by Jim Newell
“From the cat show. Over at the Municipal Auditorium. Look at the ribbon on the cage. ‘Grand Champion’ it says. I checked around. This cat has been champion at more shows than enough. When he sires a litter, the kittens bring $250 each. That makes him valuable.”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars! Who in his right mind would pay that much for a cat?”
“Lot of people. I checked it all out. I found out the name and address of the man who owns this one. He’s got money, and he’ll pay to get his money machine back. We should have it all wrapped up in a couple of days.”
“How much money?”
“I’m going to ask ten…thousand…smackers !” Sam dragged out the words with appropriate emphasis.
“You’re kidding! Ten thousand? For that? Sam, you’re out of your mind.”
“Okay. Just you wait and see. They probably aren’t home yet, so I’m going to phone and leave a message on their answering machine, if they have one, and tell them the good news. It’s the only time I’ll be able to use this phone. They’ll get cops and have their line tapped; so after this, I’ll use a pay phone.”
“Stupid! You’ll wind up in jail again. All because of an ugly old cat.”
“Meg, I’ve got it all worked out. I even got a litter box and some food for the cat. Don’t worry about it, babe. We’ll get the money. Snatching a cat’s a whole lot better than taking a kid. The cops don’t get so worked up and there’s no risk at all. Trust me.”
“It’s your doing. I don’t want no part of it.”
“You’ll want part of the money, though, won’t you?”
Before Meg could make a reply to that one, Snapper removed himself from under the couch and resumed exploring. He dodged the hand that reached for him and walked around the room, checking the furniture and the carpet.
“We’ll put the litter box out here in the entry, and his food beside it. How about getting a couple of saucers down and I’ll give him some right now to let him know this is where he stays for awhile.”
Shortly thereafter, his sense of smell undermining his resolve to stay away from those people, Berrybox Champion Gingersnap examined the arrangements made for his comfort. The box was unsatisfactory. He also turned up his nose at the soft cat food. He was used to kibble, low ash diet kibble, please. The milk was something else. Snapper was never given milk, but he stole some whenever he got the chance. His veterinarian believed that milk is bad for male cats because it tends to make them susceptible to bladder infections. The vet’s opinion did nothing to change Snapper’s taste for milk, so he lapped up the milk now offered to him with considerable gusto. Perhaps this place would not be quite so bad after all.
Snapper paid no attention to Sam’s telephone call. He could have told Sam, had he been able to talk, what the voice on the answering machine would say, because he had heard it often enough when, home alone, he had been aware of the machine taking calls.
“Hello.” The voice was male, mellow, cultured and middle-aged. “You have reached the Humphrey residence. We are unable to take your call just now. Please leave your name and a number where you can be reached and your call will be returned. Wait for the tone.”
“Yeah,” said Sam after hearing the tone. “We’ve got your cat. You want him back? It’s going to cost you ten thousand dollars.” His voice was raspy, certainly not cultured and he spoke hurriedly from nervousness. “I’ll call at eight o’clock tonight for your answer. Be home then.” He hung up with a small slam of satisfaction.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Meg was putting on her coat. “I’m going to work now. Be back after midnight. I still think you’re crazy.”
After the door slammed behind Meg, Sam sat down and called, “Here, kitty, kitty. Come on kitty. Kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Snapper ignored the summons in favour of a post-drink bath. The man walked over and picked him up. Snapper didn’t like that. He dug in his claws. Hard. At the sound of the yelp, he pushed harder with his hind feet until, released, he jumped to the floor. He made a dignified run back under the couch.
“You rotten little bastard! Scratch me, will you. I’ll hammer you good when I catch you.”
It was no game for Sam, but Snapper had a good time and the lumbering man never did catch him. Sam finally gave up the chase and retired to the bathroom where, after he stopped the bleeding, he put ointment on his scratches. That done, he ignored Snapper and went out for a beer, slamming the door heavily behind him.
“Bloody cat,” he muttered going down the steps. “Should ask for twenty thousand for that.”
Berrybox Champion Gingersnap continued his exploration, winding up at the litter box as aforementioned, with the aforementioned result. His search for a napping area resulted in a search of higher perches than mere chairs. Snapper liked to sleep high up where he could be more in control of those around him. At home, he was used to a special perch, a cat-sized platform built high on a post in front of a window where he could look out at the back yard. He checked out window ledges and the dresser in the bedroom, where his tail unfortunately moved a couple of things standing there, spilling one of them. He ignored the spilled liquid because he didn’t care for the smell of it.
Finally he came to a bookcase in the living room. It stood on a chest of drawers, the top shelf about six feet above the floor. Although built as a bookcase, only one shelf held books, and few enough of those. The top two shelves were filled with framed photographs and glass and china knick-knacks, which Meg had collected over the years. Snapper didn’t know about collecting. He just knew that the second shelf from the top appeared to be a good place for a nap. Up he jumped, knocking over only one photo in the process. However, getting himself settled required a bit more space than was available without his rearranging the rest of the bric-a-brac. That, without troubling him to any degree, turned out to be impossible without a few of the little ornaments being swept to the floor. Snapper was able to ignore the minor cacophony of smashing glass and china. After several annoyed lashings of his tail to annotate some measure of displeasure with the whole affair, he settled down to nap.
Sam stayed longer at the pub than he intended. When he discovered that the hour was almost eight, he hurried out to find a pay phone. Then he forgot the number he was to call and had to look it up. The first time he dialed, he got a wrong number and was part way through his spiel before the elderly man who answered could get a word in edgewise.
“I don’t know who you are, mister, but either you’re crazy, a crook or playing some kind of joke.” The connection was broken.
Sam swore and tried again. He was a bit flustered when, after three rings, the voice at the other end said, “Hello.”
“This Humphrey?” asked Sam, breathing hard.
“Yes. Are you calling about Snapper?”
“Snapper? Oh, the cat. Yes. Are you going to pay?”
“Well now, I don’t know.” The man at the other end of the phone line did not seem to be unduly disturbed by Sam’s question.
“You don’t know? Don’t you want your cat back?”
“Well yes. He’s a nice cat, but not ten thousand dollars nice.”
“At two fifty a kitten, he must be worth a lot of dough.”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars a kitten? Oh, you mean the price for kittens he sires. Well, I don’t get that money, my dear chap. I just get a set stud fee for his services.”
“Yeah, yeah. You make money offa the cat. I want some of it. And no going to the cops or the deal’s off.”
“The cops?” Mr. Humphrey laughed a hearty laugh. “My dear fellow, I wouldn’t bother the police over Snapper. Neither will I pay you ten thousand dollars. Nowhere near.”
“I expected that. What’s your best offer?”
“Well now, let’s see. I might, just might, you understand, which is not to say that I will, but I might pay five hundred for him. Certainly no more than that.”
“Five hundred! Listen Humphrey, you want to see your cat back, you’d bett
er get serious.”
“Never been more serious in my life, old boy. I would consider paying five hundred, but that’s not a definite offer.”
“Well, you’d better do some serious thinking and come up with a better offer than that. I’m going to call tomorrow morning at nine and if you haven’t come up with ten thousand dollars, you’ll get a parcel by noon with your cat’s left ear in it. You hear me?”
“If you send his ear, or any other piece of him, don’t bother calling because the cat without all his bits and pieces intact is worth nothing. His whole value is in his appearance, you see, and unless he’s all put together, he’s worthless.” The mellow voice was as calm and cool as Sam’s voice was harsh. “No, five hundred would be my best offer, and I’ll have to think about that for awhile. Good bye now.”
Having the phone hung up in his ear a second time enraged Sam, who slung his own receiver onto the hook so hard it bounced off and hit him on the side of the head above the ear. That made him more angry, and he stomped off back to the pub to do some intensive drinking.
Snapper, meanwhile, had jumped down off his perch to do some intensive drinking of his own and emptied the milk dish. He had also had to make room for the liquid by emptying his bladder, and the litter box still did not appeal to him so he was forced to find another location. That accomplished, he decided to search the house for more information about his new quarters. He found a couple of plants in the dining room window that looked and smelled inviting. After tasting a couple of leaves, however, he found them unsatisfactory. In getting rid of them from his stomach, some of the other contents of that organ accidentally came with them, which made a bit of a mess on the carpet, and annoyed Snapper himself. He vented his annoyance by digging the offending plants out of their pots.
To calm his nerves, he went back to the living room window from which he had been so rudely removed some hours previously. There he shredded the sheer curtains with his front paws as vigorously as he could and as high as he could reach. Feeling calmer after that, he decided on another nap, there being nothing else of interest to do. The waterbed in the master bedroom seemed comfortable and the gentle sway after he jumped up on it was soothing as he settled in. It was there that Meg found him when she came home from work after midnight. Snapper had decided to ignore the screams of anger that had erupted from Meg. Each yell was louder than its predecessor when she discovered the various areas of devastation as she progressed through her house in search of the perpetrator of the messes. At the final yell of discovery of the cat on her bed, Snapper decided that discretion was the better part of valor and left before Meg could quite reach him. Unfortunately, by instinct, Snapper extended his back claws as he left the bed and the resulting rip from the bedspread caused a tiny rip in the water bed with the resulting leak, and that only served to increase the anger of the woman who was already sufficiently aroused to cause mayhem.
It might be just as well to draw the curtain over the next few hours in the life of Berrybox Champion Gingersnap and Meg and Sam. Sam’s arrival home, unsteady of foot and bleary of eye, was not a happy homecoming. Not only that, he overslept his nine o’clock appointment with Mr. Humphrey because he was not used to sleeping on the couch, especially with a curious cat jumping on him every couple of hours to discover the source of the noise coming from Sam’s mouth. Possibly Snapper had never before heard a human snore; certainly not the way Sam did. When Sam woke at one point, groggy and befuddled, he discovered a furry paw just being withdrawn from his mouth. Snapper had merely been attempting to discover the source of the strange noise.
When Sam finally did connect with Mr. Humphrey, around dinner time, he was ready to be conciliatory. “Tell you what, Mr. Humphrey, I’ve decided to lower the ransom.”
“Oh good. I’ve decided to lower my offer.”
“Yeah.” Sam’s resolve hardened again, and so did his voice. “Well, here’s my final offer. I’ll take your five hundred. Now here’s where you leave it before you get the cat back.”
“Just a minute old chap. My offer may have something to do with that. Instead of my paying you five hundred, I’ll make this deal with you. You pay me two hundred and fifty and I’ll take Snapper off your hands. How does that sound?”
Sam hung up with a sudden jerk of his arm. He left the pay phone booth and sat down on a bench nearby. In his mind, he saw several puddles, one or two small heaps, shredded curtains, a ripped bedspread, water leaking from the waterbed, claw marks on the chesterfield and two or three chairs and he couldn’t remember what else. He did remember Meg’s anger. He remembered it very well. Sam held his head in his hands as though he had a headache. Come to think of it, he did have a headache.
Next morning, Mr. Humphrey left the house as usual to go to his office. As he opened the garage door to get to his car, he heard a familiar sound. Looking down, he found a familiar object.
“Why hello, Snapper old boy! You came back, did you? Good cat. Well done, Snapper. Have you had some adventures, old kitty?” He picked the cat up and rubbed his smooth head. “Didn’t lose your purr, did you?”
Twixt the Cup and the Lip
My mother was a great one for proverbs and old sayings. One of her favorites was the one that went, “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and lip.” I never really paid all that much attention to my mother’s proverbs. I figured that if she believed they were true, that was fine for her. I could ignore them if I wished, and I usually did.
Let me tell you how that favorite proverb of hers made a believer out of me. My life would have been better had I paid more attention. But then...on the other hand....
The forsythia bloomed early this year. That is not a non sequitur. My life is filled with fascinating little details like that these days. I discovered that the tiny little yellow forsythia flowers come out before the leaves have had time to bring out their rich green. I notice colors like that now. The grass is green after the snow and the contrast between yellow bush and lush lawn is comforting to the eyes. Especially to eyes that spend most of their time indoors. I probably noticed the forsythia this year more than other years because I spend so much time now sitting in my wheelchair looking out into the garden through the net curtains.
The curtains in this room have not always been net. They replaced drapes that were pale blue or some such color. Until I began living, as opposed to merely sleeping, in this room I never paid much attention to the colors and the decorating scheme. It was just a room. Now that the furniture has been rearranged to accommodate my wheelchair, the new hardwood floor laid and the new adjustable bed with the invalid rails installed, everything is different, and I notice things. I have time to notice. Plenty of time. More time than I really had planned on: Days. Weeks. Months. I suppose years, even.
A wheelchair is not all bad, though. Who would ever suspect a bank robber in a wheelchair? That wheelchair makes a perfect cover for a perfect crime. Well, almost perfect. There was one detail I didn’t plan on, but I suppose perfection is difficult to attain on a one-time shot. And I do get to notice things like the forsythia along the garden wall. It will be interesting to see what blooms next, and where. I haven’t had time to notice details like that before. There was never enough time until now.
Robbing a bank, it seems to me, is something like planting forsythia, although I have had very little to do with one and nothing whatever with the other. I mean, I have never planted forsythia and I have only planned one bank robbery. But there must be a similarity in the planning and the patience and the coming to bloom of all the planning and waiting and watching. One thing though, forsythia is prettier and lasts longer. It’s amazing how short the actual time span of a bank robbery actually is. Something like two minutes. That’s all. Just two minutes and it is all over. Then two hours to net curtain time.
Perhaps I had better explain. I had planned for several months to rob the Colburne Bank. The planning didn’t begin with a whim. I needed cash, a lot of cash. After a broken marriage, a lost job, a new wife, a house
to finance, I would have needed cash even if I had not lost my job, but losing a job that paid eighty thousand a year plus a car and mileage expenses was a blow. Coming on top of a court order to pay Celeste twenty grand a year, well, that was a second blow that I couldn’t take.
Oh they were nice about it. Carl Thompson, the sales manager, called me in several times to sympathize that I had drawn a bummer with the divorce proceedings, but he always ended the conversation with, “Fred, you can’t let that keep you from working. Your sales record is just not good enough.”
Not good enough! It was bloody awful! I couldn’t sell anything. I couldn’t concentrate. Even old friends and customers could tell I was not the same old Fred who had been top salesman in the district. But why dwell on that. It’s past and done. I took a quick way to make some easy money, even though the easy way was not really easy or the way I had planned.
I knew Colburne a bit but I thought it would be smart to know it a lot better so I spent a good deal of time there last September and October. I discovered quite a few things about villages that don’t have local police forces. The regional cops patrol on a regular basis, which makes the citizens happy and encourages people like bank robbers to make plans. I don’t know why more people don’t try it. When you discover that the cops drive through town every morning at 10:45 and have a coffee at the Star Cafe, then again at 2:30 for another coffee break, that gives you a lot of time for a hit and run. If you add to that the fact that the manager of the only bank and his secretary leave for lunch every day exactly at noon and return exactly one hour later, then you can be even more precise in your plans. By the way, he went home for lunch and she went to the school to pick up her little boy. See? I was thorough, just like the guy who planted the forsythia exactly three-quarters of the way down the garden wall.
One teller always went to lunch at 11:30 and the other an hour later when the first one came back. The assistant manager stayed until one 1:00 when he and the other clerk left for their lunch. I don’t know where they went because I planned to be long gone before they ever returned to work.
