Free The Cat Sitter's Whiskers by Blaize Clement

doubted it would win me any points. Instead I nodded. “Oh, I know. I just need to talk to Levi. This is his place, right?”
    â€œSo, you’re a friend of Levi’s?”
    As she said “friend,” she held her hands up and made little fat quotation marks in the air with her pudgy fingers.
    â€œWell, not exactly. But—”
    â€œUh-huh. You’re the girl that was here last night. What’s the matter, forget your panties?”
    I sighed. This wasn’t going well at all. I stepped forward with my hand out and said, “Hey, I think maybe we’re getting off to a bad start. I’m Dixie Hemingway.”
    Her upper lip curled into what at first I thought was a smile but turned out to be a sarcastic snarl. She stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “Bitch, I don’t know you. You’re trespassing on my neighborhood and my man, so you better get the hell out of here before I call the cops.”
    For a split second I thought about leaping off the steps and pummeling this fire-hydrant-shaped Sasquatch of a woman into the ground, but luckily I managed to control myself. I took a deep breath and gave her as pleasant a smile as I could muster.
    I said, “Okay, there’s no need to call the cops.”
    â€œI’ll call the cops if I want to. This is America. I got free speech.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I understand that, but the cops probably have more important things to deal with. I just need to talk to Levi for one second and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
    Given the state of the chemically altered mess on top of her head, it was all I could do to keep myself from holding my fingers up and putting air quotes around the word hair, but the woman’s cheeks were turning beet-red as it was, plus every once in a while I do actually manage to conduct myself with a modicum of composure.
    She squinted and tipped her chin at the trailer. “I’m sure he’s still too drunk to talk anyway, but that don’t matter because I’m gonna count to five and if you ain’t out of here by then, you’re gonna be sorry you ever met me.”
    Before I could stop myself I said, “Believe me, I already am. But more than that, I’m sorry you’re so tortured.”
    Her eyes widened as I turned on my toes and rapped on the front door of the trailer with four confident knocks. Actually I had planned on four, but I only made it to three because as I knocked it swung open. At the same time, I caught a glimpse of the woman’s shadow approaching from behind. For a split second, I considered the idea that I was about to receive my second beating of the day.
    But something stopped her.
    It was a man, flat on his stomach on the trailer’s pale blue linoleum floor. I couldn’t see all of him, just his naked legs. The rest was hidden behind the door and blocking it from opening completely. Something clenched shut at the top of my throat, and as I reached for the doorframe, I noticed the man’s toes were splayed out spastically and the pale white soles of his bare feet were facing up, perfectly still. He was lying in the center of a pool of blood that stretched almost the entire length and depth of the trailer.
    Just before the woman screamed, I muttered under my breath, “Okay, you win. Call the cops.”

 
    9
    I never found out if my little fiery-headed friend had planned on giving me another beating or not, because after she screamed, the full weight of her body slammed into my back and pushed me forward into the trailer. Luckily my instincts kicked in and I grabbed on to both sides of the doorway and held on with all my might. That turned out to be just enough to keep us both from falling facedown in all that blood.
    Sasquatch had taken one look at what was inside the trailer and conked out like a light, and now she was draped piggyback over my shoulders. I managed to get over to the left against the