someone had picked up the clothes during a bathroom break and noticed the guest room door was closed and put two and two together and cautioned the Cat to keep it down when I got back into bed so Nancy could get some sleep. The next round she stifled her screams and it was certainly a strain on her part. Rather interesting, as I got her to have a couple of orgasms while she was busy putting a pillow over her own face to muffle herself. When I finally fucked her, the last time she came, she used my shoulder for a pillow and I got a hell of a purple hickey out of the deal and Nancy kidded the hell out of me about for the next week.

Cat dragged us with her the next evening and we went down the peninsula and wandered through a Ferrari dealership's lot. I guess they thought that we were just browsing, or couldn't afford one, because we had to go find a salesman and he gave us such a ration of attitude that she just said, "Fuck it. I wouldn't buy a dead rat from this jerk. Where's the manager of this dump?" The guy gave her some more superior attitude and she went into the showroom and found the senior sales guy and dragged his ass out into the lot and he told her the price of the cars she'd liked and said that the guy we didn't like would help her. The Cat said, no, you guys have just blown this sale, she'd rather have the plague than give them any of her money as she handed them her business card. I handed the guy one of my cards I still carried in my wallet from the ad agency I occasionally did work for and smiled warmly at him as the Cat went walking off. "You guys just fucked up selling three cars and pissed off a world famous photographer who I don't think will be recommending her friends to you. I would guess that whoever owns this place will be getting a call from someone tomorrow morning, but at least you didn't gush over the Star. She gets so much of that kind of crap everyday, but you guys acted like you didn't even recognize her and I deeply appreciate it." Well, Nancy's always been a star in my book, but my comments had their brains churning frantically trying to come up with her name. The only reason that we didn't get the usual 'fawning over her ass' stuff was that the salesmen weren't into women.

The Cat was pissed off about how it had all worked out and Nancy was cracking jokes to chivvy her out of her bad mood. Sometimes Nancy can do spot on wicked imitations and she was doing the salesman. "It's really quite expensive," (which is what his answer had been to 'how much for this one?)' and Nancy went into 'and you are all look like people that don't belong in the dancing pony club, and we'd really rather not like to see you driving a Ferrari." Then she did me, asking again what the price was, then him, "I really shouldn't waste any more of my precious time with you bottom crawlers at all, but I will say, it's very very expensive." Done with the proper sniff and a few more bits about how he would have to check us out with the Mafia, to see if we were qualified to buy such an expensive 'world class wop-mobile.'

After a few more bits, the Cat was out of her bad mood and I told her about how she should have someone do a follow up call and act like she'd purchased the cars and set up the transfer of cash and ask if they could put big ribbons on them, as they were presents for friends. She asked me why she should do that? We hadn't bought any cars, so why waste the time?

"Yeah, we know we didn't buy any cars. But the folks in their bookkeeping department tomorrow morning won't know that bit of information now, will they?" It took her about a second to work the angles, but then she just gave this slow evil grin as the light came on and then finally wound up laughing out loud. By the time her people had worked out details of where to send the cash with the bookkeepers, and followed through on the money transfer and then the bookkeepers found out that there wasn't any records of which cars had been bought or where they were supposed to be delivered and all of the asking around after a hundred and some thousand dollars showing up in the bank, Mr. Very Expensive and the sales manager would (hopefully) be looking for new jobs. The Cat's people would go along with it and play it beautifully. "I'm following up on the cars that my principle bought last night. As these are gifts, she told me to expedite the arraignments and I need where to wire transfer the cash. We'll need them prepared and delivered tomorrow in time for the party and if you can put a bows and ribbons around them, I'm sure everyone will get a kick out of it. The Cat said the final costs hadn't been calculated, but it would a hundred and thirty thousand dollars sound about right? As it's getting close to close of business here in New York, she said that I should just wire you the funds and we can work out the details on the rest of it later. Or we could put the remainder on the agency's American Express card, whatever is easier to do for you. But the absolutely first thing I should do is to get you the money so the cars can be prepared and delivered to the party no later than four pm tomorrow." And nobody turns down money being sent their way and so the bookkeepers would be making arraignments to take care of the wire transfer first and then worrying about what cars later. After all, who whips out over a hundred thousand bucks for something they didn't buy, right? And then there wasn't any sales order, and before long, there would be some questions asked and someone was going to get into trouble. And the Cat would get her money back.

Evil bastard, aren't I? Hanging out in rock and roll, you hear some horror stories.

And after a dinner stop, we were all in a much better mood on the way back home.

Connie and Kathy had had a good time in Berkeley and she'd bought us all a few little things over there. One was a framed funny small art print that we hung in the bathroom, a t-shirt for the Cat with 'Closet Clothes Horse' on it in glitter letters and for Nance, a pair of ear rings that looked good on her. She'd also found an out of print book of mine at a used bookstore and I autographed it for her. She said she'd seen a copy of the Cat's Ass photos, but it was way beyond her price range though and they kept locked up in a glass fronted bookcase. She was shocked at the price they wanted for it. I told her that the printing in it was pretty expensive to do and left it at that.

The folks at the Ferrari place went through the hoops and jumps I'd set up for them like trained dogs. Where were the order forms? Which cars? A couple of calls to the numbers on the cards we'd given them resulted in absolutely no results. "I'm sorry sir, she's on vacation and I don't have a number she can be reached at. All I know is that she went back to her hometown for a few weeks, and even if I did have her number, I wouldn't be allowed to give it out. She's very fussy about having her privacy disturbed when she's on vacation. Yes, I do realize that she paid for three cars, I had the bookkeeper pay you for them. Well, that certainly does sound like you have a problem, doesn't it? But I can't help it if you've lost the paperwork. Certainly it's inconvenient. I know she was looking forward to seeing the looks on her friends faces she was going to give the cars to and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find her lawyer will taking an interest in this. About all I can really suggest is that you look harder for the paperwork on the sale. And just out of curiosity, how in the hell did you manage to lose the paperwork on three Ferraris?"

I had hipped the ad agency to what was going on and they promised not to let my home phone number out no matter who called. And on Monday Cat had her people call up the dealership and ask pointed questions about what kind of slipshod business were they running out there anyway? While the sales manager was trying to explain that as far as they could tell, there had never been a sale in the first place! Ten minutes later he had to explain the same thing to the Cat's attorney, who took a very dim view of that explanation. There were some further words spoken, and then the dealership agreed to refund the money plus a thousand dollars for the 'disappointment and embarrassment' she'd been forced to suffer because of their incredibly slovenly business practices.

I never did find out if the sales people got to keep their jobs or not. I heard from the Cat later on that when she got back to New York, the Ferrari dealership there called her up and invited her out to test drive some of their new models. The Cat boasted about getting a one hundred and sixty eight miles an hour speeding ticket in a Ferrari out on the Long Island Freeway during her test drive to Nancy a few months later.

The next few days went by with a little sightseeing here and there and a picnic up on Mount Tam and some skinny dipping out in Bolinas. Cat was enjoying her unexpected days off and asked Dwayne if he'd be up for a little all expense paid vacation sometime next winter and he was interested, all right. So she asked a few other guys, and thanked me for coming up with the idea of having 'take out' delivered to her on the road. Nancy got a few jokes in about it, and made sure to razz Dwayne about it next time she ran into him. He'd given back a bit of what she was dishing out and said after the joking was done, that he was looking forward to it. "At least I won't have to compete with all the other guys in town for some of her attention." Well, that was a cool way of looking at it.

Cat had a call from her agent and she had to take off for Tokyo on a shoot eleven days after she'd arrived. We all took her to the airport and hung out in the VIP lounge with her until her flight was called and then did the hugs and kisses and away she went. Kathy had a small case of the blues after we left the airport on the way home. I tried to kid her out of it. "Well, you can always sleep with Nancy." I said out of the blue.

She laughed.

"Thanks. I guess I didn't realize how much I was going to miss her until it was time to say good bye." She watched the scenery roll by outside the Gold Whale.

"Yeah. I guess we're all pretty much used to it." She looked over at me quizzically. "Well, it's what she does, you know?" I could see she didn't. "The Cat is a road warrior, it's where she makes her living, just like headliner bands, kind of. You go where the work is, and if it's touring through the Midwest on a bus or getting on a plane and going to Tokyo, well, that's what you do, you see?" She gave me a sad sort of little smile and nodded. "I guess we're used to her coming and goings, but it's just the nature of her gig."

She thought about it for a while and sighed. "I guess it's just that it's ... well, I think of a job as something I go into work and do. Flying in from Madrid and then off to Tokyo, that doesn't sound like what I think of as work."

I mulled it over a bit. Yeah, it certainly wasn't the way everyone I had grown up with thought of 'work', that was for sure. I could see where she was coming from.

"Kathy, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Oh yeah?" She had a 'how the hell would you know?' tone to her voice.

"I'm out there on the Road. I know what the deal is. It sounds glamorous as hell, but you still gotta do your laundry." She looked over at me. "And you don't know where the fucking Laundromats even are because you only in a city for a couple of days, then it's onto the next stop. It's kind of like being on a small boat. You get to know people a little too well at times." I could see she didn't get that comment I'd picked up from someone in a touring band's road crew. "You're going around from city to city, but what do you see? You see a hotel room, a few restaurants, the hall the gig's in, you might sight-see a little bit if you're not too hung over from the parties after the show and you're basically stuck with the twenty or thirty people who are on the tour with you and you all get on each others nerves after a while. The Cat's scene is a lot like that, only there isn't the crowds there for the performances. Just her, her road crew, a whole lot of people from the agency handling the account, the clothiers' people, and a group of really insecure underfed women who if they break a fingernail go into hysterics. Most of those models are pretty dim, by the way, and they all have agents and stage mothers and hairdressers and make up people and honest to god, Kathy, you have never seen such a bitchy as hell group of people in your entire life! They make most vain, coked out rock stars look almost normal." She smiled a bit at that.

Nancy had been crawling around in the back of the Whale looking for something and had come up between the seats and heard the last of the conversation.

"Thanks for trying to make me feel better."

"Think he's shittin' you?" Nancy said. "You have no idea of how totally fuckin' whacked it is out there in Cat's World."

"Still..." Kathy began, as Nancy steamrolled right over her.

"The idea sounds really cool as hell, but the reality of it really sucks, and sucks big time." Nancy fired up the doobie she'd been looking for and handed it to me after it was going. "The kind of people out there with her just aren't the kinds of folks you really want to have as friends."