“The pups can’t even remember what you smell like.”
That was it—a typical snarl-message from my ex. If the bitch wanted reliability, I thought, she should have married a sheepdog.
Second message: “Crusher—it’s me, Spike. Just wondering how you enjoyed the fight…”
He was using a wound-licking voice, as Spike usually did when he was trying to be angry. Obviously he’d seen me on the buzzscreen and was wondering what the hell I was doing at Solidarity Stadium with a cat. And I couldn’t imagine what I was going to tell him.
Third message: “Crusher—it’s Nipper Sweeney.” A whispered voice, like he was speaking under a fence. “I need to speak to you. Back of the Stunted Muzzle, first thing tomorrow?”
The Stunted Muzzle was a downtown bar much favored by newshounds. But I didn’t read much into it—I figured Nipper just wanted to whine about Phineas Reynard, not knowing I’d already yapped with the old fox myself.
Then the last message clicked in. And my hair immediately pricked up.
“Detective Max McNash?” She made my name sizzle like a sausage. “I hope this doesn’t sound untoward…I hope you’ll understand…but I just can’t get you out of my mind.” The same husky voice, the same trap-me-if-you-want-me tone. “I’m here, alone, at the In-Season Hotel. Room one-oh-one, booked under the name of Ruby Fox. Can you meet me tonight? To discuss a few things? It’s entirely up to you.”
And that was it—a dangling bait, nothing more. I stood in place for a full minute, staring blankly at the box.
I should’ve been laying my bobble on a blanket. Or I should’ve been reporting this new development to Lap. But suddenly all I could think about was those jeweled eyes. That flaming red tail. Those curves. Those points. The way she glided across that lobby, smooth as butter.
I checked my reflection in the side of a toaster. Broad shoulders, trim coat, a jaw that was made for chewing. I still had my charms. I could look after myself. And I was unchained, free—nobody had any hold over me anymore.
Fang caution, I thought. Fang Spike, fang Lap, and fang the investigation. And fang sleep.
I seized some smelling salts from behind the bathroom mirror and sucked in half a can. I squirted some Buffalo Juice on my neck. I poured some gravy down my gutchute to freshen my licker. When I slid into the Rover I was tingling like a freshly shorn sheep. Nothing was going to stop me now.
I’d heard the call of the wild.
THE IN-SEASON WAS on Ecstasy Street midway between Perky and Pliant. It was a real sleazy part of town, full of sniff shows, heavy petting saloons, and all-fours clubs, and thick with staghounds, carpet chewers, and shaved poodles. But it was also popular with well-at-heel whelps from Airedale and Baskerville, who crowded the bars, swaggered down the streets, and picked fights with the locals, like you couldn’t really call yourself a mutt till you’d tasted slime. Sometimes thrill-seeking kitties even slinked in from across the river to play chicken in the gambling houses—often the fire brigade had to be called out to rescue one of them chased up a tree or flushed down a drain.
I parked my tooter under the monorail and locked the doors tight. Next to the hotel entrance a mangy fleabag with untrimmed whiskers was lounging against a wall, sucking rusty water from a flask.
“Whatcha looking at, buddy?” he sniped.
“I ain’t your buddy and I ain’t looking, pal.”
I breezed into the lobby feeling full of coyote juice. There was a droopy little mongrel behind the front desk leafing through some dog-eared comic book—he didn’t even glance up when I bounded up the stairs. But I knew the In-Season well enough by now. A lot of notorious things had happened within its Kleenex walls. In Room 403, the archbishop of San Bernardo had been caught licking brown sugar off the floor. In 612, a bucket of water had to be thrown over the governor of Newfoundland and three silky terriers. In 101, the very room whose door I was now rapping on, an untold number of Dalmatians had been skinned alive.
“Who is it?” The voice was so sultry it’d put mildew on a wall.
“It ain’t room service.”
“The door’s open—come right in.”
I paused, wondering for just one moment if I should’ve brought along my Schnauzer .44—if the whole thing was some sort of setup. But this was no time for shuffleback. I nudged my way inside.
She was standing in front of the window, wearing a steamy off-the-shoulder number and a sable so freshly dead its eyes hadn’t stopped rolling. Behind her a pink neon sign blinked on and off, on and off, lighting up her flowing tail and furry profile. In a ceramic holder she held a smoldering smokestick that stank of moss, birchwood, and moor. The only thing thicker than her lashes were her flews.
“I want you to know what this means to me,” she breathed.
“Can it, meatcheeks, I didn’t come here for a head-pat.” I closed the swinger and mushed across the room, glancing left and right.
“There’s only you and me,” she said, “I promise.”
“You, me, and just two dozen ghosts if we’re lucky. Know the history of this room?”
“Do I need to?”
“It’d only scare you.”
“I don’t like being scared.”
I edged toward her, my chest out like a barrel. “You’re safe with me, titbits.”
I was so close now I could see the beads of saliva on her lipstick. Her tongue was out like a red carpet. I shook myself.
“First things first,” I said. “How’d you get my name?”
“I overheard you talking to my husband—I was crouching outside.”
“Then how’d you get my number?”
“My husband ran a check on both of you as soon as you left. I sneaked into his study and checked his notes.”
“They don’t give Dog Force details to just anyone.”
“My husband has very high contacts.”
“How high?”
“How high does it go?”
She was staring at me the whole time with her beady yellow eyes. Half of me wanted to sink into those urine-colored pools and frolic across the hills and dales for eternity. The other half didn’t want to show any chink of weakness.
“You sound scared of your husband.”
Finally she looked away, blowing out a plume of smoke that dissolved around her in a pink-lighted mist. “I’m scared of him…and I’m scared for him.”
“I don’t get you.”
“You’d have to know my husband—it’s very complicated.”
“I ain’t going anywhere.”
She took another drag of her mulchy smokestick. “As a cub, my husband was humiliated by his lack of power. He was determined never again to be in such a position. It became his obsession. And yes, he did a lot of dubious things to gain his sense of control, but nothing ever illegal. But lately…lately he’s got mixed up with some very strange types…shady cats…financial wolves…political animals…and he’s changed…he’s changed dramatically. He doesn’t even seem to realize it. And me…I don’t know what to think.”
“You want to know if you should leave him?”
“Should I?” She stared into my eyes and I felt a jolt run from the end of my tail to the tip of my snout. My mind reeled back to my days as a whelp, when I’d spent half my playtime drooling over vixens in smelly sniffrags. And I wondered how it might be, just me and this fox snuggled up in some burrow together.
“You do what you think is best, porkchop.”
She edged forward. “But do you know something? Does the cat know something?”
“That cat thinks he knows everything.”
“But does he really think my husband is involved in those murders? Those terrible murders? I don’t want to believe it…I’m terrified.”
I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to protect her. Trouble was, I hardly knew anything—Lap kept his cards close to his brisket. “The cat doesn’t trust your husband,” I admitted.
“But has he found anything incriminating? Has he mentio
ned someone called Riossiti?”
“Riossiti?”
“Does he have any evidence—the Siamese?”
“He’s got theories.”
“So he knows something for certain?”
It sounded like she was willing me to say something. Like she really wanted to believe the worst. So she could leave her husband. And run away into the woods with me. Everything in her peepers seemed to be begging me for bad news, and everything in my gutsack was itching to deliver it.
“I don’t know what he knows,” I said. “He’s as tight as a church warden’s mousehole.”
Her eyes dropped. “I see.”
“But why not come and ask him for yourself?” I said. “He’ll set you straight.”
She turned her head. “I don’t trust cats.”
“You don’t have to trust him.”
“I don’t like the way they move. The way they smell. They’re not like us.”
“You can work your charm on him—he’ll bend like a rubber hose.”
She was still looking away. “You’re thinking of someone else.”
“You worked your charm on me, didn’t you? Why the red face?” I reached out and touched her elbow. “It’s not too late, sweetbread. You can still make a move. For your own safety.”
“No.” Very suddenly—it didn’t smell right—she was as cold as a kitchen floor. “You don’t seem to understand. I need time.”
“You don’t have much time. If—”
“No.” She stared at the neon sign. “I have to sort things out.”
“I can put you in a safe house if—”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I frowned at her. “But you’re not going back home now, giblets? It’s too late for regrets.” I reached out to touch her again but she jerked her body away.
“Please don’t touch me. Please.”
She had her bushy tail between us like a police baton. And I didn’t like it at all. One second she was terrified of her husband, the next she didn’t want to know me. Was it really something to do with Lap? Or was she playing me for a sucker? So I tried again: “Listen, foxy lady, if you don’t want Lap to—”
“Leave me alone—please.” She blew smoke at the window. Outside, the No Vacancy sign winked on.
My instincts were fighting like terriers. I didn’t know what to do. I looked at her.
“Fine—if that’s really the way you want it.”
Nothing but her bushy tail.
I nodded, struggling to stay polite. “Your choice, ma’am.”
I backed across the room, listening hard for a sniff, a whimper, a tone of regret. But nothing. At the door I paused. “You never told me your real name.”
“Read it in the newspapers,” she said.
I should’ve arrested her right then, but too much of me still wanted to believe she’d really wanted me. So I just slammed the door and headed downstairs, drained and confused. When I entered Pliant Street the tramp slurred a question:
“Know where the nearest boneyard is?”
“What’s it to you, pal?”
“I need to bury my hopes and dreams.”
“You and me both, pal.” I headed for my tooter—I was going to wait for the vixen to come out, then tail her—but the tramp had one last snipe:
“Catch ya later, investigator.”
And I stopped in my tracks, blinking. Investigator?
I swung around, prepared for anything, but the tramp was already on his feet and scampering away.
Quick as a flash I bolted after him. He turned down a scummy alleyway. I chased madly, tossing aside old crates and cardboard boxes. There was a brick wall at the end, but the tramp was a spring-heeled jack—he hurdled it in one jump. I sprang too, but only got my forelegs over the top. I tried to haul myself over—my back paws were scratching for leverage—but I could already see it was too late: The tramp was whisking around the corner with one last backward smirk. And suddenly I knew it:
I’d swallowed the bait—again.
I dropped back to the ground and raced back to the In-Season, but the vixen was already sliding into a luxury Fuchswagen —license plate OUTFOX—and snuggling up to a figure who looked like Reynard himself. Then they were launching off down the street.
I tried to chase but the chauffeur put paw to the floor and they rocketed under the monorail and disappeared into the Flagwag Expressway. I pulled up in the middle of the street, panting, sweat rolling off my licker, feeling dumbslapped. A giant billboard was glaring at me from the top of a nearby building.
WHEN IT COMES TO MEAT, I SURE AM A CHUMP.
Doofus Rufus said it all.
THE NEXT MORNING I said nothing to Lap about the In-Season, and he never asked why I didn’t have Flasha Lightning with me anyway. He was camped in my office—it was like he owned the joint—with more newspapers around him than you’d find on the floor of a kindergarten.
“Look at this,” he said, with his furry little smile.
It was the morning’s Growl. The front page was all about the STUNNING KO at Solidarity Stadium, a series of snaps showing Rocky spinning out of the ring. On pages two and three there was an interview with the humble champion, Zeus Katsopoulos. “I’m just a simple kitty,” he said. “I hope Rocky recovers.” On page four there was another exposé of the Party of the Perpetual Underdog, with one of the leaders secretly recorded saying sympathetic things about the Persians. On page five there was an update on the war itself, with Brewster Goodboy pictured in consultation with General Wolfenson (“Instability in this region poses a grave threat to the globe,” said the prez). Only on page nine was there any mention of the murder at the museum (“Police are still looking for suspects”).
I grunted. “At least the old fox cooperated.”
“Our request had nothing to do with the suppression,” Lap said. “That order would have been issued, or implied, long before our visit. The plot isn’t thickening, exactly—it’s merely running to course.”
“Worked out anything yet?”
“I sense I’m getting close. But now we must advance to a new phase. Might you have the time to join me for a little trip, Detective? No last-minute assignations?”
“No”—I coughed—“why?”
“You’ll need all your wits about you. The cat I intend to visit is exceptional in many ways.”
“Sure,” I said, too embarrassed to ask questions, “then let’s mush.”
But Lap, to my surprise, stopped halfway across the room to examine the prints on my wall.
“Interesting paintings, Detective. Your choice?”
“Dogs not allowed to like art?”
“They can like whatever they choose. But I could not help noticing the marks of previous paintings underneath. May I ask what they were?”
I shrugged. “Old pictures of dogs playing cards, shooting pool—why?”
“So you replaced the original prints with these cat cubists?”
“What of it?”
“So some intruding voice, some sense of fashion, told you not to trust your original preferences?”
“They just seemed…wrong.”
“How fascinating,” Lap said, but in his irritating way he didn’t explain.
Outside we squeezed into his fancy Jaguar. The seats were covered in imitation badger fur. The dashboard had a fancy fish-scale pattern. There was a tinkle toy hanging from the mirror and harp music playing in the tape box. The smell of mint and sandalwood was almost sickening. I would’ve stuck my head out the window but I couldn’t work out how to wind the thing down.
“The vehicle itself runs on camel urine and cod-liver oil,” Lap said. “Very environmentally friendly.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“You seem angry, Detective.”
“I’m always angry.”
“But especially irritable. Is something bothering you?”
“You wanna tell me where we’re taking me to?” I asked—we seemed to be heading for the rump end of town.
“To Cattica Correctional Facility,” said Lap.
“To Cattica?” I blinked. “The clanger?”
“If that’s what you’d prefer to call it.”
I didn’t like it: Cattica was the hardest feline prison in the country, home of the worst of the worst, the really bad cats. Covering four acres in the middle of Chuckside, it was wedged between a dog pen on one side and a mad-dog house on the other. Only three cats had ever escaped from Cattica, and all three had immediately tried to “escape” back in.
“And who’s at Cattica, anyway, that we—”
But suddenly Lap ran the Jaguar through some wild course changes down side streets and screwtail alleys—throwing pursuers off our scent.
“We being followed?” I asked, glancing behind.
“Not anymore.”
I turned back to the road. “And who’s at Cattica, anyway, to make all this worth it?”
“Perhaps you’ve heard of a cat called Riossiti?”
“Riossiti?” I asked—the name seemed familiar.
Lap glanced at me. “I assumed he was well known around here. Quentin Riossiti—the convicted murderer.”
“Quentin Riossiti?” Suddenly it all rushed back to me. “The psychocat?”
“If that’s what you’d prefer to call him.”
Quentin Riossiti. I’d heard the name all right. The case should’ve been ours—there were dog victims as well—but somehow it never got near us. Humphrey MacFluff took complete control—no consultation at all. The story disappeared from the newsrags. The name drifted into nightmares.
“I don’t like it,” I breathed, shuddering. “I got no time for moggie murderers.”
Lap shifted gears as we headed into Chuckside. “What do you know about Riossiti?”
“What’s there to know? Made giant rat-traps for his victims, didn’t he? Put their kidneys in a blender? Ate their brains with cottage cheese? Something like that.”
Lap grunted. “The details seem to grow more extravagant each year—not that anyone, least of all Riossiti, has done much to challenge them. But the precise details remain frustratingly vague. One can only take a guess, for instance, at the exact number of his victims—perhaps as many as fifty.”
The Unscratchables Page 11