She thought of Max and Dooley. If they didn’t come up with something soon, Chase was absolutely right. Things did look hopeless.
Chapter 21
All the way back from the hotel to the house, I thought about what Dooley had said about Brutus. How I’d stirred the beast and he would return to haunt us. And when we were about to turn the corner and enter the street where we lived, I saw Brutus coming toward us, and he looked completely deflated again.
I nudged Dooley.“Look who’s coming.”
“He doesn’t look like he’s going to bully us,” Dooley said.
“Very observant of you, Dooley. So maybe you were wrong, huh?”
“Let’s wait and see.”
“Hey, that’s my line!”
“And now it’s mine.”
We sat down on our haunches, and I started casually licking my tail. I didn’t want to give Brutus the impression we were waiting for him. Dooley, catching on, started licking his private parts.
“Dooley!” I hissed. “Do you have to do that now?”
“Huh? What?” he asked, looking up from his business.
“Just lick your paw or something. This is a public place.”
“I don’t have to lick my paw. I just licked my paw before. Now I want to lick my—”
“It’s not proper!”
He stared at me.“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? We’re cats, Max. Not humans. We lick whatever we want to lick at any given time.”
“Still.”
“Still nothing. Living with Odelia has turned you into a human. Time to remember that you’re a cat.”
I guess he was right. It’s just that every time in the past I started licking my privates, Odelia started giggling. It’s made me self-conscious.
“I honestly think that if people would walk around in the nude more and lick their private parts in public, the world would be a much better place,” Dooley said.
I watched as Gran and Leo came walking down the street, kissing and hugging and generally all over each other’s business, and I said, “I disagree. There are certain human private parts I really don’t care seeing.”
Brutus had reached us and also plunked down on his haunches.“Hi,” he said in a tired voice. He sounded like the voice from the tomb on a bad day.
“So?” I asked. “How did it go?”
“It didn’t. I waltzed in there, just like you told me to, and told Diego what was what. I said Harriet was my girlfriend and he had no right to come barging into our lives and stealing her away from me.” He paused, and clamped his mouth shut, giving me a haunted look. Then he shivered visibly. “Brrrr.”
“And?” I asked. “Don’t keep us in suspense. What happened?”
“Harriet happened. She told me in no uncertain terms that she was no plaything, to be handed over from cat to cat and to be decided over by anyone but herself. She said she was her own cat and she was perfectly capable of deciding who she was going to date and I was an idiot for trying to controlher.” He shivered, and it was obvious the episode had rankled him.
“She said that, huh?”
“All that and a lot more,” he admitted. “She also said that if she wanted to give her heart to Diego then that was nobody’s business but her own. And if I thought I was going to change her mind by acting like a jealous boyfriend I had another thing coming. And then she kissed Diego. For about a minute or so. It could have been longer. I decided not to stick around.”
I shared a look of commiseration with Dooley. The latter shrugged. He obviously figured that at least Brutus hadn’t turned into the bullying monster we’d all come to know and despise. He was just his old, miserable self again.
I patted the big cat on the shoulder.“Why don’t you join us, Brutus?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m licking my tail and Dooley is licking his privates.”
“Why not?” he asked, heaving another deep sigh. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
So we spent the next ten minutes grooming ourselves. It’s an important part of being a cat, and it helps to take your mind off things.
“So what’s new?” Brutus asked after a while.
“Nothing,” I said.
“You think Odelia cracked the case yet?”
“Nope,” I said.
“So what’s our next move?”
I gave this some thought. What was our next move? The only thing I could come up with was to spend some time at our usual haunts. The barber shop. The police station. The General Store. Maybe someone somewhere had seen something and could get this investigation moving in the right direction again.
So once we were satisfied that our fur was all nice and shiny again and generally flea-free, we ambled off in the direction of Main Street. The police station was a bust. No cats around, and Uncle Alec was holed up in his office playing Solitaire on his computer. The barber shop was a bust, too. None of the cats hanging around there had seen anything.
Our final destination was the General Store, where our buddy Kingman reigns supreme. He’s a large piebald that likes to gossip. And since just about every cat in town passes by the store eventually, he’s usually the best choice to pick up some juicy fresh gossip.
“Max! Dooley! Brutus!” Kingman said from his perch on the counter. He likes to keep his human Wilbur company while the latter rings up the purchases. He gracefully hopped down and trod over to where we were sitting, right next to the discount DVD bin. “So what’s happening, dudes?”
“We were just about to ask you,” I said.
“Quid pro quo, Max,” Kingman said with a sly grin. “Quid pro quo.”
“Grandma Poole is dating a guy called Leo Wetland,” I said.
He made a throwaway gesture with his paw.“That’s old news. You’ll have to do a lot better than that.”
“Niklaus Skad was killed?” Dooley tried.
“Old news!”
I glanced at Brutus. He was sitting on the biggest piece of news. He shook his head. I gave him a penetrating look. He shook his head again. So I decided to blurt it out myself.“Harriet is dating a cat called Diego.”
This time an eager look came into Kingman’s eyes. “Tell me more.”
So we told him more, Brutus meanwhile suffering the death of a thousand cuts. I told myself it was for a good cause. If Kingman wanted juicy gossip, it meant he had a big story to share, or else he wouldn’t bother.
“Diego, huh? I’ve seen that cat around. Strutting his stuff. Bad news, Max. Bad news.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
His eyes flashed.“Did you know that there’s a sweatshop in town?”
“No way!”
“Yes, way. Right here in Hampton Cove. An actual sweatshop!”
“What’s a sweatshop?” Dooley asked.
“It’s a shop where people go to sweat,” Brutus said.
“Like a fitness club?”
“Yeah, exactly like a fitness club,” said Brutus. “Right, Max?”
“No, not like a fitness club,” I said.
“So what is it?” asked Dooley, confused.
I gestured at Kingman.“You tell ‘em.”
“A sweatshop is a place where unscrupulous businessmen keep a bunch of workers—often even kids—and make them work really, really hard for pretty much no pay, for long hours and in horrible conditions.”
“I knew that,” I murmured, even though I didn’t.
“I get it,” Dooley said. “They make them sweat a lot and don’t pay them anything.”
“But isn’t that, like, illegal?” Brutus asked.
“Good point, buddy!” said Kingman. “Of course it’s illegal!”
“Yeah, they probably don’t pay any taxes,” I said.
“And they’re breaking pretty much every labor law,” Kingman added.
“So where is this sweatshop? And how do you even know this?”
“A cat that hangs out there told me. Said they’ve got a bunch of illegal aliens locked up in there.”
“Aren’t all aliens illegal?” asked Dooley. “I mean, I’ve seenIndependence Day. Those horrible creatures definitely weren’t invited.”