“How dare you?!” he was yelling at Brutus, even going so far as to tap him smartly on the chest. “How dare you breeze into town and take… our stuff,” he lamely added with a quick glance at Harriet. “You can’t do that!”
But Brutus wasn’t the least bit disconcerted by this sudden sign of a local uprising. Mel Gibson, had he been present at the scene, war paint and all, would have taken charge, and destroyed this nasty interloper once and for all. But Dooley was no Mel Gibson, and Brutus had no trouble putting him in his place. “Look, you moron,” he said, disdainfully swatting away Dooley’s paw. “Things are going to change around here, so you better get used to it.”
“We’ll see about that!” Dooley cried bravely.
“My human is in charge now, with your human playing second fiddle. Chase Kingsley is running this town now, and so am I, and if you want to survive under my regime, you better do as I say or else.” He then turned to Harriet and added, “Come on, toots. Don’t listen to this riffraff.”
“Who are you calling riffraff?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Why don’t you cut this loser loose, Harriet? Tell him where he can put his new regime.”
“Yeah, tell him, Harriet,” Dooley said. “Tell him we’re your best friends and that we’re in charge of this place, not him.”
Brutus turned to Harriet.“Remember what I promised you, sweetie pie. Fresh raw meat. An all-you-can-eat buffet of fresh raw meat. Just think what it’ll do to your coat. It’ll be even prettier and shinier than it is now already.”
Harriet’s eyes glittered at the prospect of fresh raw meat, and not the kibble Marge always gave her, and she tilted her chin. “Sorry, guys,” she said. “But it looks like things are changing in this town, and either you adapt… or you perish.” She shrugged. “It’s a law of nature, or didn’t you know?”
“But Harriet!” said Dooley, looking thoroughly confused now, and extremely disappointed by this behavior from one he’d always admired from afar. Well, not afar, exactly, as he’d been living with Harriet all his life, but you catch my drift. “You can’t go with this cat. He—he—he’s a… Damien!”
Brutus narrowed his eyes.“What are you calling me, gib?”
Dooley winced.“Damien?”
“It’s just a dumb movie,” Harriet explained. “Let’s go, Brutus.”
Brutus stared at Dooley for a few seconds more, with Dooley appearing to shrink inside his fur. Finally, content that he’d once again destroyed the competition with the mere power of his presence, Brutus gave us both a nasty grin, clicked his tongue, cocked a nail at us and strutted off with Harriet.
“This isn’t fair, Max,” said Dooley plaintively. “He can’t do this.”
“Well, he just did,” I said as I glared after the couple.
“But he can’t just take Harriet! What’s Marge gonna say?”
“Marge is going to discover a cuckoo has taken over the nest. I have a strong suspicion Brutus is extending his dominion to both our backyards.”
Dooley looked up in abject alarm.“He’s moving in.”
“Not moving in, exactly, as he won’t want to exchange his all-you-can-eat meat buffets for Marge’s kibble, but we’ll be seeing a lot more of him from now on.” I sighed despondently. “We better face it, Dooley. Our little band of three has just turned into a foursome. And judging from this small preview, we won’t be the top cats. More like the downtrodden ones.”
“But I don’t want to be the undercat!” cried Dooley.
“Well, you’re going to be, if Brutus has his way.”
Dooley stared after Brutus and Harriet as they strutted their stuff without holding back, giggling and prancing like a couple of love cats.
“I like Harriet,” said Dooley sadly. “I like her a lot. And I always thought that over time she’d learn to like me, too. I guess I was wrong, huh?”
I shook my head.“Where does he come off, calling you a gib?”
“Did he say that? I didn’t even notice,” said Dooley, with a hangcat expression on his face.
Suddenly I got an idea.“Do you know if Brutus is neutered?”
“How would I know? I didn’t check… down there.”
“Maybe that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Everything! His aggressive nature. The way Harriet is completely smitten with him. The way he’s taken over this town… That cat,” I said, pointing a paw at Brutus’s retreating back, “has not been fixed, Dooley. Which is a clear violation of the rules and regulations of this town.”
“You think we should tell someone?”
“I think it’s our sacred duty, Dooley,” I declared.
The light of hope was gleaming in my friend’s eyes. “What if we told Odelia? And she told Chief Alec? Who told Chase?”
“He’d have no choice but to have Brutus neutered,” I said with a grin.
“That would change his tune.”
“Bring him down a peg. Or two.”
“Or three or four.”
“Two, Dooley. Even Brutus only has two… you know.”
“Oh! Right. Of course. Two it is.”
“It might even make Harriet fall out of love with the guy.”
“Like you said, Max, it is our sacred duty to make sure the law is upheld.”
“And even more so since Brutus is an officer of that same law.”
I held up my paw, and Dooley slapped it in a genuine and heartfelt high-five.“Let’s get this cat fixed, buddy,” said Dooley, his despondency gone.
And so we set out on a new mission, and set paw for the newspaper, where we hoped to find Odelia. It was a good thing that Dan always liked to leave the door to the office open, so we waltzed in and went straight for Odelia’s office, where we found her checking something on her computer.
“Odelia, have we got news for you!” I announced our presence.
“Oh, hey, Max. Dooley. I don’t have a lot of time, guys. I’m on my way to Uncle Alec for an update on the murder case.”
“We’ll keep it brief,” I promised her, and proceeded to give her a quick summary of the conversation between Chase and Tex. To say that she was surprised was an understatement. Apparently this was all news to her, which was gratifying, of course. But when we added the even more stunning scoopthat Brutus wasn’t neutered, she suddenly lost interest. But isn’t that always the case? Cats are only interested in cats, and humans in humans. It’s simply the way the cookie crumbles. So when I told her to tell Chief Alec about Brutus’s unneutered state, she merely mumbled something underher breath, grabbed her clutch from the desk and waltzed out without another word.
“Do you think we got the message across?” asked Dooley.
“I think we’ll need to follow up on that one,” I told him.
“I think so, too. Somehow I don’t think she grasped the significance.”
Humans. They’re perfectly nice people, but you gotta watch them.
Chapter 11
“Poole,” Odelia said. “My name is Poole. Odelia Poole.”
She stared annoyedly at the mayor’s secretary. The woman was new, and apparently didn’t know who she was. Odelia was anxious to have a word with the mayor’s wife, who she knew had an office right next to her husband, from where she coordinated Hampton Cove’s beautification committee. She needed her to confirm Aissa’s story so she could take her off the suspect list.
Upon leaving the newspaper, she’d popped into the police station to have a word with Uncle Alec, but unfortunately he’d proved unavailable. According to Dolores he’d been summoned to the mayor’s office to give an update on the Paulo Frey case, a case destined to shake this small town to its foundations. Not only were murders pretty rare around here, but a celebrity writer being murdered was unheard of. If one celebrity got killed, it was bound to give other celebrities ideas, and soon they would start avoiding this town en masse, which was definitely bad for business.
“I’m sorry, Miss Poole,” the secretary said, “but the mayor is busy right now, and so is his wife.”