by Nic Saint
Yes, I know. I’m a curmudgeon. But a cuteness overdose is just as bad as an overdose from that stuff that Gran takes, don’t you think? No? Well, that proves you’re not ready to become a member of the Cat Curmudgeon Club.
Odelia scooped up the kittens and headed downstairs, followed by yours truly and Dooley. In the kitchen, Chase was pouring himself and Odelia cups of coffee.
“Mh,” Odelia said as she looked down at the three balls of fur. “I don’t want to leave them alone and I don’t think I should take them along with me. What to do?”
“Don’t look at me,” Chase said. “I may be crazy cat dude now, but I’m not ready to tell your uncle I can’t come to work because I have to babysit a bunch of cats.”
“Can’t you take them to work?” she asked.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is this a test?”
“No test,” she said with a grin as she placed the kittens on the counter and her arms around Chase’s neck. “I just don’t feel comfortable leaving them alone all day. And since I’m not going to be in the office much today…”
“Conducting your big investigation, huh?”
“Exactly.”
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Okay, sure. I’ll take them. And in case I have to go out, I’ll just leave them at the desk with Dolores. That sound like a plan to you?”
“Perfect,” she said.
“At least they’re not joining us for the investigation,” Dooley whispered.
“I heard that,” Odelia whispered back when Chase’s back was turned.
“I heard that,” said Chase.
“Chase knows I talk to you guys from time to time,” said Odelia, taking a bite from the piece of toast he offered her. “And he’s fine with that, isn’t he?”
“Of course I’m fine with it,” said Chase. “And I’m also fine with the notion that cats are intelligent creatures that respond when you talk to them. Isn’t that right, Max?”
“Absolutely, Chase,” I said.
Chase grinned widely. “See? What did I tell you? Max is a talker!”
“Oh, yes, he is. A big talker,” said Odelia.
“Too bad we’ll never know what they’re saying, huh?”
“Yeah, too bad,” said Odelia, and gave me a fat wink.
Chapter 19
I woke up from my cat nap when someone danced on my stomach. From time to time I like to rest on my back, my head slumped to the side. You might think this is an uncomfortable position but it’s not. At least not for me. Today, though, it was particularly uncomfortable because, as I said, someone was using my belly for ballroom dancing practice. And even before I opened my eyes I knew exactly who that someone was.
“Bom,” I grunted. “Can you please not do that? Ooph,” I added when he landed on my stomach and then tumbled off and fell to the floor next to the couch.
Worried, I glanced over, only to find the little furball scrambling around on the carpet, a little dazed but otherwise still in one piece.
“There must be a guardian angel for kittens,” I muttered.
“Oh, yes, there is,” said Dooley as he, too, was contending with a kitten using him as an inflatable bouncy castle. In his case it was Bam. The little kitten was giggling as he playfully slapped at Dooley’s face, the gray cat languidly allowing this abuse to continue.
“You know? I’m actually starting to like the little ones,” I said.
“Me, too,” Dooley admitted as he gave Bam a good-natured slap back and the kitten immediately engaged into a slapfest with the much bigger cat.
“I never thought I’d say this,” I continued, “but they’re pretty darn cute, aren’t they?”
Only now did I notice that instead of three kittens, there were only two present and accounted for. I could see Bom, making valiant attempts to climb back on the couch and failing, and Bam, sitting on top of Dooley’s head, with Dooley giggling as loudly as the kitten.
“Where is Bim?” I asked, suddenly worried.
“Oh, she’s probably around,” said Dooley, rolling over and pinning the tiny cat underneath his paw, before allowing him to escape again and climb his back.
“Yeah, but I don’t see her anywhere,” I said, getting up and glancing around.
Odelia and Chase were getting ready for work and paid us no mind, and of Harriet and Brutus there was no trace.
I jumped from the couch—or rather allowed my weight to drop me down, and went in search of the absent Bim. That was the trouble with kittens: you had to watch them like a hawk or else they snuck off and got themselves into all kinds of trouble.
I quickly trod up the stairs and searched the bedroom, then the guest bedroom, which had once been Gran’s, but found no trace of the red-and-white kitten. The bathroom was devoid of life, too, and so was the landing.
Huh. Where could little Bim be?
I plonked down the stairs again, and bleated, “Biiiiiiim! Where are you?!”
I looked around the living room, the salon, the kitchen, and the small storage room off the kitchen, where Odelia keeps the washer and dryer and whatever junk she can’t fit into the rest of the house. And then my eye fell on the pet flap.
Oh, no. Had Bim gone outside when no one was looking?
Had she ventured out into that big scary world and gotten into trouble?
The thought scared me half to death. I immediately wormed myself through the cat flap—it had been custom-made for me but it must have shrunk since then because I was finding it harder and harder to slip through.
“Bim!” I yelled once I was out in the backyard. “Where are youuuuuu?!”
Could she have gone out into the street? I didn’t dare think such a horrible thought. The street was full of cars, and those drivers rarely bothered to stop when a little ball of fluff suddenly rolled in front of their tires. For all I knew Bim had been flattened by one of those giant steel monsters.
“Biiiiiim!” I repeated.
My eye fell on the garden shed. The door to the modest wooden structure was ajar. I ventured thither and squeezed myself through the door to take a look inside. It was pretty dark in there, tools neatly dangling from pegboards on the wall, the lawnmower resting in a corner, and a workbench set up where Chase liked to mess around with stuff. Right now he was fixing up his bike, which was hanging from two hooks attached to the ceiling.
There was no sign of Bim there either, though.
Suddenly, a sound came from outside.
“Max? Is that you?” asked the voice.
I quickly emerged from the darkness of the shed. Brutus was lying underneath the hedge that divides Odelia’s backyard from Tex and Marge’s.
“Brutus? What are you doing there?” I asked.
Brutus looked distinctly ill at ease. He then opened his paws. And there, safe in the crook of his front legs, was Bim, sleeping peacefully, a smile on her funny little face.
“Don’t tell Harriet,” said Brutus hoarsely. “But I’ve been here since she fell asleep last night.”
I smiled at the sight of the unlikely twosome. The butch cat, and the tiny fuzzball.
“I take it they’ve gotten to you, too, huh?”
“They’re so cute,” said Brutus warmly.
“They are, aren’t they?”
“The thing is, Max, I know I’m, you know, fixed…”
“Yeah, me too.”
We both gulped uncomfortably at the thought.
“So I’ve never given much thought to, you know, offspring and all that stuff.”
“Me neither.”
“But being around these kittens,” he continued, “has kinda made me want to be a better cat.”
“Same thing here, buddy,” I admitted.
It was hard to believe, but Bim, Bam and Bom had somehow activated our paternal instincts. I’d never even known I had those before, and clearly neither had Brutus.
“Now all we need to do,” I said, “is convince Harriet these little sweeties are not the scourge she thinks they are.”
&nbs
p; “Good luck with that,” Brutus said. “If she knew I was here she’d kill me.”
“Maybe not kill you, exactly, but she probably wouldn’t be happy about it.”
“So let’s keep this our little secret, shall we, Max?”
“Sure thing,” I said.
And then we watched as Bim opened her little eyes, yawned and stretched her little limbs, and stared up at the both of us. And then she licked Brutus’s face. And we melted.
And I finally understood why humans love kittens so much.
It’s almost impossible not to.
Chapter 20
Odelia, as she tootled along the road, went over her checklist in her head.
Chase had bundled up Bim, Bam and Bom and dropped them off at the vestibule to be watched over by Dolores. Check.
Max and Dooley were in the back of the car with her. Check.
She’d arranged to meet Prunella Lemon at the Riviera Country Club where apparently the bestselling authoress liked to spend her leisure time. Check.
Only one more item on her list had yet to be addressed. And she planned to do that right now. She glanced over to her grandmother, who was riding shotgun.
“You seem a little on edge, Gran,” she said with a frown.
Gran had her face practically plastered to the windscreen, a strange flush suffusing her cheeks. Droplets of sweat stood out on her brow, and she had a hunted look in her eyes, which were stretched wide open.
“I’m just excited to get cracking on this murder case thingy again,” croaked Gran.
Odelia cleared her throat. This was not an easy subject to broach. “The thing is, someone told me something this morning that’s got me a little worried.”
“Oh?”
“It’s actually to do with you.”
“Huh.” Gran didn’t look up. She was still staring unblinkingly at the road ahead.
“Is it true that you’ve been buying pills from some guy on the street?”
“Sure!” said Gran, much to Odelia’s surprise. She’d expected her grandmother to deny the charge hotly.
“But, Gran, how could you? Don’t you know how bad those pills are? Think about your heart!”
“It’s my heart I was thinking about when I bought them.”
“What do you mean? Those pills can kill you. They jack up your heart rate.”
For the first time, Gran looked up. And Odelia saw her pupils were dilated.
“Kill me? Are you nuts? Those pills are a treat. Without those pills I’d only have half the energy I have now. They’re great. And besides, if you don’t like em take it up with Tex.”
“My dad? What do you mean?”
“He’s the one who told me to take them!”
“Dad prescribed them?”
“Of course! I was telling him only the other day how tired I felt sometimes, and he said that was only natural at my age. When I told him where to stick his disgusting ageism, he quickly climbed down from his high horse and prescribed me those pills. But when I went to fill the prescription, and the pharmacist told me how much they were going to set me back, I told him to go to hell with his crazy prices. And that’s when I heard about Conrad.”
“Conrad? Who’s Conrad?”
“Oh, he’s a miracle worker. I first heard about him from Dick Bernstein and Rock Horowitz. The boys from the senior center? Dick has been buying from Conrad for years. Viagra. So when I complained to Dick how expensive my pills were, he told me to go and see Conrad. He gave me his number and I met him the next day at Café Baron, that new hipster bar on Downey Street? And there he was, holding forth and hawking his wares. And he couldn’t have been nicer or more understanding. Gave me a big discount on my first buy.”
“Oh, Gran…”
“What? I’ve never felt better! In fact I’ve got so much energy I could run for president. I mean, if all those old dudes can run for president so can I, right? I’m younger than half of them! And it’s time we got a senior citizen in the White House to represent all the senior citizens in this country. I can do a lot of good from the Oval Office, you know.”
“Of course you can,” said Odelia, hoping her grandmother wasn’t serious about this latest bee in her bonnet. “Can I take a look at those pills?”
“Sure. Here, take one. You’re not looking too hot yourself this morning.”
Odelia ignored the dig. She’d been up early, what with the kittens wriggling and squirming at the foot of her bed. She checked the pillbox. It had a big red X on the side.
“Gran,” she said sternly, “are you sure Dad prescribed you ecstasy? Don’t lie to me.”
Gran looked confused. “Ecstasy? Is that the brand? They’re just vitamins, honey.”
“These are not vitamins. This is ecstasy. A drug. And a very nasty one, too.”
Grandma laughed. “Vitamins are not drugs. Vitamins are good for you.”
“How many have you taken?”
“Oh, I take them all the time,” said Gran, her leg shaking violently now, as she tapped her fingers nervously. “Popped one this morning. You can’t overdose on vitamins.” And with these words, she grabbed the bottle from Odelia’s hand, popped the top and dropped a pill into her mouth.
“Spit it out!” Odelia cried, pulling over onto the shoulder.
“What? Are you crazy?”
“Spit it out now!”
“I don’t wanna!”
“Right now!” she said, holding out her hand.
Reluctantly, Gran spat out the pill. “You’re not going to deprive an old lady of her vitamins, are you? I need my vitamins.”
“They’re not vitamins, Gran. These are highly addictive, very dangerous pills. You could easily have overdosed on them.”
“What are you talking about? Tex prescribed them for me.”
“He prescribed vitamins, and then Conrad sold you ecstasy!”
“But Conrad said—”
“He’s a drug dealer! He probably sells all kinds of drugs.”
Gran looked annoyed, clutching her purse now. “Damn cheating bastard. I’m gonna ask for my money back. He can’t do this to a little old lady.”
Gran was only a little old lady when it suited her, but Odelia decided not to get sucked into an argument. It was bad enough her grandmother was a pill-popping ecstasy addict. “I’m going to take you to see my dad.”
“I just saw him last week!”
“You’re going to see him again. In fact you’re going to see him right now,” she said, making a swift decision, then performing a U-turn and heading back into town. Prunella Lemon would just have to wait.
“But I don’t wanna see Tex!”
“You should have thought of that before you started taking drugs!”
“I thought they were vitamins!”
“Well, they’re not, and now you’re going to see the doctor. Who knows what that stuff has done to your blood pressure.”
“Killjoy,” Gran said, and folded her arms, tucked her head in, and glared ahead of her, the image of a moping child.
“I know how you feel, Gran,” said Dooley from the backseat. “We feel just the same way when we have to go see Vena. Isn’t that right, Max?”
“Yeah, we don’t like to see the doctor either,” Max said.
Oh, God, Odelia thought. Sometimes she felt as if she were in charge of a day-care center, not a household of grownups, both cats and humans.
She parked in front of her dad’s office and got out. When Gran made no attempt to do the same, she walked around and opened the door. The old lady was still hunched over in her seat, arms folded, a mutinous look on her face.
“Gran, get out.”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” said Odelia. She unbuckled her grandmother’s seatbelt, and physically started dragging the old lady from her seat.
“Hey, this is elder abuse!”
“If you don’t start acting like a grownup right now I’ll show you elder abuse.”
“I’m telling yo
u, I’m not coming!”
For a moment, a tense standoff ensued. A battle of wills.
“I’ll go later—right now I want to come with you and solve this murder,” said Gran. “I’m fine, okay? I feel great. I’ll come with you—we’ll interview this Prunella Lemon woman together, and then you can drop me off at Tex’s and I’ll happily take all the tests you want.”
Finally, Odelia relented. “Oh, all right. But only if you promise not to give me a lot of lip if we drop by Dad’s later.”
Gran mimicked zipping up her lips and Odelia got back into the car.
Gran smiled. “Thanks, honey. I really enjoy sleuthing with you.”
“You’re just saying that because I gave you what you wanted.”
“True,” Gran conceded. “But I mean it. I do like sleuthing with my granddaughter.”
Odelia suppressed a smile. She wouldn’t admit it right now, but she kinda enjoyed her grandmother’s company, too. When she wasn’t driving her nuts, that was.
Chapter 21
“So what’s the plan?” I asked as we were back on the road. “Where are we going?”
“First we’re going to have a little chat with Prunella Lemon. She’s the woman who wrote those Mellie Moose books,” said Gran, who appeared to be in a particularly good mood now that danger in the form of a doctor’s visit had been averted.
“Ellie Zeus,” Odelia corrected her. She directed a critical look at her grandmother. “And then after that I want to have a word with your drug dealer.”
“I don’t have a drug dealer,” said Gran. “I have a supplier of vitamins.”
“He’s a drug dealer, Gran, and the sooner you admit it the better.”
“I will not incriminate myself. He sold me vitamins and until you can prove otherwise I’ll believe that’s what he sold me. And for a bargain price, too.”
“And what do you want us to do?” I asked.
“Talk to anyone you can—try to find out what happened to Jeb and his ex-wife. I’m sure there will be plenty of pets at the club.”
“You say pets, but actually you mean dogs,” said Dooley.