“At first she thought she couldn’t do it, but she’s really outdone herself.”
“And Vesta is in charge of the artwork.”
“I tell the cats what to do and I shoot the pictures with my phone.”
“And here are the stars,” said Scarlett, and gestured to the four of us, seated on the floor. “Harriet, Brutus, Max and Dooley.”
“It’s just like Garfield, see,” said Gran. “Only in our strip Arlene is the star and Garfield is the sidekick. And then of course Dooley is Odie.”
“Who I get to squash and kick,” said Brutus happily, and proved this by giving Dooley a kick right then!
“And that big orange one is Max, and he’s the spider,” Gran explained.
“Who I get to squash!” Brutus declared and moved in my direction to show his mettle. Luckily I managed to avoid his squashing tendencies by getting out of the way.
Flint, who’d been staring at us with an incredulous look on his face, now said, “Are you kidding me? You’re actually ripping off Garfield?”
“We’re not ripping off Garfield,” said Gran indignantly. “We’reinspired by Garfield.”
“And also, we don’t do anything as crude as create actual drawings,” said Scarlett.
“No, we’re the cool new thing and we make pictures,” said Gran. “Drawing is so pass?.”
“This is the future, Mr. Cutiesack.”
“The name,” said Flint between gritted teeth, “is Kutysiak, and if you really think that drawing comics is pass?, what the hell are you doing here showing me this crap?!”
“Hey, this is art, buddy boy,” said Gran. “We took something that’s pretty outdated and turned it into something hot and new. And if you can’t see that, you’re an idiot.”
“I don’t think you should call Mr. Cutiesack an idiot, hon,” said Scarlett.
“Look, I don’t know what you expect from me,” said Flint, holding out his hands, palms up. “We’re the Dave James studio, which means we only produce the work of Dave James, which is Tollie the Turtle. We don’t take on board other artists, and we most definitely don’t take on board this… weird concoction of copyright infringement and… ninja cats.”
“Ninja cats,” said Brutus. “Did you hear that, mi amor? He called me a ninja cat.”
“I don’t think it was meant as a compliment, Brutus,” I pointed out.
“So what are you saying, exactly?” asked Gran, narrowing her eyes at the guy.
“I’m saying that I can’t help you,” said Flint, getting up.
“So you really want to hog all those newspapers for your dumb Tollie the Turtle?”
Flint’s expression hardened. It wasn’t the right thing to say, that much was obvious.
“I think you better leave now,” he said, pointing to the door.
With a cold look at the artist, Gran got up.“You’re making a big mistake here, sonny.”
“I’ll take my chances,” said Flint, as he opened the door of the conference room, and gave me and my friends a look of slight distaste. “Also, if you’re going to rip off Garfield, why don’t you take this orange fatty and make him the star?”
I drew myself up to my full height, which I’ll admit isn’t considerable, and said, with as much dignity as I could muster, “I am blorange, sir, not orange.”
“And he’s not fat,” Dooley added. “He just has big bones.”
Arriving back in the reception space, with its display of dozens upon dozens of Tollie the Turtle merchandise items, we saw that a BMW had driven up and parked right next to a similar car. It was one of those electric BMWs that are all the rage right now, only this one was a bright pink, and it parked right next to an identical BMW which was a nice lavender blue. Out stepped Julio Prokop, and pranced up the path toward us. Entering the vestibule, he removed a pair of snazzy sunglasses and seemed to recognize us.
“Oh, it’s the cop cats. So nice to see you again, you guys.”
“Hi, Julio,” I said, and gave him a little wave.
“Do you know this guy?” asked Harriet.
“He’s Flint’s husband. We met him yesterday,” I said.
Flint seemed surprised to see his husband.
“Hey, sweetie,” said Julio as he gave his husband a smacking kiss then dangled a lunch box in front of the man’s nose. It was of course decorated with a Tollie the Turtle cartoon. “You forgot your sandwiches again.”
“Oh, thanks, sweetie,” said Flint. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I know, but I was in the neighborhood so I just figured…” He gestured to us. “Did the cops come back? I see they brought their cats.”
Flint now took a closer look at me and Dooley.“Oh, those are the same cats.”
“Yes, they are,” said Julio, then gave his husband a light slap on the arm. “You didn’t even recognize them!”
“All cats look the same to me,” said Flint, earning himself a scowl from Harriet.
“Are you also cops?” asked Julio, addressing Gran and Scarlett.
“No. Well, almost,” said Gran, seeing another opening for her business proposal and jumping right in. “In fact you’re looking at the one and only founder and leader of the Hampton Cove Neighborhood Watch.”
“And I’m her second-in-command,” said Scarlett.
“Oh, so you’re probably looking into that murder business, aren’t you?” said Julio.
“Sweetheart, please,” said Flint.
“No, but I thought of something last night, and I think somebody should say it. You have to take a closer look at Danny Tomon, that’s what you should do.”
“Danny Tomon?” asked Gran, who clearly hadn’t been following this particular case.
“Veronica’s son. I’ll just say it right now: that boy is pure evil. He’s like Damien Thorn fromThe Omen, only worse—much, much worse.”
“Julio, now is not the time,” Flint said.
“Now is exactly the time. Do you know what Danny did? He stole Flint’s clothes.”
“Julio!”
“This needs to be said, sweetie. Yes, that’s right. Flint loves to go swimming after work—he’s a great swimmer—no, but it’s true, hon, you are a great swimmer,” he insisted when Flint opened his mouth to protest. “He’s got a swimmer’s body. Show them your shoulders, sweetie. No?Okay, you’ll just have to take my word for it. So one day Danny stole his clothes when Flint was swimming in Lake Mario, and he had to drive home in his underwear. Can you imagine?”
“Did you file a complaint?” asked Gran.
“I’m not even sure it was Danny,” said Flint, clearly embarrassed by Julio’s revelation.
“And I’m sure that it was,” Julio said. “And remember when Danny asked Dave to get rid of you? How he said that having a gay artist on the team was a bad idea, businesswise, since your presence would corrupt kids and put all kinds of bad ideas into their heads?”
“He said that?” asked Scarlett, looking shocked.
“Oh, yes, he did. That’s the kind of person Danny is. And so it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t chop Dave’s head off.”
“Nobody chopped Dave’s head off,” said Flint, rubbing his face.
“Well, he almost chopped it off from what I understand. And that’s Danny for you. He is evil, I’m telling you. Pure, unadulterated evil.”
“Okay, so maybe you should tell the cops,” Scarlett suggested, but then Gran gave her a nudge, and she quickly amended, “But since we’re almost like cops, we’ll handle this, sir, yes, we will.”
“Yes, we will handle it, but only if you promise to take another look at Harriet the Cat,” said Gran, and thrust out that tablet computer again.
Flint reluctantly took it, but it was clear he wasn’t as big a fan of Harriet the Cat as he was of Tollie the Turtle.
“Okay, and now I really must skedaddle,” said Julio, feeling that he’d done his bit for the benefit of the murder investigation, and walked out. “Toodle-oo, sweetie,” he said.
“Toodle-oo,” said Flint, with slightly less affection and exuberance.
And since the atmosphere turned a little awkward after Julio left, we left soon after.