by Dixie Lyle
As Whiskey and I strolled away, I thought about Coop’s homily. It was basically a folksy version of Life is pain; anyone that says otherwise is trying to sell you something. Pretty cynical, but all too often the truth. That got me thinking about Rustam and Kaci, and Oscar’s scheme to turn a sizable profit from canine paintings—and that made me realize that I’d completely forgotten something I’d asked Whiskey to do.
“Whiskey, you told me you didn’t get any sense of telepathy from Kaci, right?”
[That is correct.]
“But you were going to ask her directly—dog-to-dog, as it were—if she and Rustam talked to each other mentally. Did you?”
Whiskey flattened his ears and looked away in shame. [I apologize, Foxtrot. I meant to, but I got swept up in the heat of the moment.]
“And the ecstasy of expired badger, I know. Well, maybe we should follow up on that now. If you think you can keep yourself under control.”
His ears perked right up. [Certainly. But how, when I’ve been barred from her presence?]
I reached down and ruffled his fur behind his ears. “Don’t worry. There’s always a way for a determined Romeo to see his Juliet. How are you at climbing ladders?”
* * *
The ladder, it turned out, wasn’t necessary. All that was required was my phone, Whiskey’s shape-shifting ability, and a little deception on both our parts.
“Hello, Mr. Gorshkov? Foxtrot here. We need to talk. Where are you now? Painting, I see. Well, Whiskey’s on the loose and he had a wild look in his eye when he bolted. I think you should put Kaci safely in your room until I round him up. No, not a problem. You’re very welcome. Buh-bye.”
And then, before he could get up there, I used my master key to let Whiskey into Gorshkov’s room, where he hid under the bed. “Are you sure this will work?” I said.
[Not to worry. The form I’m taking is Kaci’s own, right down to her scent. Then, once Gorshkov has left, I’ll shift back and reveal myself. A few questions later and you can come back and let me out. Stay nearby and we can continue to converse telepathically.]
It sounded simple enough. But that’s what I’d thought last time.
I let myself out and found an unoccupied guest room across the hall. I sat down on the bed and thought, Whiskey?
[Present and accounted for.]
Good. This shouldn’t take too long.
Soon I heard footsteps in the hall, then a key turning in a lock.
[They’re here.]
A few seconds later, the door closed again. [Gorshkov has left. I will wait until he’s out of earshot in case Kaci’s reaction is overly enthusiastic.]
This turned out to be a good idea, as Whiskey’s sudden appearance produced a volley of overjoyed barking. I held my breath, but Gorshkov didn’t come back.
I couldn’t understand what they were saying to each other, but Whiskey relayed the content of their conversation. We learned some very interesting things, and when I’d heard enough I went downstairs to find Mr. Gorshkov and discuss them. I didn’t bother letting Whiskey out, since I knew he could do that himself. And hey, he and Kaci deserved a little alone time together.
Especially since Mr. Gorshkov would be leaving soon.
I found him in the gardens, cleaning some brushes next to Kaci’s easel. It looked as though he’d had a productive morning, with several canvases propped up against a nearby hedge. Oscar would be pleased.
Oh, no, wait. He wouldn’t.
“Hello, Rustam,” I said. My voice was light and cheerful, because that’s the kind of mood I was in. “Doing a little cleanup? Good idea.”
He glanced at me, the look on his face as welcome and friendly as mine. “Hello, Foxtrot. Yes, it’s always a good idea to treat your equipment well.” We were out in the open, and he was too smart to say or do anything threatening now. In fact, if I was to bring up his little poem, I knew exactly what his reaction would be: puzzlement, followed by confused denial. He would do his best to make it seem to anyone eavesdropping—electronically or otherwise—that he was being confronted by a lunatic.
Too bad for him I had no intention of doing that.
“Yes, especially when it’s so specialized,” I said. “Like the bone phone implanted in Kaci’s chew toy that you’ve strapped to that brush. Looks like it’s just there to give her a better grip, but what it really does is transmit prerecorded verbal commands via bone conduction right through her teeth, along her jawbone, and into her ears. Where’s the transmitter, in the cane?”
Okay, so maybe I rushed it. I could have drawwwwwwn it out, played with him for a while, got him to think I was going one way and then slap him down when he least expected it. But I had a lot going on, I still hadn’t caught the killer, and frankly I just didn’t have the patience. Sometimes you toy with the mouse, sometimes you go for the kill. Also, without Whiskey or Tango here, it just wasn’t as much fun.
I did get to enjoy the look on Rustam’s face, though. Like a mannequin with a painted-on smile, frozen in an expression that seemed more and more like a grimace the longer you stared at it.
“That was a rhetorical question, by the way,” I said. “About the cane, I mean. But the whole idea is very clever. Originally I thought maybe you were using ultrasonics that human ears couldn’t hear, but that wouldn’t work with other dogs around, would it? Don’t answer that. Bone conduction means nobody can hear your instructions except Kaci, and Border collies are really good at memorizing cues. Not that you’d need that many, for painting: up, down, left, right, maybe a few simple shapes. After all, it doesn’t have to be good, just good enough. Right?”
The expression on his face slowly collapsed, like a snowman melting. I thought I’d enjoy it, but I actually felt kind of bad. Sure, he’d threatened me, but I’d been threatened with far worse by far scarier people. All he’d really done was try to fleece a greedy man, one who wasn’t exactly a model of honesty himself.
Gorshkov lowered himself onto a bench. “It was not as easy as all that. Many, many months spent teaching her. And she is quite talented, as far as technique goes. Sometimes I think she has a style all her own.”
He chuckled. “But she does not understand what we are trying to accomplish. If I do not give her commands, she will sit and wait, patiently. She wants so badly to please.”
I sat down beside him. “Look on the bright side. You trained a dog to paint. That’s pretty awesome, in and of itself. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you came clean and confessed what you’ve been doing, you could not only sell your paintings honestly, you could probably avoid going to jail. Probably.”
He sighed heavily. “I suppose. The public adores the unique, but there is a vast difference between a dog who is an actual artiste and one who is simply well trained. Perhaps I can make a few dollars peddling them as novelties.”
“I think you’ll do all right—though Oscar isn’t going to be thrilled.”
He nodded. “You require me to return his money, of course.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m a big fan of poetic consequences—and Oscar paying a lot of money for dog paintings that aren’t quite as valuable as he thought seems like a perfect example of that. Besides, it’ll give me something to poke him with for years.”
“I see. Then I am free to go?”
“Not just yet. We’re going to work out a few details concerning when and how you’re going to make a public admission of what you’ve been doing, and I want you to know I keep a very close eye on certain communities. If you try to pull something like this again, I’ll know—and I’ll talk.”
“Certain communities, eh? Are you talking of the art world, or the criminal one?”
“Neither. I was referring to the animal kingdom.” I got to my feet. “Just remember, Rustam—I’ll be watching.”
* * *
Rustam wasn’t the Unktehila, and neither was his dog. If a monster who could make anyone trust him disguised himself as a con artist, the con would be a lot less elaborate; you could just walk up to people an
d convince them to give you their money. And while pretending to be the hapless canine accomplice would be a pretty good cover, it would require undergoing months of training in order to fool your owner. Again, there were far easier ways to insinuate yourself into the situation.
That left two possibilities: Fimsby, or a massive mistake on my part. Technically, the only people I’d completely ruled out were Ben and Teresa, because they’d both demonstrated their Thunderbird abilities in my presence and I was pretty sure that wasn’t on the long, scary list of what an Unktehila was capable of. Still, I was mostly going on assumptions and instinct; the Unktehila could still turn out to be one of the household staff, or even one of the animals in the menagerie.
I really, really didn’t want it to be the honey badger.
So. Back to the problem at hand, which was trying to figure out a way to get the Big U to expose itself. I needed bait, a plausible way to dangle it, and a way to deal with the thing once I caught or cornered it. Not impossible hurdles, but not insignificant, either.
How had the Thunderbirds dealt with them in the first place? Teresa Firstcharger had said they zapped them from above, or boiled them alive in their pools. But how had they found them in the first place?
Maybe I should just ask her.
I pulled out my phone, took a deep breath, and punched in her number. We’re allies now, I reminded myself. Sure. Absolutely.
She answered on the third ring. “Foxtrot. What can I do for you?”
“Tell me more about the Unktehila.”
She laughed. “Oh, so you’re taking the threat seriously, now?”
“I never said I wasn’t. I just wasn’t sure how accurate the information you were giving us was.”
“I see. And now you want more of my inaccurate information?”
She wasn’t going to make this easy. “Look, believe it or not, we seem to have wound up on the same side. We don’t have to like each other, but can we concentrate on fighting the big bad supernatural threat first?”
“You have a point. What would you like to know, exactly?”
“How your people located them. What their habits are. If they have any weaknesses we can exploit. What their favorite flavor of ice cream is.”
She hesitated. “The legends don’t go into detail about how we located them—I think it was largely by instinct.” I was really learning to hate that word. “As far as habits go, they lurk in deep pools and use the crystal on their foreheads to attract game. They have a very particular spot, seven rings down from the head, that’s vulnerable—that’s where the heart is. Favorite flavors? They really seem to like human. Anything else?”
“Let me get back to you on that.” I rang off.
So they hung out in pools (presumably with large amounts of suxamethonium chloride for killing any Thunderbirds that dropped by). Pretty risky, considering how Thunderbirds liked to use lightning to boil the snake’s living quarters—but the method of murder did make a gruesome, poetic sort of sense now.
Still, there was no way I was going to be able to lure a wary Unktehila into a swimming pool with two Thunderbirds around. No, I had to present our serpent with an irresistible target that also looked safe.
Like maybe two birds with one stone. Two birds that didn’t suspect a thing, because they were really, really busy …
Did I mention how much I hate my brain, sometimes?
“Just contemplating the unthinkable, Tango. And ways to implement it, as usual.”
She yawned.
“Oh, I know.”
“Uh—are your abilities fearsome?”
“They’re extremely fearsome, I’m sure.”
“I didn’t ask—wait, what?”
“You forgot annoysome. Now, are you going to share this astounding discovery or keep it to yourself?”
She sat down and started grooming in that self-satisfied way cats have.
I stared down at her in bafflement. “Tango, we saw them take the body out of the swimming pool. And if she wasn’t dead before the autopsy, she sure as heck was afterward.”
“So Marbles wasn’t murdered?”
“Just tell me what you found out.”
She flopped down on her side and looked up at me expectedly. I sighed, knelt down, and rubbed the point of her chin with my index finger.
“Wait. Cat heaven is based on film noir?”
“Okay, tough guy. Continue.”
“Abyssinians are short-haired, not hairless. You’re thinking of the Sphynx or maybe the Peterbald.”
She glared up at me.
“Sorry. Carry on.”
<“Haven’t seen you around here before,” she said.
<“Aren’t we all?”
<“I guess. But some of us stick around longer than others.”
<“Strictly freelance,” I told her. Glorified security guard was closer to the truth, but I didn’t think her laughing in my face was a good way to start the conversation.
<“You seem to know a lot for someone who isn’t a cop.”
<“I have friends. Seems like you do, too.”
<“Is that what you think happened?”
<“I don’t know what happened. Why don’t you tell me?”
<“Because of your friend. The one you stuck around for.”
<“Take it easy. I’m not here to make threats, just pass on a little good news.”
<“Yeah? Like what?”
<“Like a certain someone who once introduced you to a nasty individual by the name of B. Bat has now made the acquaintance of said individual himself. Numerous times.”
<“You’re welcome. How about you return the favor and tell me a story.”
<“About Mr. Bat? I’d rather not.”
<“I’m more interested in what happened afterward.”
<“I died.”
<“Been there. Done that. Own the squeaky toy.”
<“How many times?”
<“Six and counting. How about you?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear her say it.
<“This is my last turn at the scratching post. Eight down and one to go.”
<“Hope they were good ones.”
<“Oh, they were. Didn’t like how some of them ended, but then, who does?”
<“How’d you do it?”
She knew exactly what I was asking, but she wasn’t just going to come out and admit it. “Do what, exactly?”
<“A cat has nine lives for a reason. It lets us live places, experience things that otherwise we’d never get to do. But you found a way around that. Your very first life started right here … and so did every other.”>
“Wait,” I said. “Marbles didn’t just spend her first life with Mary—she spent all of them?”
Tango rolled over and got to her feet.
“There must have been consequences.”
I thought about that. Nine lives, stretching over as long as 180 years, spread out over the whole globe. And Marbles gave up most of that to spend her lives with one lonely, disadvantaged woman.