by Nic Saint
“Do I?” asked Brutus, gulping a little more.
“Oh, sure.” She then turned to me, and her smile vanished like breath on a razor blade. “I see you haven’t done as you promised. This place still looks like a pigsty. But no matter. I’ve called in reinforcements. They should be here shortly, and I suggest you watch and learn.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, and a question was just forming on my lips when the glass sliding door was shoved open and Marge walked in, carrying a hefty vacuum cleaner and looking ready to do some serious damage with the apparatus.
I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I have a thing about vacuum cleaners. I loathe them. I detest them. I hate them. I cannot be in the same room with them without falling prey to the most abject sensation of naked fear. Fear of being deafened by their horrific sound, or possibly fear of being sucked into their belly never to be seen again.
So it was with a slight cry of panic that I hopped down from my position on the couch and raced up the stairs as fast as my short legs could carry me. Before long, Marge had started up that machine from hell and was hoovering away to her heart’s content, while I was safely ensconced on top of the bed, hoping that this, too, would soon pass.
You might ask why Marge brought her own vacuum cleaner and didn’t use her daughter’s, and I will tell you that something happened to Odelia’s dust sucker recently that made it break down. Someone, it might have been a mouse, or maybe even a rat, had chewed through its power cord, and had rendered the thing useless. Okay, so I chewed through that power cord. Can you blame me? That thing is a menace! A danger to life and limb! If ever the police come to drag me to jail for causing criminal damages, I’ll plead self-defense, and I’ll bet any judge in the nation would readily see my point.
Before long, another, smaller cat had joined me in the form of Dooley. He hates vacuum cleaners, too, and must have walked in through the pet flap before finding himself cornered by Marge’s furious burst of cleaning frenzy.
“She’s cleaning, Max!” he cried, as he jumped up onto the bed and tucked his head underneath the covers, not unlike an ostrich. “She’s going to suck me up and kill me!”
“Kill us,” I corrected him.
“Oh, but you’re safe, Max,” said Dooley. “You’ll never fit inside that machine. You’re too big. Me? I’ll fit just fine!”
I know I should have been upset by these words, spoken by a friend, no less. But I knew Dooley was simply telling it like it is. Like a child, he means no harm, and words sometimes fall from his mouth that may come across as harsh but mean no malice.
And oddly enough his words inspired hope, not anger. Dooley was right. I would never fit inside that vacuum cleaner. Which meant I was probably, and perhaps for the first time in my life, saved by my big bones.
Just then, a third cat came jumping on top of the bed covers. It was Brutus. He may be a tough cat—one of those tough babies who look the world in the eye and spit—but he, too, has an unholy fear of vacuum cleaners and other suctional devices from hell.
“What’s with humans and their obsession to suck dust into a weird machine,” he lamented as he cast anxious glances at the door.
“It’s Harriet,” I said. “She asked Marge to drop by and give her daughter’s house a quick once-over.”
“She should have left well enough alone,” said Brutus, earning himself nods of agreement from both myself and Dooley.
And as if she’d heard our words, Harriet came sashaying into the room, then hopped up onto the bed and Odelia’s fearsome foursome was complete.
“Also hiding from the vacuum cleaner?” asked Dooley.
“I don’t need to hide from a machine that is doing a great job eradicating everything that is hideous and odious about the world we live in,” she announced primly. But she wasn’t fooling me. Like Brutus, she kept darting anxious glances in the direction of the door. And the moment Marge came stomping up the stairs, no doubt intent on giving the upstairs the same treatment she’d awarded the downstairs, the Persian actually whimpered and slipped under the covers, joining Brutus, Dooley and, of course, myself.
We may be fearless in the face of murder and mayhem, but if there’s one thing that can beat us, it’s a simple contraption designed to extract those dust bunnies from their hiding place and deposit them into either a plastic receptacle—Hoover’s bagless variety—or a strange shapeless bag, never to be seen or heard from again. Oh, the horror!
Silly, of course, but I never claimed cats are perfect creatures.
So you’ve discovered our Achilles’ heel.
Don’t use it against us!
6
Marge frowned as she applied the vacuum cleaner to her daughter’s upstairs bedroom floor. Harriet had been absolutely right. The house was a mess. Dust and dirt everywhere, clothes still in the hamper in the bathroom, dishes in the sink… She didn’t mind cleaning up after her daughter from time to time, but since this was already the third time this month, she was starting to think something was seriously wrong.
Odelia worked hard, of course, and so did her boyfriend Chase, a cop with the local police force. But she shouldn’t have to rely on her mother to take care of basic household stuff like this. And if she didn’t have the time, maybe she should hire a cleaner.
And as she vowed to have a talk with Odelia that night, she thought she heard the doorbell chime out its customary tune.
She shut down the vacuum cleaner and listened intently for a moment. Yep, there it was again. She wondered for a moment whether to open the door or not, but then decided she might as well have a look.
“You can come out now,” she said as she walked out of the room. “I’m done in here.”
Four cats gratefully stuck their heads from under the covers and sighed a collective sigh of relief. Marge smiled. It was funny to see them go into hiding the moment the vacuum cleaner came out. Well, funny for her. Not as much fun for them, poor babies.
She quickly walked down the stairs and headed for the door. The moment she opened it she thought she experienced déjà-vu, for the two men standing there looked very familiar indeed.
“Johnny? Jerry?” she asked, taken aback a little by the sight of the twosome. “Is that really you?”
The two men appeared equally surprised by this meeting, for they goggled for a moment, then Johnny, the biggest of the two, opened his arms, his face breaking into a wide grin, and cried, “Mrs. P! It’s so nice to see you again!”
Marge wasn’t prepared to allow herself to be hugged by the big guy, though, so she took a step back, folded her arms across her chest, and frowned. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Johnny Carew. And you better make it good, or I’m calling the police.”
Jerry, Johnny’s ferret-faced partner in crime, contrived to beam at her, which oddly enough made him look like a ferret in heat. “Now, Mrs. P,” he said, his voice smooth like butter. “No need to be like that. We mean you no harm. Isn’t that right, Johnny?”
“Yeah, that’s right, Jer,” said Johnny, a mountain of a man whose face displayed all the hallmarks of a goofy kid, including a certain guilelessness that was remarkable in one who’d seen the inside of a prison cell for a big chunk of his life. The two career criminals had, once upon a time, been assigned to Marge for their community service, to be carried out at the library she managed. Apart from stacking books on their designated shelves, they’d also knocked out a wall in the basement, tunneled into the Capital First Bank, absconding with the contents of no less than fifteen safe-deposit boxes. They’d escaped to Mexico, but had recently been apprehended in Tulum after Johnny had posted a selfie on the beach, sipping a daiquiri and having a great old time.
“So you’re back,” said Marge, who still hadn’t forgiven the bank robbers for taking advantage of her good heart.
“Yeah, they caught us in Mexico,” said Johnny sadly.
“No thanks to you,” Jerry grumbled. “You just had to post that selfie, didn’t you?”
“But, Jer, how else were people going to know how we were doing?”
“They weren’t supposed to know how we were doing, you great lummox.”
“The cops shipped us back stateside,” Johnny explained. “Even though I told them we liked Mexico a lot better. The weather is much nicer,” he said. “And the beaches, too.”
“So why aren’t you in prison, serving your sentence?” asked Marge.
“The nice judge let us out,” Johnny said.
“Community service,” said Jerry. “Again.”
Marge shook her head. “You keep getting lucky with your judges.”
“This time we’re going to be good,” said Johnny. “Isn’t that right, Jer?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Jerry, glancing behind Marge at Odelia’s hallway. “So this is your place, is it, Mrs. P?”
“My daughter’s,” she said. “What community service?”
“You’re not going to believe this, Mrs. P,” said Johnny with a wide grin.
“Try me,” said Marge a little acerbically.
“We’ve joined Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
She stared at the guy. “Is this a joke?”
“No joke,” said Johnny. “We found religion. Isn’t that right, Jer?”
“Or religion found us,” Jerry grumbled. “No thanks to that idiot Judge Lockhart.”
“Our lawyer is a Jehovah’s Witness himself,” said Johnny. “He was the one who suggested Judge Lockhart we sign up.”
“We didn’t exactly sign up, though, did we, Johnny?” asked Jerry with a good deal of pique. “We’re doing our three months and that’s it. We’re out, free and clear.”
“Unless we like it so much we want to stay. And so far I’m liking it a lot. It’s so much fun knocking on people’s doors and telling them all about Jesus. Isn’t that right, Jer?”
“Grmbl,” said Jerry, his scowl deepening.
“Well, at least you can’t do any harm going door to door,” Marge allowed, thinking that maybe this was for the best. If two hardened criminals like Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale could be induced to find religion, there was still hope left in the world. Though judging from the way Jerry kept eyeing the painting on Odelia’s hallway wall, something told her the recently reformed criminal’s heart wasn’t entirely in his reformation.
“So can we interest you in the word of Jesus, Mrs. P?” asked Johnny.
“Not right now, Johnny,” said Marge. “I have to go to work.”
“At the library,” said Johnny with a big grin. “I loved working at the library with you, Mrs. P. All those books… and stuff.”
“Let’s not bother Mrs. P any more than necessary, Johnny,” said Jerry, tugging at his compatriot’s elbow. “Can’t you see she’s busy?”
And as the two gangsters retreated, only now did Marge notice how they were both clasping a Bible in their hands. The sight was so incongruous she did a double-take.
“See you, Mrs. P,” said Johnny with a little wave.
“See you,” said Marge, and found herself returning the wave, before closing the door.
At least they couldn’t rob banks while spreading the word of Jesus, could they?
7
Wilbur Vickery made a face when this customer counted out the sum she owed him down to the last cent.
“One cent, two cents, three cents…” the woman murmured as she put a pile of coins on the counter.
Wilbur, even though he was of an age when most people stop losing interest in technological advancements, had embraced the digital revolution wholeheartedly. He liked nothing better than when people paid with plastic. Coins were such a nuisance. You had to count them, you had to make sure you didn’t shortchange people and, most of all, you never knew where all those coins had been. People paid a visit to the bathroom, didn’t wash their hands, and then brought out their coins to pay for their wares. Yikes.
He glanced over the counter and out into the street, where passersby enjoyed a relaxing stroll in the sun, while small business owners were cooped up inside having to patiently wait for customers to empty the contents of their wallets, counting out coins and keeping an entire line of customers waiting.
Wilbur’s big piebald, Kingman, sat on the sidewalk, on an overturned plastic crate, chatting with other cats. Well, at least Wilbur thought Kingman was chatting. With cats it was hard to know what it was they were doing, but it sure as heck looked to him as if they were chattering away like a bunch of gossiping old maids.
“Thank you for your business,” he said dutifully when the lady had finally divested herself of her last copper coin and he’d dumped them into his cash register.
He cast a quick glance at the bank of screens located next to the till, where he could monitor any of the dozen or so cameras he’d installed in his store. Right next to that was a television screen tuned to ESPN, where currently two newscasters were arguing the pros and cons of LeBron James’s state of fitness for next month’s game.
“It’s a disgrace,” said the next customer in line.
He stared at the woman. “Disgrace? What are you talking about?” He recognized her as Ida Baumgartner, one of his regulars.
“And you call yourself a member of the neighborhood watch,” she said, shaking her head and looking at him with clear reproach in her eyes.
She was a formidable woman, of sizable proportions, with no less than three chins, or it could have been four. All of her chins were waggling now, and her eyes, behind those square-shaped horn-rimmed glasses, were hard and unforgiving.
“Burglars are running amok in our town and you’re sitting here twiddling your thumbs as if you don’t have a care in the world.”
He would have pointed out that he wasn’t exactly twiddling his thumbs but making a living selling his wares to all who wanted them, but Mrs. Baumgartner was already continuing her tirade. “If I were you I’d take down that sign,” she said now, pointing to the sign on the wall behind them that read, ‘Proud member of the Neighborhood Watch.’
“Well, I…”
“The police are doing nothing to stop these miscreants, nor do I expect them to, since they are, after all, civil servants, and can’t be bothered, but I’d really expected more from you, Wilbur, seeing as you’re supposed to be one of us.” She dropped a twenty dollar note and it fluttered down to the conveyor belt. “But all you care about is our money, not our safety. I should have known.” And with a shake of the head and a final dark frown, she grabbed her large canvas shopping bag containing her frankly meager haul, and stalked off, leaving Wilbur to stare after her, feeling bewildered and slightly annoyed.
“Don’t listen to her, Wilbur,” said his next customer, Father Reilly. “It’s not your fault that criminals are running circles around our law enforcement officers.”
“My fault? Your fault, you mean,” said Wilbur, for Father Reilly was as much a member of the newly launched neighborhood watch as he himself was.
“Myes, you’re probably right,” said the priest, fingering his tuft of white hair. “Maybe we should get together and see if we can’t put a stop to the latest crime wave to hit these shores.”
“Have you heard from Vesta yet?” asked Wilbur, referring to Vesta Muffin, the heroic founding mother and current leader of the watch.
“Can’t say that I have. But rest assured, if this crime wave is as bad as Ida seems to think it is, I’m sure that Vesta will be on top of it, and so will Scarlett.”
“I hope so,” said Wilbur. “We pledged to keep this town safe from crime, Francis, and if what Ida is saying is true, we’re failing in our sacred duty.”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” said Father Reilly soothingly. “Ida tends to see danger where there is none. We all know that about her.”
This was true. Ida was one of those people with hypochondriacal tendencies, and spent more time at the doctor’s office than out and about. Still, it’s one thing to imagine yourself the victim of every disease on WebMD and another to accuse the neighborhood watch of
gross negligence in the face of a violent crime wave sweeping through the town. “I’ll talk to Vesta,” said Wilbur therefore. “Tell her to organize a meeting. If there really is a gang of burglars hitting our town, we need to get on top of this pronto, Francis. Or we’ll be tarred and feathered for not doing what we promised people we’d do.”
After Francis had walked out carrying his two bottles of wine and a nice block of Brie cheese, Wilbur took his phone and called Vesta. He didn’t like being accused of gross negligence, but what he liked even less were criminals taking what didn’t belong to them. And as he waited for Vesta to pick up, suddenly he saw that some teenager was grabbing a can of Red Bull and tucking it into the waistband of his cargo pants, then pulling down his Bugs Bunny sweater over it. “I saw that, Bart Stupes!” he yelled, and disconnected again, just when Vesta’s voice called out, “Wilbur? What do you want?”
But the store owner was already stalking down the aisles en route to catching a sneak thief in the act.
8
“And what did they take, exactly?” asked Tex as he studied his patient with a measure of exasperation.
He’d known, when becoming a doctor, that he’d have to deal with his fair share of annoying patients from time to time, but never in his wildest dreams had he expected to encounter a hypochondriac stalker who’d walk into his office on a daily basis. Ida Baumgartner was every doctor’s worst nightmare. She scoured the internet for new and fascinating diseases she was absolutely sure she suffered from, and even though Tex explained to her time and time again that, apart from a slight tendency to suffer from hypertension, she was as healthy as a young oxen, she wouldn’t take his word for it, and demand he examine her for whatever new disease she’d discovered online.
This morning, however, Ida had other things on her mind apart from the precarious state of her health. Someone had broken into her home the night before, and she was anxious to tell anyone who would listen all about it, and even those who wouldn’t listen, too. Or those who had a waiting room full of patients, like Dr. Tex Poole.
