Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen (29 page)

Sammy.

So I climb in the van and tell Holly, “Have the bat ready,” because I'm not hot to set this creepy cat free, either. I mean, so what if he knows my name? What if it's a trick? Maybe this guy
deserves
to be tied up.

Then again, maybe he was on to Tony long before we were.

Still. I'm not taking any chances. I monkey-walk over to El Gato's head, because the idiot still has his mask on. And since the rag in his mouth is tied
over
the mask, I have to take the gag off first. So I bend down and untie it, and before he has the chance to say a word, I yank off his mask.

And there, looking up at me, panting for air, is Officer Borsch.

“It's Officer
Borsch
?” Holly cries.

“Quick! Help me untie him!”

“It's Officer
Borsch
?” Holly asks again, climbing into the van.

My brain was flying around, trying to make sense of things. “Were you working undercover?” I ask him, undoing the knots as fast as I can. “Where's your backup?”

He moans as the ropes loosen and his arms and legs are
freed. One of his wrists looks pretty badly chafed, and his whole body seems stiff as he sits up and mumbles, “I was working alone.”

“Alone? Are
you crazy? There's a hundred bloodthirsty guys inside that warehouse. They're killing cats as we speak!”

“Did you see?” he asks.

I nod. “They've got a whole boxing-ring setup—with a torture cage in the middle. They throw cats in with dogs and make them fight! It's sick!”

“Okay,” he says, and starts untying his wrestling shoe.

“What are you
doing?
We've got to get out of here! The guard caught us inside and we knocked him out, but I don't know how long he's going to
stay
out.”

Officer Borsch just keeps unlacing his shoe.

“Officer Borsch! Did you hear me? Follow us around the building—we know how to get out!”

“You girls have no idea how lucky you are to be alive.” He yanks out the tongue of his shoe, and there, underneath it, is a small cell phone. He flips it open, saying, “Me, I know how lucky I am that you found me.” He gives me a halfhearted grin. “And here I used to think you were nothing but bad luck.”

Before he can finish punching in numbers, the guard's walkie-talkie crackles, and Tony's voice fills the van. “Mason, we still cool out there?”

“Pass it here!” Officer Borsch says.

So Holly scrambles for the walkie-talkie and tosses it to Officer Borsch.

He holds down a button and says, “Yeah, we're cool.”

“No trouble from the narc?”

“Nah. He's a wimp.”

Tony laughs, “We'll have fun gettin' rid of that one.” Then he says, “What's the stats on the door.”

Officer Borsch's eyes shift. “Uh…we're locked down tight.”

“No! What's the numbers?”

Officer Borsch whispers, “How many people do you think were inside?”

“A hundred?” I look at Holly and she sort of shrugs and nods.

Officer Borsch keys the walkie-talkie and says, “Eighty-seven.”

“That's it? Looks like more than that to me.”

“Uh… I coulda lost count.”

“Lost count? It's your
job
to count.”

“And I counted eighty-seven.”

“Look. I'll check in with you later. Keep an eye on the narc.”

“No problem.”

Beads of sweat are pouring down the Borschman's brow, but without wasting a second, he punches buttons on his cell phone and goes into total cop mode when someone picks up. “Gil Borsch here. I'm in a double-ought situation inside a white van at Kustom Air on the two-hundred block of North Depot. It's a ten-thirty-one involving animal gaming. We need all units to respond. Possible ten-thirty-four.” He listens a second, then says, “At least a hundred. This is a high-stakes situation….” He listens some more, then says, “Copy that,” and hangs up.

“They're coming?”

“I'd give ‘em two minutes.” He takes the keys from me. “Meanwhile, let's see what we can do to trap
them
inside.”

The van fires right up, but just as Officer Borsch is putting it in gear, the passenger door flies open. “Hey!” Tony yells, running alongside the van. “What are you doing in my van!” Then he must've noticed Officer Borsch's clothes, because he shouts, “You!”

Holly and I duck as Officer Borsch tries to peel away from him, but Tony jumps inside, slams the passenger door, and points a handgun at him. “Stop the van!”

Well, Officer Borsch guns it instead, swerving side to side, trying to keep Tony off balance. “I said stop!” Tony shouts, and I swear the second he can steady himself, he's going to pull the trigger. So I reach back quick and grab the bat, and before he even knows I'm there, I whack down on his hand.

The gun drops and Officer Borsch spins a U-ie, sending Tony flying against the passenger door while Officer Borsch stretches down and grabs the gun. Then he slams on the brakes, pins Tony's head to the windshield with the gun, and says, “Give me an excuse, creep. I'll tornado you straight to hell.”

Sirens are wailing in the distance, and Tony knows it's all over—he just stays put, with his lips drawn tight and his hands up. So since I know Officer Borsch has him covered, and I know that help is on the way, I pull back and whisper, “Let's go” to Holly.

Officer Borsch is telling Tony, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you
in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney…,” so I give him a quick wave and whisper, “We were never here,” then hurry out the back of the van.

Holly follows me around the building the way we'd come, saying, “Why are we doing this
now?”

“You want to be here all night? Answering police questions takes forever! Plus they'll want to call our
parents
, and besides, the last thing Officer Borsch needs is for it to get out that he was rescued by a couple of junior high girls. I want to make like we had nothing to do with this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me. I don't know what's going on at the police department, but do you think Officer Borsch would dress as a cat if he wasn't desperate to prove himself?”

“You've got a point.”

So we jet around the building and climb the fence quick. Two policemen are already using bolt cutters on the locked gate, but we grab our skateboards and manage to sneak up the street without them seeing us. And by the time we're a safe block away, the Kustom Air place is swarming with cops.

Holly looks back and says, “So that's it? We're just going home? Don't you want to see them get caught? Can't we cruise around the block and check it out from the brickyard? Or from across the street?”

“You really want to?”

“Heck yeah!”

I grin at her. “Well, come on!”

It turned out to be a show worth watching.

I'd never seen so many cops in my life. I didn't even know Santa Martina
had
that much law enforcement. Every cop in the county must've been tuned into radio traffic and dropped what they were doing to help. There were fire trucks there, too.

And you should have seen it when the gamblers found out they were caught in a raid. They went wild trying to escape! They didn't get far, though. For one thing, they were surrounded. For another, the firemen hosed them down.

Holly and I loved every minute of it. And at one point it hit me that keeping all those bloodthirsty monsters inside the chain-linked yard looked like a huge version of what they'd done with the cats.

Too bad there wasn't a T rex around to cut loose on them.

We didn't see Officer Borsch or Tony, or the Bulldog for that matter. But as they were piling people into a paddy wagon, Holly said, “They've got T.J.!” Then she laughed. “I guess he's gonna be doing the jailhouse rock tonight!”

So we watched a while longer, but when things settled
down a little, Holly and I headed home and snuck into bed. We had a real hard time falling asleep, but we agreed not to mention a word of what had happened to Vera and Meg. “They'd have a fit!” Holly said. “They'd never let you spend the night, ever again!”

Can't have that.

But in the morning Vera and Meg read all about it in the
Santa Martina Times.
Holly and I couldn't actually believe it had
made
the newspaper, considering how late the raid had happened and everything, but there it was on the front page, with a headline reading:

GAMBLING RING BUSTED

And underneath that:

Undercover Cop Cuffs Ringleader; Saves Cats

“Girls!” Vera called from the kitchen table. “You're not going to believe who El Gato is!”

“Who?” we asked, and tried to act surprised when she said, “Officer Borsch! He was working undercover!”

Grams called, too, wanting to know if we'd seen the paper. And when I told her we had, she said, “I can't believe it. That scoundrel was the ringleader! He probably had Dorito the whole time! Think what could have happened to him! What a cruel, vicious, despicable—”

“Stop, Grams, I know! Believe me, I've thought about it plenty.”

“Well, I hope they lock him up for a good long time!”

“Yeah. In a nice, spiky cage.”

But after I got off the phone, something was still bothering me. So when the Pup Parlor opened for business and Holly got tied up with chores, instead of going home I went next door to Slammin' Dave's.

I was relieved to find the door open. I mean, if it was locked up, then maybe Dave was locked up, too. There had been so many people at the warehouse that he could have been among them, who knows?

Inside, the place was quiet. But when I called out, “Dave? Hey, Dave, are you here?” he came out of his office. “Triple-T, nice to see you.”

Now, the way he said it was really subdued. Like he was totally depressed. So I said, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “Just disappointed in a few people.”

“Like Tony?”

“You've seen the paper, I take it.”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “And I could have gotten that cop killed! I showed Tony the picture you girls took.”

“So… you didn't know El Gato was a cop?”

“I had no idea.” He shook his head and said, “I knew he was a little weird, but a cop? And he wouldn't explain the picture—he just said he wasn't a thief and asked me to trust him.” Dave shrugged. “But I didn't.”

“Well, I'm glad you didn't have anything to do with it.”

“Me? Are you crazy? I like animals. And now I'm all embroiled in this mess because Tony hired some of my boys for muscle and had the nerve to steal my old
equipment. Here I thought he was just an industrious guy, but instead he was piecing together his own sick operation. It's hard enough running a decent school without having to deal with this stuff.”

“Well,” I said, “
I
tell everyone you're cool.”

He snickered. “Thanks, Triple-T.”

“I'm serious. And by the way—I had occasion to use some of your moves the other day.”

“What do you mean?”

“These girls attacked me down by the mall…”

“And?”

“And let's just say, they bit the mat and I didn't.” I shrugged. “So thanks.”

He laughed. “Hey, we don't call you Triple-T for nothing!”

I laughed and said, “Bye!” But when I got outside, I decided to take another detour before going home.

I found Hudson sitting on his porch, drinking tea, reading the newspaper. “Sammy!” he said when he saw me, but went right back to reading the paper. He didn't even offer me any tea.

“What's wrong?” I asked him.

He slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “Aside from this being unbelievable, it's unbelievable.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are holes all over this story. There are parts that just don't make sense.”

“It's the paper, Hudson. They get stuff wrong all the time. Besides, it happened late last night—I'm surprised they were able to report on it at all.” Then I added, “But
wasn't Officer Borsch great? I can't believe he was El Gato!”

Very slowly Hudson turned away from the paper and toward me. And the look on his face was the same look I get when things in
my
brain snap together.

But before he can start quizzing me, something bright orange catches the corner of my eye. “What was that?” I whisper.

“What was what?” Hudson whispers back.

And then the Psycho Kitty Queen comes around the corner. Her bottom half is still shrink-wrapped in denim. She's still wearing a halter top—this time bright orange. She's still got on twenty coats of makeup, and her tiara's still perched neatly on her Barbie-doll hair, but there's something different about her.

Something softer.

Something sad.

“Why, good morning, Miss Kitty,” Hudson says as she walks up the side steps.

“Good morning, Hudson,” she says quietly, then turns to me. “Good morning, Sammy.”

Whoa now! This was weird. I didn't even know she knew my name.

Hudson asks, “Would you care for some tea?”

She shakes her head, and she keeps on looking at me, but not for a stare-down. She's just looking. And finally she simply says, “I'm sorry,” then turns around and walks away.