The money belonged to Little Vince the Ocelot. The laundry was a front for the Fighting Fish, a tough new organization that controlled various shady enterprises around the train yard. The Syndicate guys called them the Chinks.
T.B. Otherweiss was a very nervous octopus doing a nervous job for some extremely nervous stuffies. The job involved bundles of cash, balls of black opium, and other small packages, the contents of which he neither knew nor wished to know. T.B. was a regular one-mollusk messenger service for the Syndicate. But he'd never be a wise guy. Only mammals were eligible. No matter. The Syndicate gave him steady work and protection from the heat. Protection from everybody else in Plush City was his personal problem.
Two little kids followed T.B. for a couple of blocks. Frogs? Lizards? Something green. He ignored them, and they soon lost interest. He crossed under the elevated train tracks at Sleepytime Avenue and slid west along Button, a quiet industrial street of ice factories, ribbon dairies, and cotton packing plants. He made it to the laundry on Corduroy Street a little after five. There was no one inside but a small yellow shark behind a bare counter.
The shark led T.B. out the front door, in again at a side door, through a trap door, and down a narrow staircase into the bowels of an opium den. The air was thick, and the ceilings low. But the floors were clean and waxed, and the clientele were all discreetly screened from one another. The setup reminded T.B. of a sleeper coach in an interstate passenger train.
Just like every time before, the shark led him up a ladder to a well-lit room where sea bass in pigtails and coolie jackets sat at a long lacquered table counting play money and working abacus beads. Supervising the accountants and smoking a cigar was a shriveled old stingray with a Fu Manchu mustache, who wore an elegant high-collared tunic of dove-gray silk.
"Mr. Cho," said T.B. The stingray regarded him with a cold stare and a barely perceptible nod. T.B. slid the briefcase of money onto the table.
Normally at this point, one of the accountants would open the case and count the bills. Then a different accountant would replace the money with something the size of a grapefruit, tightly wrapped in butcher's paper. The oval bundles were presumably balls of opium. T.B. had never opened one.
Instead of the usual, no one moved. The abacus clicking trailed off. The stillness of the room grew eerie. "Mr. Cho?" said T.B. "Don't you want to count the money?"
"No good," said Mr. Cho. "This money no good. We no accept payment."
T.B. curled his tentacles a little tighter. "You think the money is counterfeit? Look at it."
"Money from you no good. You no good. Take money away."
"You don't have the merchandise ready? You want to reschedule? I hope you're not calling off the deal."
"Deal fine. Next week, same like always. This week, no good."
"Please talk to me, Mr. Cho. Or else please get on the phone and speak to Little Vince. He likes to know about this kind of stuff in advance."
"No talk Vince. No talk you. Go." A couple of big sharks had been standing against a wall in shadow. Now they advanced on T.B., who took a hint and grabbed his case in two tentacles.
"Little Vince ain't gonna like this," he said. Then he turned and climbed down the ladder through drifting layers of heavy smoke. He could hear the sea bass laughing at him.
T.B. left the laundry twice as nervous as when he'd arrived. Now he had to go back to the west side with the cash instead of the black stuff. And since the handoff was a wash, Vince might not even pay him this week, the little cheapskate. T.B. didn't do this for his health, damn it.
He paused at a newsstand beside the Playtime Avenue subway entrance. He suckered a dime from his pocket but dropped it trying to give it to the news vendor, a fat old walrus with a mustache. T.B. bent down to pick up the coin. His tentacles were shaking under him. Jesus, what a day. When he straightened up the walrus was holding his gut, and bright red ribbons were gushing through his ink-stained apron like party streamers. Jesus fuck! The poor guy was gut shot! T.B. whirled around, yanking his sweet little Derringer pistol from its holster.
T.B. spotted the moose with the Luger. The guy was right across the street. Wasn't even hiding. Hadn't expected any return fire. The moose got off another round before T.B. could draw a bead on him. The slug tore through T.B.'s overcoat and slashed his side. T.B. fired his pistol, missed the moose, and demolished the window of a jewelry store. A burglar alarm went off. The moose ran fast up the street. T.B. could have shot him in the back, but there were too many people around.
T.B. tucked his hardware back under his overcoat and staggered down the stairway to the subway station. As luck would have it, a westbound train was just loading. T.B. slid inside, and the train pulled out. The bullet wound still felt like a paper cut, but that wouldn't last. He had to return the cash to Vince while he could still get around. Then he'd get himself patched.
T.B. hung from a strap and puzzled over the moose. Why would a strange moose try to kill him in broad daylight? Presumably for the money. But who'd be dumb enough to snatch money that belonged to Vince the Ocelot? Vince was one of Boss Mandrill's top guys. Killing a nobody like T.B. was no big deal, but messing with the Syndicate's cash flow, that was serious. Unless it was somebody new in town who didn't know the score. But how would a new guy know about the briefcase? This was pointless. T.B.'s brain was spinning its wheels in the mud. First things first. Get the cash back to Vince before anything happened to it.
The train lights flickered. The train slowed and jolted to a stop between stations. What now? The giant monster thing again? Perfect timing. Now T.B.'s day was complete.
Turtle and Snake sat on the floor of the apartment block's vestibule with their backs against whitewashed cinderblock. Turtle sat under the mailboxes. Snake was curled up under the table where the postman dumped the circulars. Turtle stared at his feet. Snake stared at her tail. "You want to play Parcheesi?" asked Snake.
"Naw."
"You wanna watch those guys fix the street?"
Turtle picked his beak with his pinkie claw. "Naw."
"You wanna get your binoculars and go up on the roof? We might see a freighter dock at the pier. We might see the dog and the cat."
"Why would we see them? It ain't even dark yet."
"It's a full moon tonight."
"So?"
"They like to fight on the flatlands when the moon balloon is full."
"It ain't dark yet."
"But the moon is up."
"The hell it is."
"Go look at it. And the sky'll get dark soon."
"The hell it will."
"You wanna go get your binoculars? Huh, Turtle?"
"I got better things to do." Turtle stood up and sighed, making it clear that he was doing Snake a favor. "Okay. I'll get them." He went upstairs to his apartment. Snake stayed in the vestibule. Turtle's mother had a low opinion of Snake, so Snake stayed out of her way.
When Turtle got back, the binoculars were hung around his neck, and traces of powdered sugar clung to his green plush beak. "Maybe they'll fight near the city," he said hopefully. "You remember the time when they knocked over that silo at the train yard?"
"That was awesome," Snake had to agree. They started up the stairs to the roof. While they were climbing, the civil defense alarm bells went off. Turtle and Snake looked at one another. They couldn't believe their luck.
"The monsters are coming!" shouted Turtle. He took the rest of the stairs three at a leap, with Snake sidewinding breathlessly behind him. He ran to the eastern edge of the roof and trained his binoculars on the Dollhouse Mountains, where they sloped down into the badlands. But there were too many brown cardboard buildings blocking the view.
Snake was gaping at the sky. Cloud masses of cunningly tailored gray felt were moving west across the badlands. "Close your mouth," said Turtle. "You'll catch flies."