“Frisbees and biscuits,” Lap muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I had my Schnauzer .44 drawn and was too distracted for yapping. We were taking tight deer-stalking steps into the misty grounds, eyes shifting, sniffers twitching, ears swiveling—ready for the slightest sign of movement. Near the back fence there was a clump of gray-blue hair. Lap picked it up with tweezers and gave it a sniff.
“Feral,” he said. “Probably got snagged on the barbed wire. Let’s follow the trail before the Sensory Investigation team arrives.”
“Not in on the conspiracy, too, are they?”
Lap sealed the hair in a snaptooth bag. “It only takes one.”
But suddenly there was a yelp and a crashing sound from the side.
I froze, fur tingling. I looked at Lap and jerked my head. We fanned out and closed in.
The sound had come from between the fence and the old Freak Show, tattered canvas rolls still advertising the Three-Legged Dog, the Bearded Collie, the Forty-Pound Cat. I crept along the side of the building, stepping over a dead squirrel. I counted to twenty, steeled myself for action, and was just about to swing round the corner when there was a yowl and a flurry of movement—Lap, fang him, had got there first.
But the critter was too fast for him.
Something shot out right in front of me—a brindle blur, smaller than I expected—and I didn’t wait. I pounced, grabbed fabric between my front teeth, and snapped him back, hurling him against the tin wall and ramming my Schnauzer into his snout.
“Freeze, maggot!”
“Don’t shoot, Crusher!”
It was Nipper Sweeney.
But my pumper was still pounding, my hair was still standing on end. So I thumped him with my chest, just to teach him a lesson.
“What’re you doing here, you son of a bitch!”
“I needed to see you, Crusher!” He looked sapped and dry-tongued, like he’d been running all day. “To speak to you!”
“About your job? I heard all about that, scumlicker!”
He was panting. “What—what’ve you heard?”
I lowered my gun. “What’s there to say? Phineas Reynard showed you the door for bad reporting.”
“There’s more to it than that, Crusher, much more!” But now Nipper gulped and looked sideways, because Lap had arrived.
“You can speak in front of him,” I said.
“Gee, Crusher, I don’t—”
“Quit whimpering and start yapping!” I said—I almost chested him again.
He swallowed drool, caught his breath. “It’s like this—”
“I’m listening.”
“There was a story I was covering—two years ago, it was—about a couple of ferals living on the outskirts of San Bernardo, half in the woods, half in the ’burbs—”
“On the streets?” Lap asked, stepping forward.
Nipper still looked like he didn’t trust the cat, so I shook him again. “Keep it coming!”
“They were roof dancing,” he said. “Leaping from warehouse to warehouse—catching birds—jumping down to snatch things, then scampering away.”
“Urbanized ferals,” Lap said, nodding. “That explains our killer’s adeptness.”
“I went out to interview the locals…the cats were making a lot of trouble, and a vigilante pack was forming to catch them…but suddenly they just disappeared—no sign of them anywhere—and my report disappeared, too, never published or seen again!”
I felt something sting the back of my skull—I couldn’t explain it.
“Phineas Reynard ordered the story suppressed?” Lap asked.
Nipper looked at him hopefully. “All I know is I went looking for those files yesterday, when I heard the killer might be a feral…but I found nothing, no trace—then I got whistled into the editor’s office, and I got told I was no longer required—me, an award-winning newshound!”
“No explanation?” I asked.
“Not a thing!”
“Then you still might be able to help us,” Lap said. “The names of the ferals—did you find out what they were called?”
Nipper nodded. “The locals called the smaller one ‘Kitty.’ The bigger one they called ‘the Cat.’”
“But their real names, did you ever discover their real names?”
“Their real names were—”
But at just that moment a bullet hole the size of a kebab opened up in the side of the newshound’s skull. His eyes spun, his tongue rolled out like a party favor, and he keeled over like a top-heavy trash can.
Nipper Sweeney had been nipped.
“DUCK!” HISSED LAP, and Nipper rolled over, dead, as another bullet whanged off the steel wall.
I looked up as I hit the ground, fixing eyes on a shadowy figure high up on the roof of the Stink Palace. I saw an assassin’s rifle, a huge silencer, and the dark shape of the shooter himself. Then another puff of smoke as he fired again.
But I wasn’t going to be picked off like a sideshow duck—bullies never die without a fight. So I launched from the ground and started plowing through mist. I ran over broken glass. I ripped up broken cement. I was moving so fast that when I reached the palace I had no time to pull up—I bounced off the wall like a medicine ball. I found a rickety old staircase and bounded up three steps at a time.
But when I got to the roof the assassin had already disappeared. There were only spent cartridges, a doormat to rest on, and the smell of something—deserts, prairies, carrion. I looked back into the park, where Lap was bending over Nipper, then the other way, into a vacant riverside lot, where there was a cloud of dust as something tawny and bushy-tailed blurred through the tangled weeds and tooter wrecks.
It was a twenty-foot drop. With no blankets to soften the fall. But I didn’t hesitate. I was a dog-soldier again.
As soon as I hit the ground I did a commando roll and was on my feet before I had a chance to register pain. The assassin was loping through the mist. I dragged my Schnauzer out and woofed off a couple of shots. There was a blast of bristle at his shoulder—I think I hit him—but then he curled around a shed and disappeared.
I ran to the corner and did a quick scope and sniff. The place was a maze of deserted storehouses and cinder-block offices. Thistles. Rusty machinery. Broken windows. It was like I was back in the bombed-out cities of Siam. Only now I was chasing, not fleeing.
I rolled into open space and sprang to my feet with gun drawn. Nothing anywhere. I rolled for cover, sharpening my ears, but all I could hear was a barge horn from the river. Hugging a brick wall, I ran with my snout close to the ground, trying to pick up a scent, a blood trail—anything.
Behind an old boiler a couple of no-good whelps were chewing some grass—I nearly scared the ticks off them.
“See anybody run past?” I cried.
“Dunno, you haven’t run past yet,” they said, higher than a Soviet spacedog.
I poked my sniffer under every sheet of tin and every wall crack but all I got was spiderwebs in my nostrils. I crept along the side of an empty warehouse, shooting glances in every direction, and finally got a glimpse of something.
Distorted in a bent windowpane was the reflection of someone aiming something from a tripod. He was on the east side of the warehouse and seemed to be waiting for me. But I was too quick for him.
I ducked behind the building and circled it from the west, picking my way over rusty metal and old nails. My gun was cocked and loaded. My teeth were clenched. I reached the corner.
I sprang into open space.
“Freeze, cockroach!”
It was a pointy-eared Laika. He started to shrink away so I leapt forward, hurling him behind an old generator and pinning him in place.
“Who are you?” I barked, ramming my Schnauzer under his chin.
“I’ve done nothing wrong!” he squealed. “This is police intimidation!”
“Just answer the question!”
“I’m from the PPU!”
&nbs
p; “The PPU?”
“The Party of the Perpet—”
“I know what it is! Why’d you shoot at me?”
“I didn’t shoot at anyone! I’m only taking photographs!”
“Photographs?” I looked back at the tripod, saw he had a camera mounted on it—not a rifle at all.
“Haven’t you heard?” he said. “They’re gonna raze this whole area. They’re gonna—”
“Who’s gonna?”
“The Reynard Corporation. And the government. They’re gonna build a giant casino here—Babylon Towers—a hundred and fifty stories high. The top floors connected to Kathattan by closed bridges and—”
I shook him again. “You seen anyone else pass through here, someone wounded maybe—”
But even as I said it there was a splash somewhere—the river. I flung the Laika away and raced through the mist, gun drawn. There were footprints in the mud. Droplets of blood on the reeds. I squinted and saw a rusty barge churning through the muddy waters. I looked back to the surface, waiting for something to pop up. But I didn’t see him until it was too late.
In the blink of an eye he was dragged aboard the barge, dripping and smiling, still clutching his assassin’s rifle. He flopped onto the deck and got to his feet, ducking into the cabin at once.
But not before he’d looked my way with those sparkling peepers. Not before I recognized him—those donkey ears, that pointy snout—from the newsrag headlines.
The most famous assassin in the world.
Carlos the Jackal.
Then the barge was throbbing down the Old Yeller to safety, melting like dogbreath into the mist.
I LIMPED BACK to Wagtail Park. The gates were open and the SI boys had flooded in. Nipper Sweeney was getting a chalk outline like a cheap cartoon. Lap was conferring with the chief.
“What’s that on your collar?” the chief asked.
I put a paw to my neck and it came away red. “A wound.”
Lap examined the back of my head. “Bullet strike. It bounced off your skull.”
“The first shot,” I said, suddenly remembering the sting. “I must’ve got in the way of Nipper.”
“Or perhaps not,” Lap said. “More likely you’re lucky to be alive.” He held up a compacted slug. “One of the assassin’s bullets—possibly the very one that struck you. You’ll need to verify this with ballistics, but I feel confident in identifying this as a modified .338 Lapua case—a ‘wildcat.’ And there’s only one assassin in the world who uses such ammunition.”
I nodded, remembering the look he gave me from the barge. “The Jackal,” I said. “He slipped away from me…just.”
Lap nodded grimly. “Carlos the Jackal is good at that. But his mere presence here is proof that our foes are getting extremely serious.” He looked at the chief. “Can we discuss this privately?”
A couple of cops were circling around. Bud Borzoi kept glancing our way like he was waiting for a morsel.
“In here,” said the chief, and the three of us shifted deep into the half-collapsed Hall of Mirrors. “What’s on your mind?”
Lap rolled his shoulders and spoke in an undertone. “Unless I’m terribly mistaken Carlos the Jackal’s principal mission is to take out the Cat—the rogue feral that Mr. Sweeney told us about. The report of Jack Russell Crowe’s death would have alerted him to the killer’s whereabouts. But at the same time those shots at Sweeney and at us were no accidents. This is simultaneously a sinister and a very encouraging development.”
“I don’t follow,” the chief said, frowning. “You’re happy to be shot at?”
“Someone must know we’re getting close. And they’ll stop at nothing—certainly not lives—to conceal their secrets. But at least one of those secrets is now becoming clear. The feral has been specifically trained to attack dogs. As a means of showing dogs just who’s in charge.”
“You show dogs who’s in charge by killing them?”
“By thumping them. In the boxing ring. Part of a much larger tapestry of social engineering, all carefully timed and calibrated to coincide with President Goodboy’s election campaign.”
“To make dogs vote for Goodboy?”
“The proxy cat candidate, yes.”
The chief still didn’t look convinced. “Got any evidence of this?”
Lap’s whiskers tightened. “You’ll have to trust me, Chief—and I take no pleasure in revealing this—but such conspiracies have been common currency in Kathattan for some time now. The efforts of many, including Humphrey MacFluff, to conceal the truth have been extremely effective. But now we might be on the cusp of something truly explosive. The commissioning of Carlos the Jackal only confirms my suspicions. This goes right up the chain.”
“To where?”
But suddenly there was a burst of harp music as Lap’s pocket jangler played a little tune. He flipped it open, looked at us apologetically, and slunk off to the side, deep into the maze of broken mirrors, to answer in private. The chief took the opportunity to speak to me in a whisper.
“Are you willing to stick with him?”
“How’s that, Chief?”
“Now that your life’s in serious danger?”
“Takes more than bullets to put down Crusher McNash,” I said. “But I don’t get you. Two hours ago you wanted me to throw him to the wolves.”
The chief shifted, put his back to the cat, and spoke without moving his lips. “Just before I left I got some more information. Seems this Lap”—he nodded backward—“has a very shady past. Case tampering. Fabricating evidence. Cooking up conspiracy theories. Not to mention a lot of bad blood at the FBI.”
“But he spoke of some top cat there…and somebody else at the CIA…said he’d trust them with his life.”
“Both those cats are as bent as a T-bone.”
“Says who?”
“Says the governor himself—he was the one who jangled me.”
I looked at Lap, reflected back at me in a hundred busted and distorted reflections—a whole clowder of Laps. He was muttering into his jangler but he was looking straight at me, two hundred unblinking cat eyes—and then one of his ears turned, like he was listening in as well.
I swallowed. “So this whole investigation—?”
“Could be a means of leading everybody astray. So certain parties can be captured and silenced. Did you see any of the assassin’s bullets go near him?”
“You’re not saying he’s tied up with Carlos the Jackal?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, McNash. I honestly don’t know what to believe.”
It seemed like this might be exactly what Lap had been warning about—a spiderweb of lies fanning out to wrap him up like a fly. Or, then again, maybe I was the one who was being wrapped up—by Lap himself. I felt the blood wet and sticky on my collar.
“What about MacFluff?” I whispered.
“Already on his way.”
“You opened the door?”
“It’s the only thing I could do. But I don’t want Lap to know just yet. So are you willing to keep an eye on him until I get a better idea of what’s going on? Even at risk of your life?”
I was about to answer when Lap returned, snapping his jangler shut. “That was Cattica Correctional Facility. Quentin Riossiti has agreed to talk, just as I predicted. This could be exactly the break we’ve been hoping for. Chief,” he said, “may I borrow an impounding wagon?”
The chief stiffened. “Of course.”
“And Detective McNash”—he looked at me—“are you ready to come with me again? ‘Once more into the pit’?”
I glanced at the chief and I glanced at Lap—his icy blue eyes, daring me to run and hide.
Once more into the pit…
“Course,” I said hoarsely. “I’m in this to the end.”
But whose end that was I suddenly wasn’t sure.
“THIS IS MOST undignified.”
“Can it, chipmunk.”
“There’s not enough room to swing a leg in this thing.�
��
“Be even less room if I get my jaw in there.”
“Would you really care to join me, Detective?”
I felt a cold shudder. “Just can it.”
We were in the impounding wagon, me at the wheel with Lap in the passenger seat. In the back, behind the security bars, was the carry-box containing Quentin Riossiti, mass murderer, his evil mug all that was showing behind the little grille. He kept running his pink licker over his filed-down fangs—I was watching him in the mirror—but whether this was because he was hungry or because he had something else in mind I didn’t care to guess.
It was mid-evening. We were heading into Kathattan. To a fancy French muncherie, La Plume du Poisson—“The Feather of the Fish.” It was a trade-off—fancy meal for info—but I didn’t feel waggy about it. I still wasn’t sure about Lap. I couldn’t even be sure, after what the chief had told me, that the Siamese wasn’t in cahoots with Riossiti—that the two of them weren’t planning to team up on me, cut out my pumper, fry it like a trout, and gobble it down with a twist of lemon. Just the thought made me feel like I’d swallowed a canful of maggots. So I just kept driving, into the night, into the fog.
“I was hoping for a more civilized evening,” Riossiti said. “This could well be my last meal.”
“Why last, Quentin?” Lap asked.
Riossiti looked at me in the mirror. “Surely I don’t need to tell your partner why?”
“We’re not doing this for personal amusement,” Lap told him. “You’ll need to tell us eventually.”
“Ask your friend if he remembers Oldfellow, act 2, scene 2, line 376.”
Lap didn’t even miss a beat. “‘How pained are those that have not patience! What wound was ever licked but by degrees?’ What does that mean, Quentin?”
“I reveal no explanations on an empty stomach.”
“Just shut your maw,” I snapped, tilting the mirror so I couldn’t even see him by accident.
The Unscratchables Page 14