He is eyeing the Yorkies askance, which is the only way to regard such an uppity breed of sand-hugging dog.
I realize with chagrin that the big rug has mistaken me for Midnight Louise.
Much as I like to take any undeserved credit I can, I cannot let this notion go unchallenged, so explain that his benefactor was a friend of mine, not me.
“Ah.” Osiris nods sagely while cleaning behind his cauliflower ear. (The big boys have these round, blunt ears that look as if they had been in the ring for years, not the svelte, pointed numbers we smaller cats do.) “I did detect a whiff of female that is distinctly lacking now.” He gazes benignly on the Yorkies. “And are these your and the lovely little black Miss’s cubs?”
I do not know whether I am more insulted to be taken for sharing the state of parenthood with Midnight Louise, or to be mistaken for contributing to the production of the Yorkie twins.
“No relation. Despite appearances, these are dogs.”
“I am not familiar with the breed,” Osiris admits.
Imagine that! What a sheltered upbringing. “Now that we know who’s who we need to find out what’s what,” I go on. “Meanwhile”—I turn to Golda and Groucho—“you two track down the human scent you have been following. I want to know who from here hiked all the way out there and back again.”
They scamper off, happy to be of use, I suppose (dogs are like that) and happier to be away from Osiris’s big white teeth.
I settle down, my mitts tucked under me for a long summer’s siesta.
In no time Osiris is pouring out his life story. Now it is my turn to yawn. Basically, he has had a pretty soft time of it until now. He was born into a performing family, but separated at an early age by an animal trainer. He did some commercial film work—we chat about the ups and downs of that profession—and caught the attention of his recent master thanks to an ad for spandex animal-print pants from something called “The Yap.”
“I would stretch like this”—Osiris curves himself into a long, lean arc—“and they would superimpose an image of Cindy Crawford stretching in her leopardskin-print capri pants. I got a lot of fan mail from that one, but not as much as Cindy Crawford.”
“Yeah, the humans hog the limelight. Did it not bother you to advertise a product based on your hide, so to speak?”
“No, we are all protected now, and a guy has to make a living somehow. I figure if the humans are happy with faux, we are all better off for it. Besides, Cindy Crawford gets asked that all the time too.”
“About making a living from selling her hide?”
“Right. Some of us are just too beautiful to hide our light under a barrel.”
“That’s basket.”
“Whatever.”
“So how did you get out to the Rancho Exotica?”
“The what?”
“That is where the head human was killed. You know, the guy you were found dancing the cha-cha with, only he was dead?”
“Oh, him. I thought he was a stuffed decorator item. The place was filled with the kind of props I was used to seeing on a film set. Also, inside the new boss’s house. He is a good guy. He lets me indoors, which is why I was not completely lost when I woke up inside that place, although all the shapes and scents were new, and I did stumble around for a while, which is when I accidently sharpened my nails on the…on the—”
“Corpus delicti is what we call it in my trade. If Burkleo was already dead. Was he?”
“Oh, yes. Had a nasty smell about him already. I was quite upset I had mistaken him for a scratching post at first. But I was not quite myself from the stinging fly.”
“Tranquilizer dart,” I explained.
“Tranquilizer?”
“It puts you to sleep so the humans can move you without damaging you…or them. Surely they used such a device on you before.”
“No. I am trained. It is not necessary.”
“So. You would have been pretty unhappy to be ripped untimely from your new position with the Cloaked Conjurer?”
“My new boss, you mean. He was not my trainer, but he would visit to play and pet and feed.”
“And you were happy with him?”
“Oh, yes. He is a strange human. He has a face like mine in some ways, and a deep, buzzing, purring voice. I have never had such an agreeable boss.”
“So you want to go back to him?”
“Of course. I have not finished my training.”
“And you do not think he had anything to do with your abduction?”
“Why should he?”
I say one word, that even a naive leopard like Osiris can understand. “Publicity.”
He rubs his big blunt nose on a forepaw. “My new boss has too much publicity. I figure he likes to avoid it. He seems a bit litter-lonely. He would come out after dark and talk to me, as if we were the same breed. Performers, he said, are prisoners of the public. I had not thought of it that way. He said I was a good listener.”
Well, yeah. Like who can talk back?
Still, I do not wish to get between a boy and his human, so I only grunt what can be taken for agreement, then I restate the case:
“You were darted, woke up in a cage at Rancho Exotica, were watered but not fed for several days. Then you were darted again and woke up in the ranch house, alone except for what turned out to be the corpse of Cyrus Van Burkleo. You bumbled around, sharpened your claws on some handy portions of Burkleo’s body, then panicked and ran through the house, overturning furniture. Who caught you?”
Osiris frowns, an expression that lends a leonine dignity to his already formidable presence.
“I am not sure. I remember rushing outside somehow. Butch was awake and pacing in his cage. Our eyes met. Then…I cannot remember.”
“Someone must have caged you again, so the animal control people could handle you.”
“I am not difficult to handle,” Osiris says a bit huffily. “I am trained.”
“Exactly my point. And perhaps you were being trained for the role of murderer.”
“What do you mean?”
The Big Cats may be bigger but they are not always brighter.
“I mean that you were not fed for a reason. And your claws were allowed to grow for the same reason. Had not one of my ilk illegally obtained a forbidden snack for you from one of the other cages, and you had been released in the house ravenous and reverted to your savage state, you might well have mauled Cyrus Van Burkleo beyond all recognition—and destroyed the evidence of human battering, instead of merely puncturing him a bit.”
“They were ‘training’ me to kill him?”
“They were training you to look like you had killed him, only it backfired.”
“This is terrible! My professional reputation would have been ruined. My reliability is all I have.”
“Your professional reliability would have been moot. If you had been found with bloody claws over a mutilated human body, you would be dead by now. As it is, you rest under a cloud.”
“You mean I am still suspected of being a rogue animal?”
“And the people who set this up might want you permanently off the planet.”
Osiris’s yellow eyes gleam with the light of recognizing danger. His claws flex. “Who must I watch out for?”
“It could be anyone, and the best service you can do yourself is forget that I told you someone might want to kill you. If you jump the gun and attack an innocent Oasis worker, your career and your life are down the drain.”
“So I must wait to be attacked?”
“I am afraid so. Frankly, my dear Osiris, it is nothing different from what would have happened to you at Rancho Exotica if they had sold your hide to one of their weekend hunters.”
Chapter 36
Synth You Went Away…