Itch was half the size of Big Ernie but twice as loud. Local opinion held that Itch sounded very much like one of those small, fluffy white dogs, the kind seen in heavily guarded, gated communities where rich people brag about golf scores and their new Persian rug.
Big Ernie liked working for Itch for two reasons; firstly, Itch paid him very well, and secondly, Itch often let Big Ernie hold people upside down off the edge of tall buildings. Sometimes he hung them upside down over short buildings; it generally depended on the location they happened to be in. He enjoyed this very much and was quite happy to dangle Detective Reinhardt in this position for as long a time period as required.
Despite the awkward situation and the general nervousness associated with the current situation, Nigel took everything rather well. Outwardly, he appeared almost calm. That gift got Nigel through school, college, and then university virtually unscathed. No matter what the situation, no matter how traumatic, he could simply stuff his hands in his pockets, nod confidently and knowingly, and ask people if they'd like a cup of tea. That usually caused people to believe that he knew something that they didn't, and so they left him alone.
A bird flew past the suspended Nigel and thought it a bit peculiar for people to be hanging off buildings, especially so close to lunchtime. That same bird was later shot up the bottom by a deranged old lady who had recently been deceased.
The ability to remain calm during a crisis proved to be a remarkable survival tactic that also got him through the Police Academy Criminal Psychology Program. And this same skill landed him a good position at the local police station in northern London. That, and an extremely high IQ. This skill, however, had nothing to do with the unfortunate predicament in which he now found himself. Anyone who ever had a vague acquaintance with Nigel would say that despite all of his good qualities, there were two areas in his life where he showed immense weakness: gambling and girls; the latter bordered on a psychological problem and the former was a worldwide crisis that no one would ever solve. Nigel had only ever loved one girl. As bad luck would have it, that same girl broke his heart and left him emotionally buggered up.
A telepathic message suddenly originated from somewhere in London. The message flew from its origin in search of someone specific to connect with. The message had a bit of trouble finding its intended recipient because, at that precise moment, that particular person was hanging upside down off a building. The phrase beware the elf suddenly ran through Nigel's head as the message found its destination. He thought that to be quite strange. Itch was fairly short, but by no means an elf. Nigel dismissed the thought and blamed it on the altitude and all the blood in his body rushing quickly to his head.
Coincidentally, the reason for Nigel suddenly reaching new heights was due to his gambling problem, a problem that he successfully managed to hide from his co-workers on the force and his superiors due to the fact that he'd be fired on the spot, professionally humiliated, and discharged in disgrace from his position if the truth were ever revealed. True, he would be a great loss to the department; true, he'd miss the job; and looking back, he should probably just have forgotten about gambling altogether, but he couldn't. It was too much fun, it gave him a rush, and he was, plainly and simply, addicted. Dealing with psychopaths and general loonies day in and day out simply wasn't enough to occupy his mind. Tracking down serial killers was almost a mundane task to Nigel. But pulling down that handle and watching the fruit spin, that was truly an awesome life-fulfilling experience. Hitting just one more time to see how close he could actually get to twenty-one without busting, that was a pure thrill. Watching the ball go around and around at the roulette table, mind-blowing.
Another bird flew by, and the thought briefly entered its mind that London may not be the best place for it to be living. Too many strange folk. This same bird was later crushed by a man sitting on a desk. But for now, it began to make plans to move to a warmer climate where people didn't hang off buildings quite as much. Maybe Greece, or it had been told that Venice was nice at this time of year.
Itch paced back and forth along the edge of the building. Itch was short and chubby but had a mean streak that stretched for a mile. Some days, two miles.
"So," Itch said, "how does it feel to be hanging upside down off the edge of a building, detective?"
"Quite refreshing, thank you for asking," replied Nigel. "I've been a bit on the sluggish side these past few days and these last couple of minutes have been a real eye-opener. Really, thank you from the bottom of my heart."
Nigel grinned and attempted to continue remaining calm by placing his hands in his suit pockets, something that looked more awkward than calm. A gentle breeze caused Nigel to sway ever so slightly.
Big Ernie decided he should put his two cents in.
"You're behind on your payments, my friend!" he said. Big Ernie wasn't all that smart, so Itch compiled a list of menacing one-liners that he could blurt out at the customers anytime he felt the need.
Nigel tried to adjust himself a little and straightened his tie.
"Yes, I realize that, and I promise I'll have the money to you by Sunday at the latest."
"Is that the best you can come up with?" said Itch. "You owe me a total of fifty thousand pounds! If you don't have the money right now, how do you expect to get it before Sunday?"
"It'd be in your best interest to pay us," said Big Ernie.
"Yes, I realize that, Big Ernie, thanks for reminding me. The way I see things, you have two options. The first would be to have Ernie here—"
"Big Ernie," corrected Big Ernie.
"Yes, sorry, Big Ernie, absolutely. Like I was saying, the first would be to have Big Ernie here let go of me and see whether or not I can figure out how to defy gravity in under three seconds."
The wind picked up a little more, causing Nigel to sway and Big Ernie to switch arms.
"The second option, and the one I highly recommend, is that you don't drop me off this rather tall building, and you let me live at least until Sunday so that you can get the money that you are owed."
Itch stopped pacing. "And how exactly do you plan to obtain this money, as I have it on good authority that you are completely broke and don't have a penny to your name?"
Nigel brushed a speck of non-existent dust off the lapel of his jacket and looked up at Itch.
"That's hardly your concern, is it? You see, all that matters to you is that you have the money, all fifty thousand pounds, in your hands by Sunday. If, for example, I didn't happen to have your money by Sunday, you would then be free to fling me off any building you like. Now, if I were an Australian flying squirrel, getting flung off a building of any sort would be quite all right as I could just glide my furry little body to safety, correct?"
The question caught Itch off guard, and he felt that he was beginning to lose control of the conversation, so he answered quickly, just to make sure he was still involved. "Yes, I suppose that would be correct."
Nigel continued with what most people would refer to as reckless abandon. "That's right. But, as we both know, I'm not an Australian flying squirrel, nor am I small or fuzzy. If flung off a building, I'd probably just end up dying. In which case you wouldn't get your money, and I would never again be able to make a large gamble that I couldn't afford, which in turn would cause me to borrow money off you that I would then have to pay back with interest, right?"
Nigel could sense Itch's brain fighting with itself in complete confusion. Inflicting confusion was another of Nigel's gifts, and one he was quite proud of, although it really served no meaningful purpose aside from providing cheap entertainment and, if in the right situation, convincing a loan shark not to throw Nigel off a building.
"Hang on a sec," said Itch, "what was that bit about the squirrel again?"
"Okay, you've got me. How about this? We just agree that I pay you all the money back on Sunday?"
Itch thought about the proposal for a second, and then decided that he must have won the conversation after al
l. "The whole amount by Sunday or hanging off the edge of buildings will be the least of your problems."
"I don't want to hurt you, Nigel, but I will if I have to," said Big Ernie, who had missed the entire conversation.
Itch glanced at Big Ernie to quit the one-liners, but the large man looked like he was having too much fun.
"And I appreciate that, Ernie, really I do," said Nigel. "All the money by Sunday, I promise. You can trust me."
Itch stepped away from the edge. "I don't trust you as far as I could drop you. But you have until Sunday."
Big Ernie lifted Nigel back up onto the ledge and dropped him on the rooftop. Nigel jumped to his feet, brushed off his suit, and ran his hands through his hair. He smiled politely.
"Don't suppose I could interest either of you in a quick cup of tea?"
"Thanks, but we have three more people to hang off buildings today, and it looks like it's going to rain later, so we'd better get to it," said Itch politely.
"Suit yourself. Nice view up here." And with that, Nigel turned and left.
As he walked down the stairs, his heart slowed a bit, and he smiled at the fact that he hadn't been dropped off the building. He did, however, think that the time had come to pay these men back. He wasn't in the habit of borrowing money, but he had needed the fifty thousand for a trip to Vegas. He met Itch and Ernie through some contacts on the street and although he knew their business was completely illegal and technically he should arrest the pair of them, he just couldn't do it. They weren't a bad pair, really, and they knew far too much about him. If he arrested them, then his secret problem would no longer be a secret. But he wasn't worried; he knew how to get the money.
Nigel exited the stairwell and walked calmly through the lobby of the building.
He thought about where he had been going when Big Ernie had lifted him off the street. The station received a call this morning from a Mrs. Jones on Front Street who claimed that her cat had been possessed by the devil. Ordinarily, dispatch would send a uniformed constable to follow up on the report, but something horrific from a past investigation had stuck with Nigel. Something he'd put out of his mind until Mrs. Jones' phone call.
Around a year ago, a disgraced priest had taken to chopping up certain members of his congregation. New Scotland Yard took a few weeks to put two and two together, and once they discovered the answer was clearly four, they then multiplied it by twenty-seven, added one-million-seven-hundred-thousand-three-hundred-and-ninety-one, then divided the whole thing by Pi, which came out with the answer five-hundred-fifty-thousand-seven-hundred-and-thirty-nine-point-nine-one-one-nine-five-five-four-one-one-one and so on. That number was then taken and each separate numeral was assigned a binary language character that was in turn inputted into a child's Fisher-Price music box and played backward. The result was a rendition of What's New Pussycatas sung by Tom Jones that caused several middle-aged female members of the police force to remove their underwear and fling the items at the music box. Unfortunately, the result of the investigation meant practically nothing in terms of the case at hand. The powers of New Scotland Yard that be decided that the Mathematical Cryptography Department was not the correct team to solve the murders and quickly dispatched Nigel to resolve the situation as fast as possible.
It took Nigel three hours to figure out the killer was none other than the victims’ priest, Father Jensen. Nigel and a squad of uniforms showed up at Father Jensen's house.
At first glance, the house appeared empty.
After a thorough search, Nigel fell upon the disturbed priest in the attic. Funnily enough, at his time of discovery, Father Jensen sat on the floor half-naked, rocking back and forth and humming the tune What's New Pussycat. After several hours of interrogation, which involved Nigel asking questions and Father Jensen drooling uncontrollably in between cryptic answers, Nigel concluded that the priest had begun to question God about a great many things. Apparently, what finally drove him mad was the fact that God had begun to answer him, and they weren’t the answers he expected. Instead of claiming to talk to God, he claimed to have started talking to the Devil who encouraged him to cut members of his congregation up into small pieces.
As two uniformed police officers dragged the priest from the interrogation room, he turned and looked Nigel dead in the eyes and said, "It's the cat. He'll come in the form of a cat and you can't stop him, no one can!"
Since that time, Father Jensen was committed to a lovely mental hospital where he occupied a rather nice, off-white, padded room. The last report Nigel received stated that Jensen had given up talking to both God and the Devil and had instead taken up the fine art of counted cross-stitch.
And so Mrs. Jones' phone call had twitched Nigel's interest. He looked at his watch and decided to get a coffee before going to meet the possibly deranged Mrs. Jones.
Cat possessed by the devil? It's going to be one of those days.
Four.
The alarms had been going off for some time and Celina McMannis, Assistant Robotics Engineer at Majestic Technologies, London, was fed up. She had been playing with her fiery red hair for a good five minutes in a last, forlorn effort to ignore the blaring sounds emanating from the speakers mounted on the surrounding walls of the lunchroom. It wasn't working.
She always knew the Santa Claus Project was a bad idea, but no one had listened to her. Artificial intelligence just hadn't been tested enough to be put into real practice, especially on such a large scale. Celina flicked through her notebook, filled with little sticky notes with little schematic drawings on them. Several pages contained complex drawings; other pages contained doodles of doggies, for no other reason than Celina had a fondness for doodling doggies.
One page had a picture of a heart with an arrow through it and the initials CM+DR sketched in the middle. That being the last remnant of a failed relationship with one Dean Richards, who turned out to be a complete moron who eventually met the nasty bit at the end of Celina's short fuse. Celina’s temper had given her a certain reputation; some people said she failed to have a fuse at all.
Dean Richards ended up paying a substantial amount of money to be inducted into the witness protection program where he lived out his days as a semi-happy urine analysis technician under the assumed name of Monty Niggle. The reason for such extreme action came after he made the horrible mistake of sleeping in Celina's bed. Despite Dean’s slightly unfavorable body odor, Celina probably wouldn't have minded him sleeping in her bed; however, the woman sleeping next to Dean, whose most striking feature was that she was not Celina, did cause some discomfort. The discomfort was largely aimed at Dean's testicles, which were rendered completely useless for six months after. Revenge and retribution, in Celina's opinion, were not only a dish best served cold, they also came in anything up to four courses. The infliction of temporary impotence upon Dean Richards was merely the appetizer. Dean decided that he wasn't going to stick around for the main course.
When Celina finally gave up the search for Dean, she decided to swear off men for an indefinite amount of time and threw herself into her work. She applied for several positions; the most lucrative and interesting proposition came from Majestic Technologies. The company claimed to be making an enormous step forward in the field of artificial intelligence and not only that, the owner of the company, a billionaire industrialist, had offered her the job in person.
The alarms stopped.
"About time," said Celina to the empty cafeteria.
The project took five years to be fully developed and then another year to build the blasted little buggers. She sighed to herself and continued twirling her hair as she always did when she was impatient.
The Santa Claus Project was the brainchild of a man named Neville Bartholomew Snell Jr III. The same Neville Bartholomew Snell Jr III who offered her the job in the first place. Aside from being a billionaire, Neville also had a bad habit of buying everything humanly possible, including those sharp knives seen on late night TV. After a lifetime of spendi
ng, he decided that he would like to leave something behind. Something so the people would always remember him.
"Silly old fool," said Celina quietly.
Using a dozen ingenious scientists, the very latest in computer robotic design technology, and a group of teenage special effects technicians, the old fool had developed the Santa Claus Project: a unique and groundbreaking undertaking destined to reshape Christmas and make vast quantities of money for people who were already rich. And maybe bring small pockets of happiness to greedy children. That was the plan. That was not going to be happening anytime soon. Or even at all, for that matter.
Celina got up and wandered around the large lunchroom. She tested one of the exit doors. Still locked. Her cell phone chose that very moment to chirp to life. Thankful for someone to talk to, she happily answered.
"Celina McMannis speaking." A disdainful sneer fled across her face looking for somewhere to hide. "No, I didn't rent that movie. Why would I rent a movie called Good Loving in the Amazon?. . . . Well, I'm sure it is very good, I'm sure you watch it every chance you get, but I just don't think it's my kind of movie. . . . I don't care if it's on my account, I don't have it!"
She ended the call with a slight beep and decided that there was a major flaw with cell phones. Any other phone could be slammed down when the user was angry, but with a cell phone, the only option was to get worked up, scream and shout, threaten war and pestilence, and then beep, the call was over. The sheer inadequacy of the cell phone made her angry and she threw it across the room where it landed amid the remains of a barely digestible tapioca pudding in the large cafeteria garbage bin.
A mirrored wall had been built into the lunchroom to make it look flashier. The employees used it to look at other employees while they ate their lunches. Celina looked in the very same mirror and wondered if she should start exercising again.
She had a slim figure with broad shoulders, the kind of body torn between playing rugby and dancing the ballet. Oh, how she wanted some yogurt. That was the reason she'd wandered into the lunchroom in the first place.
Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish Page 3
