by Nic Saint
“Marlene?” he said, the moment Jerry’s ex-wife picked up with a melodious, ‘This is Marlene, and who are you?’ “It’s Johnny. Johnny Carew.”
“Oh, it’s you,” said Marlene, not exactly sounding over the moon with joy.
“Yeah, it’s me. Listen, Marlene, Jerry and I are back in the country.”
“I didn’t even know you were out of the country.”
“Ha ha. Still as funny as ever. Listen, Jerry and I have joined Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
“You did what now?”
“They were the only ones prepared to let us do our community service.”
“I should have known. What did you do this time? Rob a bank?”
“How did you know?”
“Oh, Johnny,” Marlene sighed.
“Listen, Jerry wants to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Yeah, but he’s found religion, see. He’s a changed man, Marlene. A religious man, if you see what I mean.”
“Tell him he still owes me six months’ worth of alimony.”
It didn’t really sound encouraging, but Johnny was an eternal optimist, who believed in the essential goodness of all people. So he handed the phone to his friend. “She’s very eager to talk to you, Jer,” he said, adding a little fib to the mix, just to keep the ball rolling.
Jerry’s little face lit up like a Christmas tree as he eagerly grabbed the phone. “Marlene?” he bleated. “It’s Jerry!” He paused for a moment, then cried, “Marlene?” He glanced up at Johnny, his face falling. “She hung up on me. She actually hung up on me.”
Johnny listened for a moment, then bellowed, “Marlene?” When no response came, he had to concede that Jerry had a point. “Must be a bad connection,” he said. “We’re probably too far from the nearest cell tower. Lemme give it another shot.”
But Jerry made a throwaway gesture with his hand. “Nah. Don’t bother. Obviously she’s still mad at me for landing my ass in prison again.”
Johnny placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezed, causing Jerry to wince. “Don’t give up, Jer. Marlene will come around, I just know she will. You just have to keep to the straight and narrow and all will be well. Just you wait and see.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Jerry dejectedly, and followed his friend to the next house, where they proceeded to try and interest a pensioner in the word of Jesus.
17
“What do you want?” asked Charlene, as her hands were tied behind her back and her ankles to the legs of her chair.
“Where is it?” asked the guy again. He was waving some sort of gun in her face, and as far as she could ascertain it looked real enough.
“Where is what?”
“The collection of gold coins,” said the guy.
Charlene bit her lower lip. Of course. She should have known that those gold coins would lure the unsavory element to her office at some point. When her predecessor had shown her the coins with a sense of pride, he’d advised her to transfer them to a safe place, something he felt he should have done a long time ago. So she had a safe installed only the week before, and had transferred the coins to the safe, figuring it was safe there.
The gold coins had once been donated to the town by the Duke of Middleforth, an English nobleman, whose life had been saved by local fishermen when his yacht had gotten in trouble off the coast of Hampton Cove. As a token of his appreciation the Duke had awarded the town with the coins, bearing his likeness. They’d been worth a great deal of money at the time and now, after nine decades had passed, even more, due to inflation and the particular history related to them.
Charlene gestured with her head to the other side of her office, where a wood-paneled wall hid a door into a secret room. “They’re in the safe,” she said.
“Combination,” barked the gangster.
“1234,” said Charlene, a little shamefacedly. She hadn’t gotten round to changing the factory-installed code yet. Not that it mattered now.
The crook immediately walked over to the panel and opened it, drawing a surprised gasp from Charlene. Obviously these gangsters were well informed, if they knew the location of the secret room. The crook strode inside. His colleague, meanwhile, kept an eye on the Mayor, telling her not to try any funny business.
She glanced at the door of her office, hoping someone would walk in and notify the police. But the crooks had probably locked the door from the inside.
Very brazen, she thought, to rob the mayor in broad daylight. And she wondered how they thought they’d get away with it.
Moments later, the gangster returned from the secret room.
“Did you find them?” asked his colleague, waving a gun in the vicinity of Charlene’s ear.
“Yup. All good,” said the guy. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You won’t get far, you know,” said Charlene. “So you better give up while you still can.”
“Oh, be quiet, Madam Mayor,” said the tallest of the two, and then pulled a bag over her head. She listened intently, and heard the two men conduct a short whispered conversation, then open the door of her office and walk out.
She wriggled against her restraints but it was no good. They’d tied her up pretty good. And with a sigh, she settled back, hoping someone would walk in and find her.
Alec Lip had been trying Charlene’s phone for the past fifteen minutes but for some reason his call kept going to voicemail. She simply wasn’t picking up and he was starting to get worried. Had he upset her in some way? He didn’t think so. Being in a relationship was a new thing for him, since being widowed fifteen years before, and sometimes he felt a little out of his depth.
Though Charlene made things really easy for him. She had a good heart and a great sense of humor and everything simply flowed when they were together. In fact it was if they’d known each other forever, and every day he felt blessed they’d met.
And now this. She’d never ignored his calls before. Even if she was busy doing whatever politicians did, she took the time to send him a message. So this radio silence took him by surprise.
He’d glanced in the direction of her office a couple of times but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Often when he called she would appear in her office window and give him a wave. And he kept expecting her fair-haired head to appear but so far nothing.
After fretting for a while, he decided to call her secretary and ask her if Madam Mayor was busy. Normally he would never do that, but he was getting anxious and more than a little antsy. If she was breaking up with him, better he find out sooner rather than later.
“Um, hi, Imelda,” he said when Charlene’s secretary picked up. “Do you have any idea if Madam Mayor is busy at the moment. It’s just that… I’ve been trying to reach her about, um, something important—police business, you know—and she’s not picking up.”
“Well, she did have two visitors just now,” said Imelda. “But they left ten minutes ago, so she should be free. Do you want me to go check?”
“Yeah, could you?” He felt increasingly silly now, like a schoolboy with a crush, asking a girl’s parent to see why she wasn’t answering his calls.
For a moment, there was only Tony Bennett crooning about a cold, cold heart, which was exactly how Alec’s own heart was feeling, then Imelda was back. This time she didn’t sound quite so sanguine. “Get over here, Chief. Get over here quick. Charlene—she was robbed! Robbed at gunpoint!”
Alec’s heart skipped several beats as the blood drained from his face. Within seconds he was out of his chair, out of his office, and running as if his life depended on it.
18
There are moments in a cat’s life that stay with him for the rest of his days. I’m sure it’s the same for humans. Everyone knows where they were when JR was shot—at least if you were alive and old enough to be glued to the screen in the eighties. And of course everyone remembers when John Travolta finally ditched his toupee. And it was just such a moment when Odelia r
eceived that call.
I remember she picked up and her jaw actually dropped. Now I know fiction writers mention dropping jaws all the time, but how many times have you actually seen a jaw drop in real life? It’s a tough proposition, and would probably require a trip to the ER.
Well, I can now say that I’m the rare witness of an actual jaw-dropping event.
“Wait, what?” she cried.
We were in the car, on our way to Odelia’s office where she was going to start compiling her notes on the crime wave that was sweeping Hampton Cove, and more in particular Ida Baumgartner’s stolen Picasso, bought for her by her husband, inventor of the world’s first laser-beam vacuum cleaner.
“I’m on my way,” Odelia said, once she’d reeled in her jaw sufficiently to allow for speech. And to show us she meant what she said, she put down her phone, started up her car and was racing off at a respectable rate of speed, causing Dooley and me to tumble back against the backseat.
“What’s going on?” I asked, once I’d ascertained whether all of my limbs were still attached to their parent body.
“Charlene has just been robbed at gunpoint,” said Odelia. “And the town’s gold coin collection has been stolen.”
“I didn’t even know the town had a gold coin collection,” I said, much surprised.
“Well, it did—only now it doesn’t,” said Odelia, and I could see her point.
She was focusing on the road and applying her foot to the accelerator in a way that would probably be frowned upon by the local authorities if the local authorities hadn’t been busy with this spectacular denouement.
“Is she all right?” I asked. “Charlene, I mean. She wasn’t hurt by these attackers, was she?”
“She’s shaken but otherwise fine,” said Odelia in clipped tones, indicating the events that had unfolded at Town Hall had not only shaken Charlene but Odelia, too.
“Why does a town need a collection of coins, Max?” asked Dooley.
“Gold is usually considered a sound investment,” I ventured. “Probably the folks that run this town have chosen to invest their money wisely.” In other words: I had no idea why Hampton Cove’s founding fathers would have chosen to acquire a set of gold coins.
“The coins were a gift from a duke,” Odelia explained. “Once upon a time, in the nineteen-thirties if I’m not mistaken, a local fisherman saved this duke’s life when his boat had hit some rough weather off the coast of Hampton Cove. To show his gratitude he donated a set of gold coins with his likeness to the town the fisherman hailed from.”
“They must be worth a lot,” I said, imagining large gleaming plaques of gold, now in the hands of a couple of dastardly thieves.
“Yeah, I guess they are,” said Odelia. We’d arrived at destination’s end and got out, Odelia hurrying to the entrance, where already several police vehicles stood trundling.
“I thought half the police force were on holiday?” I said as I watched a couple of cops milling about.
“This must be the other half,” Dooley suggested astutely.
Once inside, we hurried after Odelia, who was setting a brisk pace, causing us to have to switch into higher gear. So by the time we arrived at the mayor’s office, I was already panting, my short legs not exactly fit for short sprints—or long ones, for that matter.
The office of the town’s mayor is a very large and spacious one, located on the second floor of Town Hall. Its large windows offer a nice view of the town square, and even the police station, which made me wonder why the police officers had all thought it necessary to drive there, as they could just as well have walked.
Charlene Butterwick, our mayor, looked not only shaken but also stirred, like a freshly poured Martini, and was surrounded by the cream of Hampton Cove’s police crop: Uncle Alec was there, of course, but also Chase Kingsley, and several others.
Charlene’s secretary was also there, a heavyset woman with a kindly demeanor who now looked as shaken and stirred as the Mayor herself.
“If only I’d known!” she cried, throwing up her hands. “I would have stopped them!”
“Best you didn’t,” said Uncle Alec.
“Yeah, good thing you didn’t, Imelda,” said Charlene. “They were armed to the teeth, and they would have hurt you.”
“I could at least have called the police,” said Imelda, now applying a handkerchief to her teary cheeks. “They could have caught them before they got away.”
“What did they look like?” asked Odelia.
“One was big and one was short. The short one had a face like a weasel, and the big one had a round face and looked kinda goofy. They said they were businessmen. Though they didn’t look like no businessmen to me.”
Just then, more people arrived at the scene, in the form of Grandma Muffin and Scarlett. And they’d brought their own feline entourage: Harriet and Brutus.
“It was Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale,” said Gran, the moment she stepped into the room. “We just talked to Mort Hodge and his wife Megan and she overheard the thieves call each other Johnny and Jerry.”
Uncle Alec’s head snapped up so fast I could actually hear it crick. “Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale? Are you sure?”
Gran nodded furiously. “Absolutely.”
“Absolutely,” Scarlett echoed, and even Harriet and Brutus were nodding, though I’m not sure the humans in the room took any notice of us lowly pets.
Chase had taken out his phone and was now frantically scrolling through it, then offered it to Charlene’s secretary. “Are these the men you saw, Imelda?”
Imelda took one look at the picture Chase offered and nodded. “That’s them! I’ll never forget those terrible faces. Real hardened criminals, both of them.”
Chase held up his phone for the rest of the small gathering to see. I only caught a quick glimpse, but it was a picture of Johnny and Jerry, who’d recently worked for Marge, before absconding with the contents of the Capital First Bank’s vault to Mexico.
“It’s very nice to have two home-grown criminals you can always pin a crime on,” said Dooley. “Makes things a lot easier for the police.”
I almost had to smile, if the situation hadn’t been so serious. “That’s because they are responsible for a large part of local crime,” I replied.
“Listen up!” Uncle Alec said, raising his voice and also his head to address his troops. “We’re looking for Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale. Chase, send that picture to everyone present.”
“Will do, Chief,” said Chase.
“This is now priority number one.”
“I think I know where they are, Uncle Alec,” said Odelia, earning herself the attention of the entire police contingent and more necks making creaking noises as they all turned to her. “Mom sent me a message this morning telling me Johnny and Jerry had been at the door, spreading the word of Jesus. They’re doing community service for Jehovah’s Witnesses and going door to door. They were in Harrington Street two hours ago, so they’re probably still in the area.”
Uncle Alec clapped his hands twice, like a schoolteacher, or a football coach. “You heard my niece. Let’s roll out, people.”
And he didn’t have to tell his people twice, for already they were filing out the door, en route to their respective vehicles, to organize what is commonly termed a manhunt, or a dragnet.
We soon found ourselves alone in the room with only Charlene, Charlene’s secretary and Uncle Alec, and then the secretary made herself scarce, and when Uncle Alec wrapped Charlene into his arms and started whispering words of comfort into her ear, we figured we better skedaddle, too.
And we were walking down the stairs when Dooley said, “If Johnny and Jerry are spreading the word of Jesus in Harrington Street, how did they steal Charlene’s coins?”
“What a dumb question,” said Harriet. “The Jehovah’s Witnesses thing is just a cover. They use it to get into unsuspecting people’s homes and case the place, before returning under cover of darkness to steal whatever valuables they can lay t
heir hands on.”
“But it’s not dark now,” said Dooley.
“Oh, Dooley. Please be quiet,” said Harriet.
“Pretending to be a religious person is a great cover,” Brutus said. “People tend to let their guard down and reveal things they shouldn’t.”
“Anyway, case closed,” said Harriet. “And of course we cracked it.” She shared a high five with her mate, and they both grinned. “We beat you fair and square, Max,” she added.
I frowned. “I didn’t know this was a competition.”
Brutus slapped me on the back. “Haven’t you learned anything, Maxie, baby? Life is always a competition. And you lost, bro.”
And with a raucous laugh, he tripped down the stairs, Harriet in his wake, leaving me and Dooley to follow at a much slower pace.
“Brutus isn’t being very nice today, Max,” said Dooley.
“No, I guess he isn’t.”
“Success really doesn’t become him.”
“No, it definitely does not.”
Brutus is one of those cats who get a little obnoxious when they’re feeling on top of the world, and really nice when they’re down in the dumps. And right now he was flying high. I had the distinct impression it wouldn’t last, though. Success and failure are never far apart for the Brutuses of this world. For now, though, we’d have to suffer Obnoxious Brutus, and hope Nice Brutus would soon make a triumphant return.
19
Tex, hurrying home after a day spent examining people’s throats, ears, noses and other orifices for signs of disease or decay or both, made a beeline for his living room, where his pride and joy greeted him with a jolly smile: it was a large painting of a jocular-looking garden gnome, its blushing cheeks round and plump, its black eyes dark and sparkling with mirth, its white hat slightly askance, giving him an odd rakish look.
Tex breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re home early,” said Marge as she walked in. She watched as he flicked a tiny speck of dust from the painting and frowned. “Are you all right, honey? You look a little feverish.”