Meeting 009: “Carnal Shock” by Rahne Kallon

Rahne Kallon serves up a generous portion of pulpy goodness for this week's meeting so hot it had Skip driving distracted.  There is a certain playfulness with stereotypes and expectations, and a dalmatian discovers that there's a good reason for foxes to top every once in awhile. Or at least, they're certainly going to have to if we're going to whittle down the number of unsatisfied bottoms in this world.

We hope you enjoy the show, thank you to everyone who sent in their thoughts!

Text 009: "Carnal Shock" by Rahne Kallon

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Story 009: 'Carnal Shock' by Rahne Kallon as read by Alex Vance, Rahne Kallon and Toonces

Thank you to Rahne for this week's story, and for contributing a voice to the audiobook as well!

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Jerry sat in the Student Union, waiting. His eyes drifted between the clock on the wall and the door of university's local gay club. 7:28 PM; two more minutes. His timing was flawless. It had been a month since he arrived at Truden Fare University since his transfer from Toronto, and he was fitting in pretty nicely. He attributed such social skills to his personality, charm and attitude. Or perhaps people around this university just had a fondness for Dalmatians? Either way, he embraced everything this new campus offered him, with earnest.

Unfortunately, since moving out here, he hadn't given himself much chance to indulge in the more carnal pleasures he regularly partook of back in Toronto. The occasional romp with a good friend, maybe hitting a bar for a one-night stand, he was always open for that. He certainly fit the old adage of 'Dalmatians are such sluts'. He didn't deny it and certainly had no shame in it. In fact, the very thought fueled the smirk on his face.

But he didn't know any gay bars in the area. So, the gay club at school was the next best thing. He only joined the club just last week; admittedly, he didn't share the same interests the other members had. No, he was looking for one thing.

Again, he had no shame in it.

And right on time, the door opened with several members of the club walking out; among them a cheetah, ferret, fox, otter and raccoon. Jerry's eyes immediately fixed upon the fox. The way his tail swayed along with his fluid body movements was mesmerizing. Jerry always liked foxes; they always thought they were the slyest bunch of fuckers out there, and they'd often have these stupid grins on their faces when they thought they could pull a fast one on you. He enjoyed proving the bastards wrong. Not to mention, they were also better in bed than any other species he'd had, and easily the best bottoms. Why foxes were so known for bottoming, he didn't know, nor did he care. He was definitely in the mood to have his knot squirming around inside one, though. And again, Dalmatians had their own stereotypes, so he wasn't one to talk. He had trouble remembering this particular fox's name, though, but he'd get it soon enough.

As they all went their separate ways, the fox himself remained in the Union, seating himself on a beanbag not too far from Jerry before opening up a book. The spotty waited for another two minutes before approaching him: best not to seem too quick or desperate.

"Hey there, buddy." He greeted with a smile, sitting on a beanbag opposite of the fox.

"Ah, hello! You're Jerry, right? You just missed one of our meetings." He smiled back.

"Yeah, I just arrived a couple minutes ago. How'd it go?"

"It was great. We're actually thinking about holding a fundraiser at the next convention. Would you care to join us?"

"Sure, I think I could do that." He wagged. "What was your name again...?"

"I'm Sam. You just joined last week and you forgot my name already? You're not gonna last very long here with a memory like that." He grinned. One of those stupid fox grins. Jerry played it off with a chuckle.

"Well... after tonight, I don't think I'll have trouble remembering your name anymore."

"...After tonight?" Sam arched a brow, closing his book.

"Yeah! I was... hoping to get to know some of my fellow members more."

"Is that so?" He leaned forward, narrowing his eyes.

"Yeah. Is... something wrong?" Jerry's tail froze.

"Right, why don't we just cut to the chase, here?" The fox's voice was suddenly terse.

"What?"

"Look, I'm not stupid, okay? You joined the club just for a quick fuck, didn't you?" Jerry suddenly went silent. Damn. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

"You know, this university has come a long way. We've established a very respectable reputation for gay rights. The club here isn't meant for horny fuckers like you to go whoring around or looking for one night stands. We're trying to teach people that we're better than that." The words stung slightly. For the first time in his sexual endeavors, Jerry was actually feeling shameful. Good thing they were the only ones in the Union, because that felt humiliating. He lowered his head. "You're... right. I'm sorry, dude."

"That said..." Sam leaned forward even further, almost in Jerry's face, now. "You Dalmatians are still the sexiest things I've ever seen," he brought a paw around Jerry's head, pulling him into a kiss, much to the dog's surprise, who quickly melted within Sam's grasp and muzzle. Foxes. Always being sly and cute. He was certainly a great kisser, though, and Jerry made note of such.

The spotty's tail was wagging once again when they parted. "And I haven't had a good romp in a long while..." Sam chuckled, licking his lips.

"Pretty funny move, Sam..."

"I think deep down you like it just a little bit. So, do you want to head back to my place or yours? I live in the North Apartments."

"Let's head back to your place, I'm curious to see what the North Apartments look like, anyway." Jerry smiled. It was just a short walk to the fox's place, and in no time at all they were both naked and lying on Sam's bed -Jerry on top of Sam- deep in each other's muzzles in another kiss. It was definitely a kiss unlike one Jerry had shared before; the synchronized movements of their muzzles, the fox's strong, sweet breath, and the way he manipulated their tongues kept the spotty wanting more and more. Both tongues entwined with a mutual enjoyment and lust evidenced by the precum they leaked onto each other from their throbbing erections.

"Ready, Sam?" Jerry asked, grabbing the bottle of lube on the nearby table.

"I don't think so, babe." Sam interrupted.

"Huh?"

"I'm not bottoming. You are." He grinned again. Another one of those stupid fox grins. Sam quickly rolled them over, switching positions so now he was on top. Son of a bitch. Jerry'd never been topped by a fox before, so this was certainly a surprise. Before he could even say anything, Sam kissed him again, and this time, he dominated the Dalmatian's muzzle. Again, what a kisser! Their tongues danced with an increasingly heated fever and a small moan erupted between them as a chocolate coloured paw massaged one of Jerry's cute, black ears.

"Now..." He snickered. "Are you ready?"

"I love how you think I'm just going to roll over for you so easily." Jerry coyly waved a finger.

"Oh, I think you will. And you'll enjoy it, too."

"And what makes you think that, hmm?" Jerry shot back with a grin of his own, still standing his ground. This was one of those times he triumphantly put those damn foxes in their place. Or not.

"Well, you certainly love the way I kiss, obviously. If you didn't, you wouldn't be so happy to suck on my tongue so much, am I right?" Before Jerry could even respond, they were making out again, almost as if to prove Sam's point. The Dalmatian wasn't going to deny it in the least; he fucking loved kissing, and this fox was considerably more special in that regard than any other he'd bedded. And when they parted, they were gazing into each other's eyes with such a lustful sparkle; he knew Sam was probably special in other ways, too. He might be onto something.

"...And your point?" Jerry lost his grin.

"Right here," the clever one took Jerry's paw and ran it along the length of his own vulpine shaft, shuddering selfishly in pleasure from the sensation of the spotty's velvety pads. "You really... enjoy my tongue. What makes you... think you won't enjoy this... even more?" He spoke in-between heavy breaths.

The dog certainly couldn't argue with that logic. And the more he stroked that gorgeous erection, the more curious he became. He even let his fingers travel downwards, pads massaging the thick flesh in such a tantalizing manner while his eyes watched Sam's face, delighting in that lustful spark that increased in those light blue eyes. He squeezed the fox's knot, causing Sam to moan aloud and the moment he did, Jerry's right paw was on the back of his head, pulling him into yet another kiss and he moaned right along with him. If he was going to bottom, by God, he was going to have this fox at his mercy first. That was fun; watching Sam squirm above him as they kissed, and again, he greedily sucked on that tongue like it was some kind of delicious frosting. And it might as well have been! He certainly tasted differently than any other fox he'd had.

Sam was almost whimpering from the immense stimulation to his knot, and he involuntarily thrusted against the spotty's paw. Jerry enjoyed every second of it; seeing the fox get so worked up under his fingers. The Dalmatian knew he was in control, now. With another moan, Sam broke their kiss again, panting. "...I think you see my point, now." He emphasized the double meaning in his words.

"I sure do." Jerry winked and licked the fox's nose before turning over to lie on his stomach, presenting himself. "I'm all yours, Sammy." His grin returned with a vengeance. The fox may have won, but at the same time, Jerry was so excited, horny and just plain curious about it all, that he might as well have 'won', too. He hardly ever bottomed for anyone, let alone foxes. He was always the one topping them. But he liked the thought of a reversal, especially, for a fox as special as this one.

Sam chuckled. "Good dog." He said as he gladly lubed himself up.

"Shut up and fuck me." The Dalmatian snickered in return. He definitely didn't expect to say such words. At least not tonight. But, this was going to be a special night; as special as the fox nibbling so teasingly on his ear. That hot breath washing over his ear, their combined musky arousal, the anticipation of bottoming and being tied with that voluptuous knot... it made Jerry more excited about this romp than any he'd had in a long time. All the stereotypes he pondered about foxes, though, came to a screeching -or more accurately, a moaning- halt as Sam eagerly penetrated him.

Jerry quickly gripped the sheets, digging his nails into the purple fabric. His muzzle erupted with a stream of uncontrollable moans and his world quickly faded to black as Sam's entire shaft throbbed within him. "Ungh God..." He panted, writhing under the vulpine, in a sea of subtle pain and sheer pleasure. He was ready to scream out and announce his bliss to the world of how good this fox felt inside him.

The lack of bottoming left his rump tight around Sam's foxhood, so much so that Sam almost lost his footing from the intense stimulation. He lowered his upper body onto Jerry's back; loving the feel of the spotty's short fur ruffling against the thicker fur of his own stomach and chest. His hot breath bathed the Dalmatian's ear again, almost sparking a whimper as he dragged his tongue along its floppy length. Dalmatians had the cutest ears.

Jerry could hardly take it. He wanted more. He almost begged for it. He clenched his muscles around that delicious foxhood, which only made Sam all the more eager as he drove himself hard and deep into that wanting rump time and again. "You are... ungh... so cute..." The vulpine managed amongst a blissful moan, dragging his tongue along Jerry's neck to accentuate their passion.

It was a total win win situation. Jerry was having his fox while Sam having his Dalmatian. And all the while, those original perceptions about foxes collided and diminished each time Sam's hips became flush with Jerry's. The spotty's body rocked forward with each powerful thrust, and his nails poked holes into the beds' sheets. The stimulation to his prostate was almost overwhelming, and it left him leaking like a fire hose. He constantly wondered why he hadn't bottomed much before. Oh, the wasted times and opportunities. Sam was easily a better top than any other guy who topped him in the past and it was reaffirmed with every throb and squirt of precum from that vulpine cock. Jerry loved every second of it.

The fact was especially prevelant with the way Sam's knot pushed further and further into his rump. It was maddening; he wanted more than anything to be tied to this fox and filled to the brim with the impending rush of Sam's cum flooding his eager rump. It was so close, Jerry could almost taste it and he began bucking back slightly against the fox's thrusts.

They both closed their eyes, basking in each other's musk and movements. Jerry's bucking pushed Sam over the edge and the room was suddenly filled with moans bouncing off the walls as he shoved his knot into that earnest rump, tying them together. His teeth sunk lightly into the fur of Jerry's neck in a playful bite, followed by a muffled groan as they both spurted at almost the same time. Sam flooded Jerry's depths with his vulpine cum, and the Dalmatian uttered the cutest of noises: something between a moan and a sigh. At the same time, Jerry's cum pooled onto the blanket below him.

They both panted, opening their eyes up once again. "C'mere, you." Sam's arms held Jerry closely as he rolled them onto their sides for an affectionate snuggle. Jerry, meanwhile was still writhing, squeezing his tailhole around that wondrous length inside him.

"I told you you'd like it." Sam said with an exhausted chuckle.

Jerry had to gather himself for a moment, still somewhat dizzy in their mutual afterglow. His paws settled on top of Sam's, smiling like an idiot. "I'll never think the same way about foxes again," his tail whipped against Sam's stomach and chest.

"Stereotypes aren't always true, are they?"

Jerry glanced back to see Sam had one of those damn grins again and the vulpine leaned over his shoulder to give him a kiss, grinding himself inside the dog. It wasn't as raw and lustful as their other kisses -they were too exhausted for that- no, this was a sweet kiss, a tender one. Their tongues didn't so much as dance as... mingle. It was probably Jerry's favourite, and he almost found himself chasing Sam's tongue when the fox parted muzzles. "I've got an idea. If you actually start coming to our meetings from now on, I'll make sure to give you all the foxy sex you want. Topping and bottoming, of course. Think you can handle that, gorgeous?"

"You've got me there. I'll take that in a heartbeat." He squeezed again, leaning back to grab another kiss. Another sweet one.

And just like that, he was pulled into an offer he absolutely couldn't refuse. Goddamn foxes. That sly, gorgeous fucker still pulled a fast one. Apparently some stereotypes never change.

Text 007: "Chitchester Gap" by Sedric

Sedric was on his knees, his hands full. It never failed to impress him how many erotic titles a used bookstore could hold, especially this one where he loved to go hunting, and he really wanted to find something kinky and unusual to go read in a coffeeshop later. Something strange and surreal would have done as well, but he was in a sexy mood and fancied titillating himself further. He was glad the long, loose raincoat hid his arousal when he was stood up

The erotic books were of course buried at the back of the store, which was itself a labyrinth of narrow, dimly lit aisles built in a peculiar L shape. Tucked away there, you could feel like the only person in the world amidst its musty air and endless texts with substitute lives to lead. For a short while at least. Sedric didn't suppose any of those lives would be the lives of men in slickers being made to suck cock like whores, but he could dream

Whilst digging through the bottom shelf and feeling disappointed (though unsurprised) that there were no books dedicated to his particular fetish, he noticed someone coming and standing beside him. He paid no mind to it at first, other people could use the bookstore as freely as him after all. Part of him registered that whoever it was had come from the dead end of the aisle, but he told himself that they must've somehow passed him previously whilst he was absorbed. He did also notice after a moment that the mystery newcomer had dirty black rubber boots on, but tried not to ogle them. Then when he finally gave in to *that* impulse he realised he knew those boots. He was wearing them in fact

Sedric stood up deliberately slowly, turning to face the newcomer who gave him a coy, suggestive look as he stood with hands on hips. Same slick yellow raincoat, same glasses, same face and grey scales. The only difference was the pencil tucked behind new Sedric's ear

"Oh hello," the first Sedric said in a measured tone, "wasn't expecting you to turn up here"

The new Sedric replied by planting his hands on the old one's cheeks and pulling him into a hungry French kiss. Sedric went wide-eyed at the surprise, then for a moment he allowed himself to melt into the kiss before his senses and his nerves kicked back in and he pushed him away

"Hello too," the kissing dragon grinned. The other planted a hand on his forehead and sighed

"Damn it Author," he grumbled as he looked over his shoulder lest anyone be watching from further down the aisle, "don't you ever stop gagging for it?" To his shock and mild panic, 'Author' replied with a lewd grin and a hand grabbing his erection through his mac

"When have you ever known me not to be gagging for it?" Author smirked as his hand casually toyed with his prize through his alter ego's raincoat, hands taking in the familiar smoothness of the material and the shape of the prick he'd spent so much time playing with already. It made the pencil-less dragon whimper a little, much to the other's delight

"Sedric, we're in a bookshop," the non-author dragon hissed. "C'mon, you need to settle down..."

"Well you know what cools us down when we're horny"

"Author we are no-"

Sedric was rendered dumb in shock as Author just grinned and wriggled his embarrassed counterpart's cock free of his slicker. Sure enough he was stiff as a post, cheeks flaring with heat as he watched his alter ego trailing his fingertips all over it. "Are you stoned? We'll get caught..."

"Mmm, not stoned, no," the dragon doing the stroking replied, eyes on his work, "but maybe tonight. You should join me. I have some really good kush"

"You know I've never smoked pot..." the non-author version whimpered. Author chuckled and nodded. He was mostly flirting with his counterpart, in reality he appreciated the practicality of having distinct stoner and non-stoner versions of himself. But it was so cute to make the non-stoner version feel nervous and tempted by the proposition, the way his excited cock twitched in his hand when he said it

"Why can't I stand up to you?" the straight-edge dragon groaned in defeat, eyes closed now. Somehow it seemed like having 200% of himself ought to make for better self-control, as if one might keep the other in line, but he was always the one that wanted to keep them in line and he was utterly hopeless at it for some reason

"'Cause you're a submissive bitch with a small penis," Author jeered, "and you love the idea of wanking in a public place." Non-author nodded silently, they were good reasons. Author looked over his shoulder into the still-empty aisle behind him, then leaned closer to the ashamed dragon. "Just relax," he whispered soothingly, "lemme do the work, okay? No-one can see your cock's out, they don't know I'm beating you off. Just lean in and kiss me"

Non-author obeyed. He was utterly humiliated, utterly terrified of detection, and god damn he was eager for it. He pressed his snout again to his lustful doppelg�nger, tongues meeting as Author began to pump his cock more aggressively. Christ, he needed this handjob, needed to cum so hard all over the other Sedric, tail swaying, beginning to wish people *were* watching them, jerking off with them, enjoying this little piece of performance art

"Yeah, good boy," Author growled softly, "cum for me. Cum for Sir..."

Non-author cracked into a grin at that. "Sirs are supposed to have bigger dicks... than... oh god..." He steadied himself with a hand on Author's shoulders as he came in spurts over the smirking, controlling authorial dragon's yellow rubber, his voice a muffled cry of pleasure from the free hand stuffed into his mouth

"Good boy," Author whispered again with a kiss on the humbled and drained dragon's nose. "Now maybe you'd like something to fill that snout of yours?"

Non-author looked up sharply, then quickly over his shoulder and back once more. "Are you serious?" he hissed. "That's going to be a hell of a lot harder to hide than a wank, Sedric"

"Then we won't hide it," Author grinned. "We'll just go for it as fast as we can and if we get caught, we get caught. Deal?" Without waiting for Non-author's answer he worked his own cock free of his slicker. Worst came to worst he'd give the blowjob and jerk off onto his counterpart's boots, but he knew he wouldn't have to worry about that

Like Pavlov's dog, Non-author sighed nervously, looked behind himself again and quickly sank to his knees. "Talk dirty to me," was his last mumbled words before accepting the stiff dragonmeat into his snout

"Anything you wish, cocksucker," the standing dragon smirked as he grabbed his counterpart by the horns and began pistoning into his snout, feeling his cock worked by the expert tongue. He wished he had the opportunity to draw it out, but even he appreciated that time was of the essence. "Good boy," he growled, "suck it like the whore you are. You need a snout full of my cum"

As he was snoutfucking Non-author, the standing dragon's eyes darted between his playmate and the long narrow space ahead of them. He picked up speed, sure he could hear people around the corner and beginning to get Non-author's nerves. But he was close, all that cockstroking earlier had made sure he was good and aroused, and he bit his lip as he felt his own orgasm rising. More thrusting, more horn-pulling, Non-author's hands massaging his arse, tail nearly damaging the bookshelves with its frantic pendulum motion. He closed his eyes and snarled through pursed lips as he burst, filling up the kneeling Sedric's snout and letting it splash down onto his mac

Non-author was on his feet again just in time as guests arrived. He had his back to them, leaving him clueless about what they thought of two identical waterproof dragons loitering in the shop. If Author had anything to say about the couple he didn't tell his counterpart, the two of them instead quickly tucking away their pricks and bolting before the cats noticed they were covered in suspicious translucent fluids

"Good boy," Author whispered again as he gave Non-author a peck on the cheek

"Whatever, we need to clean the fuck up," Non-author replied with a grumble, "I'm not walking past the till covered in jizz." Author nodded, pausing and casting his eyes around. He grinned and grabbed a tome from the shelf. 'Atlas Shrugged'. Even Non-author grinned now as Author flipped the book open to John Galt's speech and used the pages to slyly mop up the spunk from his raincoat. He passed it to his alter ego who did likewise, and they stuffed the ruined book back on the shelf before darting out of the shop like giggling schoolboys, hand in hand to go find somewhere to have more fun

Meeting 008: “Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night” by John "The Gneech" Robey

John "The Gneech" Robey gives us a thrilling mystery to discuss for this week's show. Squash and Stretch, a pair of private dicks low on their luck, find a juicy case when a mink comes into the office, followed close on the heels by a nosy rat. Murder is the question, and the only clue is a lone note referencing a Beatles song- which just so happens to be Skip's favorite band.

We hope you enjoy!

Audobook 008 Buck Turner reads "Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night" by John "The Gneech" Robey

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This week's story comes courtesy of John "The Gneech" Robey from Roar 3, which is available now!

Text 008: "Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night" by John "The Gneech" Robey

This week's story comes courtesy of John "The Gneech" Robey from Roar 3, which is available now!

Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night
From the Casebooks of Squash and Stretch, Private Investigators

One.
It was a dark night in the cold city. It was also a cold night in the dark city. It was a dark, cold night in the cold, dark—I’ll start again.
It was a dark, cold night in the city. I was in the office, late, playing solitaire on the computer because the internet was out again, when the distinctive aroma of a tuna sandwich came wafting into my nose. It was my partner, Squash Otter, eating up the last bit of profit from our most recent case. I thought about giving him grief for it, but what was the point? Besides the fact that the big lug was almost exactly twice my size, he was also dumb as a post, so all of my best lines were completely wasted on him.
I suppose I ought to introduce myself. I’m a ferret. Call me Stretch. I’m the brains (all the brains) behind “Squash and Stretch, Private Investigators.” As you might have guessed, Stretch isn’t my real name. I don’t use my real name. But Stretch isn’t a bad name and I’ve been told it suits me, so I stick with it.44
“Squash old sport,” I said, “we’re broke.”
“Mmph?” he said through his sandwich.
“Yup, broke. Impoverished. Indigent. Needy. Impecunious. Busted like a cheap toy. If I had a dollar for every dollar we don’t have, I’d have every dollar in the world.”
“Mmmhm-mph!” he said, again through his sandwich.
“What am I, a magician? Of course I’ve been trying to get a case, but I can’t just snap my fingers and make somebody knock on the door, can I?” I snapped my fingers for emphasis, and was very surprised when at that second, somebody knocked on the door.
“Mph!” said Squash, then gulping down the last of his sandwich added, “What a neat trick! Can I try it?” So of course he snapped his fingers, and since neither of us had opened the door yet, the mysterious knocker knocked again.
“Whoa...” said Squash. “The power! The unbelievable power!!!”
“Shaddap,” I said, heading for the door. “And don’t talk with your mouth full.”
I opened it, revealing a gorgeous mink femme wearing a long black dress and a veiled, wide-brimmed hat. She was accompanied by what appeared to be a rat in a zoot suit, who played a juicy riff on the saxophone he was inexplicably carrying.
“Stop that!” the woman said. “I told you to quit following me!” The rat ignored her.
“Hey doll,” I said. “Looks like you’ve got a problem.”
“Are you... the detective?” she said.
“Yup,” I said. “Stretch Ferret, at your service. C’mon in, have a seat.”
I hustled her into the office quickly and slammed the door in the rat’s face as he tried to follow. “Dammit!” came his voice from the corridor.
“Thank you, Mr. Ferret,” she said, as I quickly scooped up the empty pizza box from what is normally the larger customer’s chair in front of my desk. “I didn’t know where to turn... I’ve been going crazy!” This last statement was punctuated by a dramatic Blatt! from the sax in the hallway.
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “Here, let me fix something first. Yo, Squash!”45

Squash came in from the other room, brushing crumbs off his bright Hawaiian shirt. “Yeah?” He stopped when he saw the mink. She was closer to his height than mine, so naturally their eyes met when she turned to look at him.
“Oh!” she said, in a way that I didn’t much like. The saxophone squealed out a long, soulful riff.
“Oh!” he said, then looked from side to side. Finally, without turning his head, he just looked at me from the corner of his eye and said, “Uh, whut?”
I poked my thumb in the general direction of the door. “Make the bad sax stop,” I said.
“Right,” he said, and flung the door wide open. I caught a brief glimpse of a zoot-suited rat with eyes like dinner plates before the door was closed again and Squash was out in the hallway. A lot of undignified thumping and crashing sounds followed.
“Who... was that?” asked the mink.
“That’s Squash, the walking crowbar. And no need to go around calling me ‘Mr. Ferret.’ Stretch is good enough for the likes of me. What’s your name, and more important, how can we help you? Aside from getting rid of your stalking sax player problem, I mean. That’s free of charge.”
“He’s very... lean for an otter, isn’t he?”
“He... Squash? Yeah, I guess so, I never really thought about it. Now then, would you like to have a seat and tell me what you need?”
“Ah, yes, of course. Well, Mr.—er, Stretch, my name is Madeline Mink, widow of—”
“Widow of Mortimer Mink, the oil baron’s son. The one who was found floating around off the coast of Baja without a boat.”
She didn’t flinch; not even blink. “How did you know?”
“Read your name in the paper,” I said. “Saw the black dress and the veil. Put two and two together.” Adding a touch of softness to my voice, I added, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Mink.”
“Uh... thank you. I suppose if you’ve read about me in the paper, you know that my husband and I weren’t on the best of terms by the end.”
“Nobody would blame you,” I said. “For a mink, I gather he was quite the skunk.”46
She smiled a bit at that. Score one for the ferret. Lean for an otter. Sheesh.
“Well, yes, I suppose he was,” she said. “But I was still fond of him. Not so fond that I wanted to stay married to him, but fond enough that I wasn’t glad to see him... murdered.”
“So you do think he was murdered, then. You don’t buy the blotto-and-fell-overboard story.”
“I don’t think he was murdered, I know he was. Mortimer didn’t touch drugs and was never more than a social drinker. And he loved his yacht too much to... demean it by going out on a joyride.”
“People change,” I hazarded.
“If Mortimer didn’t change for me,” she said, “he wouldn’t change without me either. But this is all neither here nor there. It isn’t his murder I came to you about, at least not directly.”
The door opened and Squash came back in, all bulging muscles and floofy cheekruffs, the big jerk. “The saxophone won’t be bothering you again!” he said, with a giant, self-satisfied grin.
Madeline stood and went over to him. “Oh thank you,” she said. “He’s been following me for days!”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Musta been yer tail.”
She fluttered her eyes and the pink of her ears darkened in a blush. “Oh!” she said again in that breathless way of hers.
“Whut?”
“No, he doesn’t mean your tail tail, he means the guy was tailing...” I started, but gave up. She clearly wasn’t listening to me. Point to the otter, and it was beginning to look like set and match, too. Musta been yer tail. Sheesh. “Okay,” I said to Squash. “Go make yerself a sandwich and let the lady and me talk business.”
“There isn’t any more tuna,” he said.
“Then go pretend to make yourself a sandwich. Either way just scram for now!”
“Okay!” said Squash, and wandered off.
“You didn’t introduce us!” protested Madeline.
“Didn’t I? Oh, sorry,” I said, and gestured back at the chair. “So anyway, you were saying you didn’t come about your husband’s murder.”47
“Well no, not directly. Mort and I were separated, and I had started talking to my lawyer about divorce proceedings when he died, but there had been no paperwork filed. Legally we were still married, and so the estate falls to me. But... well, I suppose it sounds terribly mercenary of me, but... but I haven’t been able to claim it. Or at least, not all of it.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Well, Mort kept all of his important personal papers—deeds, insurance policies, everything—in a safety deposit box at the New San Angeles Bank, and supposedly only he and his lawyer had the key.”
“Supposedly?”
“Well, his lawyer took me to the safety deposit box and opened it. It was empty, Mr. Fer—er, Stretch. Completely empty! Except for this.” She slid a folded notecard across the desk at me. Printed on it, in an elegant and understated script, read:
BLACKBIRD SINGING IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
“Only this, and nothing more, eh?” I said. The literary touch. But she didn’t seem to notice.
“Naturally, I took it to the police, and then to the F.B.I.,” she said. “No results.”
“How did this lawyer of your husband’s react when he opened up the box and there was nothing in it?”
“Well, he seemed surprised, of course.”
“I’d hope so,” I said. “A safety deposit box that’s supposed to be full of the umpty-ump legal papers of a rich playboy instead has nothing but some Aristocratic Master Thief’s calling card? Surely the lawyer had to notice that it was awfully light when he pulled it out. Did he say anything about it?”
“Not that I remember,” Madeline said.
“Phooey,” I said. “This thing looks more like a wedding invitation than anything else. What about the bank? They’re supposed to have records of who comes and goes at the safety deposit vault, right?”
“Yes,” said Madeline. “The only people in the records are my husband and his lawyer. In the end, the police came to the 48
conclusion that my husband must have done it himself, as some sort of crazy prank. I can’t believe that myself; I think—”
“You think it was done by whoever murdered him.”
“Yes.”
“And what do you want from me, Ms. Mink? Do you want to find out the truth? Or do you just want the papers back?”
She just sat and blinked at me for a good twenty seconds. “I’d like to know, certainly. I’m curious, who wouldn’t be? But I guess if I was going to be honest about it, I’d have to say that all I really care about is getting back what’s rightfully mine.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll take the case.”
Two.
I knew that if the police and the F.B.I. had already had their whack at the case and muffed it, I wouldn’t get anywhere with the obvious, like Mort Mink’s lawyer or an insider at the bank. Despite what you see on tv, cops are not a bunch of dunces who sit around munching doughnuts so that the local private eye has somebody to look good next to. And on a case with so many Prominent Personages involved, they wouldn’t half-ass it, either. If they hadn’t found anything so far, that meant a million-to-one that there just wasn’t anything to find.
But until I knew the lay of the land, the obvious was all I had to work with, so bright and early the next morning I was sitting in the lobby of Fincaster T. Squirrel, accounts lawyer of the late Mortimer Mink, waiting for my 10:15 appointment. His secretary (or “administrative assistant,” although I’ve never been quite clear on why that should be any more or less objectionable a title than “secretary”), a cute little gal with lovely beady black eyes, was another squirrel, and I was chatting her up while I waited.
“So,” I said, casually picking up and looking at a photograph of a younger version of herself with her parents she had on her desk. “I guess squirrels make pretty good accounts lawyers, huh? Like the sanitarium mortician, you know where all the nuts are buried.”
She giggled. “Yes, you could say that,” she said. “We rarely get complaints, anyway.”49
“What’s your name, doll?”
“Samanda Squirrel,” she said. Then ticking her head in the general direction of her employer’s office, she added, “No relation.”
“This your family? Mom and dad, back at the old nest?”
She smiled. “Yes. They live in a beautiful, big, old oak tree in the country.”
“So tell me, you ever meet ol’ Morty?”
“‘Morty?’ You mean Mortimer Mink? No,” she said, and flicked her tail once. “Well, not more than to take his appointments, show him into the office, that kind of thing.”
“So you wouldn’t say you’ve met me either?”
“Well, no, not really. Not met. Just professional.”’
“I guess you didn’t meet Ms. Mink the same way then.”
“Well, yes. Er, no. I mean, I’ve interacted with her professionally too, but not met her.”
“Quite a lady, she seemed to me,” I said.
“I’m sure she is,” said the secretary in her best I-don’t-discuss-such-things voice. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I need to attend to this e-mail.”
“Sure thing, doll, sorry. Didn’t mean to bug you. I’m just a naturally chatty guy,” I said, and backed off, undecided if I was barking up the wrong tree or had just got sidetracked down the wrong branch. Better to cut my losses while I still had losses to cut, either way. I put down the family portrait before she got testy and helped myself to a small service for guests in the foyer.
A cup of coffee and half a doughnut later, an oldish, roundish, shortish sort of male squirrel with a rumpled shirt, stained tie, and a haircut that had “desk scissors and a soup bowl” written all over it came out into the lobby. “Uh, Mr. Ferret?” he said, and came over to me. “Uh, Fincaster Squirrel, good to uh, meet you. Come on, uh, back to my office.” He gestured down a nearby hallway.
“Sure, sure, how do you do?” I said, rising and heading back. The squirrels exchanged glances—or I should say, Fincaster looked nervously at his secretary, who flicked her tail once at him; within a few steps I was in his office.
It was musty, dusty, and funky. This was clearly a man who cared more about numbers than he did about keeping tidy or 50
fastidious grooming. I didn’t see how even the squirreliest of squirrels would be able to keep track of anything in the huge piles of papers in his office, much less the accounts of oil barons or their sons. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, scurrying behind his desk and trying not to knock over his own cup of coffee in the process. “Lots of meetings this morning, could only just squeeze you in. Now, uh, I gather you’re in the employ of Madeline Mink?”
“Yes, I’m investigating the little matter of the blackbird singing in the dead of night,” I said. His ears twitched.
“Ah. Well. I’m only too happy to help if I can. Obviously, we’re eager to get this wrapped up, but if Mr. Mink really did, uh, dispose of his papers in some unknown way, there’s only so much we can do. We have copies of many of them here, of course, land deeds, bank accounts, his will, that kind of thing. But things like bonds and securities, or anything he had that he didn’t confide to us, may be, uh, unrecoverable.”
“That’s interesting,” I said. “So you do have some stuff. So it’s not like Ms. Mink isn’t getting anything from her late husband’s estate.”
“No, no, of course not. By the terms of the will, almost everything goes to her, and she’s already, uh, received everything we had to give her.”
“She told me that she hadn’t received all of it. If not land deeds and bank accounts, what else could she have been talking about?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the squirrel. “She hasn’t been able to collect on it, probably, until it can be determined that it’s all the most recent paperwork available, which is the main reason the copies in the deposit box are valuable.”
“Just out of curiosity, what’s your bet? Morty Mink, accident or murder?”
“Honestly, I have no idea,” he said. “He was, uh, popular with the ladies. Maybe somebody was jealous. I don’t know. The police say it was an accident, and I imagine they would know if it wasn’t.”
“Must’ve made a ton of paperwork for you,” I said.
“Well, yes, of course, especially with half of the office sick that week and everything so piled up.” I blinked and looked around at 51
the mountains of yellow and dusty paper stacked from floor to ceiling, trying to get into my head that this counted as ‘clean.’ “But listen, I uh, have a meeting in ten minutes, so I can’t really take time to speculate on it now.”
“Okay,” I said, “well, let’s start with a list of what you expected to see in the box, but found only a mysterious greeting card instead.”
“Uh, okay,” he said. “I gave all that information to the police.”
“Yeah, sorry to make you have to go through it again, but I’m just a private eye. The police don’t even have to give me the time of day if they don’t want to, and usually they don’t.”
“Ah. Um. Well. I have a list of it here somewhere, I can make you a copy,” he said, and started rifling through a huge stack of paper that looked like it was dangerously liable to dump on either his or my head.
“I was just wondering,” I said, “when you pulled out that box, it had to be pretty light for something that was supposed to be crammed full of paper.”
“I suppose it was,” he said, shifting a stack of sheets onto a stack of identical sheets to get at a binder on the bottom of the pile. “You know, I didn’t think about it at the time. But yeah, that should have tipped me off that something weird was going on. But it never even occurred to me until you mentioned it just now.”
I shook my head. The unbearable lightness of the vault box wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I dropped it. The next ten minutes were nothing to write home about, so I won’t waste your time with them. Suffice to say that by the end of the interview I had a pretty firm idea of what sort of a man Fincaster Squirrel was, and making off with a client’s papers—on purpose at least—was way beyond him.
Three.
The next step was to take a look at the scene of the crime. At New San Angeles bank a bespectacled fox with spiky hair took a look at my credentials, called the offices of both Fincaster Squirrel and Madeline Mink to confirm that I was okay, and let me poke around.52
There wasn’t a lot to it; during business hours, the main vault door stood open behind the counter, which could only be accessed through a bulletproof glass door. All you needed to be let in was an account number and a box key, and you had to sign a little black book by the door. After business hours there were time locks, motion detectors, and cameras inside and out.
Done with that and out on the street, I fired up the cell and called Squash. I’d put him onto the task of rounding up all the public information to be found about the death by misadventure of Mortimer Mink. For a guy with a brain the size of a pea, he does surprisingly well at that kind of gruntwork; I think it may be that the librarians all love him and do the work for him. It may not have been directly related to the client’s request; she did after all say that all she cared about was retrieving the items from the safe deposit box. Still, I didn’t for a second believe that a man who’d died mysteriously on a boat he supposedly loved, also just happened to be victim of a showy bank robber.
“Well, boss,” Squash asked, “where you wanna start?”
“You know the drill,” I said. “Money first.”
“Okay,” said Squash. “Just about everything I found said that Mortimer Mink was useless at doing real work and lived off his allowance until both parents were gone. He inherited a ton of stock in some great big oil companies, but didn’t want to have to keep track of it all, so he sold it and used the money to buy a yacht and a house on the coast where he could park it. He put the rest into Ms. Mink’s hands. She used it to back a couple small businesses and do real estate deals until they separated.”
“Huh!” I said. “Interesting. So tell me about the divorce, then.”
“Well, he died.”
“Yes, thanks, I know that part. Tell me about what would have happened if he’d lived.”
“Oh! That. Well, Ms. Mink had him dead to rights; I mean, he was cheating on the women he was having affairs with, even. You wouldn’t think it to look at his picture.”
“Money brings out the bimbos,” I said.
“Yeah, but he didn’t go for bimbos,” Squash said. “Or not just for bimbos, anyway. I mean, there were some of the usual singers 53
and wanna-be actresses, but even they weren’t really what you’d call bimbos. He liked women with class. Heck, a lot of them had more money than he did. Even Ms. Mink had more money than he did, according to one article.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.
“Anyway, like I say, she could have stripped him bare and left him on the street, at least that’s how the article put it. But she didn’t. Supposedly she was going to let him keep the yacht outright, and then they were going to sell off most of the stuff like the house and properties and split the profits. The worst part of it for him was gonna be finding another financial planner with as much moxie as she had.”
“Hmm,” I said. “So the only person with a real motive for offing him, at least that we know about, could have just as easily taken him to the cleaners instead, but didn’t do it.”
“Well yeah, that we know about. But I think there are some we don’t.”
I’m always a little nervous when Squash and the phrase “I think” are put together, but something in his voice intrigued me. “Oh yeah?” I said.
“Well, you’re always telling me to dig deeper,” he said. “So I had this idea. I wrote down the names of all the women Mortimer Mink was either known or suspected to have had an affair with according to the news articles that I found, and looked for information about them. At least three of them were married, and two of those got divorced since then. Another one killed herself. There’s a lot of bad karma mixed up with Mortimer Mink’s girlfriends! It wouldn’t surprise me if it was an angry husband or somebody like that who killed him.”
“It’s not bad, Squash,” I said, because it wasn’t, and I like to give credit where credit is due. “But the cops will have worked that angle already, and they didn’t find anything.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding so pitiful it practically deflated the phone. “You’re prob’ly right.”
The big lug. Phooey. “Still,” I said, if only to keep him from getting morose, “you might be on to something. Tell you what: you get yourself over to the court records and get all the names you 54
can find over there, and run them down too. When I get back to the office, I want a complete list of Morty’s girlfriends and a rough synopsis of how things stood with them before and after they got tangled up with him. You have that ready when I get in, and I’ll pull out some of the emergency funds and get you two cans of tuna. Deal?”
“Oh boy!” he said, loud enough to make my ears ring, and hung up. After a few seconds to let my battered eardrums recover, I dialed my client and made an appointment.
Four.
Madeline Mink had a small apartment uptown, not as flashy as you might expect of somebody rolling in dough but a damn sight nicer than anything I’ll ever be able to afford. I pretended not to notice the saxophone-playing rat at the subway terminal across the street, and he pretended even harder not to see me. Determined, I had to give him that. I also mentally thanked him for showing me the next step in my investigation, but that could wait until I had Squash along with me.
A short talk with the lobby attendant and a ride up in the elevator later, I was in Madeline’s place being offered my choice of water or organic juice. My request for non-organic scotch-and-soda was met with a slight giggle and an invitation to sit in the living room; at least the ice was broken. Another half-point for the ferret.
“So,” she asked. “Any progress?”
“Not a lot to show,” I said. “Right now it’s all just groundwork. I talked to your husband’s accounts lawyer, looked at the bank, and sent Squash on some errands to keep him out of trouble.”
“I notice you didn’t bring him with you,” she said.
“He doesn’t usually do a lot of talking with the clients,” I replied, which was true enough. Most clients were just as happy to leave it that way. “Anyway, I’m just here to get a few more details. For instance, I have a list from Fincaster Squirrel of things he expected to see in the box, and I’d like to find out if it matches with what you might have thought was in there. What did you think was in there?”
“Oh, well, the obvious I suppose. Lots of paperwork.”55
“No personal effects?”
“I wouldn’t expect there to be any,” she said. “Mortimer wasn’t generally sentimental about things... except the yacht, of course.”
“Not what you’d call a poetic soul, eh?”
“Well... no. Poetic was definitely not a word I’d use to describe him.”
“How would you describe him?”
She blinked. “How do you mean? He was, I don’t know, he was just Mortimer. You said it yourself: for a mink, he was a real skunk.”
“Ms. Mink,” I said, “you don’t have to be careful what you say here. It’s your apartment, and I work for you. To solve the case, I’m going to need to know everything you can tell me, as straight as you can give it to me. I’m not going to judge either you or your husband, and I have no interest in making trouble for you. So please, just tell me what you think—not what you think I think.”
It took her a few seconds to figure that one out. Finally she said, “Well, Mort was a lot like a child. He was ingratiating and could be very sweet when he wanted to be, but... shallow, maybe? When you got right down to it, he only ever really cared about himself, and what he wanted at any given moment. Not his fault, I suppose... he’d always had everything handed to him since he was a baby.” She suddenly got a disgusted look on her face. “And people were always ready to make excuses for him,” she added, apparently annoyed at herself for doing just that.
“So, used to getting what he wanted, eh? I bet he could be nasty when somebody said ‘no,’ couldn’t he?”
She looked at me, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that? What makes you say that?”
“I know the type,” I said. “A two-year old in the body of an adult. And I’ve seen them do some pretty terrible things.”
“Well, Mortimer was nothing like that,” she said. “He didn’t have a violent bone in his body. But you’re right in a way... he could be, well, persuasive. You might go as far as to say manipulative. He had a way of making it so that just giving in and letting him have his way was easier than fighting about it.”56
“Is that why the terms of your divorce were so generous?” I said, not accusatory, just matter-of-fact.
“Well...” She swallowed it. Thought. Swallowed it again. Then said, “Well, yes. He was going to write a book about our marriage—and our divorce. A book, can you believe it? It was more than I could take. After everything, the cheating, the endless excuses that all turned out to be lies, the years of putting up with it all, and then having the media go over it all again and again, the bastard was going to write a book!” She broke off rather suddenly, eyes squeezed shut, paws balled into fists, ears, tail and whiskers vibrating. If Squash had been there, he’d have probably offered her a bite of his tuna sandwich, figuring that would be enough to cheer up anybody. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a tuna sandwich on me.
“Sorry,” was all I could come up with. Lame as it was, it was better than nothing.
She took a deep breath and wiped away the beginnings of tears. “He said he needed the money the book would make, but wouldn’t need to write it if I settled for less. And dammit, if he didn’t know exactly how much I’d be willing to give up to keep that book from being written.”
“So that’s what’s so important to get out of that safety deposit box,” I said. “You’re hoping that if there was a manuscript, it was in there.” She nodded, not meeting my eye. “Do you have any reason to specifically think there was anything like that in there?”
“No,” she said. “But there was nothing at his house, nothing on his computer. It might have all been in his head for all I know, but I need to find out for sure.”
“Even if I find where the contents of the box evaporated to, if there’s no manuscript there it’s no guarantee that there isn’t one floating around out there. I can’t prove a negative.”
“I know,” she said, quietly. “I don’t expect miracles. Just the best you can do.”
“You realize, I hope, that from a criminological point of view, you’re the most likely suspect for his death. Assuming it wasn’t an accident, of course. You should be the first to cheer a verdict of accidental death, not going around telling private eyes that you know he was murdered.”57
“Yes, I know,” she said. “And my lawyer told me the same thing. I mean, if you look at it the wrong way, it probably sounds like I was basically buying him off. But it wasn’t like that between us, really it wasn’t. Besides which, I didn’t do it. I hadn’t even spoken to Mortimer personally for months before his death, much less get anywhere near that damn boat to conk him over the head and throw him overboard.”
To me, it sounded like she was the one looking at it the wrong way. But you can’t tell somebody in love something like that, regardless of how obviously true it is. All it’ll do is make them shut you out for threatening to expose the one thing they desperately don’t want to believe. Mortimer Mink was a creep, and a dead creep at that, but Madeline Mink still loved him, and probably always would. I sighed and gave her up as a lost cause.
“Okay,” I said, “enough about that. Let’s get back to the safety deposit box. You’d never seen it before, I gather?”
“No, Mortimer kept it to himself. He said it wasn’t good for couples to share everything; he wanted his own space, even if it was just a symbolic one. So he had his own bank accounts, his own safety deposit box, etcetera.”
“But you were the financial brains of the couple, weren’t you?” I said. “How did that work, if you didn’t go into the safety deposit box?”
“Well, I had records of it all,” she said. “I knew what we had at any given time and what our net worth was. If I needed something, a deed or a policy or whatever, I’d just call up Fincaster Squirrel and have him send it over, at least until the separation.”
By this point, it was as obvious to me as the beautiful sheen on her fur, but she apparently couldn’t see it through her love-colored glasses. “Is it possible,” I hazarded, “that he had things in there that you didn’t know about?”
“Things?” she said. “What kind of things?”
“I don’t know, bank accounts that he didn’t tell you about. Assets that he wanted to keep to himself.”
“Well, no doubt after we were separated he probably did,” she said. “That’s another reason I need to find the box contents.”
“I was thinking more of before you separated,” I said.58
“What? No, why would he? That doesn’t make any sense. I needed to know all of our assets in order to manage them properly.”
“Ah,” I said. “Of course.” I smiled and nodded, but to keep things pleasant I neglected to mention that she’d just told me why Mortimer Mink had died. All I needed to figure out now was who’d actually done it.
Five.
When I got back to the office, Squash was sitting in his big ol’ chair, already up to his whiskers in sandwich. “Hey!” I said. “You were supposed to wait until I got back and got the money out!”
He looked over at me, cheeks bulging with illicit tuna. “Oh!” he said. “You’re uh... you’re back! Well, you said I could have it, so...”
“So you just thought you’d get a head start.”
“I was hungry!”
I sighed. “Fine, fine. But wait next time. So where’s my list?”
“Right here!” he said, hopping out of his chair and opening a file folder he’d left on my desk. “There wasn’t a lot of real dirt on most of them that I could get without knocking on doors and asking around for a month. But Bernie over at the Star had some good stuff, and the county records office.”
“Hmm,” I said, sitting down and looking it over. Squash’s earlier comment about bad karma had barely scratched the surface; this list was a train wreck of unhappy relationships. Women who’d one day had apparently perfectly happy marriages suddenly went off with Morty Mink for the weekend and came back emotional wrecks. Not that they were all married, but certainly a lot of them were. In fact, what impressed me the most was the sheer variety of women involved, of just about any social level, species, and even genus. The largest one physically was a beagle, but even that was what I would consider ambitious. She had to be as much larger than Morty than Squash was larger than me... and a hunting breed no less.
“Brave lad, our Morty,” I said.
“He was a scumball,” Squash replied with feeling.
“That too,” I said. “Look at this. Rich dames, poor dames. Married, single. Famous. Unknowns. And look at the messes he left 59
for them to clean up. Divorces, lost jobs... suicide.” I scanned the list carefully for one specific name I’d recently learned in particular, but apparently Morty hadn’t gotten around to her before his boating trip. Instead, a name I’d never heard before caught my eye.
“Hmm,” I said. “This is interesting. Cassandra Blackwing.”
“The singer who killed herself?” Squash said.
“Yeah. Anything strike you about the name?”
“Cassandra,” he said. “Daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, she spent a night in the temple of Apollo, where snakes licked her ears clean, enabling her to hear spirits foretelling the future. Apollo lusted after her, but she refused him, and in anger he placed a curse on her that although her prophecies would be right, nobody would ever believe her. So when she foretold that the Trojan horse was a trap and that taking it in would doom Troy to be overrun, they didn’t believe her and took it in anyway.”
I blinked at him. He does that every once in a while, it always gives me the creeps.
“Uh, no,” I said. “Not that, anybody would know that. I meant her last name. And her species. Agelaius phoeniceus, more commonly known as the red-winged blackbird.”
“You mean like ‘blackbird singing in the dead of night,’” he said.
“Exactly.” I stood up. “Come on, we’ve got a rat to go shake down.”
Six.
It turned out that when Squash and I got back to Madeline’s building, the sax-playing rat was apparently on his dinner break or had knocked off for the day, so we did a little pointless cruising around the neighborhood to see if we could spot him on the street and also just looking to see what we could find. But nothing doing, so we called it a night and tried again in the morning. In fact, it wasn’t until nearly lunchtime that our quarry showed up.
“Works nights?” Squash said.
“Well he is a musician,” I replied. Then to myself I added, “Hmm, musician.”
We watched him for quite some time, while he watched for Madeline under the pretense of doing a little busking. He 60
wasn’t a bad sax player, I had to give him that, and he was making some decent lunch money at the public commuters’ expense. And speaking of lunch, right around noon Madeline came out of her building and began walking down the street. Ratty Sax stopped in mid-blatt and frantically packed away his instrument to follow, and Squash and I got out of the car to follow him in turn.
His little exercise session with Squash earlier in the week apparently taught him some tailing etiquette, as this time he stayed a respectful distance back and resisted the urge to blow his horn whenever Madeline happened to look vaguely in his direction. However, he also made the classic mistake of being so focused on the person he was following, that he didn’t check to see if anyone was following him. For the record, we checked: nobody was following us.
Madeline casually made her way up three blocks to a hotel restaurant that catered to the discerning semi-aquatic predator (amazing how specialized food places are getting these days) and Ratty Sax, apparently having followed this routine before, went to an alcove across the street and up a ways and camped out, lighting a cigarette and looking bored.
I decided it was time to inject a little variety into his life, so in two shakes Squash and I were on either side of him. “Well, hello again!” I said cheerfully as he tried to flatten himself against the alcove wall. “Call me ‘Stretch.’ I believe you’ve already met my buddy, Squash.” Squash loomed menacingly, something he’s remarkably good at, especially to critters an order of magnitude smaller than he is.
“You!” he said. “What do you want?”
“Well now that’s a funny question,” I said. “Especially since I was just going to ask you the same thing. While I approve of the fact that you’re no longer harassing my client, I gotta say I’m very interested to find out why you’re still dogging her steps.”
“Client?” he said. “What client? I was just minding my own business, and you should do the same thing before somebody calls a cop.”
“Are you for real?” I said. “Three days ago my esteemed partner here physically removed you from our premises after you invited 61
yourself along with Madeline Mink. Today we personally witnessed you follow the same Ms. Mink from her place of residence. Go ahead and call a cop, in fact I’ll let you use my cellphone if you don’t have one.”
Ratty scrunched his face up into a scowl and didn’t say anything. I shook my head. “C’mon, that’s no good,” I said. “We’re detectives. You know that, you saw it written on our door. You can clam up if you want, but that’ll just make us curious, and you know what curious detectives are like. It’s not like we want your friggin’ life story. We just want to know what’s the deal with you and Madeline Mink.”
“Go climb a rope,” he said, which I have to admit made me blink a few times.
“Really?” I said. “Is that the best you got?” He just scowled again, so I took a wild stab. They don’t call me ‘Stretch’ for nothing, after all. “It couldn’t have anything to do with Cassandra Blackwing, could it?”
Bingo. He twitched like I’d pulled out a whisker. “Who?” he said, completely unconvincingly.
“Ah, forget it,” I said. “We’ll be here all day at this rate. Squash, hand the rat his case there, he’s leaving.”
“You can’t just tell me—” started Ratty, but a judiciously-shoved saxophone case in his gut knocked it out of him.
“Oh yes we can,” I said, “and we are. You leave my client alone, you got me?”
Ratty took his case and slinked off as Squash stepped aside. “Damn goon,” he muttered, and headed off away from the restaurant.
I waited until he got far enough away that he wouldn’t be likely to notice, then told Squash, “Keep on me, about a block back,” and off I went. The three of us went for a good five or six blocks, a merry parade winding our way through the uptown traffic when I got a bad break. A car off behind me gave a good thirty-second honk, embellished with some choice cursing from the driver of the car it came from, and it was enough of a spectacle for Ratty to look back that way and spot me. He flashed a frown and sped up, so without any real plan I pretended that’s what I’d intended all 62
along and sped up as well. Presumably Squash did the same, but I couldn’t take the time to look back and check.
So now we were a not-quite-jogging parade across uptown, although we were definitely moving more in the direction of the college district. He tried to ditch me a couple of times, but he just didn’t have the technique. Finally he got to a little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop called “Jazzin’ Java” and, as his last gambit, ducked in around a gaggle of geese (coeds by the look of them) who were coming out. I shook my head. Sloppy. I figured it was time to trap the rat in his hole.
What I didn’t count on, was that rats generally share their holes with other rats.
To be fair, the gang of stooges who tackled me as I walked in the door weren’t all rats. In fact, only two of them were. One was a groundhog, one was a female raccoon, and one was a possum with a vicious right hook; one on one I probably could’ve taken any of ’em, even the possum—but when you’re greeted just inside the door by a sucker punch, then yanked off your feet and body-slammed by a groundhog, it becomes a little difficult to regain the initiative.
“Great guys, thanks!” came the voice of Ratty Sax; I couldn’t see him because I was on my stomach on the floor with my head tucked under a booth. I gotta say, for amateurs, they’d done a good job of it.
“This the guy?” said the groundhog from on top of me.
“Yeah,” said Ratty.
“So whatta we do with him?” came a feminine voice, presumably the raccoon.
“Uh...” said Ratty, who didn’t seem to have thought that far ahead.
“You let me up,” I said. “And you apologize nicely so I don’t press charges.”
“Shaddap, you!” said the groundhog, and hopped in place on my guts to emphasize the point.
“How did you arrange it?” I asked. “Cellphone held in front of your face so I couldn’t see you talking to anybody?”
“I said shaddap!” said groundhog, and smacked the back of my head.
“Geeze, I dunno,” said Ratty Sax. “What do we do now?”
“So who is he, anyway?” said the raccoon.
“Private eye,” said Ratty. “Says Madeline Mink is his ‘client.’ Bodyguard, maybe.”
“Madeline Mink!” said the raccoon. “You’re not still bothering her, are you Charlie? What’s it going to get you but trouble?”
“Just what I wanted to know!” I said.
“C’mon, Gary, let him up,” said the raccoon. “You can’t just keep sitting on him all day.”
“Says who?” said the groundhog, with a nastier tone than I thought the situation warranted. “I’m not in a hurry.”
As if in answer to his question, the door suddenly banged open, kicked in by the naturally-powerful swimming legs of a California sea otter. I couldn’t see Squash’s face, as I was still deposited under the table, but I’ve been in similar situations before and I could well imagine. For all the grief I give the big bozo, he’s very attached to me, and finding me in danger brings out a primal rage in him that’s downright frightening to behold.
“Holy—!” Gary managed to say before suddenly he was no longer sitting on my guts but was instead loudly deposited in a pile of bagged coffee beans on the far side of the counter. As I scrambled out from under the table and to my feet the three rats attempted to rush Squash, which in my opinion was about the stupidest thing they could have done at that point. Myself, I would have recommended they retire to Florida and take up crochet, but obviously in the heat of the moment they weren’t thinking their best. Squash dumped one hard across a nearby table, sending mugs and plates flying, kicked the other one to the floor, and was reaching for Ratty Sax himself before I got my hand on his arm.
“Whoa, Squash, whoa, I’m fine! Chill!” I shouted. “Everybody, chill! Just calm down, already, let’s discuss this like civilized adults!”
A resentful silence settled across the room. Outside, a pair of students who’d just been about to come in for a cuppa joe decided that a Roebucks down the street looked much more appealing and kept on walking. I straightened my collar and picked up my hat from the floor. “Now then, enough of this rough stuff. Here, look.” I pulled out my investigator’s license and handed it to the 64
raccoon, on the grounds that she seemed to be the sharpest spoon in this particular drawer. I also noticed for the first time that she was wearing an apron that indicated she was attached to the coffeehouse.
“Okay, so you’re a detective,” she said, and handed it back as the scattered rats and groundhog extricated themselves from their respective messes. “So what? No divorces or bail jumpers here.”
“So, I’m on a case for the aforementioned Madeline Mink,” I said. “And when I find out she’s being followed by a rat with a saxophone, that makes me curious as to why. And when said rat jumps like he’s been stuck with a pin at the name of Cassandra Blackwing, I get curiouser still. I don’t suppose you can tell me the story, can you?”
She glanced around at the assembly. “Maybe,” she said. “Why should I?”
“Fastest way to get me out of your hair so you can get back to foaming lattés,” I said.
“I could call the cops to come get you out of here,” she said.
“Yeah, and I could tell the cops the Bungle Brothers here tried to mug me. Plus I have friends on the force. But do we really have to go through all this? Why not just tell me and make life easy for everybody?”
“Because you’re working for her,” growled Ratty.
“Come on, Charlie,” said the raccoon. “That’s not fair. I know you think she was in on it all, but—”
“In on Morty Mink’s blackmail business?” I said. “She wasn’t. She still isn’t. She doesn’t have a clue about it.”
They all jumped again. “Then how do you know about it?” Ratty demanded. “You work for her!”
“I know about it,” I said with dignity, “for two reasons. First, I’m a detective. Second, I’m not a sap. But while Madeline Mink has been staring at ‘two plus two’ for longer than some of you kiddies have been alive, she’s steadfastly refused to consider the possibility of ‘four’. Love does that to people.”
They all scowled at me. I just looked suave as usual. Finally, the raccoon said, “Come on in the back, let’s talk.” Looking over at the possum with the right hook, who’d been the only other of the 65
gang with the sense not to take Squash on, she said, “Perry here will get your friend some coffee.”
“Gee, thanks!” said Squash, all smiles now. “Do you have any tuna sandwiches?”
Seven.
“Cassandra was the sweetest girl,” said the raccoon, pulling a photo out from under a magnet on her filing cabinet and handing it to me. The photo showed a pretty young blackbird, smiling and clinging playfully to a bending tree branch that was obviously too thin to hold her, with a tire swing hanging from an oak tree just visible in the background. “But she was always so sad. Something had happened to her. A couple of us think it was something with her family, from the way she cut herself off from her past when she came to town, but none of us really knew and I never really tried to find out. I figured it was her business.”
“‘A couple of us,’” I said, staring hard at the photo. “People from the coffee shop?”
“Yeah,” said the raccoon. “We’re a pretty tight group here. Charlie and his brothers play music on weekend nights. Cassandra used to sing, when she couldn’t find a better-paying gig. She had a beautiful voice.”
I pushed my hat back and rubbed the top of my head. Helluva case. “So then she got hooked up with Mortimer Mink and her life went from sad to unbearable,” I suggested.
“Yeah,” said the raccoon. “I guess. He would come in here every once in a blue moon with a date, although none of us knew who he was at the time. And she must’ve made an impression on him, because one night he came in alone and started talking to her between sets. Then he started coming in regularly and the two of them started going out. She was happy about it at first! She told us he was separated from his wife, a nasty piece of work who was going to take him for everything, and that he was just lonely and happy to have Cassandra in his life.”
“Uh huh,” I said.
“Yeah, well. He was good at laying it on, and I don’t doubt that Cassandra bought it for a while. But as time went on, things 66
began to change between them. He stopped coming around, and she wouldn’t talk about him, although she was still going out to his place at night. And then one Saturday night, he came in when she was about to begin her set and demanded she go off with him. She told him to get lost, and he told her that if she didn’t come then the consequences would be all her fault, and so then she yelled at him to get lost instead, and so he left. Then, after she dropped her microphone and completely flubbed her first song, she went running out after him. We never saw her again.”
“Ouch,” I said. “And six months later he was dead.”
“Too bad it wasn’t six months earlier, instead,” said the raccoon.
“Yeah,” I said. “But how did you know it was blackmail? The argument you’ve described coulda been half a dozen creepy relationships I’ve seen.”
“It was in the note she left,” the raccoon said. “I figured you’d know that.”
“Don’t let my amazing ability to make the right guess fool you,” I said. “I know almost nothing about Cassandra Blackwing, or how she died. But I’m trying to put the mind of another one of Morty’s blackmail victims at ease that she won’t have any nasty surprises come bubbling up as a result of his death, and I think Cassandra is the key to that.”
“You’re not trying to find out who killed him?”
“I already know who killed him,” I said. “And honestly, if I could fulfill my client’s order without sending said killer to jail, I’d do it. Morty Mink had it coming if anybody did.”
“So who was it?” asked the raccoon.
I spread my hands apologetically. “I’ve already got a client,” I said. “What was in the note?”
“Well, it was pretty incoherent,” said the raccoon. “She was really worked up by the time she wrote it. It had a lot of apologizing to everybody. She apologized to her mom, and she apologized to everyone here at the store, and she apologized to some of her other friends... it was so pitiful. God.”
She rubbed tears out of her eyes and took a second to compose herself before she continued. “Anyway, she said that 67
Mortimer Mink had found out something about her, something she couldn’t bear for any of us to know... and that he was sure to tell everybody about it. So in the end, although she was sure we’d never forgive her for killing herself, it was still better than what we would find out from him, so she...” The raccoon put her head in her hands instead of finishing her sentence. Once again, I regretted that I hadn’t brought a tuna sandwich.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “I wish he’d been dead six months earlier, too.”
The raccoon looked up. “So I guess you can see why we’re all a little jumpy about Cassandra—and about anybody connected to Mortimer Mink. Charlie figures that as Madeline Mink inherits all of Mortimer’s estate, she owes Cassandra’s family some restitution. He’s gotten pretty fixated on it and keeps coming up with these conspiracy theories about her. I think that he still wants to be mad and hate somebody, and since Mortimer Mink’s dead, his widow is the next best target.”
I nodded. “Just between you and me—well, you, me, and Charlie—I think he’s on to something. Not about the conspiracies, that’s just stupid. But somebody ought to do what they can to put right the messes Morty left behind, and Ms. Mink did handle all the bum’s financial affairs. But stalking her all over town isn’t going to get him anything but a pushed-in nose. Tell him to wise up and get a good lawyer, if he’s serious about it.”
“I thought you were working for her,” said the raccoon.
“I am,” I said. “But I got a soul, ain’t I?”
She smiled slightly. “I dunno,” she said. “Maybe you do, at that.”
“Besides,” I said, and shrugged, “my opinion in that case is worth exactly zip anyway, so I’m perfectly free to express it without any fear of hurting my client’s interests.”
“Your soul needs work,” said the raccoon.
“Whose doesn’t?” I said, and waved the photo at her. “Can I borrow this? I promise I’ll get it back to you.”
She nodded, and I stood. All that was left was a couple of phone calls to firm up details.68
Eight.
And so it was that two days later, I was once again sitting in the establishment of Fincaster T. Squirrel, in a conference room this time, with Squash sitting a couple of chairs over from me. Finc was there, along with his secretary and the fox from New San Angeles bank. Madeline and her lawyer, another mink I hadn’t met before, rounded out the assembly. My nose was twitchy, which is something it tends to do when I’m about to do the big reveal.
“So, uh,” said Fincaster, “you asked us all to meet you, what is it you want?”
“I know what happened to the documents in the safety deposit box,” I said. “Or, well, not exactly. I can’t tell you precisely where each one ended up or what happened to it, but I know generally what happened, and I’m sad to say, they’re almost certainly not recoverable. I wanted to gather you all in the drawing room, as is traditional, but I didn’t have a drawing room handy and even if I did you wouldn’t have all come together for it.”
“Wait, what?” said Madeline. “Why are you telling everybody? I wanted to know—”
“You wanted to know if there was a manuscript detailing the disintegration of your and Morty Mink’s marriage,” I said. “I’m sorry to embarrass you, but it’s important to establish just what kind of a case we’re dealing with here, because a lot of what I am going to say depends on knowing just what a jerk your late husband really was. And to answer your question, there may or may not have been, but it’s gone now in either case.” She scowled, but she took it. What else could she do?
“It’s simple, really,” I said. “So simple I’m surprised I didn’t see it right off the bat. At first I thought this was all the story of a showoff master thief—but I was wrong. There are actually two stories here, one of blackmail and suicide, and one of revenge. And no master thief at all. Just a bereaved best friend.”
“Suicide?” said Madeline. “You think my husband—”
“No, not your husband,” I said. “He was murdered. Or I should say, he was executed. I’m sorry to tell you this, Ms. Mink, but aside from being a womanizer and a gambler, Mortimer Mink 69
was also a blackmailer who drove a sweet and sad young woman to her death.”
“A blackmailer? But... Why? Why would he? He had everything, why—”
“Maybe everything wasn’t enough,” I said. “Or maybe it gave him a feeling of power after a lifetime of never doing anything for himself. I don’t know. Besides, there are other things you can bargain with, or for, besides money. Fincaster himself said that Mortimer was popular with the ladies. Was he? Or was he just good at rooting out their secrets and traded their affectionate company for an extended period of silence?”
I watched this sink in; Madeline at least seemed to find it very plausible, which made me wonder what their married life had actually been like. Certainly it didn’t conjure up any happy images.
“Do you have evidence of this?” asked Fincaster.
“No,” I said. “And neither does anyone else. It was all in that stupid safety deposit box!”
I watched the lightbulbs pop up over everyone’s head in the room... Except of course for the one other person who already knew, and Squash, whom I’d filled in on the way here.
“I doubt the world will ever know what it was Mortimer Mink had on Cassandra Blackwing that drove her to suicide,” I said. “And really, it hardly matters now anyway. The damage is done. But when Cassandra’s oldest friend found out the story, and also realized that she was in a unique position to do something about it, she set into action with a predatory ruthlessness that would have done Tiffany Tiger proud.”
“She?” said Madeline.
“Yes,” I said, indicating Fincaster’s secretary, whose tail began to flash back and forth in a state of high agitation. “Samanda Squirrel.”
“What?” Samanda shrieked.
Turning to the accused, I raised my eyebrows and gave a half-shrug. “Sorry,” I added.
“Sorry!” she said. “You’ll be a lot more than sorry! This is defamation of character! This is slander! I’ll sue you for every penny you’ve got!”70
“That wouldn’t get you very far,” I said. “Besides the fact that I’m right and you’re guilty as hell, I don’t have that many pennies anyway.” But then I turned serious and my whiskers stabbed straight out. God, I’m sexy when I do that!
“The bank records only have Mortimer Mink’s or Fincaster Squirrel’s signatures accessing that vault box! Now, unless some ghost, ninja, or ninja ghost got into that vault, there’s only three ways that could be the case. One, that Mortimer Mink stole all his own paperwork and put that mysterious note there. Possible? Only just. Certainly unlikely. Two, that Fincaster Squirrel did it. Possible? Again, only just; and if he had, surely the cops would have figured it out by now.”
Fincaster was gulping and making “Um!” noises. I turned to him. “Sorry, Finc, but looking at this straight, you’re far and away the most likely suspect for emptying that box. And while you may very well be a fine accounts lawyer, you’re about as smooth as the average cactus plant. If you had done it, they’d have you by now. No offense.”
“Oh, uh...” he said. “None... taken? I think.”
I turned back to Samanda. “So the third possibility is that somebody must have gone into the vault and forged one of those two signatures into the book. In Morty’s case, the most likely suspect for that would probably be his wife, but what kind of sense does that make? She hired me to go looking for the contents of the box. Not that I automatically discount people from suspicion just because they’re my client.”
“Yeah,” said Squash. “Remember that time the poodle tried to kill you when you handed him the bill?”
“Thank you, Squash,” I said. “If we could please stick to the case at hand. So who is the most likely person to be able to convincingly forge Fincaster’s signature? Who could easily get into his office and, if you’ll pardon the expression, squirrel away the deposit box key? Most of the secretaries I’ve encountered already sign half of their bosses’ correspondence anyway, just to save time. And for that matter, who was ‘out sick’ the week around Morty’s death?”
“I don’t understand,” said Madeline. “Are you saying she killed Mortimer and stole everything out of the safety deposit box? Why?”71
“Simple,” I said. “How do blackmailers traditionally prevent themselves from getting offed by their would-be victims? It’s cliché as hell, but it still works: a safety deposit box full of evidence and a letter to their lawyer instructing him to send it all to the news or the cops or the victim’s poor ailing mother. Whatever. If you’re going to kill a blackmailer, you’ve got to get rid of the evidence first.”
I let that hang in the air for a bit, as it was the point that would or wouldn’t allow me to collect my fee. “But in this case, Samanda wasn’t getting rid of evidence about herself, she was getting rid of evidence about Cassandra Blackwing. So she scampers off to the bank, signs herself in as Fincaster Squirrel, and empties out the box. Just to make a statement, even if it’s a statement that only she and a dead woman will understand, she puts in the card reading ‘Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night.’ Everything taken from the box goes up the nearest incinerator chimney, and Samanda returns the key, allowing some time to pass in order to keep suspicion down.”
“But wait,” said Fincaster. “The last signature accessing the box was Mr. Mink himself, just before his trip to Baja. Are you seriously suggesting that he found his safety deposit box empty and just went off on a vacation without telling the police or anybody what he’d found?” Samanda’s tail was still flicking, but she didn’t say anything.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “In fact, I would guess he didn’t ‘go off on a vacation’ at all. But it is, like I say, a guess. I suspect that when he saw that note in the safety deposit box, he got the message. Now, whether he fled and Samanda chased him, or she bashed him over the head and then sailed his yacht to Baja and dumped him overboard, I don’t know.”
Finc still wasn’t satisfied. “You claim to be solving a murder and you don’t know how or when it was done?”
“I’m not claiming to solve a murder,” I said. “I’m claiming to solve the case, which is to say, to discover the location of the missing safety deposit box items. It’s not my job to solve the murder of Mortimer Mink, that’s for the cops to do, and now that I’ve figured out who done it and why, I’m sure they can work out the ‘how.’ The only reason they haven’t done it before now is because they didn’t 72
have any real link between his murder and the bank theft. They think those are two separate cases, but we know that those are two halves of the same one.”
Samanda blinked, and her long fluffy tail puffed out into a giant bristle-brush. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it! You just stand there and say these things about me, without a shred of evidence?” Her beady eyes, still lovely but now more than a little hostile, bored straight into me, but she was pointing around the room. “You’re witnesses! You’re all witnesses! I’ll sue. So help me, I’ll sue!”
“Go ahead,” I said, and fished out my black notebook. “In fact, let me give you the number of my lawyer, that’ll make it easier for you. Assuming he hasn’t run off to Rio with somebody’s bank account and actually answers the phone.”
“You seem very calm about it,” said Madeline.
“I am,” I said. “Like I said, I’m right.” Now that my notebook was out, I simply pulled out the childhood photo of Cassandra in the tree, with the tire swing in the background, and showed it to Madeline. “This is Cassandra Blackwing, high school or so. Hold on to it for a sec.” Then I stepped out of the room to Samanda’s desk and picked up the photo of her parents in front of their nest. In the background, obvious once you knew what to look for, was the same tire swing. “Samanda and Cassandra grew up in the same ‘beautiful, big old oak tree in the country,’” I said as I came back into the conference room, and held both photos close so she could compare them. “And I trust you know how tightly-knit tree communities tend to be.”
Madeline stared, long and hard. “I hope you realize why I’m telling you all of this,” I said. “You hired me to recover the contents of the safety deposit box. The only way I can fulfill the contract is to prove to your satisfaction that the items are unrecoverable. It is my belief that the contents of the box, legal or otherwise, were all destroyed. If Samanda held anything back, she might be able to restore it to you—but if she’s as smart as I think she is, she made sure it was all gone.” But once again, Madeline wasn’t listening to me. She was staring at Samanda.
A moment of threatening silence fell across us all, but then a low, almost feral growl came from Madeline Mink.73
“You did it,” she said. “You killed him. You killed my husband!” And with a sudden and horrible shriek, she launched herself at Samanda, whose prey-species instincts and a good pair of legs were the only things that saved her. The pair of them ran in three circles around the room before Squash caught up Madeline around the waist and lifted her high into the air.
Samanda, hiding behind me of all people, had tears streaming from her eyes, but whether they were from remorse or simple adrenalin, I couldn’t tell. “Your husband,” she shrieked back at Madeline as her fingers dug into my shoulder, “was a lying, blackmailing, perverted bastard!” Then she collapsed onto the floor in a sobbing heap.
“Geeze, boss,” said Squash, whose kung-fu grip was solidly preventing my squirming client from taking on her desired role as avenging Fury. “Why do women always end up either screaming or crying after talking to you?”
I gave him a dirty look and turned to Fincaster and the lawyers. “Now you see, I hope, why I wanted you here as well.”
“Uh, yes,” replied Fincaster. “Unpleasant as it was, I don’t think I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” His own squirrelly tail flickered twice. “So, uh ... now what do we do?”
“Seems to me there’s nothing left but to call the cops,” I said.
“I was afraid of that,” he said.
Nine.
About five weeks after the regrettable scene at Fincaster Squirrel’s offices, I had just come back from depositing a very welcome check when Squash threw a newspaper at me. “Samanda Squirrel was officially charged today,” he said. “The D.A. is pushing for first degree murder, plus the bank robbery of course. Her lawyers are aiming for ‘manslaughter based on extreme grief’.”
“Meh,” I said. “I hate it when I’m right. Well, I hope she has a good lawyer.”
“She should,” said Squash. “Madeline’s paying her legal fees.”
“Madeline’s—how the heck do you know? And since when do you call her ‘Madeline’?”74
“She told me last night, at the movie.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t,” I said.
“Didn’t what?” said Squash.
I shook my head. “I guess she just has a thing for overgrown children,” I said. “Oh well, better you than me.”
He shrugged, his usual response when he has no idea what I’m talking about, and headed off to the other room. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of the can opener.
“Dammit, Squash!” I said, slamming my paw on the desk. “I told you to wait!”

THE END

 

Meeting 007: “Chitchester Gap” by Sedric and "Vignette from the Highway" by Lycanthromancer

We've got a pair of surreal stories to discuss, today. Sedric's "Chitchester Gap" presents a fantasy scenario, a public seduction by a doppelganger minus the goatee. And "Vignette from the Highway" by Lycanthromancer presents a symbolic, even cryptic fragment for the reader to digest and interpret. And also Toonces asks Skip if he can slob his own knob. Tune in for that, too.

We hope you enjoy the show!