I felt a chill in my gutsack. “Any cat with that number of kills should’ve been put to sleep a long time ago.”
“Riossiti began the trial proclaiming his innocence—he insisted he’d been framed—but when the evidence became overwhelming he claimed insanity—the diminished-responsibility defense. The plea failed—in part due to my own testimony—but not without many strange antics in court. The death sentence, however, has been continually commuted. It’s very curious. Almost as if Riossiti made a deal with the DA.”
“He knows something?”
“It’s difficult to say. When I first met him Riossiti was a brilliant psychiatrist and sociologist—Dr. Quentin Ledgewarmer, he was called then—with a special interest in hierarchical structures and social engineering. He wrote a few brilliant and highly influential academic texts, some of which were integral to my own studies. Have you ever have heard of The Mighty Lamb?”
“Only lamb I know comes in a Chump’s can.”
“It was Riossiti’s most controversial work. In it he claimed that in any society, but in democracies especially, the most powerful force is neither dog nor cat but the highly impressionable public consciousness, which he compared to a mighty lamb that everyone—literally everyone—is attempting to shepherd in some direction.”
Again I remembered the longhairs who’d infected me in my youth. But I only shook my head. “The lamb isn’t in charge if it’s being shepherded,” I said. “The sheepdog is.”
“Ostensibly the sheepdog shepherds the lamb, yes, but if the sheepdog owes its very existence to the lamb, and devotes the bulk of its time controlling the lamb, could it not be said that the lamb is really shepherding the sheepdog?”
“He wrote this before or after he lost his mind?”
“Riossiti’s point was that there comes a time when, through our unrelenting attention, we allow the lamb to take control of us. It was his intention to examine the worlds of politics, media, and marketing to identify the precise moment of surrender. Part of this involved a close study of feral cats and dogs, whose minds he regarded as the closest we have to the primeval consciousness—untainted by societal conditioning, aspirations of status, or the laws of fashion. But then he was recruited by a secret think tank, part governmental and part private enterprise—Phineas Reynard himself was involved—and something very strange happened. He changed his surname to Riossiti. He ceased writing. He denounced his former work. He withdrew from society. And for some inexplicable reason he became a mass murderer.”
I snorted. “That’s what happens if you think too much.”
“Indeed.” Lap seemed amused. “Indeed.”
We arrived at Cattica.
“DO NOT TOUCH the cage. Do not approach the cage.” The prison warden, a fussy Welsh Terrier with crimped hair, was leading us downstairs through a series of wire security doors. “Do not listen to his taunts—he is a consummate trickster. Do not stare into his eyes—he will try to mesmerize you. Do not allow him to whisper—it’s a ploy for drawing you close. And whatever you do, never reach in and stroke him if he purrs—you might not live to regret it.”
I did my best to laugh it off. “What’s he gonna do, hiss at me?”
The Welshie looked at me like I couldn’t possibly understand. “Do you see these?” He gestured to three claw marks on his throat. “There are six more of these under my shirt. And more on my hindquarters. And I was one of the lucky ones—I only required stitches.”
He led us past a command center full of armed Dobies and closed-circuit buzzscreens. There was a door like something you’d find on a bank vault. The Welshie spun the dial but paused before opening it. “I’ll have the security buzzer ring after exactly five minutes,” he said, grave as a headstone.
“We might need more than five,” I said.
The Welshie shook his head. “That’s all Riossiti is allowed. Besides, more than five minutes would be dangerous to your mental health. I’m sure Special Agent Lap will concur.”
Lap gave a nod.
“Then I wish you a safe journey,” said the Welshie, like he was sending us into a war zone.
We stepped into a gloomy dungeon and the door clanged behind us. I blinked, adjusting my eyes. There was a row of cages curling up the left wall. There were strange hisses and purrs. Licking sounds. The nauseating stink of unemptied litterboxes. Somewhere a generator was pounding like an elephant’s heart.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
Lap straightened his tie. “Ready, Detective?”
“I ain’t never been less scared.”
Then the cat was moving ahead of me into the dark. I wrenched myself forward and hugged his heel.
A mad Burmese chuckled at us from the first cage. In the second cage a long-haired mackerel tabby in an orange jumpsuit—I think it was the terrorist Muezza al-Qit—was doing prostrations. In the third cage a half-bald Birman—he looked like he’d bitten off his own fur—was fighting madly with his blanket.
We pulled up in front of the last cage. It was half in darkness. There were tiny bones on the floor. Artworks of fences, fireplaces, and cozy hearth rugs. A carrion smell of decay and sour milk. And at the back, reflecting the light from behind us, two glowing, blinking, grass-green eyes.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
“Quentin—may I still call you that?—I have no need to introduce myself.”
Not a whisper from Riossiti—just those evil staring eyes.
“Come now, Quentin,” said Lap. “Your tapetum lucidum is showing.”
A few blinks, but still not a word.
“We have a limited amount of time, Quentin—less than four minutes left.”
Nothing.
So I coughed. “Open your snapper and start mewing,” I snapped—partly to steady my nerves, partly to hide them.
For a few seconds, just his unblinking eyes, narrowing slowly.
Then a voice that would curdle cream.
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.”
Then the eyes were moving forward—there was the jingle of a collar bell—as he glided out of the darkness. He was coming straight at me. I held my ground.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
He stopped like a streetcar about half a leashlength from the bars. And stared at me.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
He was a common tabby, striped like a tiger, his head tilted up like royalty, but his eyes were sunken and his coat greasy, like he’d been locked in a garden shed for a month.
“‘Here comes a pair of strange beasts,’” he hissed, “‘which would drool in any tongue.’”
Lap nodded. “As You Lick It—act 5, scene 4.”
But Riossiti never removed his green eyes from me.
“Who are you, sir—please tell me your name.”
I swallowed. “I’m Detective Max—”
“His name is irrelevant, Quentin,” Lap interrupted. “We’re not here to socialize.”
Riossiti smiled, and I noticed for the first time his filed-down fangs. “My Shakespaw-loving apprentice says that you’re irrelevant, Detective Max. How does that make you feel?”
Lap didn’t give me the time to answer. “We’re here to seek your assistance, Quentin. Perhaps you’ve read of the recent murders in the Kennels?”
Riossiti sneered. “Your friend asks me about some murders, Detective Max. Does he really believe they give me access to newspapers here?”
He was still piercing me with his peepers, daring me to be sucked into his evil spell. I tensed myself and stared back.
“Three separate murder scenes,” Lap went on. “One killer—an unidentified feral, still on the loose.”
“A feral, your partner says. He clearly remembers my exhaustive study of ferals. Of the lower intelligences in general.”
He was baiting me, I knew it, but I made sure I didn’t twitch.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
“Four confirmed victims so far—two hoodlums, one guard dog, and a marketing manager from Chump’s Incorporated.”
“
From Chump’s, your partner says.” Now Riossiti actually glanced at Lap, as if something finally clicked, and for the first time I noticed he was holding a little white mouse in his right paw, stroking it madly. “Good riddance to bad meat,” he said, chuckling. “Or is that the company’s motto?” Then he looked back at me with the killstare.
“But do you see any connection?” Lap asked. “Does it mean anything to you? Do you know something about Chump’s?”
“Your partner calls me by my first name, Detective Max, as though we share an agreeable past. But does he really expect answers from me now, when he was so instrumental in my conviction?”
“I was merely asked for my opinion in court, Quentin.”
“He played a role, that’s what your partner really means.”
“I played no role. I told the truth.”
“He played his role in telling the truth—in testifying at all.”
“I know you initially alluded to some great conspiracy, but—”
“Tell your friend it doesn’t really matter,” Riossiti said to me. “Nothing really does. ‘All the world’s a pound, and all the cats and dogs merely pets.’”
Someone in one of the other cages giggled madly.
“There’s a connection to Phineas Reynard as well,” Lap went on, “whom you know personally. And perhaps with a certain boxer—a feral cat by the name of Zeus Katsopoulos. He destroyed the reigning dog champion, Rocky Cerberus, in a first-round knockout.”
But Riossiti no longer seemed to be taking it in. He stroked his little mouse and stared at me. “Tell me, Detective Max, does your back leg twitch if you get tickled under the ribs? Does the jingle of keys make you expect a walk? Did your daddy train you to cock your leg or did it come naturally? Will you vote for Brewster Goodboy even though you must know he’s a corporate stooge?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I snarled.
Riossiti smiled his stunted fangs, happy enough to rile me. “‘Roses are black, violets are white, the cat doesn’t purr and the dog doesn’t bite.’ Have you ever had your scruples so scrambled that you no longer trust your most fundamental principles, Detective Max?”
“No games,” Lap insisted. “Quentin, I ask you. If you know something about ferals or Phineas Reynard—about anything—please, say it plainly.”
“Act 3, scene 1—”
“What?”
“Act 3, scene 1, line 106, Much to Mew About Nothing. Ask your friend if he remembers it.”
Lap didn’t hesitate. “‘Some rats are killed with snares, others with sounds.’ What does that mean, Quentin? Something to do with subliminal messages, is that it?”
Riossiti grinned at me. “Tell your friend I no longer have anything left but my games. Some sell their souls, I sold my sanity. And now the only thing saving me from execution is my unpredictability—the very possibility that I might divulge something explosive. But I would hardly expect you to understand, Detective Max.” He sniggered. “‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a cat returneth to his toys.’”
I was about to give him some jawback but there was a ringing sound—our five minutes were up. And I’d sure had a gutful of Riossiti anyway. He was like a tick who’d dug into my brainpot and sucked out the sense.
“One last time, Quentin,” Lap tried. “Will you play ball? For my sake? For the sake of society?”
But Riossiti didn’t give a damn. “Your friend would condemn me to everlasting shame, Detective. But Quentin Riossiti might already be beyond that.”
The bell rang again.
And Riossiti did a strange thing. He lifted the little white mouse and—snap!—he bit off its bobble. One bite of his stunted teeth, one swallow, and the head was gone. Then he tossed the body onto the floor as blood dribbled down his furry chin. And he chuckled.
“Ding dong dill,
Pussy likes to kill.
Who made him so?
That’s for you to know.”
And like one of Phineas Reynard’s clockwork roosters he drew back into the darkness, and all that was left were his evil green peepers.
“Come with me, Detective,” Lap said, disgusted. “We’ve wasted our time. Dr. Riossiti is no longer interested in contributing to justice.”
As we went past the other cages—the other inmates were shrieking like chimps—I could feel Riossiti’s peepers burning holes in the back of my bobble. I took one last backward glance but there was no sight of him, nothing at all—the darkness was as black as his murderous cat soul.
“THAT WAS ONE sick kitty.”
Now that we were back in the Jaguar I couldn’t believe I hadn’t just rammed my fangs against his cage and scared the living worms out of him.
“You would be unwise to take Riossiti too seriously,” said Lap.
“Defending him now, are you?”
“I’m merely suggesting that he might not be quite as mad as he seems.”
“He’s a killer, ain’t he? That don’t count for madness in the cat world these days?”
“You would have to had met him in his academic days. He was brilliant and charming back then. He remains charming, in a curious way.”
“Charming like a rectal thermometer.”
“But there’s a certain method to his madness—you’ll admit that?”
“Madness is madness. You put a needle in it. You don’t give it a smack on the ribs.”
Lap shook his head. “Riossiti’s insanity, I assure you, is not somatic. If he lost control of his mind—and if he continues to promote that impression—it’s merely as a by-product of his brilliance.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
“I’m entirely serious.” We were weaving in and out of traffic on the Liberty Expressway. “Social engineering has a habit of throwing up challenging ethical dilemmas. It’s more than likely that Riossiti faced a score of them during his secretive work for the think tank. Enough, in any case, to unbalance his whole ethical framework, with devastating consequences.”
“Everything’s the government’s fault, ain’t it?”
Lap glanced at me, probably guessing that I didn’t like the government any more than he did. “Did you know, Detective, that some years ago a secret government laboratory formulated a completely safe and inexpensive formula for flea control? Something that would have negated the need for flea collars, flea powders, flea treatments—and all the associated discomforts? And yet before the formula could be properly medicated, presented to the appropriate authorities, and run through the necessary tests, it fell victim to a highly influential focus group of social engineers. And suddenly a dangerous new society was envisaged—a world in which dogs were not distracted, aggravated, and belittled by their fleas. In which they might suddenly be free to become bored, jealous, resentful, and rebellious. So it was decided, after much confidential debate, that it would be best to suppress the magical formula in order to preserve the stability of society. The fact that numerous senators had their campaigns funded by existing flea-treatment companies had, it goes without saying, no official influence on the decision.”
“You’re telling me you cats had a foolproof flea killer?” I gnashed. “And you buried it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
I shook my head. “Typical conniving cats.”
“You think so?”
“What—you defending them now?”
“I merely suggest that there is often more to social dilemmas than meets the eye. In his books Riossiti suggested that a dog’s psychology makes him happiest with a rigid hierarchical structure, a firm master, a strict routine, and carefully defined limitations. Unbalanced, bored, or spiteful, the dog can easily become depressed and angry. Is that good for society? Of course not. But is it good for the dog? Equally not, one could argue.”
“So dogs need fleas, is that what you’re saying?”
“Personally I would find the argument unsustainable. But then I was not privy to the full details. Perhaps the data was compelling. And perhaps it’s not reall
y so outrageous to suggest that we all have an appetite for aggravations, and the dog divested of his fleas is a dog who instinctively looks elsewhere for indignation. Anger management, as Riossiti himself used to say, is one of the staples of social engineering.”
For a second I remembered my own appetite for radical texts. “Well, I’m getting angry right now,” I said. “Maybe we should go back to Riossiti and argue the point jaw to jaw.”
Lap took the sweeping off-ramp into Compliance Avenue. “Whatever you make of Riossiti now—and regardless of how many he killed—I assure you he did not begin as a dog baiter. That verse of Scripture he quoted—‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a cat returneth to his toys’—is equally disparaging of both canines and felines. Is a dog that swallows its own filth any more objectionable than a cat obsessed with trinkets and manipulations? Or is it all part of a natural order, too ossified to break down? Riossiti always argued that the one psychological characteristic more developed in the cat than the dog is inquisitiveness—a pathological need to seek answers. But really, is life any more fulfilling when one is trying to find a path through a maze of unanswerable questions? Might it not be best to refrain from poking one’s nose into every room and every mysterious crevice? And stay within one’s own boundaries? It’s significant, in any case, that he changed his name to Q. Riossiti—‘Curiosity’—before he was caught by the police. Clearly he was trying to make a statement of some sort.”
“With another catty little game.”
“Virtually everything Riossiti says begs a deeper interpretation. The Shakespaw, the Scripture, the link of instinctive behavior to voting habits, the poetry…everything he said and everything he did.”
“Snapping the head off a mouse is poetry now, is it?”
“Who can say what he really meant by that? Did he kill for food or amusement? Riossiti always argued that the cat that kills for sustenance—as ferals do—is exercising a responsibility to himself. The cat that hunts for pleasure—as fat-cats do—is beneath contempt.”
The Unscratchables Page 12