Pet Noir

by Pati Nagle

  “Phil will find tetrodotoxin in the fish locker,” said Devin, waving the autopsy data film. “It comes from fugu.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Fugu. Blowfish. It’s considered a delicacy. I already checked with the sushi bar and confirmed that they serve it.”

  “I’ve never eaten fugu,” I said. I was always willing to give a new fish a try.

  Devin gave me a wry look. “I don’t recommend it. Eating it’s like playing Russian roulette. The liver is full of tetrodotoxin, and if the fish isn’t cleaned just right, it’s deadly.”

  “Oh.” Maybe I’d take a pass after all.

  “But Judge Callahan didn’t eat sushi, she ate dim sum,” said the chief.

  “Right,” Devin said. “I’m worried there may have been cross-contamination in the kitchen. A dirty knife. Wouldn’t take much—a fatal dose of tetrodotoxin fits on a pinhead.”

  The chief punched his com. “Signal Phil Klondike, status urgent.” He leaned back in his chair again. “You checked with the clinic, right?”

  “Right, and there are no other cases so far. I still haven’t reached Ling2.”

  Devin’s face pinched in a worried frown. He’d gone out with Ling2 a couple of times, though since she’d inherited the Gardens she was pretty busy. Lately he’d been hanging out with Janine who had taken over running Ling-Ling’s Lightspeed. Looked like he still cared about Ling2, though.

  The chief’s com buzzed and he punched it. “Wright here,” he said.

  “It’s Phil. You wanted me?”

  “Grab your scanner and get over to the kitchen at Imperial Gardens pronto. You’re looking for tetrodotoxin. If you find it anywhere besides the blowfish in the fish locker, shut the whole place down.”

  “Got it.”

  There was a moment’s silence. The chief and Devin both looked unhappy, and I knew why. Either Judge Callahan’s death was a tragic accident, in which case all the other diners at Imperial Gardens were are risk, or someone had deliberately poisoned her.

  Murder doesn’t happen very often on Gamma. Maybe we’ve just been lucky, but I prefer to think it’s because Security is highly effective. If Judge Callahan had been murdered, our reputation would take a serious hit unless we caught the killer.

  “Who would want to kill her?” I asked, putting it on the table.

  A pained look crossed the chief’s face. “Only any of the people she’s put in jail. There must be hundreds.”

  “OK, which of them got out lately?”

  Devin and the chief exchanged a look, then the chief punched up his com. “Let’s find out.”

  The short list was about a hundred names long. Operating on the theory that the murderer, if there was one, would be from our sector since Callahan died here, we pared it down to twenty-eight by eliminating people from remote parts of the galaxy, other sectors on Judge Callahan’s route. Nineteen were non-violent criminals and first-time offenders who’d just gotten their wrists slapped. We scratched those off the list, leaving nine names.

  “Devin, check these out,” said the chief. “Find out where they are, where they’ve been for the last forty-eight hours, and if they’ve gotten anywhere near a blowfish.”

  “Right.”

  I followed Devin to his office and curled up under Sheila’s desk for a nap. Listened while Devin left another message for Ling2, then went to sleep to the clicking of his keyboard and the occasional ping from his com.

  When I woke up, Devin was shutting down the com and Sheila was coming in the door. She came over and pulled out her chair, then uttered a startled squeak as she saw me stretching my back under her desk.

  Sheila doesn’t much like me. She’s not a cat person, and she’s impervious to my not inconsiderable charms. It doesn’t keep me from trying, though. I regard her as a challenge.

  I hopped onto her chair and said “Prrt?”

  “Get off,” she ordered, frowning.

  I purred louder and rubbed my face against her hand. She jerked it away.

  “Would you get your cat off my chair, please?” she said to Devin. “He’s shedding!”

  Devin stood up. “Come on, Leon. I ordered takeout from Ling-Ling’s.”

  I jumped down and headed for the door. Teasing Sheila was fun, but Ling-Ling’s was much more important.

  “I don’t know why the chief lets you bring him in here,” Sheila called after us as the door slid shut.

  I glanced around to make sure no one else was in the hall. “Make any progress?” I asked quietly as we headed out.

  “Yeah. Drew a blank on all nine. Only one of ‘em’s on Gamma, and he’s working in the warehouses. Hasn’t been anywhere near the rotunda. He was at work the whole day shift today, ate his lunch in the lounge. Verified by three coworkers.”

  “Rats.”

  “Maybe it was an accident.”

  “Did Phil—meow?” I finished as a data technician came out of the coffee room.

  “Hey, Bill,” Devin said to the guy, who wore his hair in a long ponytail and his beard Fu-Manchu style. Would have worked better if they hadn’t been red.

  “Hey, Devin. Hiya Leon.”

  He bent down to scratch my head, which I tolerated patiently. Bill’s an OK guy. Spends too much time on the feeds, but you can say that about a lot of people.

  “Say, did Phil turn in a report on a contaminant scan he did today?” Devin asked him.

  “Yeah,” Bill said, scratching underneath my chin with just the right amount of pressure. “It was negative. Good thing, too. There’d be a heckuva fuss if we had to shut down the Gardens.”

  “No kidding. Well, thanks, Bill.”

  “See you around.”

  We went out into the rotunda and made our way over to Ling-Ling’s. It was prime time and the place was packed. Every stool at the counter was taken, and all four tables were full, one with three mungos who had crammed themselves into the human-sized chairs. Everyone was chattering at the top of their lungs. Devin leaned on the cashier’s desk and waited for Janine to come over.

  Janine, a.k.a. the Firefly, had been working here ever since the Tristar Transport scandal. She’d gotten off with a slap on the wrist for her part in the mess—not her fault at all, really, since she was operating under the terms of her contract—in exchange for blowing the whistle on the ringleaders. The court had seized her contract from Tristar and auctioned it off, and Ling2 had bought it. She’d had to pay way more for it than it would have cost to simply hire help for Lightspeed Asian, but Ling2 has a generous heart. I think she also has a soft spot for the engineered, being one herself in the strictest sense.

  Janine was wearing a dark green turtleneck cling that set off her shape nicely and covered up any stray flickers that might run across her skin. She’d let her hair grow down to her shoulders and given it a curly perm. Most people didn’t know she was the Firefly and she liked it that way just fine.

  Devin was careful never to mention her past in public, and Janine appreciated that. Possibly out of gratitude, she’d given him a couple of private shows that had kept both me and Devin from sleeping. His apartment was really too small for that sort of thing, but apparently hers was even tinier. After the first time I asked Devin to move my bed out from under his, and I was subsequently able to catch a few winks once the dancing went from vertical to horizontal.

  Janine finished unloading a huge tray of heaping platters onto the mungos’ inadequate table, then squeezed past them back to the counter and hurried up to Devin. “Hi,” she said a bit breathlessly. “I think your order’s coming up. Hi Leon,” she added, leaning forward over the counter to wave at me.

  “Mew,” I said back.

  “Thanks,” Devin told her. “We could both use a shrimp fix.”

  “Tough day?”

  “Tough case. You hear about Judge Callahan?”

  Janine gave a soft laugh. “Are you kidding? It’s all over the station. Ling2’s pretty pissed from what I hear.”

  “Not pissed,” said Li
ng2, coming out of the kitchen with a takeout bag in hand. “Just concerned. Still haven’t found out how it happened. It wasn’t our sushi chef.”

  She set the bag on the counter in front of Devin. She looked svelte in an ankle-length silk mandarin dress of midnight blue embroidered with silver cherry blossoms, her black hair piled up on top of her head. Very classy, unlike the Ling2 I’d first met, dashing around here in Lightspeed in a very short, very red skirt.

  “Didn’t you get my messages?” Devin asked her.

  “Oh—sorry, I haven’t had time to check.”

  “I was worried.”

  Silence stretched out between them for an uncomfortable moment. Ling2 stared back at Devin as if she didn’t understand. Janine suddenly noticed that the tea urn needed polishing and went to work on it.

  “I’m sorry,” Ling2 said again, then smiled as if on an afterthought. “Here’s your order. On the house.”

  “Thanks.” Devin tucked the bag under his arm. “You working here tonight?”

  “No, I just stopped by to check on things. Got to go back to the Gardens now.”

  “I’ll walk you over.”

  She hesitated, then smiled again. “Thanks.”

  They headed out onto the parkway and I followed. I glanced back at Janine, who was watching Devin and Ling2 with a troubled frown on her face. Maybe she thought she’d had Devin all wrapped up, and didn’t relish competition from her boss.

  Not that Devin was a huge prize, but hey. Hormones interfere with clear thinking.

  “So,” Devin said after a minute. “How well did you know Judge Callahan?”

  A frown twitched across Ling2’s smooth features, then was gone. “Not well. She always came in for dim sum when she was on station.”

  “So someone could have planned ahead to poison her.”

  “Sure, but how could they make sure the poison got to her and no one else?”

  Devin shrugged. “Pay the waitress to deliver it.”

  “I do not hire corrupt waitresses! Anyway, she’d be stupid to accept. She’d be an accessory.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That technician searched the kitchen and confirmed it was clean.”

  “I suppose Judge Callahan’s dishes had already been washed.”

  “Long since.” She paused and turned to Devin. “I don’t like this. It’s as though someone is trying to make it look like I’m involved. My restaurant, and fugu poison—”

  “Maybe you ought to lock up your blowfish.”

  The slight frown returned to her face, making it look unusually angular and harsh. Ling2 was a warm and loving person, but tonight she seemed distant, cold.

  “I was hoping you’d help me,” she said.

  “We’re doing everything we can.”

  She gazed at him for a moment, then started walking again. They didn’t talk any more until we reached the Imperial Gardens.

  The sushi bar was crammed. Word of the Judge’s death from fugu poison had brought out the morbidly curious. Walking past, we saw that the dim sum place was also hopping.

  Ling2 paused again by the entrance to the formal restaurant, where a waterfall-fed pool swirled beneath an arched bridge leading into the dining room. A clump of bamboo rose out of the water, long pointed leaves stirring in a slight draft. I peered down into the pool, wondering if they’d replenished the koi lately. Looked like not.

  “Thanks for escorting me,” said Ling2. “I hope you find who did it.”

  “Me too,” Devin said. He looked like he was about to say something more, then changed his mind.

  “Well, good night,” she said, and turned to walk across the bridge, her heels clicking softly on the wood.

  Devin watched until she had disappeared into the restaurant, then turned away. “Come on, Leon. Let’s get home and eat before this gets cold.”

  I thought he’d never ask.

  ~

  Half an hour later we were polishing off the last of the shrimp. Devin was sprawled on his bed, chopsticks in hand, eating out of the carton. I was eating my share out of my special bowl. The sauce was extra spicy, the way Devin liked it. I’d gotten used to that, though it made me pretty thirsty. I licked the last of the sauce from my bowl and switched to the water dish.

  “Must have been terrible to die like that, wrapped up so you can’t even move,” Devin said.

  I looked up from the water dish. “She wouldn’t have been able to move anyway. The stuff paralyzes you, right?”

  “Yeah, but … I dunno. I keep thinking she must have been terrified. All alone, helpless.”

  “Stinking like a thousand bars of herbal soap,” I added, grooming my whiskers. “What a way to go.”

  Devin set aside the empty carton and rummaged in the takeout bag for the fortune cookie. “Want some?” he said, offering to break off a chunk for me.

  “Nah. Sticks in my teeth. Thanks anyway.”

  He unwrapped the cookie and crunched it, leaning back against his pillow. The fortune dangled unread from his hand. He always ate the cookie before looking at it. Then if he liked it, he ate the fortune too.

  “I wonder if she could have ingested the poison before lunch,” he said. “Maybe it wasn’t in the dim sum.”

  I hopped up on the table and fired up the com, bringing up the incoming passenger lists from that morning. “She came in at ten. If she ate the poison at breakfast, she didn’t get it here.”

  “Hm.” Devin picked at his teeth. I refrained from pointing out I’d been right.

  I surfed up more information on fugu poisoning, including a handy list of symptoms. “This says symptoms start occurring in ten minutes to an hour. She’d have been in trouble before she ever got to the spa, maybe before she got to the dim sum.”

  Devin looked at the fortune in his hand and grimaced. “‘A true friend is a priceless treasure.’ I hate it when they’re just platitudes.”

  He crumpled the fortune and tossed it at the wastebasket. It bounced off the side and rolled, coming to a stop against my food bowl.

  “Maybe you should tell Ling2,” I said. “She could look for another brand.”

  “Ling2’s too busy to worry about that sort of thing.”

  “Huh? That sort of thing is exactly what she should worry about. And she does, too. She cares about her customers.”

  I jumped down from the table and went over to the bed, where Devin was lying staring at the ceiling. I sat down and curled my tail around my feet.

  “You’re just pissed off because she didn’t answer your calls.”

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “She’s not usually like that.”

  “Maybe the whole dead customer thing kind of distracted her.”

  “But that’s what I was calling about!” Devin sat up and swung his feet to the floor, then sat there, hunched forward, looking sulky. “Something’s going on with her. She was pretty cold tonight.”

  “Maybe Janine told her about you two playing Catch the Lightning Bug.”

  His face took on a pained look. He sighed, then rubbed at the sides of his mouth. “Wish I understood women better.”

  “You and half the galaxy.” I hopped onto the bed to get more on a level with him. “So how about this guy in the warehouse? The one Judge Callahan put away. Should we check him out?”

  Devin frowned. “I dunno. He seemed like a dead end.”

  “We got anything better to do?”

  “Maybe. Depends if Janine is mad at me too.”

  I rolled my eyes. Humans have to complicate everything.

  “Well if you’re busy I could go,” I offered. If he was going to romp around with Janine, I’d just as soon be elsewhere.

  Devin shook his head. “He’s on the day shift. He’ll be home by now.”

  “Or out and about. I could check Molly’s, and Pulsar—”

  “Geez, didn’t you get enough to eat?”

  Stupid question. A cat can almost always eat more. I was about to tell him so when I noticed something strange.r />
  “Dude. You’re drooling.”

  He’d been sort of staring off into space, absently rubbing his fingertips. He gave me a startled glance and raised a hand to his mouth, then his eyes went wide.

  “I don’t feel so hot.” He stood up, then clutched at his gut.

  “Shit,” I said, and glanced at the empty food containers. “Devin, stick your finger down your throat!”

  He frowned uncomprehendingly at me, took a step, and stumbled. I got out of the way in a hurry.

  My heart was pounding double-time, which was bad news if I’d been poisoned. I couldn’t feel anything, but maybe it was different for cats.

  “Get in the bathroom and throw up!” I yelled at him. “NOW!”

  He stumbled into the bathroom while I called for emergency medical help. Over the sound of his ralphing into the toilet I heard them promise to come right away.

  I crawled under the bed and contemplated throwing up myself. It’s not so easy for us cats since we don’t have fingers. I tried to get zen and think hairball, but was distracted by Devin stumbling back into the room and collapsing on the bed. I winced as the springs bounced overhead, then came out and looked Devin over.

  He looked not great. Kind of pasty in the face. At least he was breathing.

  It occurred to me that I should get in touch with the chief. If I’d been poisoned too, he’d be the only one who’d make sure I was given medical attention. He’d make damn sure of it, whereas to anyone else I’d be just a sick cat, oh well.

  I pulled my portable com out of my holster and signaled the chief. The few seconds he took to answer seemed like forever.

  “What is it, Leon?” He sounded cranky.

  “I think Devin’s been poisoned.” My voice came out in a squeak, and I tried to bring it down. “Ahm. I called in the medics. He and I shared dinner, so—”

  “I’ll be right there!”

  I put away the com, feeling slightly better about things. I hopped up on the bed next to Devin to keep an eye on him. His breathing was kind of shallow and his eyes were closed. I curled up next to him and purred, hoping to reassure him.

  While I waited I thought about the shrimp we’d eaten and paid attention to every small sensation in my body, watching for any telltale symptoms. My mouth wasn’t tingling, and I didn’t feel sick. I felt … hungry, actually. I wouldn’t have minded a snack.