The Whiskered Spy (13 page)

T
hen
, to my relief, I saw Zack waiting in the coulisses across from where I’d landed. The big guy was still green around the gills, and his lips kept moving as he repeated his lines over and over again. Next to him I recognized Barbara Vale, apple-cheeked and cheerful as ever, trying to engage Zack in conversation.

She had applied a particularly fluorescent brand of lipstick and now stood puckering her lips in anticipation of the big kissing scene. Zack, catching a glimpse of her, blanched and I could see from the expression on his face his stomach was still doing somersaults.

My relief that I had arrived in time was short-lived as I realized I was running out of time. Short of leaping on stage and taking Zack out with a well-aimed swish of my own retractable knives, thus necessitating the arrival of the stretcher-bearers and ending the performance, I didn’t know what to do. Stretcher-bearers being preferable to pallbearers, I had almost decided to go with this gung-ho, yet kamikaze, idea when I noticed another familiar figure high up in the stage rafters.

It was Stevie.

So my fellow agent and FSA partner had made it here after all. The odd thing was, that he wasn’t focused on me, but on Zack, staring at my human with a curiously focused intensity.

“Hey, Stevie!” I whispered, but he didn’t respond.

I tried to read his mind, but once again couldn’t. Then a thought occurred to me: I’d been able to read Zack's mind, hadn’t I? Why couldn’t I read Stevie’s? The only logical answer was that Stevie was blocking me.

The notion frankly startled me. Could it be? Now I remembered that earlier that day I’d tried to read both Stevie’s and Dana’s mind and had drawn a blank. It all made sense now. Both of them had the capacity to close their minds. With Dana, this seemed obvious. She was a senior agent or officer or whatever her FSA label was. But I’d never have expected Stevie to do the same. Wasn’t he a mere trainee, just like me?

Then another thought struck me. Why would Stevie want to block me, unless he was hiding something? He was still staring at Zack with that intense gaze, and then it hit me. Stevie was willing Zack to do something. Nudging him in a certain direction. Had he also figured out Zack was about to use Barbara Vale for fileting practice?

A flood of relief washed over me. Agent Steve to the rescue. My partner had somehow discovered what Zack was about to do, and was trying to stop him. Oh, bless Stevie’s heart, I thought. I just hoped he would succeed where I had failed.

Instantly I started making my way up by using the curtains as a climbing pole. Curtains are excellent for this purpose, did you know that? It only took me ten seconds to reach the rail, and from there it was a mere few leaps and bounds to reach my friend and partner. He was sitting between two following spots.

“Ho there, pardner,” I said by way of greeting. Stevie had been so focused on Zack—saving the day—that he hadn’t noticed my approach. He started violently.

I chuckled freely at his perturbation. “No need to be afraid,” I jested. “It’s only me. Agent Tom.”

“Oh, hi, Tom,” he said, though he didn’t seem too happy to see me.

I grew serious. These were, after all, serious times. “Any luck changing his mind?” I said, indicating Zack, who now stood on one leg. From our vantage point we had an excellent overview of the action down below on stage.

“What do you mean?” he said nervously.

“Well, trying to convince Zack not to slay the Vale, of course,” I said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

He gulped once or twice. “You know about that?”

“Sure,” I said, and proceeded to fill him on the state of affairs, omitting no detail, no matter how small.

On stage, Father Sam had appeared in his butler outfit, and was swigging port in what I assumed to be his pantry. He now started singing a song about how he’d lost the girl of his dreams and hoped one day to see her again. I winced and wondered if this was the same singing voice he utilized in church. If so, the piercing whine didn’t do him credit.

Stevie, meanwhile, was still gulping like a bullfrog. “So,” I concluded, “I made my way here as fast as I could, and have been trying to figure out how to stop Zack since I arrived.”

“That’s… great,” Stevie said, and the comment struck me as rather feeble, as comments go.

“No, it’s not,” I corrected him. “Haven’t you been listening? I tried to dissuade Zack from going down this road, but he didn’t respond.”

“Didn’t he?”

Again I was disappointed by his lack of fervor.

“That’s why I asked: Have
you
had any luck changing his mind?”

“Me? Um…” His eyes darted to Zack, and I could see them narrowing as he focused his mental powers on my human. Good, at least he was trying hard—very hard—to make Zack… do something that he would normally never, ever do… I frowned. Now, wait a minute, I thought. Something fishy was going on here, something…

And then I got it. The awful truth. Stevie wasn’t trying to dissuade Zack from picking up that knife and using it to end Barbara Vale’s life. He was willing him to go ahead and do it!

“
S
tevie
! Stop!” I yelled.

“Huh?” he said, as if waking from a trance. “What’s that?”

“You’re trying to kill Barbara!”

“I’m doing nothing of the kind,” he said, indignant. Then his lips contorted into a wide, toothy grin. “Zack is.”

“But why?” was all I could think to say.

He shrugged. “You’re smart. You figure it out.”

My eyes widened. “You killed Lucy Knicx. And Jamie Burrow!”

He casually studied his paw nails. “Technically Norbert McIlroy did. Though it’s safe to say I lent him a paw.”

The horror of my partner’s betrayal had me reeling, and I nearly plummeted to my death—well, that’s probably exaggerating slightly. Cats don’t easily plummet to their death, certainly not from a mere 15 feet up. I was just about to repeat my earlier ‘But why!’ when a brain wave made me see the light. Lucy Knicx. Jamie Burrow. Stevie’s comments about how they kept dropping by the house all the time. The eternal fear of any cat that his male human takes in a female human and that the days of wine and roses are about to come to an end…

“You didn’t want Lucy or Jamie to take over the run of the house,” I said slowly.

Stevie frowned darkly. “Or Barbara, for that matter,” he said, confirming I’d hit pay dirt. “Ever since she got the blue belle understudy part, Sam hasn’t been able to remove her from the presbytery with a stick.”

“But Sam is a priest,” I said. “He’ll never marry.”

“Sam is wavering,” Stevie said softly. “All this female attention has had him reconsider his vows. Another couple of months and he would have chucked the church and gone and gotten married to one of these… groupies.” He spat out the last word.

“But Barbara is all right,” I said. “She’s a great human. Just ask Dana.”

He shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. Besides, I don’t want Dana for a roomie. She’ll corner the market on kibble and cuddles and I’ll be left fighting for leftovers. No, thank you very much. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Father Sam groupie to eliminate.” And he returned to his perch next to the spotlight, and resumed his mental treatment of Zack.

“No, Stevie!” I cried. “Don’t do it!”

“Who’s gonna stop me?” he scoffed. “You?”

At this moment Zack and Barbara stepped onto the stage. Show time.

“I think he’s on to us,” said Barbara, taking Zack's lapel in a firm grip.

“Are you sure?” said Zack, after a significant pause.

Barbara gave an unconvincing sob that sounded like a dinosaur removing its foot from a primeval swamp.

“That sucks,” said Zack, desperately searching for the prompter. “That means we’ll, um, have to, um, whack the sucker.”

I was pretty sure this wasn’t the way Father Sam had written the scene, but that’s show business. No one respects the script.

Barbara hesitated. Her cue had been ‘Take him out!’, and she was clearly at a loss how to respond to Zack's improv.

“Whack the sucker?” she finally said, though with reluctance. “Are you nuts?”

“Nuts about you!” cried Zack. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the little turd come between me and a pretty piece of pecan pie. Um, that’s not right,” he mumbled.

“No! Jack!” cried Barbara.

“I know, I know,” Zack muttered. “He won’t come between me and, and… Between me and…” His voice trailed off, as he desperately tried to remember his line. Then he got it, and his face lit up. “Between me and… you! Barbara!”

Barbara closed her eyes. As things were going, it seemed more likely that she’d kill Zack than the other way around.

“No, Jack!” she cried once again, a steely note in her voice. “Don’t go!” But the expression on her face belied her words.

Her cry galvanized me into action. I knew what was next, and I could already see Zack's hand steal into his pocket to get a firm grip on the knife handle. So I did the only thing I could think of: I dealt Stevie a hearty smack on the head and, not expecting this, he dropped down to the stage like a ton of bricks. Or rather one brick. Unlike me, Stevie is a lightweight.

On stage, Zack had taken out the knife, and held it out behind Barbara’s back, in full view of the audience, which collectively gasped in shocked surprise. When one attends the performance of a murder mystery play, one obviously expects a murder, and Zack was about to give the public its money’s worth of blood and gore.

Stevie landed deftly on all fours, but his landing platform, unlike mine, wasn’t Mayor McCrady’s soft hairpiece, but Barbara Vale’s bare back. Digging in his claws to prevent his further descent, Stevie finally got his wish and drew Vale blood. The bone-chilling scream that next rent the air, had the audience once again rocket back in their chairs, cries of anguish and horror on their lips, for Barbara didn’t stint on volume.

“You idiot!” she screamed, and, swinging her purse like a hammer, she let it come down hard on Zack's head, for she had automatically jumped to the conclusion Zack must have nicked her with that big, shiny knife of his.

Stevie, rightly deducing he wasn’t wanted on the scene at this particular moment, quickly made good his escape.

“Ouch!” Zack yelled, as Barbara’s purse impacted on his head. He dropped the knife.

Now, when a knife drops to the floor, it usually makes a clanking sound. This particular knife, though, hit the floor with its pointy end, and simply bounced back up, before landing on its hilt, bouncing a few more times and then coming to rest, tired of all these theatrical shenanigans.

I had seen the knife bounce and I had seen it plunk down, and I sat back on my high perch above the stage with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, grabbing onto one of the spotlights to keep me from keeling over and plunging into the abyss.

For I’d just realized that this was not the kind of knife that slays ten in a murdering frenzy. This was a stage knife, and what was more, made of rubber. No way could Zack have done any harm to Barbara, even if he’d wanted to. At most he could have smudged her dress.

“What—what—what—” I stammered, as I stared before me with unseeing eyes. “W-w-what the
heck
is going on?”

I
t was
at this moment that I became aware I wasn’t alone up there. The air to my left suddenly seemed to shimmer, like it does on a hot summer’s day, and even before a bright flash popped and she appeared out of nowhere, I knew I was in the presence of Dana. She had a vague smile on her lips.

“Hello, Tom,” she said.

Then the same thing happened again, but this time to my right. A loud pop, and there he sat, cool as dammit and grinning gaily: Stevie. He actually looked more like the old Stevie I’d come to know and, well, yes, almost love.

I shook my head, dazed and confused. What was going on here?

On stage, meanwhile, the murder mystery had turned into a farce, with Barbara chasing Zack around the set, using all manner of props to hurl at him. The audience members were now rolling in the aisles, laughing their collective heads off. I don’t know how Father Sam would feel about all this, and frankly, I didn’t care. What I wanted to know was…

“What’s going on? That’s what you wanted to ask, right?” said Dana softly.

I merely nodded, still feeling rather dazed. “Let me get this straight,” I began, but that’s as far as I got. Nothing was straight.

“You’re on candid camera,” said Stevie, who was crouching low and holding onto the steel girder with a death grip. Together with the old Stevie, his fear of heights had also made a comeback. Probably being plunked on the back of the head by yours truly hadn’t helped.

“Am I?” I said, searching around for the cameras.

“Shut up, Stevie,” said Dana. “No, you’re not,” she said to me.

I looked down, where Zack and Barbara had left the stage, and a wise stage manager had drawn the curtains. Barbara, who was supposed to be dead by the end of act 1, was still very much alive. I could hear her screaming all the way from her dressing room. I briefly wondered how the play would start act 2 without a murder to investigate or a dead body to examine.

“Huh?” I said, for I perceived that Dana was addressing me.

“I said, this must all be very confusing for you.”

I said she was right.

“It was all a test,” said Stevie blithely. He clapped me on the back. “We all go through it.”

“Huh?” I repeated.

Dana gave Stevie a look of disapproval. “Shut up, Stevie.”

“Oh, all right,” said Stevie, rolling his eyes. “Just saying.”

“Huh?” I said a third time.

“Stevie’s right,” said Dana. “Everything you’ve experienced these last couple of days has been one big recruitment exercise. And I’m glad to say that you’ve passed the test with flying colors, Tom.”

I didn’t even have the oomph to say ‘Huh’ again, so I merely goggled.

“The FSA stages these exercises for every recruit. Just a way to make sure we’re not inducting anyone into our ranks who doesn’t justify the expenditure.”

I cleared my throat with some difficulty. “Expenditure?” I said.

“Sure,” said Dana. “Now that you’re cleared for admission, we’re starting up your training.”

“And I’m going with,” said Stevie. “Finally.”

“Stevie was inducted a little over a month ago,” said Dana. “But we’ve been waiting for a fifth recruit before organizing training camp. You’re number five.”

“There’s four more like—” I glanced over at Stevie. “—him?”

“Don’t be so shocked,” said Stevie, grinning. “You sound as if you don’t like me.”

“Oh, I like you all right,” I said. “I just don’t know if I can trust you.”

He slung an arm around my shoulders. “Oh, bro, don’t be that way. I was just playing along with Dana’s little scheme.”

“Were you now?” I said frostily. I still hadn’t forgiven him for lying to me. “Partners should have no secrets from one another,” I reminded him. “They should tell each other everything.”

He looked at me in mock reproof. “But I
do
tell you everything. Just not the part about this all being one big training op.”

“Just that part, huh? You’re quite the actor, you know that? Stringing me along like that, while all the time you knew exactly what was going on. No fair.”

He beamed. “You think so? About the actor part? That was part of my training.”

I made a face, and he held up his paws, palms up.

“Stevie’s right,” said Dana. “Part of being a secret agent is to be able to convincingly construct an entirely fictitious persona and present it to the world. I think Stevie did a great job.”

“You mean I will have to do… this… as well?” I said, incredulously.

Dana smiled. “You’ve already begun.”

“Me? No way,” I said.

“Sure you have. Don’t you remember your little tête-à-tête with Brutus?”

“Brutus is going to be an FSA recruit?” I said, aghast.

“You’ll have a ball,” said Stevie. “That cat is so gullible, you wouldn’t believe it. He actually thought Dollo Rosso was a Southridge gangster. Can you beat it?”

He laughed heartily. I didn’t join him. The prospect of having to team up with Brutus didn’t appeal to me, and I said as much to Dana.

She shrugged. “That’s part of the job description, Tom. If you want to be a feline spy, you can’t always choose the people you deal with. Some of them will become great friends, like Stevie here—”

I gave Stevie a look that indicated his friendship status was temporarily on hold.

“—while others will be really nasty specimen.”

“James Bond wasn’t buddy-buddy with Goldfinger, was he?” said Stevie, stung that I hadn’t acknowledged our great friendship. “Or those guys from SPECTRE? Well, then?”

I decided to change the subject. “What happened to Lucy Knicx? And Jamie Burrow?”

Dana smiled. “Lucy’s in bed with a cold. Lying on the park ground that night didn’t do her much good.”

“So the ‘ghost’ we heard…”

“Was in fact Frank,” said Dana. “He’s getting better at this stuff. As far as Jamie is concerned, she has a new boyfriend and decided spending time with him was more important than playing the part of Zoe Huckleberry.”

“But what about the body I saw in the park yesterday?”

“That wasn’t a body,” said Dana, “but a lifelike doll. Every year the Brookridge police department, in cooperation with the Red Cross, teaches a refresher course in CPR for drowning victims and other first aid techniques. I made sure the exercise was over by the time we got there. All the members of the public had gone home and the people you saw were about to pack up and leave with the ‘body’.”

“So that’s why they didn’t seem interested in the victim,” I said, understanding dawning. “But what about Rick Mascarpone and Norbert McIlroy? Weren’t they supposed to be here tonight?”

“Rick Mascarpone doesn’t exist,” said Dana.

“I came up with that name,” said Stevie proudly.

“And Norbert McIlroy decided to stay home with Lucy and the kids. He’s Lucy Knicx’s husband, by the way. That’s why they were in the park that night. They’d gone to see a movie together—Jamie Burrow was babysitting if I’m not mistaken—and decided to take a stroll through the park and practice their lines.”

“But you couldn’t have possibly known all that,” I said.

Dana shrugged. “Part of the job is perfect planning, and the other part is knowing how to improvise. When I saw Lucy and Norbert that night, I figured it was a good way to start you on your process. The rest worked itself out as we went along.”

The three of us sat in silence for a spell. On stage the curtains had opened once again, and Zack and Barbara were repeating the murder scene. Good idea. Without a murder, they could just as well throw out the whole play and call it a night.

I tried to read Dana and Stevie’s minds as we sat watching Zack stumble through his lines, but they wouldn’t let me. Blocked. I really wanted to know how to do that.

“You’ll learn,” said Dana.

Cripes. I wish she would stop doing that.

“All right,” said Dana. “I won’t do it again.”

This raised yet more questions. For instance, how could I be certain she wouldn’t? It was not as if I had a way of knowing who was taking a peek inside my brain.

“You’ll know,” Stevie said.

Aargh!

Stevie merely giggled.

* * *

S
o there
. That’s my life. The life of a junior feline spy. Having to team up with bullies. Having my mind read by Ragamuffins, Siamese and—now that I come to think of it—probably Poodles as well. Being snarled at by extremely disagreeable Peterbalds. Seeing dead bodies everywhere that aren’t dead bodies after all. And saving humans that don’t need saving.

If you ask me what I learned from all this? Well, that even though those humans didn’t need saving, lending a helping hand made
me
feel good. Looking back at the Brookridge Park horror, I guess I went from being an egotist and a little bit of a fathead—

“Nothing little about it. You were a major fathead,” remarked Stevie.

Will you please stay away from my brain, Stevie?

“Oh, all right.”

Now where was I? Ah, yes. I went from being a minor fathead to—

“Being a major fathead,” said Stevie, with a guffaw.

“Stevie!” said Dana.

“But he’s asking for it!” protested Stevie.

“If you can’t respect your partner’s private space, consider yourself suspended from active duty. Is that what you want? No? Then please behave.”

“Some partner,” grumbled Stevie. “Can’t even take an innocent little joke.”

So. Recapitulating here for a moment. I went from being a selfish fathead—that all right with you, Stevie?—to realizing how much humans mean to me, and wanting, more than anything, to save them from harm. In other words, I went from being an egotist to being an altruist. Of sorts. That about covers it, Dana?

“It does,” said Dana, well pleased. “You can consider yourself recruited, Agent Tom.

“Finally,” sighed Stevie.

“Finally,” I agreed.