Catwoman Flees Gotham--for L.A. : Pets: Feline lover wins fight to put 20 animals in posh Studio City house.

Barreling westward 39,000 feet above Tennessee, two cats reclining behind her seat and 18 others lazing in rows of cages in the cargo plane, Francine Katzenbogen should have been triumphant.

After battling prospective neighbors, spending more than $8,000 on the chartered flight and related veterinarian bills and personally supervising the felines’ seating arrangements, Katzenbogen was headed for her million-dollar Studio City estate.

And the cats were about to settle into the six-room $100,000 guest house she had designed for them.

But she just could not relax. She worried that the cats were cold. And thirsty. And upset about flying from New York to their new home on Thursday.

“I’m just nervous about them,” Katzenbogen said of the cats she calls family. “They’ve never been out of the house.”

The cross-country journey was set up in March, when the Brooklyn native overcame her biggest obstacle--and earned national attention. Fifty neighbors protested issuance of a city zoning permit for the kitty palace, saying that the cats would lower property values, lure pet-eating coyotes and cause traffic problems if they got loose. Some neighbors were upset at the prospect of the cats staring at them through the house’s low-level windows.

But the city gave her an exemption from the normal three-cat limit, permitting her to keep as many as 20 cats. When the last cat expires, so does the zoning exception.

Now, after paying $3,500 in air fare and $4,419 in veterinary bills, plus uncounted hundreds of dollars in tips to veterinary assistants, drivers and others who helped prepare the whole kitty caboodle for traveling, Katzenbogen was sitting in one of the three seats in the dim cabin of the cavernous Boeing 747. Her cats stashed among crates of caviar and computer parts, Katzenbogen spoke of how far she had come.

Katzenbogen, a 40-year-old with a French manicure and a finger blistered from assembling cat carriers, bought the 14-room Studio City estate, a 5,894-square-foot house with a gym, tennis court and maid’s quarters in 1988. She renovated the garage into a two-story cathouse complete with windows with shelves for the cats to sun themselves on.

Her move West was delayed first when her mother was found to have cancer and then by the battle with neighbors.

On Wednesday, the odyssey began. This is the cats’ tale.

2:20 p.m.--Katzenbogen locked the door on her three-story brick house, lugged two bags of cat toys to the car and launched into tales of woe.

A veterinary assistant had been at the house until 3 a.m., she said, trying to catch cats. She had booked them into two veterinary clinics--one could not handle them all--for health checkups and teeth cleanings.

2:40 p.m.--Dr. Linda Jacobson and three veterinary assistants gathered 14 of Katzenbogen’s cats at the pet hospital.

Katzenbogen, meanwhile, hovered over the animal carriers stacked in the lobby, pulling out Mitzie, a 9-year-old gray cat, to introduce her to two women waiting with their animals to see the veterinarian.

“This was my mother’s cat,” Katzenbogen said.

3:10 p.m.--At the next animal hospital, where the rest of the cats were being treated, many of them appeared to be opposed to transcontinental travel. A recalcitrant Pumpkin was removed from her cage, spitting and snarling, only after two resourceful assistants dumped it upside down into the cat carrier.

7 p.m.--Katzenbogen hovered over the cages at the air cargo loading dock at John F. Kennedy International Airport, telling workers which cats should be placed near each other.

“Where’s Mitzie going? She doesn’t socialize with anyone.”

“Believe me,” a baggage loader said dryly, “she’s not gonna be talking to anyone.”

As a forklift hoisted the cages, Katzenbogen dissolved in tears. “My Rambo is so scared,” she said. “he has a heart murmur.”

The cargo run by Northwest Airlines was the only way Katzenbogen could find to send the 20 cats at one time and fly with them. Flight technicians and cargo handlers whispered to each other, wondering if Katzenbogen was the catwoman. Some spoke reverently of what an animal savior she was. Others asked if the animals were show cats. Quite a few just grinned in disbelief.

Thursday, 5:30 a.m.--Katzenbogen retrieved the loudly complaining Suzie from the hold fearing that her meowing would upset the other cats, most of whom were taking the trip in stride.

Suzie quieted down when Katzenbogen offered her a cup filled with steak saved from her dinner.

Katzenbogen excitedly described details of each cat’s personality--from Alex, who likes to watch television, to Joshua, who eats cantaloupe, to Rambo, who enjoys having his ears cleaned with a Q-Tip.

Katzenbogen, who won $7 million in 1988 in the New York State Lottery, said she does not understand why people are so interested, and sometimes outraged, by the way she treats her cats.

“If I went out and bought a piece of jewelry or expensive car nobody would think twice or criticize me,” she said. “If I want to spend my money and take care of my cats, which are my family, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business.”

1 p.m.--Katzenbogen and cats arrived at the Studio City house but the animals were confined in the carriers until Katzenbogen made sure that sawdust on the floor was mopped away.

Katzenbogen worried, she said, that the cats would lick their paws and become ill from the dust. But she briefly let out Jason so he could get a feel for his new surroundings.

He nuzzled Katzenbogen, who put him on a little shelf by a window.

He soaked in the sunshine and gazed intently out at his new neighborhood.