Free The Last Coin by James P. Blaylock

cats got to it. God bless the cats, like I was saying. Lord love a cat. Nothing like them.” He angled away down the stairs, holding the scoop shovel out in front of him, Pickett following. “A cat by any other name …” he said over his shoulder. “Sacred in Borneo, I understand.” He continued to chatter long after Pennyman could no longer hear him. If he stopped, he’d pitch over laughing. He’d convulse. They’d have to call in a doctor to sedate him. The whole successful business would be spoiled like an old fish.
    There was Mrs. Gummidge, looming out of the kitchen. She’d gotten nothing but a recording over the phone at Rodent Control. Of course she would have. He’d known it when he’d sent her off, but
she
hadn’t thought of it. What Mrs. Gummidge didn’t think of would fill a book. It wasn’t even six in the morning yet. She’d left a message, and Chateau would discover it later. He’d send a man out in a van later in the day, full of stories about renegade ’possums, about the land being overrun with them.
    Andrew was vindicated. That was the long and the short of it. He held the truth on a scoop shovel. They’d been suspicious of his ’possum, had they? Now here one was, giving them all the glad eye. Or the glazed eye. Andrew very nearly laughed out loud. He had taken up the reins and steered the morning out of chaos, right under the nose of Pennyman. He would look in on Aunt Naomi later that morning, after she’d had a chance to compose herself, to haul the god-awful curl papers out of her hair. He would ask her for a small sum, for the restaurant. Five hundred dollars would … Well, it wouldn’t go far. A thousand, though, would buy him the bar implements on his list, with money left over to buy single malt whiskies. His importer listed forty-two, at an average of thirteen dollars a bottle. That was five hundred and what, altogether? Something. He wasn’t any good at sums.
    He paused to smile at Mrs. Gummidge on his way out the door, thanking her for making the useless phone call. She grinned back at him and nodded. Pickett stood silently, holding his hat. His mustache desperately needed trimming.
    “I’ll just go to Naomi,” said Mrs. Gummidge. “I’ll bring round her tea.”
    Andrew winked at her. “You do that, Mrs. Gummidge. I’d suggest chamomile, for its soothing properties. Avoid anything containing caffeine. I’d fetch it up myself, but this fellow here ought to be dumped into a trash can and lidded, before the whole house moves out on account of him. Then I’m going fishing. You’ve met Mr. Pickett, I believe.”
    Mrs. Gummidge nodded, still smiling, her teeth set.
    “Yes, of course you have,” said Andrew. “Any number of times. Goodbye, then. If Rodent Control calls back, tell them the beast is in a trash can behind the garage. Normally it’s the animal shelter that handles this sort of thing, but I particularly wanted Rodent Control to be in on it. They’re equipped to test for plague fleas.”
    Mrs. Gummidge blinked. Andrew nodded to her and went out through the door, dumping the ’possum in an empty trash can and shoving the lid on, then leaning the shovel against the clapboard wall of the garage. Pickett followed along into the cool darkness inside, waiting in the doorway until Andrew turned on the lights. “She’s the grinningest woman I’ve ever seen,” Pickett said, putting his hat back on. “I’d guess she was a waxwork statue if I didn’t know any better. Or an automaton. You can’t trust a face like that. Impossible to read.”
    Andrew nodded, messing with a little bag full of white granules on the workbench. On the side of it, in black felt pen, was scrawled something impossible—a chemical name. “She has a vocabulary of about thirty stock phrases, most of them involving tea and Scrabble and changing poor Naomi’s bed linen. All of it sounds programmed. For my money she’s got some dark motive beneath it all.”
    Pickett watched him untie