by Nic Saint
As they spoke, some of the interesting men came ambling out of the hotel and walked over to where Burt’s remains had dropped down to the sidewalk. Burt’s grandson, meanwhile, joined Odelia, Chase and her uncle. He was pale as a sheet. “This is horrible,” he said. “A nightmare. What do you think happened, Chief? Is it true what they’re all saying?”
“What are they saying, son?” asked Alec.
“That he did this to himself? That he committed suicide in the most spectacular way possible?” He stifled a sob. “That he went out with a bang?”
“It’s too soon to tell,” said Chief Alec.
“What do you think?” asked Chase.
The kid stood shaking his head, as if trying to clear it. “Grandpa would never kill himself. He loved life. He loved himself. He loved being the Most Fascinating Man in the World. I—I just can’t believe it. Then again, he did love a good show.” He closed his eyes, looking pained and on the verge of another collapse. “I just don’t know,” he said. “I just know I loved the old man to pieces and now…” He stifled another sob. “Now he is in pieces.”
Uncle Alec grasped his shoulder and gave it a good squeeze. “Try not to think about it too much, son. Whatever happened here—I can promise you this: we’re going to get to the bottom of it. We’re going to find out what exactly happened to your grandfather and you’ll be the first to know when we do.”
“Thanks, Chief,” said the kid hoarsely. “You’re very kind.”
Just then, an altercation alerted them that something was amiss. A woman came walking up to the hotel, loudly demanding to be told what was going on. She was making quite a scene, making heads turn up and down the street.
“Uh-oh,” said Chief Alec.
The woman was his mother—Odelia’s Grandma Muffin.
Chapter 5
Frankly I was having a hard time coming to terms with the tragedy that had befallen me. Fleas? Feasting on my body? The thought was too outrageous to contemplate. And yet it was true. I’d seen the little buggers, jumping up and down with joy after drinking from my blood—sticking tiny little holes in my skin with their tiny little mouths—invading the sanctity of this feline body of mine. Dooley was even more devastated by the news than me.
“Why, Max?” he was wailing after Chase had left. “Whyyyyyy?”
I could have consoled him but frankly I didn’t feel up to it. And when Brutus and Harriet joined us in Odelia’s backyard, also looking glum and forlorn, the pity party was complete. Four cats, struck down by the weight of woe—or a small army of fleas.
“I can’t believe it,” said Harriet, the prettiest white Persian for miles around. She was licking her snowy white fur distractedly, her heart clearly not in it. “Fleas. Me. It must be some mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake,” said her partner Brutus, a black and muscular creature who at one time had been my mortal enemy. We’d learned to coexist, though, and had struck up an awkward friendship. Well, maybe not a friendship, per se. More like a modicum of mutual respect. “Marge inspected my fur and there they were. An entire colony of bugs, snacking on this beautiful body of mine. This temple. This epitome of health and beauty. This—”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said irritably. I was not in the mood to listen to Brutus’s narcissistic ramblings. Though truth be told he recited his ode to himself in a toneless voice. It was obvious he was down in the dumps with the rest of us. “Look, we can whine all we want. It’s not going to do us any good! All we need to do is trust that Odelia will do the right thing.”
“They lay eggs, you know,” Brutus said in that same listless voice. Almost as if he hadn’t heard what I said, which wouldn’t be the first time. “Big giant collections of eggs. Thousands of them. Millions, maybe. And when they hatch, that’ll be the end of us.”
Dooley stared at him in abject horror. “Eggs!” He gulped once or twice and dropped to his paws, plunking down on the cool grass. We were seated in the shade of the tulip tree that borders Odelia’s backyard. It’s one of our favorite spots. Now? I wasn’t so sure. Maybe these fleas had jumped from this tree onto our fur? Maybe they lived in the grass?
“Look,” I said, holding up my paws. “Let’s all stay calm, all right? Let’s not panic.”
“A colony of eggs!” Dooley cried. “On my body! Millions and millions of them!”
“I just can’t with this,” said Harriet, hanging her head. “This is all too much.”
“I talked to Kingman,” said Brutus. “And he told me fleas can grow to be as big as mice—rats even! Can you imagine? Millions of those horrible creatures?”
“We’re dead,” said Dooley. “We’re all dead.”
“We’re not dead, you guys!” I said, trying to stifle my own rising sense of panic. “Fleas don’t grow to be as big as mice. Are you kidding me? If they did don’t you think we would have seen them by now? Don’t you think Odelia would have called an exterminator?”
“It’s just like that movie,” Dooley said. “First they killed Gwyneth, then they went after Rose from Titanic.” He sniffed and turned over on his back, paws bonelessly flopping in the air. “Max,” he bleated. “If I go first, tell Odelia about that time I broke her phone. Tell her I’m sorry. Ask her to forgive me.” He snuffled. “I’ll never break another one of her phones in my life. Cause I’ll be dead! And dead cats don’t break phones!”
“Tell her yourself,” I said. “You’re not going to die, Dooley. None of us are.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Brutus. “Kingman said—”
“Oh, don’t listen to that cat,” I interrupted him. “He talks through his butt.”
This seemed to interest Dooley. “Kingman talks through his butt? I never noticed.”
“It’s an expression,” said Harriet. She’d stopped grooming herself and was now studying her belly—no doubt searching for that million-strong flea colony. “I don’t see them,” she announced. “Oh, wait. What are these little black spots? There were no black spots before.” Her voice was rising sharply. “Are these eggs? Eww! EWW! Get them off! Brutus—get them OFF me!” She was patting her belly anxiously. “Brutus! BRUTUUUUUUUS!”
Brutus, always the gallant suitor, did what he could, rubbing her tummy feverishly. All the while Harriet was screaming up a storm. For a fastidious cat like herself, always looking spic and span and priding herself in her perfect grooming skills, this was nothing short of a tragedy. Imagine Kim Kardashian suddenly breaking out in hives. Only these weren’t hives but some horrible bugs burrowing into our skin! Laying eggs and feasting on our blood!
“There—you missed one. Get them off! GET THEM OFF!”
Dooley watched the scene with hollow eyes. It was obvious he felt that since death was imminent, and the flea invasion inevitable, all this hullabaloo was utterly pointless. His next words confirmed this newly acquired world view. “Just let them eat you alive.”
Harriet, even though in the throes of the biggest personal crisis of her life, still found the time and energy to give him a laser-eyed look that could kill. “No damn CRITTER is going to eat ME alive. I’ve worked too damn HARD on this gorgeous body of mine to allow ANYTHING to feast on me, least of all some LOWLY PARASITE!”
Now that was the spirit. I, for one, was a hundred percent sure Odelia would solve this mess posthaste. That’s what she did. That’s why I’d chosen her as my human. Oh, you may think humans choose us. Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Cats choose their humans, not the other way around. And I’d always prided myself in choosing the right one. She wouldn’t disappoint me now. I was ninety percent sure. Maybe eighty. Definitely seventy.
Just then, Brutus drew me aside, leaving Harriet to a further inspection of every square inch of her fur and Dooley to stare up at the sky, waiting for the end to come.
“Max,” he said, lowering his voice.
“Look,” I said. “Kingman may be a lot of things, but he’s not a critter expert, all right? So don’t you believe a word that cat says. Kingman is what you mig
ht call an alarmist.”
He waved an impatient paw. “Screw Kingman,” he said to my surprise. He looked agitated, and for the first time I wondered if his agitation stemmed from something other than the flea infestation. “I need to ask you a question and I need you to listen carefully.”
“Sure. Shoot,” I said.
“Max,” he repeated, and stopped, chewing his lip.
“Uh-huh?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s like this, Max…” He stared at me.
“Yes?” I said encouragingly.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his face with his paw. “Christ, this is hard.”
Now he was starting to worry me. “Just tell me already, will you?”
He fixed me with a stare from between his claws. “Right. Look, you gotta promise me not to tell a soul, okay?”
“I promise.”
He held up his little claw. “Pinkie promise?”
I held up my little claw and hooked it behind his. “Pinkie promise.”
The suspense was killing me. What could be so important? Soon he’d scratch my paw and have me press it against his in a blood oath or something similarly ridiculous.
“I’m having issues, Max,” he finally said.
“Issues?”
“Down there,” he said, pointing at his tail.
“You’ve got tail issues?”
“Not tail issues. Pee-pee issues.”
“You can’t pee? You should see a urologist.”
“I can pee just fine!” he growled. “It’s the other thing that doesn’t work.”
I stared at him. “What other thing?”
He gave me an intense look.
And then I got it. The other thing.
“Oh. Oh!”
“Uh-huh.”
“You mean…”
He nodded seriously. “It just doesn’t work like it used to, Max. And now I don’t know what to do.”
“And I’m supposed to know?”
He gave me a hopeful look. “You’re a smart cat, Max. Everybody knows that. You’ve been around the block once or twice or maybe even three times. Help me out, will you?”
He said it with such a pleading expression on his face that my heart melted. “Fine,” I said finally. “All right. I will help you.” Though for the life of me I had no idea how.
“Harriet is very unhappy,” he continued. “You know she likes it rough, right?”
I pressed my paws to my ears. This I did not need to hear. “Too much information, Brutus,” I said. “Just tell me what’s wrong and maybe we can try and fix it.”
“Well,” he said, frowning, “it used to work just fine, and now it doesn’t.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t?”
He shrugged. “The little bugger refuses to show his face.”
“Maybe it’s Harriet. Maybe you don’t like her the way you used to.”
“Oh, I like Harriet fine. She’s the one for me, Max. No doubt about it.”
I thought about this for a moment. “It could be a physical thing. Do you get your morning, you know, um, your morning stiffness in that general, um, area?”
He smiled proudly. “Hard as a rock, Doc.”
I grimaced. “Please don’t call me ‘Doc.’ I am not a licensed physician.”
I suddenly noticed he’d dropped down on his butt and was sticking out a certain part of his anatomy and glancing at me invitingly.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Aren’t you going to inspect me?”
In Harriet’s words: eww! “No, I am not going to inspect you.”
“But how else are you going to know what’s wrong down there?”
“You know what, Brutus? I think we better leave this to Vena.”
“No!” he cried, then lowered his voice when Harriet and Dooley glanced over. “No can do, Doc. Vena will tell Odelia and Odelia will tell everyone else and Harriet will find out and…” He closed his eyes. “When Harriet finds out my life is officially over, all right?”
“But why? If she loves you—”
He opened his eyes and hissed, “Harriet loves the butch Brutus. The he-cat. Brutus the brute. She doesn’t love the sissy cat who can’t get his machinery to work as it should.”
“I think you’re selling yourself short, Brutus. These are new and exciting times. These days lady cats love a tomcat who shows his feelings—who’s not afraid to open his heart. To lay it all out there for everyone to see. It’s the millennial cat they want. The soft cat. The cat who dares to cry in front of his lady cat. Shed a few tears and admit that we’re all feline.”
A strange sound attracted our attention. When we turned in the direction of the sound we discovered that Dooley was softly weeping, tears trickling down his furry face.
“Oh, stop crying, Dooley,” Harriet said gruffly. “Are you a man or a mouse? Have you seen Brutus cry? No, you haven’t. Because my Brutus is a real cat. A cat’s cat. A cat who wouldn’t be seen DEAD crying like a sniveling whiny little cry-baby.” She directed a loving look at Brutus. “Tough as nails he is,” she added proudly. “And that’s what I love about him.”
Brutus slowly turned back to me and raised a single whisker.
I nodded. “You’re in a heap of trouble, my friend,” I said.
“I told you, Doc. If you don’t fix my plumbing I’m a dead cat.”
Chapter 6
Grandma Muffin came walking up to the small gathering in front of the hotel, shaking her fist and crying, “Where is he? Where is my lover? Don’t tell me he’s dead!”
Odelia and Chase shared a look of confusion. “Her lover?” asked Chase.
“She’s finally lost her final marble,” said Uncle Alec. He stepped forward. “Ma. What the hell do you think you’re doing, making a spectacle of yourself like that?”
The old lady stood her ground. “I’ve come here to meet my lover. Where are you hiding him?”
Alec gave her a weary look. “And who would this lover of yours be?”
“Why Burt Goldsmith, of course. Most Fascinating Man in the World.”
“Ma, Burt Goldsmith is not your lover.”
She waved that fist again. “Watch your tone, son. Burt Goldsmith was my lover long before you were born.”
A look of confusion stole over Alec’s face. “Long before I was born?”
“Sure! Each time he came to town we went at it like rabbits! Burt was my lover in the swinging sixties! The time of anything goes. Not like nowadays, when people clench their butt cheeks each time someone mentions the word sex.” She glanced around at the gathering crowd. “Sex!” she cried. “See how they cringe? Sex! That’s right—I like sex!”
“Ma!” Alec growled, and took a firm grip on her arm and led her away and into the hotel vestibule. Odelia and Chase followed, and so did Philippe Goldsmith, who seemed to have developed an odd and rapturous fascination with the old lady all of a sudden.
Inside the hotel, Alec pushed his mother down on one of the plush sofas and towered over her. Not that it intimidated the old lady one bit. Vesta Muffin was a tough old broad, and in spite of the fact that she was rail-thin and the spitting image of Estelle Getty, with her close-cropped white hair and large glasses, she was afraid of no one—not even her son the big police chief. She pointed a bony finger in his face. “I demand to see my lover!”
“Your lover is dead,” Uncle Alec said before he could stop himself.
She gasped—a quick intake of breath. “Dead?”
“Yeah, he was killed this morning.”
Her face turned into a scowl. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“What?!”
“You didn’t want your mother to carry on with the Most Fascinating Man in the World so you killed him before we had the chance to hold our hot and steamy reunion!”
Uncle Alec directed his eyes heavenward and planted his fists on his hips. “God, give me strength,” he muttered. “Give me the strength not to strangle my own mother.”
Odelia d
ecided to step in and prevent a second murder from taking place. She took a seat next to her grandmother and held her hand. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Grandma,” she said. “But I can assure you Uncle Alec had nothing to do with Mr. Goldsmith’s death.”
“Then who did?”
“We don’t know yet. All we know is that there was an explosion in his room and as a consequence of the blast he died.”
“Can I at least see the body?”
Odelia shared a quick look with her uncle, who shook his head, No!
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. The explosion—it did a lot of damage.”
Grandma nodded firmly, then bit her lower lip. “Just my rotten luck. To find my lover again after all these years only to have him snatched away from me—just like the first time.”
“Is it really true you and my grandfather had an affair?” asked Philippe Goldsmith. He’d been listening intently and now joined the conversation.
Grandma directed a scathing look at him. “Who are you?”
“This is Philippe Goldsmith,” said Odelia. “Burt’s grandson.”
Grandma studied the bespectacled young man with interest. “You don’t look like Burt.”
“I take after my mother,” said the kid. “She was a dainty, delicate woman.”
“I’ll bet she was.”
“So is it true about you and Grandpa?”
“Sure it’s true—don’t you believe the naysayers,” she added, giving her son a nasty look. “Burt and I really whooped it up back in the swinging sixties. We were hot to trot and that’s exactly what we did for all those summers he spent down here in Hampton Cove.”
Philippe nodded. “Grandpa did mention that he had fond memories of this town. Which is why he was so happy to be back. Did he grow up here?”
“Nah. He was a city boy. But every summer his folks would come down to Hampton Cove and rent the old Mason place near Devil’s Point. The house is long gone now, bulldozed in the eighties and developed into a big fancy hotel. Oh, the fun times me and Burt used to have. Then one summer his folks didn’t come down, and I never saw him again. We didn’t have no internet back then, and he never gave me his address or else I would have written. He did have my address, though, and for three years I hoped he’d write.” She pressed her lips together. “He never did, so I finally mended my broken heart and moved on with my life. That’s when I met Jack. He was a sailor.” She shrugged. “The rest is history.”