Carry's Cat — Barbara Collins

A Short Story by Acclaimed Short Story Author Barbara Collins

Excerpt
The Annex, in Wichita, Kansas, was considered one of the finest saloons in the whole country, second only to the Alcazar in Peoria, Illinois. But most people felt the Annex was more elegant, with its marble floor and black onyx railing and cut-glass decanters filled with various liquors that lined a long beveled Victorian mirror behind the bar. Even the walls were unique, the grey stucco blocks imported from the buildings of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.
It was on one of those walls that hung the focal point of The Annex: a life-size painting of a nude Cleopatra taking a bath, surrounded by semi-nude Greek and Roman maidens.