Bad Kitty

by Michele Jaffe

So of course he said, “No.”

  I tried again. “What about this: If you’re not Red Early’s paid lackey, what are you? Who are you working for?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that either. The less you know, the safer you are. Trust me.”

  “You know, I think I used up all my trusting you this afternoon. Yep, fresh out. And fresh out of promises.”

  “You did keep the promise you made to me before, though, didn’t you?” he said, sounding concerned. “Not to tell your friends in the security office about seeing me in the casino?”

  I crossed my arms and said, “I’ll take ‘It’s Jack’s turn to answer some questions’ for two hundred, please.”

  He stared at me very, very hard for like twenty seconds, which is a light-year in silent time. Then he said, “Pity.”

  Pity? Deafening silence and then…PITY? What does that mean?????

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means—” he started to say, and then—because I have the worst luck in the world and am destined never to fall in love, or at least never to fall in love with anyone who is not headed for probation/on probation/breaking probation—he said, “Excuse me,” and turned to go.

  This time, however, I was ready for him.

  “Not so fast, hot stuff,” I said, grabbing his arm. “From now on, you and I are going everywhere together.”

  He stopped walking, looked down, and unleashed his secret weapon: Super Smile. The one that displaces time and location so that there are only the two of you, together, alone in a world made exclusively for your bliss. As soon as he hit me with Super Smile I stopped hearing the noise of the party around us, and I couldn’t see anyone but him, and I felt like I was flying.

  Until I realized, I was flying. He’d picked me up, turned, and put me on top of a go-go dancing stage.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check on your company,” he said. I felt something click and looked down.

  He had handcuffed one of my wrists. To a stage. In front of hundreds of people.

  I HAD BEEN DISABLED BY SUPER SMILE! SUPER SMILE WAS KRYPTONITE TO ME! I HAD A KRYPTONITE BUT I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A SUPERPOWER!

  Which was bad, but what was worse was why he’d done it. It had to mean that he wasn’t just here because he took a keen interest in women’s clothing. No, he must have been up to something super bad to want to get rid of me that much. Plus, only someone really bad carried restraints with them.

  Okay, or friends of mine.24

  But mostly really bad people. He was probably on his way right now to hurt Fiona and Fred. I’d set out to get information about him and hopefully follow him, and I’d completely failed.

  Calm down, I told myself. I took a deep, mind-clearing breath, and got a big whiff of something really sugary. Accompanied by the click-clack of FRINGE BEADS. Which could only mean one thing.

  Little Life Lesson 33: Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they can.

  Not only was I handcuffed to a go-go platform with no means of escape in sight, but I was handcuffed to the go-go platform currently occupied by THE EVIL HENCH TWINS.

  “Jas! Isn’t it cool up here with everyone watching?” Veronique shouted in my ear over the sound of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” then pulled my uncuffed arm in the air and started doing the bump with me.

  Little Life Lesson 34: They can ALWAYS get worse.

  A guy standing below started bopping his head in time to our bumps and gave us two enthusiastic thumbs-up. Then he pointed at me, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “I dig your Kermit the Frog underwear!”

  Little Life Lesson 35: I mean, always.

  Just as the music went off.25

  Twenty

  Four things were immediately clear to me:

  I was going to die of embarrassment.

  After I did that, I was going to have to find Polly and kill her for making my dress so short.

  Twice.

  And I was never buying Muppet underwear again.

  But all that was in the future. Because in the present I was still HANDCUFFED to a stage, with, courtesy of my friend and Kermit, several hundred people looking at me. Including Alyson. Although I guess you’d call what she was doing more like Death Ray Eyes than regular looking.

  Especially up close, which they were when she scooted over, put her hench talon fingernail against my throat, and said to me, “Don’t you dare tell anyone we are related or you’ll regret it,” before swinging off the go-go dance platform, followed by Veronique.

  “Okay, cuz,” I shouted after her. I was going to be dead of mortification LONG before she could make me regret it.26

  The music started back up again and more models went skating out onto the rink so the attention kind of drifted, but I was still stuck up there. And where were my friends? Maybe this was my superpower, to shed people! Maybe I was Repellent Girl, able to avoid emotional entanglements, destined to spend my life as a crime-fighting mercenary wandering the plains, saving babies—or maybe baby horses since babies don’t really like me—from marauders, and then, forever the mysterious stranger, riding off alone into the sunset. In my totally hopped-up cherry red pickup truck. With silver leather seats. And red Lucite dice as the gearshift.

  And broken hearts on the mud flaps, the only visible sign of my secret, soul-wrenching pain.

  Yeah, that would be pretty cool.

  Especially if Polly would help me with the interior. Which got me back to needing friends.

  I decided to take advantage of my scenic view spot above the crowd to see if I could locate any. The entire place was packed, but if there is one thing that being almost six feet tall and on a stage is good for, it’s showing the world your underwear. I mean, it’s looking for people.

  Because clearly he is my mortal enemy in this epic battle between good and evil, the first person I saw was Jack. I could not help noticing that everywhere he went, women stopped talking and turned to stare at him, no doubt enchanted, like me, by his immense-slash-treacherous hotness. He was threading his way along the edge of the skating rink at the far side of the room, not quickly, but like he had a purpose. And I thought I knew what that purpose was. Just beyond him I saw the Fabinator talking on a cell phone. Which could only mean one thing:

  Fiona Bristol was here. Fiona was here and Jack was going to—

  Well, given the way he had talked about her in the gondola—the words “hench people” were used, after all—I was concerned.

  Very concerned.

  “Stay away from her!” I shouted, but I might as well have been whispering, because no one, not even me, could hear it over the 80s rock they were blasting. And there was zero comfort in the fact that I had been right, that Jack had cuffed me up here so that he could go do something devious and evil.

  At least, I thought, as I followed him hopelessly with my eyes, the Fabinator27 was on the spot to watch out for Fiona. But of course, no sooner did I think that than a cocktail waitress on roller skates with a tray full of drinks careened right into him. It looked like an accident, but part of me would not have been surprised to learn Jack had paid the waitress to do it because if he’d choreographed the move, it could not have worked better to distract the Fab one.28

  These things happened at the same time: The Fabinator started yelling at the waitress, who appeared to be apologizing while trying to dry him off with cocktail napkins. Fiona came walking around from behind him. And Jack walked right toward her. I braced for it to happen, whatever it was. A gunshot, a knife fight, a scream. Here it came. They were practically face-to-face. I tensed, ready to shout and point.

  Jack walked right by her. Without even looking at her. THEY PASSED EACH OTHER LIKE TWO COMPLETE STRANGERS. No knives. No blood. Nothing. NOT EVEN EYE CONTACT.

  Which made me suspicious. Iper iper suspicious. I mean, it wasn’t natural. Every woman in the club had checked Jack out as he walked by EXCEPT Fiona.

  And I was right to suspect! Because as
I watched, for a split second, I thought I saw their hands touch.

  Were they passing something? Or had I just made the whole thing up?

  And what did it mean if I hadn’t? Were they working together? Had something changed since that afternoon in the gondola? If they were working together, maybe Fred was safe. Maybe everything was okay.

  But where was Jack going? He’d kept walking after he passed Fiona and had now reached a door with a big red EXIT sign over it. As though he could read my thoughts, he turned, looked right at me across the floor, pointed to his wrist, and left.

  Jack: Exit, stage left, with obscure gesture.

  Jas: Stuck, stage center, with Kermit panties.

  Friends:

  Friends?

  “Anyone?”

  I didn’t realize I’d spoken aloud until someone below me said, “Talking to yourself again, Jas?” in the sweet tone that could only belong to the Evil Hench Mistress herself.

  “Yes,” I said through clenched teeth, “it beats talking to you.”

  “Oh, time machine back to first grade much?”

  “Only to visit with your brain,” I heard myself say.

  “You’re not the brain trust in this family!” Alyson shouted.

  “Shhh. I don’t want people to know we’re related,” I told her. Her hand came up and I swear she was going to claw my ankle, but she stopped midway.

  I turned around and saw why. Tom was coming up behind me, accompanied by Roxy and Polly.

  “Finally!” I said. “Where have you been?”

  “Not having as much fun as you were, Kermit pants,” Polly said.

  “I am not speaking to you,” I told her.

  She shrugged. “As you wish. We were following your piece of all right. Roxy thought he looked familiar.”

  “He is not my piece of all right. I hate him.”

  “What a cute bedtime story for you to tell yourself, precious,” Polly said.

  Roxy changed the subject. “Jas, what do you know about the man with Fiona Bristol? The one who looks like her bodyguard?”

  “That’s the Fabinator29,” I told her. “He carries a gun and wears bows in his hair. At least he did last night.”

  “He had one again tonight. It was blue. And really sexy.”

  Little Life Lesson 36: What I said about things getting worse? Always.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting. That was a joke, right? RIGHT?” I looked at Tom and Polly. “Did you know about this?”

  Tom nodded, and Polly said, “Rapid onset. I’ve never seen it happen like this. And I think it might be too advanced for conventional treatment.”

  That was bad.

  Because that time Roxy fell for the Sad Clown, Downtrodden Dan aka Grandma Selma at the circus? Unfortunately, not an isolated incident. Oh, no. Although every guy at Tom’s school would have sold his soul to a zombie cult to go out with her, Roxy didn’t date. At least not anyone normal. Not for Roxy the fresh-faced, young-man-about-town-with-100-percent-human-DNA type. She was the mistress of the Freak Crush. And it looked like she’d done it again.

  “Do you know what his real name is, Jas?” Roxy asked, oblivious to our horror.

  “Um, no. You don’t either. Do you?”

  “Ivan30,” she said with a smile. “Isn’t that perfect? So Russian Mafia.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked. I was filled with fear. Unless I was very mistaken, this could only mean—

  “I looked in his wallet.”

  “You picked his pocket,” I said, trying to sound calm. Roxy is a really good pocket picker, but a very bad judge of people. I took a deep breath. “He carries A GUN, Roxy. He could have killed you.”

  “A gun, and a knife under his arm,” she corrected me, like that was supposed to make me feel better. “In fact, I’d be surprised if he didn’t have at least two of each. Stop looking at me like that, you know I always put the wallets back. I just wanted to know what his name was.” Then she added, with some pride, “It wasn’t easy. He has extraordinary reflexes. You don’t think he and Fiona Bristol are a couple, do you?”

  There was no right answer to that question but I said, “The man Fiona called ‘Darling’ on the phone was named ‘Alex,’ so I doubt it.”

  Roxy’s eyes lit up in a truly alarming way. “Good.”

  “I will deal with you later,” I told her, and turned to Tom and rattled my handcuffs. “Can you pick the lock on these things?”

  “You sure you are ready to come down off your pedestal, goddess?” he asked.

  “Off. Now.”

  “Your wish is my command.” He looked at the handcuffs for about a second, pushed a button on the side, and they flipped open.

  I gaped. “You mean I could have just—?”

  “They’re novelty restraints,” he said. “You can get them at a magic store or joke shop. They don’t really lock.”

  They don’t really lock, I repeated to myself. He’d been joking with me again. I wasn’t sure whether I was more humiliated or infuriated. But I did know one thing:

  Jack31 and his little bag of tricky tricks was going to get it. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was going to be bad. And the fact that he pointed to his wrist like he was trying to tell me as he left did NOT make it better.

  “Where are you going, Jas?” Polly called as I took off through the crowds toward the door Jack had used. Chances were he was long gone, but I was still going to look. I was not going to sleep until I got my hands on him and he gave me some answers.

  Complete ones.

  I pushed open the door with the EXIT sign over it so hard it slammed against the wall. I was standing outside, in a deserted area at the back of the roller rink. There were three Dumpsters against a wall, a set of metal stairs that went to a metal door, and two beat-up parked cars. But there was no Jack or sign of Jack. There was an alley that ran along the back, giving access to the street, but there was no sign of him there either.

  I was walking back to the exit door when something on the ground caught my eye. As I bent to get a better look at it, I heard a screech of tires and the sound of an engine being gunned and someone, somewhere, yelling my name.

  I was turning around to see what was happening when it hit me. I felt myself get pushed through the air, felt a powerful impact with the ground, felt a sharp pain. And then felt nothing at all.

  Twenty-one

  When I opened my eyes I was terrified something awful had happened because Polly was crying. Polly never cried. She was crying and holding my head and saying, “Jas, Jas, make a sound.”

  “Any sound?” I asked. I realized I was lying on my back on the ground. “Or did you have a specific one in—”

  I didn’t get to finish because she was hugging me. HUGGING ME. Polly, who opposed touching except while dancing, whose idea of close intimacy was air kissing. She was hugging me.32

  Only for a second. As soon as she realized I was okay, she stopped. Still, I was touched.

  “What happened?” I asked, sitting up next to her.

  She dried her eyes on her pant leg. “Someone tried to kill you, and Tom saved your life.”

  “Hardly,” Tom said from behind Polly. “I just gave Jas a little tap. If I’d done a better job, she wouldn’t have hit her head.”

  It came back to me then. The sound of an engine revving, a car coming at me, Tom yelling my name. And then leaping on me and pushing me out of the way just before the car hit.

  “You did save my life, Tom,” I said. “You’re a hero.”

  “A superhero,” Polly said.

  I swear Tom lit up from the inside. “It was nothing. I was just in the right place at the right time.”

  “And you threw yourself in front of a speeding car,” I pointed out.

  “You would have done the same for me, Jas,” he said, but he was looking at Polly. He smiled at her. She smiled at him. I smiled at both of them but they didn’t notice.

  Tom tore his eyes from
Polly to look at me. “I don’t want to scare you, Jas, but I don’t think whoever did this was joking this time.”

  I’d just been thinking the same thing. “Did anyone see what kind of car it was? Or the license number?”

  “The windows were tinted and there was a fleur-de-lis sticker on the window,” Veronique said. We all turned to stare at her. “I learned about fleurs-de-lis in Stenciling for Dummies.33 They are an easy accent to an elegant room. They’re from France. Not like french fries.”

  “Thanks, Veronique,” I said, causing her to beam and go plaster herself to Tom’s arm.

  Alyson, sensing that she was missing an opportunity, grabbed Tom’s other arm and said, “Um, I saw that the driver had dark hair.”

  “Veronique said the windows were tinted.”

  “Are you calling me a liar, Jas?” Alyson asked. “I know what I saw. I saw a man with a beard. Through the windshield.”34

  “I thought you said he had dark hair.”

  “He did. Dark hair and a beard. Like one of those freaky religious ones.”

  “Did he have a mustache too? A hat? A caftan?”

  “You know what? I was trying to help because Tomás almost bit it for you, but forget it. I don’t need this attitude-slash-annoyance.” She turned to Tom, grabbing his other arm. “I was just doing it for you.”

  “I was serious about the caftan,” I told her.

  “Is someone speaking?” Alyson said. “Because I don’t hear anything.”

  I sighed. “Did anyone notice, for example, the color of the car? Or the shape?”

  Roxy said, “Four-door sedan, midsize, Japanese, with aftermarket headlights and brake lights. A souped-up Toyota, Honda, something like that. I’m not that good at imports since the Cadillac King is strictly all-American. Oh, and it was white. It left some paint behind.” She pointed at the side of the building where I had been standing. There was a gash in the cement blocks, and a swath of white paint. I did not want to think of what I would have looked like if Tom hadn’t pushed me out of the way.

  Polly said, “As soon as we get into the Pink Pearl I’ll get on the CB and put out an alert for a white import with a scrape on one side and a, um, sticker on the window.”