The Whiskered Spy (8 page)

I
sagged a little
, for the last thing I wanted now was to get into a tussle with that horrid Persian. “Just passing through,” I said casually, as I picked up my pace. Once in my own garden, Brutus usually backs off. Zack has a way of chasing him away that doesn’t appeal to the big brute’s sense of self-esteem. No bully likes to be bullied by the bigger bully. Not that Zack is a bully, but he is big, and he hates Moppett’s guts, a sentiment he courteously extends to all things Moppett, including Brutus.

I was just about to hop through the fence to the safety of my own yard, when Brutus cut me off. He’s one of those cats who likes to play with his victims before pouncing on them. Much the same way I like to play with a mouse before… Now that I come to think of it, perhaps this, once again, is Karma at work?

“Tell me something,” Brutus snarled, blocking my safe passage. “Have you told anyone about our little conversation?”

I frowned. “What conversation?” So much had happened that night that I honestly didn’t remember.

He looked none too pleased at the deficiency of my memory. “The ghost,” he barked. “The napmares I’ve been having about the dead broad. You remember? You told me to see Dana about them.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I said, greatly relieved. “You did tell me about those.” I now realized that Brutus seemed oddly perplexed. And what I’d mistaken for his usual ruffian demeanor was merely a front to hide his perturbation at a phenomenon he didn’t understand and therefore feared.

“Well, I went to see Dana.”

“And how did it go?”

“Not too well,” he said gruffly, as he stared at his paws. “She was with three ugly-looking brutes who told me to take a hike the moment I approached her. Dana herself was busy, she said, and if I could come back some other time. Too busy,” he scoffed. “Can you beat it? Too busy to help out her fellow cat?”

“I met those Peterbalds,” I said, for lack of anything better to say. “They’re not nice.”

“Not nice! That’s the understatement of the year, buddy!”

It was the first time that Brutus had ever referred to me with this epitaph, which was definitely a step up from his usual meatball or fathead. I didn’t know what to say. “Yeah, well…”

“Those guys are animals,” he said, and his voice suddenly took on a conspiratorial note. “I bet they come from Southridge.”

It’s one of those facts of life that, faced with a common enemy, old enemies become friends. Southridge is our neighboring town, and whenever bad things happen in Brookridge, the blame invariably falls on Southridge.

“I bet they do,” I said. I had a theory that the Peterbalds were probably manufactured in a secret FSA lab somewhere, but I refrained from voicing this idea. I was, after all, an FSA agent now, and even though I had yet to sign a formal agreement, I was presumably bound by a long list of confidentiality clauses and whatnot.

“And I’ll tell you another thing,” he said, still in that same undertone. “Dana’s gone and gotten herself mixed up in some really weird stuff. And I think it’s up to her friends to get her out of it.”

I winced. Had Brutus just called me his friend? As I said, it had been a long night and I was tired, so perhaps I hadn’t heard him right. “You mean…”

He nodded emphatically. “You and me, buddy. We’ve got to get from under that nasty Southridge spell. Dana’s a Brookridge girl, and I’ll be damned if I’ll allow those monsters to possess her.”

“Possess her?”

“Sure. I haven’t figured out exactly how they do it, but somehow they’ve managed to take over her mind. Dana’s a sweet girl. Not too bright. And those are usually the first victims. Then, knowing I’d never stand for it, they’ve started directing their mind altering techniques on me. That’s why I’ve been having these napmares, see? All part of their plan.”

“Which is?”

He moved closer and I now found myself face to face with my former nemesis. It was not an agreeable experience. For one thing, the cat’s eyes were positively burning with a strange fire. “Which is to lay claim to all of Brookridge’s natural resources. Starting, of course, with our queens.”

“You don’t say.”

“I just did. And I’ll say more. I’m certain those three bald uglies are only the vanguard. The worst is yet to come.”

B
rutus suddenly thrust out a paw
. I stared at it blankly.

“Tap it,” he urged. I tapped it. Reluctantly, for I’ve never been fond of physical contact with the brute.

“It’s imperative that we join forces, my friend,” he now said. “United we stand. Divided we fall. And all that jazz.”

When cats of Brutus’s ilk start using ten-dollar words like imperative, something’s definitely off. “Right,” I mumbled, and started to inch my way towards the hedge dividing our gardens once again.

He cut off my retreat by slinging an arm around my neck and dragging me along towards a small but hideous fountain neighbor Moppett has erected in the center of his garden. I’d seen Brutus hovering near the thing before. He’s one of those cats that like water, and he enjoys the spray of the fountain on his coat. Now, I also like water, but not in the company of my least favorite cat in the world.

He invited me to take a seat on top of the stone bench Moppett has placed next to the fountain by giving me a hard shove in the rear.

“Hop it,” he said curtly, when I displayed a certain hesitation.

I hopped it, and now found myself staring out at two fat little limestone angels spewing water into a limestone bowl and onto the two of us.

“We need to devise a strategy,” said Brutus, making himself comfortable and lifting his face to enjoy the droplets falling on his fur and whiskers. “Ah, that’s the life,” he murmured, then shook himself with relish. “I can’t tell you how horrible those dreams have been. There’s that woman, completely drenched, and she keeps staring at me, pointing an accusing finger, and saying ‘You should have saved me, little one. You should have saved me when you had the chance.’ Pretty scary stuff.”

His story had shaken me profoundly. This was the exact same thing that had happened to me, right down to the phrasing. Was Lucy Knicx still at it? And why would she appear to Brutus? He hadn’t been there when she was murdered. Why would she blame him of all cats of what had happened?

“When was the last time you… saw her?” I said.

“Oh, just now,” he said. “I was having a nap when I suddenly woke up and saw you trespassing—I mean, passing through. And good thing you did, because I was having a doozy.” He shivered. “The ghost lady was at it again, as usual, but this time there was some guy in the picture as well. Standing behind her with a big, shiny knife in his hand. And it looked like he meant business.”

I sat up a little straighter. “A guy? What did he look like?”

Brutus eyed me strangely. “What does it matter what he looked like? Some human, you know. They all look alike to me.”

“Did he have…” I hesitated, wondering how I was going to explain this.

“Did he have what?” said Brutus, some of his old peeve returning.

“Did he have a big, fat pimple right on the tip of his nose?” I said, taking the plunge.

“So you have been having the same dreams!” he exclaimed, giving me a clap on the back that almost landed me right in the middle of the fountain.

Teetering on the edge of the bench for a moment, I managed to retain my balance and grinned at my newest friend. “Yep, same dreams.”

He frowned at the memory of the dreams he’d been sharing with yours truly. “Ugly-looking brute,” he growled. “Even without that fat pimple. Though he does remind me of someone I know.”

I pricked up my ears. This was news. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Some fellow who’s been hanging around the park these last couple months. Though this one didn’t have a pimple now that I come to think of it.”

“Pimples come and go,” I said.

“They do, don’t they?” he agreed. “I remember Royce once had a pimple the size of the Atomium on his schnoz. He tried everything to get rid of the thing, since Rose wouldn’t allow him out of the house until it was gone.” He cackled with delight at the memory. “It finally subsided after one week, just in time for the annual neighborhood barbecue.”

Rose Moppett, I have to explain, is very particular about appearances, and likes both herself and her husband to appear their very best when stepping out, a policy she unfortunately also extends to Brutus, for the foul brute invariably looks like he just stepped off the front cover of The Cat Times. He was licking his belly, still chuckling fruitily about Royce’s pimple, when I interrupted him. “That pimpled fellow is the ghost woman’s murderer,” I said, returning his attention to the matter at hand.

He looked up, interested. “I thought as much,” he said keenly, “when I saw him wielding that big knife behind her back.”

“And it’s my belief,” I continued, “that only when we figure out who the murderer is, and bring him to justice, these napmares will stop.”

“You do, do you?” he said, swatting at a fly with his tail. He nodded thoughtfully. “I see your point. We revenge her murder so she can rest in peace. Very clever, fathead—I mean, Tom. Did you think of this yourself?”

“All by myself,” I said with understandable pride.

He let his eye wander over me as if seeing me in an entirely new light. He must have liked what he saw, for at the end of this inspection, he grinned. A ghastly sight. “All right, then. I guess that makes us partners.”

I started violently. “P-p-partners?” I said, shaken.

“Of course. I’ll admit you’ve got brains, meatb— I mean, Tom, but I’ve got the brawn. Together we’ll solve this murder in no time. You’ll figure out the identity of the pimpled killer, and I’ll take him out.”

“Take him out?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Cats don’t take out humans. It’s simply not done. Furthermore, I was now an FSA agent, and sworn to protect humans, not harm them, even if they did prove to be cold-blooded killers. “But we can’t take the law into our own paws,” I said.

“Why not? Easy as chicken pie. You just find out who this knife-wielding maniac is, and I’ll do the rest…” He punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Partner.”

“But—”

He yawned cavernously. “I’m off. Got a hot date with a pillow. Just let me know when you’ve got the fellow in your sights and I’ll be there.” And sliding gracefully from the bench, he left me to ruminate on the consequences of this new alliance.

As far as I could see I was now partnered up to the hilt with not one but two undesirables. Though I had to admit Stevie was growing on me. Throughout our nightly vigil I had even grown to like the hairy blabbermouth. I just wondered how he would respond to this sudden extension of our duo to a trio. On the other hand, seeing as this espionage business could get dangerous, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea to have a known strongcat on our team. If Dana had her Peterbalds, we had Brutus. And though I was still feeling positively dubious about this latest development, it was with a lighter heart that I descended from the Moppett bench and made my way home.

A
rriving home
, I did the eating and drinking bit, but somehow that didn’t satisfy me. And as I munched down another piece of kibble, I remembered how Zack always likes to sleep late. Perhaps if I could just test my ‘planting thoughts’ abilities on him for a bit, I could find out some more about the mystery that was puzzling me. I would never say a bad word about the guy—he is, after all, the hand that feeds—but it is a well-established fact in Brookridge that Zack is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. And I had this theory that his weaker intellect would yield more readily to my newfound powers of psychic persuasion.

I trotted upstairs and found my lord and master tangled up in his bed sheets, as usual. I hopped up on the bed and made myself comfortable at the foot, where Zack has placed a sheet for me. I first scanned his dreams. Not surprisingly, they dealt mainly with food and women, Zack's two main interests in life. At this moment the Don Juan was entertaining a remarkably pretty girl during dinner in some fancy restaurant. Unlike real life, Zack had the girl in convulsions by directing at her an endless stream of witty banter, while dozens of waiters hurried to and fro, carrying laden trays with the most delicious foodstuffs imaginable. Talk about wishful dreaming.

Unfortunately, the dream held Zack so strongly in its grip that when I tried to introduce the Bluebell theme into the conversation, it was met with a stoic refusal. I tried again, by whispering the curious name in Zack's mental ear, but the waiters kept on strewing roast chicken from their proverbial hats and Zack moved his odd brand of eloquence into higher gear by asking the girl if she liked cats and, being informed that she did, starting waxing eloquent on… me.

I was touched, of course, and since it’s always nice to listen to a seemingly endless stream of compliments, I momentarily lost all interest in the mission and drifted off into a refreshing sleep, myself. I don’t know what
I
dreamt about, but I have a hunch it had something to do with being the birthday cat at some fancy dinner party thrown in my honor.

It was probably late when I woke up, what with having been through the most eventful night in my young life. And what woke me wasn’t the chirping of the birds or Zack heaving his large frame out of bed, but the sensation that someone was staring at me. When I opened my eyes I discovered I wasn’t far from the truth: Dana was sitting not three feet away from me, studying me intently.

“Huh?” I said, my keen feline brain springing into action.

She merely shook her head in what I would describe as a censorious fashion.

“What’s going on?” I said, as I smacked my lips and suppressed a yawn.

“How you can sleep, at a time like this, is beyond me,” were her opening words.

I shook my head to clear out the cobwebs. I know you humans like to think cats are never fully asleep, that our razor sharp senses are constantly on the alert, that with the flick of a claw we are wide awake, ready to face any danger, and respond to any contingency with an alacrity that seems almost preternatural.

While this is perhaps the case with most cats, I like to put in my twenty hours of shut-eye and prefer not to be disturbed while doing so. FSA principals bothering me at home while I’m catching my Z’s are not well received, and I gave Dana both the glare and the puckered face as I tried to adjust my faculties.

Perhaps it’s living with a notorious lazybones like Zack that has eroded my natural impulses, but I like to think sleep is a necessary instrument for restoring the tissues and keeping oneself functioning at top level.

“What do you want?” I said, not enjoying this habit of Dana’s to give me the third degree every time we met.

“Something has happened,” she said, still staring at me with that look of mild reproach.

“So?” I said. “Something always does.”

“There’s been a second murder.”