The Unscratchables

by Cornelius Kane

  I shivered, because he’d hit a nerve, all right—bull terriers are prone to all sorts of complaints, the big C among them, and I knew I didn’t have enough meat tickets to cover all those bases. I still had pups to raise. And palimony payments. And Chump’s wasn’t getting any cheaper.

  Reynard reached into his riding jacket. “So why don’t we get down to business?” He pulled out a checkbook and a pheasant quill. “Where will we start? Shall we say one million?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Two million?”

  I stared at him.

  “All right, let’s make it even more—I admire hagglers.”

  And then he scratched away, tore the check neatly from its book, and pushed himself to his feet. “I won’t even make you fetch it,” he said, and came over to the bed, holding it out like a french fry.

  In a daze I took the check from his hand—it was from the Reynard Finance Corporation—and stared at the row of figures: $5,000,000. More than I’d ever dreamed of. And I heard Reynard’s voice: “Never have to beg for a scrap…never have to drink out of the gutter…never have to sleep on a busted armchair…”

  I looked up at the smiling old fox. Into his amber eyes. At his swishing tail. His tense whiskers. And I smelled something.

  Not charity. Not power. But fear.

  He was scared. He was frightened of killing me all of a sudden. Not with the murder itself, but because things had gotten out of control. Because there was a loose link in his chain somewhere. And he was trying to buy himself security.

  And with that thought came all the power I needed.

  I got to my feet, buck-naked, and stared him in the peepers. I scrunched the check into a ball. And I tossed it into my gobbler.

  “You got the power to write five-million-dollar checks,” I said, swallowing. “I got the power to blow them out my butt-hole. Which is greater, you think?”

  Reynard didn’t look surprised. Didn’t look disappointed. He simply raised his eyebrows a fraction—he was still wearing his barbed-wire smirk—and folded his checkbook into his pocket. “Ah well,” he sniffed, “no one can say I didn’t make a genuine offer.”

  I pointed to the door. “Out, fox. And take your tail with you.”

  “A mutt will always be a mutt, as they say.”

  “A fox will always be a pest.” I shoved him into the corridor, where his guards jolted awake.

  He gathered himself and narrowed his eyes. “I suppose you think populations are suppressed with infantilization, Mr. McNash—is that what Dr. Riossiti told you? Nothing of the sort. They suppress themselves. With consumerism. With tribalism. With patriotism. And we in the media, far from being villains, are merely taking the edge off an insatiable hunger. Because if we didn’t do it then someone truly dangerous—some dictator—surely would.” He shook his head. “But clearly you don’t deserve five million dollars, Mr. McNash, you’ve proved that now. You don’t even deserve the paper it was written on.”

  “I’ll send it back when it comes out the other end.”

  He tightened his foxgloves. “I hope you enjoy the show, in any case.”

  “Show?”

  “There’s to be a little fireworks display tonight. You should be able to view it from your window.”

  “Democracy Day? I already seen it.”

  “In Kathattan, I mean. It should start any moment.” He tapped his cane to his forehead. “Cheerio, then—it was a pleasure doing insults with you.”

  “It was a pleasure banging the door on your snout.”

  I slammed the swinger shut—there was a dull clunk—and when I opened it again Reynard had his sniffer in his paws.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I must’ve got ahead of myself.”

  When he roared off in his Fuchswagen I was already at the window. The lights of Kathattan were blazing in the distance. I looked for Lap’s building—Imperial Heights, he’d called it—and there it was, the giant ziggurat on the riverfront. I wondered what he’d say if he knew I’d just been yapping with Phineas Reynard. I wondered when he’d get back. And I wondered when the fireworks would start.

  But then, as if on cue, there was a sudden flash at the side of Lap’s building. A huge blossom of flame. Then, a few seconds later, the boom of an explosion rattled the In-Season’s windows.

  My hair immediately went stiff. My jaw locked.

  I was out the door so fast I forgot to put on my clothes.

  I HIT THE ground running on all fours. I ran like a bunny-chaser. I tore divots out of the sidewalk. I ran between tooters. I sprang over fences. My pumper was jackhammering. My windbag was working like bellows. My licker was flapping like a pennant.

  At the Amity Bridge the black-and-tan mastiffs tried to stop me—I leapt over the boom gate and powered on. I jumped kelpielike from tooter to tooter. I bounded across the top of a semitrailer and speared over the last checkpoint into Kathattan. And I kept charging.

  It was early morning. Sticky piles of the Scratching Post were getting dumped on the sidewalk. Dog street sweepers and garbage hounds were gathering up the night’s kitty litter. Fat-cats in pinstripe suits were arriving at work. Kittens were getting dropped off at school. When they saw me they parted like seagulls. Some hunched up and hissed. Others jumped onto fences and scurried down driveways. A few covered their eyes. One cool cat laughed and cried, “Go, Hotdog, go!”

  I ran down Sultan Street, Pharaoh Street, the Avenue of the Kings. When I reached Imperial Heights I was puffing like a steam engine. I could see fire trucks with huge ladders. There was a massive hole where an apartment used to be. Flames were licking up the side of the building. I could just make out the cats crowded onto ledges, many still in their pajamas. Some were clawing their way down the side of the building. Others were throwing themselves onto nets. A couple missed the nets, picked themselves off the sidewalk, looked left and right, and slinked away like nothing had ever happened.

  There was a huge crowd of curious onlookers blocking the street. I was about to bite and bark my way through when I heard a high-pitched whistle. I looked around, up and down, heard a stage whisper—“Here, boy”—and finally located a Jaguar at the curb. The passenger door was wide open. In the driver’s seat was Cassius Lap.

  My pumper fluttered like dragonfly wings. I sprang into the tooter and had to stop myself from licking his face. He was alive. Cassius Lap was alive. My whole body wagged and trembled.

  “I was lucky,” he said, already launching into traffic and curling around some meat wagons, “though someone else, regrettably, was not.”

  I caught my breath. “What…what happened?”

  “I called ahead to have a fresh suit laid out in my apartment. So it must have been some unfortunate cat from Laundry who triggered the explosive meant for me.”

  “Who did it?” I asked. “Carlos?”

  “Or those behind him.”

  “Reynard,” I said, thinking of the In-Season. “So they think you’re dead now?”

  “For a while at least. I was hoping to spot someone at Imperial Heights trying to verify my demise.” He glanced at me. “But then a naked dog showed up.”

  I settled back in the seat, sniggering. “Where to now?”

  He took a hard left. “Where I always meant to go—my sire’s place. And from there, well, it’s time to take full advantage of my regrettable death.”

  On the far side of town he steered his Jaguar down a back alley and hid it behind some junglelike ferns. We squeezed through a cat-flap into the back entrance of a luxurious old tenement. As we climbed the carpeted stairs a ’wower maid yelped and dropped her bundle. I fell to all fours to hide my little tickler.

  On the third floor Lap pressed a door dinger and a spyhole flickered. An owlish old Siamese in a tweed jacket and bow tie opened the door and surveyed us.

  “Cassius, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  “You, too, Sire.”

  “How is that investigation proceeding?”

  “It’s precisely what I�
�m here to see you about. May we come in?”

  “You may.”

  It was a typical feline exchange, warm as overnight frost. As we moved into the place the two of them curled around each other, bumping hips, and the senior cat—he looked at least four years older than his son—took Lap aside.

  “Son, how many times have I warned you about bringing dogs off the street?”

  “Notwithstanding his appearance,” Lap smiled, “this is no ordinary mongrel. It is in fact my partner in the investigation, Detective Max McNash of the Slaughter Unit.”

  “From the murder case?”

  “That’s me,” I said, getting to my hind legs.

  Lap Senior looked at me with sudden respect. “I’ve heard about you, Detective, of course. Your courage and tenacity precede you. You’re welcome to make yourself at home, as long as you don’t roll on the rug.”

  Lap said, “Our first priority is to change into something more fitting, Sire. Then we’ll explain everything.”

  It was a cozy place full of antique furniture and cream-white carpets. Everything smelled of polish and wax. In a little chamber filled with trophies for harp playing and wood engraving—I guessed it was his old floproom—Lap slid open a wall closet filled with suits of panther-black.

  “I was smaller and plumper in my youth,” he said, selecting one off the rack. “I hope it fits you.”

  “I’ll make it fit.”

  “As for me, I’ll be in the next room for a quick spitgroom. If you find any cat hair on your suit, there’s a bristle brush in the en suite.”

  I wasn’t sure what an en suite looked like, so I just slid into Lap’s mothball-smelling suit, laced up some shoes, and admired myself in a full-length mirror. The jacket was a bit tight at the chest, and I had to loosen the collar a bit, but all in all it felt like a second coat. In the bathroom, I found all sorts of shampoos, brushes, nail clippers, and fancy bottles of scent. I knotted a black tie, dampened my sniffer, and rolled some lynx juice into my sweatpits. In the corner was a funny-looking drinking bowl with a flip-top lid—I took a slurp of the blue-tinted water and went into the courtyard to drain myself against a tree.

  When I got back inside I was surprised to find that Chief Kaiser Kessler had arrived, and was bowwowing gravely with the two Laps.

  “I HAVEN’T LIKED it from the start.”

  Sitting on the spotless Naugahyde sofa in his cuff-bitten blue uniform, the chief didn’t seem any more comfortable than I did. He was droopy-flewed and baggy-eyed, like he hadn’t been snoozing well, and even from halfway across the room his breath would turn milk into yogurt. “The constant pressure from higher up,” he said. “The veiled threats. The crazy accusations. The sense of panic—you could smell it—and the desperate lies.”

  He wasn’t looking at me when he said all this, and this was no time to remind him that he’d been half a second away from selling out on Lap—that he’d been virtually begging me to make that call. But I couldn’t blame him. With so much sewage flying around, he’d probably felt as buried in doodah as I did.

  “But then, just a few hours ago, I overheard Agent MacFluff mewing in one of the grill rooms, not realizing the intercom was still on. He told Officer Borzoi that he didn’t have the permission to make his own kills. He said Lap and McNash—I heard those two names clearly—would be taken care of by professionals, not by him.” And now the chief managed a hangdog glance at both of us, maybe to assure himself we were still alive. “He even mentioned Carlos the Jackal. And something called ‘Operation Pooper Scooper.’”

  “Did he actually use those words?” Lap asked.

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “It’s the ultimate form of disposal. The most serious and the most ruthless. Elimination of not just individuals with direct knowledge of the conspiracy, but of all those immediately connected to them.”

  “Which includes me,” his sire added. “And you, Chief. It’s a real plop-and-drop operation.”

  “And further evidence,” his son went on, “that the thread these murders have unraveled is connected to a much larger, even more sinister tapestry. Are you married, Chief?”

  “With a fresh litter.”

  “Then you should make moves to protect your family immediately.”

  “They’re already guarded day and night.”

  “It might not be sufficient. We’re dealing with map-room fanatics here—the most ruthless ideologues of all. They kill with winks and twitches. They protect themselves with mazes of paper and fortresses of denial. They never see a kennel, let alone the Kennels. And what are the lives of a few unseen dogs to such types? What about you, Detective?” Lap looked at me. “I seem to remember from your file that you have a litter of your own?”

  “Four mongrels and a bitch.”

  “Then they’ll need to be hidden as well.”

  “I’ll get them safe,” I said, thinking of Spike’s little fortress. “But what about your own family?”

  Lap stiffened. “Since the passing of Cuddles,” he said, “there’s only my sire and myself left.”

  “My own queen”—the father gestured to the mantelpiece, where a tortoiseshell Cymric was stuffed and mounted above the fireplace—“passed away two years ago, after swallowing a snail pellet.”

  “Which at least,” offered his son, “allows us to concentrate on the safety of others.”

  “Such as the feral himself,” his father added. “We should never forget he’s a citizen, too, with as many rights as anyone else, and a victim of manipulating forces.”

  “Plus, as our principal source of evidence, he remains the most at danger.”

  The chief spoke up. “MacFluff has called in the CAT Squad, you know. And he’s made it clear the feral is to be shot on sight. No arguments. He’s even got a written order from the governor.”

  Lap grunted. “Do they have any idea where the feral currently hides?”

  “They’re concentrating on the Flatear District, exactly as you directed.”

  “Which is where we might be in luck. Because when I plotted out the feral’s most likely course I neglected one important factor, something that appeared in no survey map—the Cradles. And with the Flatear District already marked territorially, as it were, by waste dropped from above, the feral will most likely change course to avoid that region entirely. In fact, his appearance at Reynard Studios already gives an indication that he might be bending north.”

  “So they’re looking in the wrong district?”

  “They might be, but Carlos the Jackal might not. And Carlos, in his own way, is even more effective at hunting targets than the CAT Squad.”

  “What about Riossiti?”

  “What about him?”

  The chief told him about Riossiti’s escape from Cattica.

  “Interesting,” Lap said coolly. “Quentin must have known all along that he’d be signing his own death warrant—simply by speaking to us at all.”

  “It doesn’t worry you that he might be pursuing you right now?”

  “Riossiti will be unpredictable till the last, but I’m confident he won’t kill us. In fact, his escape might well work in our favor. Another dangerous cat on the streets—another loose cannon—makes two mouths that will need to be silenced. And a possible distraction for Carlos, who’ll no doubt be ordered to shoot them both.”

  I sniggered. “Kitty kitty bang bang?”

  “But where it leaves us,” Lap went on, ignoring me, “is in direct conflict with the official investigation. Completely at odds with it, in fact. An obstacle to its objectives. And working to an entirely different aim.”

  “Above the law?” the chief asked.

  “Outside the law, if necessary.” Lap stretched his neck. “It’s not something that makes me feel comfortable.”

  “It need not be unethical,” the older Lap argued. “I can even make it legal. For a start, I can authorize an independent investigation—one totally removed from external influences. And together with my trusted contacts at t
he CIA, and the Department of Order and Discipline for that matter, I can give it deep resources and far-reaching powers.”

  “And I can supply information as it comes in,” the chief chipped in, “by secret line, if necessary.”

  “Then it’s settled,” said Cassius Lap, turning to me. “Detective McNash, we’ll have to go back into the Kennels again. To catch and rescue a killer cat. We’ll be alone. We’ll be up against hired killers. Against immensely powerful forces with flush-button ethics. We’ll have nothing on our side but our brains, our brawn, and our total incorruptibility. So I must ask you again…are you willing to join me? Are you willing to stand by my side, whisker to whisker?”

  It was a boneheaded question, and Lap knew it, but I took my time anyway, feeling the hope of everyone present: Lap One, Lap Two, the chief, even the stuffed mother on the shelf. I was aware that I was in a black cat suit. In a cozy cathouse. And that I owed my life to a cat. The irony was just chicken-delicious. Hours ago I’d wanted to give Lap a deathshake. Now we were inseparable. We were Truth’s only hope. We were the Unscratchables.

  I sprang off the sofa. “Let’s scat, cat.”

  I was pawing at the door before Lap had even got to his feet.

  IT’S TRUE I’M old-fashioned, but when it comes to pups—even my own—I reckon they should be smelled and not heard. I licked them when they were born; I let them nip at my ears; I showed them how to mark a tree; I even let them chase me in the park. I never bit them. I never gobbled their food. But my ex was always snarling that I was a lousy father. Not nurturing enough, she growled. Not attentive. She said I couldn’t even remember their birthday. The snapping point came one day when I tied them to a post outside a bar while I ducked inside for a quick bite. When I came out, clutching a bag of scraps to toss to them, she was already standing there with lips curled. The marriage ended two weeks later.

  Lousy or not, I had the pups at the front of my brainpot now as we crossed from Kathattan into the Kennels on the monorail. We were in a two-seat boxcar, sailing over the Old Yeller River. We’d already breezed through the outward checkpoint using some hastily cooked-up tags—Rusty Brown and Tom Katt—and now we were in sight of the Cradles, our secret hatchway to the Kennels below. And I had no time to be nervous.