“How long do you think a flea can survive inside a vacuum bag?” asked Harriet.
“Not long,” said Brutus. “I imagine they die a slow and painful death of suffocation.”
Dooley uttered a strangled cry. “Oh, those poor, poor creatures.”
“They’re a pest,” Brutus grunted. “And pests should be eradicated. No mercy.”
“Some people consider cats a pest,” I said. “They feel we should be eradicated.”
“Some people are pests,” Brutus countered. “So maybe they should eradicate themselves.”
“Oh, but they do,” said Harriet. “People kill each other all the time. They enjoy it.”
She was right. Only a couple of days ago a grandson had killed his grandfather, just so he could take over the old man’s title as Most Fascinating Man in the World. No cat would ever kill another cat for the mere pleasure of being called Most Fascinating Cat in the World. Humans sometimes can be quite inhumane. Before I could ponder the topic more deeply, however, we’d arrived in the heart of town, and Brutus and Harriet took one side of the street while Dooley and I took the other. We were looking for clues revealing the identity of this Patient Zero, and what better way to go about this pursuit than to talk to other cats?
Cats, as you might imagine, are extremely chatty creatures. There’s nothing a cat likes better than to gossip about his or her fellow cats. And since our human is in the business of providing fresh human gossip to other humans every day through her column in the Hampton Cove Gazette, that works out quite nicely. So we passed by the barber shop and talked to the barber’s Maine Coon Buster, who sat licking his paws in front of the shop.
“First time I laid eyes on a flea I was a young whippersnapper of six months,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes as he temporarily halted his grooming. “My pa showed me. Said a cat’s not a cat without a bunch of fleas burrowing into his skin.” He sighed wistfully. “Ma kicked him out of the house that day and I haven’t seen him since. I miss my old man sometimes. Said he’d fathered a thousand kittens in his time, and felt ready and primed to father a thousand more. Which is probably why Ma kicked him out in the first place.”
“That’s all fine and dandy,” I said, trying to halt the stream of words. Buster likes to gab, and sometimes it’s hard to get him to focus. “But we’re trying to figure out when this flea infestation started, so try to cast your mind back to when you saw the first flea now—not when you were a young whipper… snipper.”
He dabbed at his eyes with his paws. “He said he’d be back for me, Pa did. But I never saw him again. I sometimes wonder if he’s out there somewhere, looking up at the same stars at night, thinking about me and those fun times we shared back in the day.”
“If he fathered a thousand kittens and was ready to father a thousand more it’s highly unlikely he remembers you, Buster,” said Dooley, offering his two cents.
Buster stopped rubbing his eyes and gave Dooley a nasty look. “Who asked you?”
“It’s simple logic,” Dooley argued. “How can a cat be expected to remember one cat out of thousands? And I’ll bet you were not very memorable at six months. None of us are.”
“Dooley,” I told him warningly.
“I stood out amongst the bunch,” said Buster through gritted teeth. “Even as a kitten.”
“I’m sure you did, Buster,” I said pacifically. “Now about this Patient Zero…”
“Are you telling me that my pa never gave me a second thought? Cause let me tell you, you scruffy-faced piece of no-good mongrel, he did. Pa said he’d be back for me and the only reason he would break that promise is if he was detained someplace, unable to come.”
“Probably fathering his ten-thousandth kitty,” said Dooley. “Or taking a breather. Fathering so many kitties causes a lot of wear and tear. Your pa probably hung up his spurs.”
“Why, you little…” Buster began, swinging his paw. “I should knock your whiskers off.”
“Now, now,” I said. “We’re all friends here.”
“Just buzz off,” said Buster, giving us a distinctly unfriendly look.
And as we walked away, Dooley asked, “Is it something I said, Max?”
“No, Dooley,” I said with a sigh. “But maybe from now on you’ll let me do the talking, all right? We are trying to find Patient Zero, not looking to start a fight.”
“Okay, Max. I was just pointing out a flaw in Buster’s logic, that’s all.”
“I know you were, Dooley. I know you were.”
Chapter Three
Next up was Tigger, the plumber’s cat, who, for some reason, sat people-watching on the stoop of Daym Fine Liquor, the local liquor store.
“Hey, Tigger,” I said by way of greeting. “What’s new?”
Tigger, a small hairless cat, held up his paw and I high-fived him. “Hiya, fellas,” he said. “Just waiting on my human. My human likes this store. In fact it’s his favorite store in all of Hampton Cove. He’s in here all the time so I’m out here all the time.”
“Why?” asked Dooley, who was in an inquisitive mood today. “You’re not a dog. You’re not supposed to sit out here and wait for your human.”
“Oh, I know I’m not a dog,” said Tigger. “But once Gwayn has some liquor in him he tends to forget he’s got me to feed, so I like to trail him to remind him I’m still here.”
It was an intensely sad story, though Tigger didn’t seem to see it that way, judging from his chipper demeanor. Just one of those things cats take in their stride, I guess. When your human is a tippler, like Gwayn Partington obviously was, a cat learns to adjust.
“We’re looking for Patient Zero,” Dooley said, getting straight down to business.
“Maybe check the hospitals?” Tigger suggested. “That’s where they keep those. I know on account of the fact that Gwayn has been in one. He has balance issues, you see, and tends to fall on his face from time to time. It’s a terrible affliction. Every time it happens an ambulance comes and a couple of men in white take him down to the hospital.”
“We’re not looking for a particular patient,” I clarified. “We’re looking for the first cat in Hampton Cove who got infested with fleas. If we can track him or her down, we might be able to nip this thing in the bud, so to speak. Eradicate this infestation once and for all.”
Tigger shook his head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, fellas, but you can’t eradicate a flea infestation. Fleas are everywhere! Fleas are all around, just like in the song.”
“Song? What song?” I asked.
“Fleas are all around,” he began to sing to the tune of ‘Love is all around.’
“They weren’t before—not on this massive scale. Someone brought them here.”
He stopped singing and gave me a pensive look. “Maybe ask Chief Alec? If anyone knows what’s going on in Hampton Cove it’s Chief Alec. Chief Alec knows. And he’s nice to cats. I should know. The other day, when Gwayn spent the night at the police station, Chief Alec drove over to the house and gave me a saucer of milk and a piece of his ham sandwich. What a mensch!”
“Gwayn spent the night at the police station?” I asked.
“Sure. He was driving through town when he happened to drive through a red light—Gwayn suffers from color-blindness as well as this falling-on-his-face thing, you see—and so Chief Alec made him walk a line. Apparently that’s what they do when people drive through red lights—make them walk a line. He must have aced the test because the Chief was so kind to offer Gwayn free lodgings at the police station for the night. Like I said, a real mensch.”
Just then, Gwayn Partington came staggering out of the liquor store, a big brown paper bag in his arms, and stared down at us. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “First there was one cat and now there’s three? I must be off a damn lot worse than I thought!”