Pet Noir

by Pati Nagle

  I backed away and ducked under her desk, then scuttled across to Devin’s and hopped on his chair. I heard the ominous sound of papers being rolled into a tube.

  Fortunately, Devin came in at that moment. The redhead looked up at him.

  “Watch it, Devin, there’s a freakin’ cat in here!”

  “Yeah—uh, he’s mine. C’mere, Leon.”

  I was only too glad to comply, especially since he had brought the shrimp. I hopped down and stropped against his legs, meowing.

  He chuckled and bent down to set a fiber plate on the floor, then shook some shrimp onto it from the bag. I gave the redhead a wary glance, saw that she’d put the papers down again, and commenced gobbling.

  “This is Sheila, Leon. She shares the office with me and Ralph.”

  “That’s really cute, Devin,” she said in a sarcastic voice. “Like he can understand what you’re saying.”

  “Oh, I think he understands a lot.”

  I paused after swallowing a particularly large bite of shrimp, trying to decide if Devin was complimenting me. Gave him a glance, but he’d sat down and was cruising the feeds at his com station. Sheila had done likewise, though she looked up to shoot me a frown.

  “Bingo,” Devin said. “Food-O and Stratoma are both owned by the same corporation, Radtrade.”

  “So?” Sheila said.

  “So they’re linked, which means if we confirm Food-O’s involvement in the enhancer smuggling, we’ve found the source. We block Radtrade and any of its holdings from using Gamma warehouses, we nip the enhancer pipeline.”

  “Bully for you,” Sheila said.

  Devin looked at me and winked. A few minutes passed, then his com bleeped with an incoming message. I glanced up and saw Amy’s face over the holopad.

  “You were right, Devin,” she said. “That rat’s so full of enhancers it’s a wonder it didn’t die of a heart attack.”

  “Maybe it did,” Devin said, shooting me a glance.

  “Nope. Broken neck. Your kitty did his job.”

  “OK, thanks, Amy.” Devin stood up. “Come on, Leon, we’re going back to the warehouse.”

  I hastily gobbled the last couple of shrimp and joined Devin at the door. I was still hungry, and he had the shrimp bag. I dodged his attempt to pick me up. Devin shrugged and opened the door.

  “Have fun, undercover boy,” Sheila called after us.

  Chief Wright met us in the hallway. “I’ve put the sting transport on hold,” he said. “If you’re right, we won’t have to use it.”

  “Oh, it looks like we’re right,” Devin said. “The rat tested positive.”

  The chief nodded. “Good work,” he said, looking from Devin to me.

  There were other Security people around so I kept my yap shut, but I did appreciate the commendation. By the time we crossed the rotunda to the lift, my injured leg was getting sore, so I let Devin pick me up for the ride to the warehouse. Devin told Steve he’d alerted Security about a suspicious breach of one of the shipping containers, and led Chief Wright off among the stacks of cargo.

  When we were out of Steve’s hearing I directed Devin to the Food-O bay. He collected some of the spilled grains of corn into an evidence bag, pointing out to the chief that several of them were a dark, golden orange color.

  “Enhancers,” said the chief, turning a couple over in his hand. “Shaped like corn kernels and hidden among a shipment of corn to get it past the dogs.”

  “Who weren’t checking Food-O’s shipments in any case,” Devin said. “Clever strategy, but the smugglers didn’t count on the tenacity of warehouse rats.”

  “Or the intelligence of a certain cat,” said the chief, giving me a nod.

  While they were talking I glimpsed the white tip of a crooked tail disappearing around a stack of crates a couple of bays down. I hooked a claw in the leg of Devin’s one-all and gave it a tug to get his attention.

  “Hand me that bag of kibble, will you?” I said.

  Devin pulled it out of his pocket, giving me a dubious look. “Want me to open it? They’ll float all over.”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Leave it shut.”

  He gave me the bag, which I picked up in my teeth. I trotted off with it after Spats. Found him half-heartedly grooming behind a stack of crates marked “This Side Up.”

  I dropped the kibble at Spats’s feet. “Here you go,” I said. “Thanks for showing me around the warehouse.”

  He looked at the kibble, then at me. His eyes got watery and for a second I thought he was going to get emotional, then he sneezed.

  “Sure thing, sport,” he said. “Any time.”

  “I’d poke a small hole in it and work the kibble out one piece at a time,” I suggested, nodding at the bag.

  Spats gave me a scornful look. “What am I, some dumb rat? Go give advice to someone who needs it.”

  He picked up the bag and started to amble off with it, hips bouncing in the air with his weird, rolling gait. He paused and turned to look at me, then set down the bag.

  “Thanks, kid,” he said. “Seeya around.”

  “Seeya,” I said, watching him go.

  ~

  With proof of Food-O’s involvement in hand, Devin and the chief wrapped up the whole smuggling operation pretty quickly. Radtrade was banned from doing any shipping through Gamma Station, and Intergal even thanked us for our report. They’d never follow up on it, of course, and Radtrade would probably just shift their shady operations elsewhere, but at least Gamma, and therefore the Fringe, would be free of illegal enhancers for now.

  “I’d like to thank you, Leon,” the chief said as Devin and I sat in his office for the wrap-up briefing. “Without your help, we’d still be trying to crack this ring. In fact, I’d like to offer you a reward. You can name anything you want—”

  “I want to go home.”

  “—except that. It’s just too expensive, Leon, and too time consuming, and besides that it would be upsetting for your mother. Had you thought about that?”

  I flattened my ears. I suspected he was feeding me a line of bull. I decided to wait, though, and see what I could find out on my own from the feeds.

  “OK,” I said. “In that case I want a new cat bed, the kind with nice thick padding lined with sheepskin. I want thumbprint security access so I can go through doors on my own—”

  “You can’t reach the pads,” Devin said.

  “I will in a couple of months,” I said, glaring at him. “And I want a gourmet dinner for me and a couple of friends.”

  “Jumbo order of popcorn shrimp?” said the chief, grinning.

  “No. I have another place in mind.”

  I don’t know what the chief told Tammy but he got her to agree to let Butch join us. I had a little trouble rounding up Spats, but I finally found him in a warehouse adjacent to the one where we’d busted the smugglers.

  The three of us quadrupeds, plus Devin and the chief, all gathered in Security’s conference room and sat down to a take-out feast from Ling-Ling’s. I had never in my life tasted such succulent shrimp, swimming in a savory lobster sauce. It was heaven.

  “Dang,” said Spats, looking up with drops of sauce clinging to his whiskers. “You uptown guys got it good.”

  I glanced at Butch, who shrugged. “It ain’t a bad life,” he said, then dove back into the shrimp.

  I thought about that while I chewed a chunk of lobster. Not everything I’d done in the past few days had been a barrel of chuckles, but there had been some good times. I’d seen things I’d never imagined, and done things I’d never expected, and eaten things more wonderful than I’d ever dreamed of.

  Yeah, I concluded as I returned my attention to the shrimp. Life could suck a lot worse than this.

  5. The Lady in Lilac

  Things were quiet for a while after the Stratoma case wrapped up. Devin threw his warehouse one-all in the recycler and reverted to his usual wardrobe, looking like he’d dressed out of the laundry hamper, which often as not he had. I got
the perks I’d demanded and though Devin and I didn’t always see eye to eye (well, physically we almost never), we settled into a fairly comfortable routine.

  Devin would roll out of bed and dish out some kibble for me, then we’d go in to his office at Security and check the feeds. I discovered my feed account from Astara was still active, so I spent a lot of time at Sheila’s desk surfing to keep up with the news and to check out possible ways I could get off Gamma Station. The bad news was that in researching my contract I learned the chief had been right. It looked like I was pretty well stuck until I’d worked off the bill for my engineering.

  My typing sucks. Paws aren’t designed for it. My feed account includes a state-of-the art vocal interpreter, though, so I can dictate commands. I had to be a little careful about what kind of info I asked for out loud—didn’t want Devin to catch on that I was looking for a way out—but by supplementing general searches with a few typed specifics I got good results.

  I dictated a vitriolic letter to Jill. Didn’t send it, but it made me feel better.

  Now and then Devin and I would go out on a call, usually some minor security infraction. Sometimes the chief would assign us to stake out Customs up by the inbound lifts. The first time he sent us there was right after I romped across his desk one day (the door was open, how was I to know that didn’t mean I could go in?) and knocked a stack of papers and an expensive paperweight onto the floor. You’d think something that heavy wouldn’t break.

  Customs was usually boring, but one day we caught a couple of tourists trying to sneak expensive stuff through without paying the duty. I’d been strolling through the lines, and when I smelled fear sweat on a couple of geeks in Hawaiian print clingsuits. I pointed out the source to Devin, who took them aside for a level 5 search. Turned out they had a bunch of gem quality Rastovian calcacite hidden inside cheap statuettes of Glyxoma, the eight-breasted war goddess of Frombonia.

  After that Devin and I spent a lot of our time at Customs, unless there was a more important case going on. Devin was given a bonus for the collar, and I negotiated an equivalent bonus to go against my contract debt. The chief wasn’t too happy about that, but he could hardly say no since it had been me that fingered the perps.

  My kitten fluff shed out and was replaced with a long, sleek, blue-gray tabby coat, chest and ear tufts a fine silver-white. I was growing fast. Every morning I’d stretch up to try for the access pad by Devin’s door. I knew my access worked, because Devin picked me up once and let me thumb the pad to show me. Couldn’t quite reach it on my own yet, but soon.

  When things were slow and Devin was too distracted by the game feeds to be good company, I’d go out and hook up with Butch to prowl the station. I learned my way around pretty good, and Butch introduced me to the chefs at all the better restaurants. Sue, the executive chef at Steakmeister, took a shine to me and started saving me choice scraps. I gradually lost my taste for popcorn shrimp, acquiring a more sophisticated palate under Butch’s expert guidance.

  Occasionally I’d go up to the warehouse district and go slumming with Spats. Butch came along once or twice, though hunting mice and rats didn’t appeal to him much, and he really hates low gee. It makes his fur fluff out so he looks even fatter, and since he’s got no tail it makes him look like a big orange furry balloon.

  On our days off, Devin took me to the park. It takes up almost the entire third and fourth levels of Gamma B, and of course there’s a matching one in Gamma A. Only the premium skyview spaces on the outer edge of the level are not part of the park. They’re taken up by the usual pricey skyview apartments, in this case Parkview Terrace, the second most swanky housing on station. Two tiers of suites overlook the park, which has ceilings almost as high as in the rotunda, to accommodate the actual trees that grow there.

  The park was pretty nice. Devin was all proud that he’d brought me to play on real live grass, not realizing that I’d never seen the stuff before. It smelled funny, and it grew out of actual dirt, which I thought was quaintly old-fashioned and a little gross. I got used to it, though, and had a pretty good time playing hide and seek in the bushes, especially when Devin got hungry and wanted to leave.

  I was romping along beneath a hedge, staying just out of Devin’s reach, when I caught sight of a pair of green eyes watching me through a screen of heart-shaped leaves. I stopped, transfixed. The eyes were feline, but I knew they didn’t belong to Butch (too small) or Spats (too straight). They seemed to be floating in the shadows between the leaves and little clusters of pale purple flowers that gave off a heady perfume. Behind the plant smell was another scent that reminded me of Ma but created an entirely different, and unfamiliar, reaction in me.

  I moved slowly toward the eyes. They blinked and retreated a little into the darkness, and I heard a tiny, uncertain “mew.”

  That sound did something strange to my insides. Made me want to reassure the lady that no one would touch her. Except me. I wanted to touch her, definitely. A lot. Wasn’t sure how or why, but I knew I wanted to get closer.

  “Hello,” I said, taking a step toward the bush.

  A rustling sound was followed by the eyes blinking at me from farther back in the foliage. I paused.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t hurt you.”

  She mewed again at that, a heartbreaking sound. I could tell she was unhappy and I wanted to make everything right, though how I could do that I had no clue. I took another step, very slowly. My ears were pricked high and my heart was going like thunder.

  “Leon!” Devin called.

  He was close behind. I could hear him crashing around in the bushes, trying to find me. The green eyes retreated even deeper into the shadows, glowing at me with reflected light. I knew if I let her get away, I might never see her again.

  I dove into the bush, purple flowers whapping me in the face, a perfumed punishment. Branches made a latticework ceiling over a small cave of space around the silvery-gray trunk. Crouched in the darkest shadow was a female cat, the most gorgeous I’d ever seen.

  She was tiny, her head and body sleek and perfect, lines like an Egyptian princess. Her fur was a warm midnight, her tail a curvaceous counterpoint to her mood, trembling and poised for flight.

  “Don’t worry,” I said softly. “I’m here now. No one can hurt you.”

  What an asinine thing to say, but at the time I completely meant it. Being in her presence made me act like a total sap.

  “Leon! Come out of there!”

  My tail twitched, but I kept my eyes on her face. “He means me. Don’t worry, he’s harmless.”

  I moved a little closer to where she was huddled in the shadows. She cringed slightly, then all at once she stood up and stretched her head toward me, nose quivering.

  “Leila?” called a woman’s voice. “Where are you, cherie?”

  The sleek, dark head turned toward the sound, which came from the opposite side of the bush from where Devin was crashing around.

  “Hey, Leon!”

  She looked back at me. I craned my neck, drinking in the smell of her.

  “Leila!”

  “Leon!”

  Our noses touched. She stood still for a second, then darted away toward the woman’s voice. I was about to follow when a loud crash preceded the grabbing of my tail.

  “Gotcha!” Devin said.

  “Yeowrrr!”

  I turned on him, hissing, and barely kept myself from slashing him. He must have seen the lack of amusement in my eyes, because he hastily let go of my tail.

  I turned toward the mysterious beauty again, but it was too late. A few meters away a tall, slender human female was crouching down and gathering her into a lilac-colored handbag.

  The human was blonde and quite shapely, a little thin by Devin’s standards but very pretty in a stylish way. She wore an actual dress, a gravity-bound style that was fashionable among the station’s richest residents. It was the same shade as the hangbag, which she picked up and carried away. A small dark head peeped
out of the bag, gazing back at me.

  I bounded out of the bush after them and caught up in a few strides. My heart’s desire ducked down into the bag, and I hesitated. Clearly, she didn’t want my attentions, at least not in the presence of her human. I couldn’t help myself, though. I called out to her.

  “Leila! I want to help you!”

  The dark head peeped out of the bag, eyes wide. “How can you help us?” she said.

  “What are you yowling about?” demanded the blonde, stopping to look at her cat. She caught sight of me and frowned. “Shoo!” she said, and stalked off.

  I stared after her as she strolled away, hips swaying and gently bouncing the lilac bag. Leila’s incredible green eyes gazed at me for a second, then she retreated into the bag again.

  “Nice gams,” Devin said, coming up beside me. “Didn’t know you were a leg man, Leon.”

  I shot him a look but didn’t say anything. The blonde was leaving the park, heading toward Parkview Terrace. I watched her go into a ground-level suite.

  “Who’s that woman?” I muttered.

  “Shh,” Devin said. He reached for me, hesitated, then picked me up and started carrying me toward the lifts. “I don’t know who she is. Never seen her before. How about some popcorn shrimp?”

  “How about Ling-Ling’s?” I countered, keeping my face turned toward Devin’s chest and my voice low so no one could hear. “Maybe she’s new. Security records all the station’s residents, right?”

  “We can check on it after we eat.”

  For once, I was more interested in information than in food. I was heartened to know that the stranger was living in an apartment, but that might not mean she was a permanent resident. People came and went, and sometimes the layover was long, especially if someone was traveling to one of the more remote colonies. I didn’t want to wait and look her up tomorrow only to find she was gone.

  Devin took me to Ling-Ling’s and ordered a gargantuan amount of food. I garfed down my order of garlic shrimp and waited none too patiently for Devin to finish masticating his lo mein.