by M. A. Owens
I glanced up, and sighed, and they all seemed to relax again after a moment. As relaxed as we could be, given the circumstances.
I needed to stop thinking about Rick, and his cryptic letter for the time being. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t by the phone waiting for a call from a half-baked excuse for a private detective who couldn’t figure out anything on his own anymore without needing his paw held.
Oh, and then there was Sugarplum. I hadn’t even had time to think about Sugarplum, but now I remembered a lot. I remembered when she distracted the mayor’s son for me, so we could save Rick. She said she had business to discuss with him. It wasn’t a show. She really did. No doubt she was laying the framework for Saint’s political move. Then, there was Mr. B’s real estate cat at the casino. Important cat. Access to properties all across the city, especially in Adria District. Mr. B counted on him to secure locations quickly and cover their tracks, and he just happened to be sweet on Sugarplum. That meeting in their office, that was supposed to be a distraction for me so I could escape without being seen. That was a ruse too. She was softening him up, convincing him to turn on her dear old dad.
How could I have been so blind to ignore my gut like that? One thing was for sure, Saint and Saul didn’t have to worry one bit about someone trying to save Sugarplum. It doesn’t matter if she regretted it now or not. She got herself in this mess, and maybe she was to blame for this whole thing. There’s no chance anyone’s going to feel sorry enough for her to help her with the sour taste in her mouth from a bad case of buyer’s remorse. You back the wrong cat, you live with the consequences, good or bad. No. No one was going to rescue Sugarplum. She’s exactly where she deserves to be. Which is why…
“We rescue Sugarplum,” I said.
Buddy did a double take, as did Kerdy. Brutus had no idea what I was even talking about.
“Has desperation driven you mad, little dog?” Kerdy asked. “Why in the world, with everything we have on our plate right now, would we rescue your city’s biggest traitor?”
“Exactly!” I said, shooting my paw into the air.
Buddy tilted his head. “Pal, you’ve lost me. Kerdy filled me in this morning on the whole thing. Sugarplum is Saint’s secret backer. She’s the reason he went from lackey to top cat. If you’re wanting to use her as a hostage exchange, that’s not a half bad idea, except for one problem. Saint doesn’t need her anymore. That’s why he’s only being as nice as he has to, and why he’s not respecting her orders anymore. She’s surrounded by Saint’s cats now, not her own, and Saint’s orders are taken above hers. If we kidnap Sugarplum, and ask for Lily in exchange, he’s going to laugh in our faces.”
“Exactly,” I repeated.
Buddy shrugged his shoulders and held out his paws, getting visibly frustrated now.
“Then what are you going on about? You bring it up, even though you know it won’t work. What, as a conversation starter? We don’t have time for this, Trigger. I can’t stay here long. We can’t be wasting our time on thought experiments that lead nowhere. Sorry, but if you don’t have anything useful, just keep thinking.”
I shook my head. “You’re missing the point, Buddy. You admit yourself that Sugarplum orchestrated all of this. She was Saint’s backer, and Saint didn’t have the power at the time to put all of this in motion. It must’ve been her. She built the structure of this entire plan. Her brain is the blueprint. Saint only just now became district representative, meaning Sugarplum was the authority all this time. With a cat like Saul at his disposal, why not just get her out of the way? No, he sent Saul to protect her, even knowing Kerdy was looking for him, and how dangerous she was. Why? Because she’s still critically important. Maybe he doesn’t actually need her. Maybe that’s true. The important part is that he can’t afford anyone else getting to her. That’s why Saul was there in the building. He couldn’t afford her escaping in the confusion. Now, with Lily kidnapped and Saul at large again, he knows we can’t afford to worry about Sugarplum.”
Kerdy grinned, shaking her head. “And that’s exactly why it’s the perfect time to get her. Trigger, I always thought it was just dumb luck that followed you wherever you went, but now I’m seeing that there’s a bit of a brain in that ugly head of yours after all. Small, yes, but functional.”
“I love you too, Kerdy,” I said, before looking around the table. “Problem is, how do we get to her?”
Brutus leaned back in his chair. “Saint is still allowing her to run her business, and see to her daily tasks, correct? She must stay invisible, after all. He can’t draw attention to her.”
I nodded. “Right, any ideas?”
He continued. “For the past couple of weeks, I have been approaching some of our top business cats and dogs about sponsoring fighters on the next ticket for the upcoming title fights. Fire Claws still needs a sponsor. He’s had lots of offers, but I can’t let just anyone sponsor a talent like that. But Sugarplum, top cat of the district, well…”
I smiled. “She’d be the ideal sponsor. Wouldn’t be suspicious at all.”
“Wait,” he said, holding up his paw. “You can’t just barge in there and rescue her if we meet. That’ll give me away, and by extension Buddy, and even yourself. I won’t be able to help you anymore.”
“One of my specialties is reconnaissance,” Kerdy said. “We’ll allow her to leave, unhindered, and we’ll follow her to where she’s being held. Then, we’ll observe and formulate a plan to extract her. That night would be ideal. Even if they realize we followed them, it won’t implicate you.”
“So, we’re all in agreement?” Buddy asked.
Kerdy and I nodded to one another.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
18
The fact was that I wanted to rescue Sugarplum all along, whatever rescuing her meant. For all I knew, this was a trap, and Kerdy no doubt suspected the same possibility. If Sugarplum had done everything else she claims to have done, why back out now? It’s a viable strategy on their part to use my soft spot for Sugarplum to lure us in. Maybe Sugarplum herself came up with such a plan. She seemed to be a pretty amazing schemer, after all. She didn’t seem in any danger, and most likely she was still being included in all the operations and planning. However, now that Saint had his foothold on power, he was likely to keep her close to him, slowly replacing her people with his. In the end, he wants to be mayor, and as mayor he wants her to be his pawn and not the other way around.
All that in mind, I was confident in this plan. Saint knows how much Lily means to me. He knows I’ll be desperate. He knows I’ll make mistakes. He knows I’ll put rescuing her before anything else. He isn’t wrong, but this strategy was likely outside his predictions. Saul, unlike Kerdy, seemed much more brawn than brain. He carried out missions with brutal force and surgical accuracy. Sugarplum was the wildcard.
Brutus arranged the meeting with Sugarplum for the next day at his main gym, last appointment of the day, and all seemed to be going well.
We kept our distance, lying low at a nearby diner while the meeting took place. She had four guards with her. We recognized them immediately as the same guards from the other day, Saint’s cats. As expected, there was no Saul in sight. Hopefully, no Saul out of sight, either.
The meeting went for about half an hour before Sugarplum left with the guards, who waited outside. In hindsight, maybe we really should’ve nabbed her as she met with Brutus, so we wouldn’t have to deal with the guards. Brutus’s objection to that idea still held up. We could need long-term help here in the district and implicating him directly in a way he couldn’t explain just wasn’t an option. The guards would have to be dealt with.
We followed the five of them through the city, hoping she’d be heading home instead of back to her office. If she went back to the office, we’d have several floors to deal with again. Kerdy and I had more than our fill of high-altitude escapes, but we were prepared for anything. If we had to scale floors, we’d scale floors. If we had to deal with building security,
we’d deal with building security.
Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, as they passed the office building by, likely making their way to her home. What a luxurious home it was, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d never seen her home before, but with that much money, there’s only so many things to spend it on. A completely over-the-top living arrangement that could have easily sheltered a dozen families? Why not?
A large fountain sat on the front lawn, with two beautiful feminine feline statues pouring never-ending buckets of water off either side of a small tower, landing in the larger pool at the bottom. Several lights jutted from the ground below, causing the moving water to sparkle in the rising moonlight. Hedges lined the walls of the house, flawlessly trimmed, surrounded by a multi-color stone path. This had to be the work of a full-time staff, but luckily they all seemed to have gone home by now.
“Plan?” I quietly asked, looking to Kerdy.
She glared at me. “Are you serious?” she whispered. “This was your plan, remember?”
I shrugged. “This is as far as I got. Figured I had a master with me who could come up with something in ten seconds better than I could in days when it came to execution.”
She grinned. “Well, for once you’re right. Here, I have a gift for you.”
She reached into her shrinking bag and pulled out a vial and a dry cloth.
“Want me to wash the windows?”
She didn’t think that was funny, of course. Knowing she would never laugh at any of these jokes made them even funnier in my mind.
She stared at me blankly. “I wouldn’t suggest breathing any of this in. You must hold your breath before opening the vial, drip only a few drops onto the cloth, and place the cloth over their mouth. On their very first breath, they will fall unconscious. You may think you know what this is, but you don’t, so don’t be an idiot. Discard the cloth and take several steps away before breathing again, or you’ll be sick.”
“Can’t I just sneak up behind them and knock them on the head?”
“Sure, if you want to alert the neighbors and deal with Adria’s new police force. Go right ahead,” she said.
“Point taken. Alright, I’m ready when you are.”
She nodded. “The neighbor’s home is out of the guards’ sight. I’m going to get onto their roof, then leap to Sugarplum’s. I’ll take out my guards at the back door by dropping onto them. You’ll see me disappear over the roof when I do. Count to five and get ready to move. The guards posted in the front will hear a noise and look up. That’s when you’ll sneak in and knock those two out, one by one. I’ll come to check on you once I hide the two of mine behind the hedges. We have to hurry. There’s nothing to stop someone from seeing us during any of this, so we need to make that window as small as possible.”
She didn’t wait for me to answer, just slinked away, weaving through dark and obstructed areas, eventually going out of my sight entirely. The guards out front didn’t see her, or me, but they also didn’t seem to look very hard. They chatted and laughed and didn’t seem at all prepared for anything. I fought back the temptation to make my way closer, so I could hear what they were saying, but I doubted it was anything important. Instead, I thought about Lily. I knew they wouldn’t kill her, but how much were they willing to hurt her? She must be so scared right now. What was Patches doing during all this? Sitting on his paws?
The thought truly burned me up. Was he really playing some kind of long game, like Buddy thought? Or was he just keeping his own nose clean so he could hold on to the position on some long shot hope he could do something useful on the inside someday? Even if that was what he was doing, it was better than having someone in that position who would be actively making moves to impress Saint, adding in his own ideas and schemes. A coward who sits on his paws to save his own skin would have to do, but I hoped he had something better up his sleeve.
In minutes, Kerdy reappeared, jumping onto Sugarplum’s roof. I tensed up, waiting for them to hear her landing, but she made no noise at all. If I hadn’t seen her land, I wouldn’t have known she was there. Her dark, tortoiseshell tabby fur pattern made for excellent camouflage. I readied myself as she disappeared over the crest of the roof on the opposite end of the house. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Placing my trust in her instructions, I took in a deep breath as quietly as I could and dripped a few drops from the vial onto the cloth. Like clockwork, I could hear a barely audible thud from the top of the roof, causing both the cats in front of me to look up.
“You hear that?” one said, squinting as he looked up.
“Probably just your imagination,” the other replied, shrugging his shoulders.
Great. I can’t hold my breath forever.
“No, I definitely heard it. Help me look,” the first insisted.
After a sigh of protest, the two cats turned to face the house and took several steps back so they could see the roof.
“See, nothing,” the second cat said, elbowing the other.
Another thud came, louder this time.
“No, see? Step over that way a bit,” he said, pointing further down the lawn. “It’s probably nothing, but we need eyes on whatever it is. We let something slip by us again and Saint’s not going to give us a third chance, you got me?”
The second cat nodded, his expression grim. We were probably sending these cats to their doom, but what choice did we have?
By the time the two separated from one another, I was already regretting my decision to hold my breath when I did. Should’ve waited. My lungs were already screaming at me to gasp for air, as I made my way to the first cat, closest to me, now behind the second cat. I placed the rag in front of his face, and he fell down onto the lawn without even a sound or movement. Wow, this stuff really worked, but I was going to pass out soon. Not from breathing it, but from not breathing at all.
“I’m just not seeing it. Just forget it. No one’s crazy enough to come here anyway,” he said, turning toward me and spotting me just as I put the cloth against his face, his eyes wide. He opened his mouth to shout but was already unconscious. I threw the cloth down and turned away, taking several steps and gasping.
Kerdy dropped from the roof and quickly dragged the cats into the hedges. She motioned me over, pulling out another vial from her bag, grabbing my paw and dripping a few drops onto each. “Rub your paws together. This one neutralizes the toxin.”
“The toxin? Did we just kill these cats?” I asked, horrified at the idea I might have just done something like that without realizing it.
“No, fool,” she whispered. “They’re paralyzed, and will be for a while, but they’ll live. I would at least tell you something like that in advance. Even I’m not that heartless.”
“How did you even get something like this?”
“An old formula refined from a rare falcon who produced the toxin naturally. We improved it after…” she hesitated. “Anyway, does this look like history class? I’m going to disable the lock and security system. I will whistle twice when it is safe to open the door. After another five seconds, I’ll re-enable the security system so no one notices it is offline. You must go in alone and convince her to come with you in whatever way you can. By force, if you have to. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I didn’t consider that outcome, but if she really set us up, she might not go willingly. I pulled a handkerchief from the breast pocket of one of the cats, and stuffed it into my pocket along with the vial.
Kerdy gave an approving nod, kneeling down for a moment and pulling a small box from her bag, opening it to reveal several small tools inside. A lock picking kit, but more advanced than the ones I’d confiscated as a police officer so many years ago. It took her less than a minute to work up the door, first to the handle lock, then a deadbolt above it.
“That should be everything,” she said. “Remember, two quiet whistles, then you have five seconds to get inside and close the door. Do so quickly, and quietly. This system doesn’t trigger when opened from the inside,
so leave as soon as you’re able.”
Again, she didn’t wait for a response. She disappeared around the side of the house, and less than a minute later I heard the two whistles.
Here goes nothing.
19
I opened the door as quietly and quickly as I could, shutting it behind me as I stepped inside. As far as prisons go, this one wasn’t half bad. Each room had the lights adjusted low, and everything looked perfect, like no one even lived here. Like every item was meant for display, and not for use. Come to think of it, with the hours Sugarplum seemed to put in, what good did it do to have a nice place and lots of money, if you had no time to enjoy it?
The complete silence caught me first. No sound of the television or radio. No, wait… I could hear the distant sound of jazz piano, probably coming from upstairs. At this distance I couldn’t tell if someone was playing a piano, or if it was coming through the radio. I couldn’t wait to find out, so I followed the noise up the lacquered, hardwood spiral staircase. At the top of the stairs, a restroom stood open in front of me, unoccupied. The lights were turned low up here too, but the music became louder, letting me know I was heading in the right direction. To my left, an open area with visible bookcases lining all sides of the round room, a false fireplace crackling in the wall.
To my right, the first closed door I’d seen. Must be a bedroom. As impolite as it would be to just walk into a lady’s bedroom unannounced, I’m afraid I’d have to ask for forgiveness later. After we escaped.
I approached the door, letting my ear rest against it. This was definitely a real piano. I never knew Sugarplum played, but then again, I wouldn’t know something like that. If she had someone here playing for her… I looked down at my pocket, containing the paralysis toxin. As slowly, gently, and carefully as I could, I turned the handle on the door, easing it open. It was her playing, thankfully. She was wearing a sparkling purple dress, with long diamond earrings that dangled to her shoulders. A half-finished glass of wine sat on top of the piano.