Free When the Cat's Away by Kinky Friedman Page B

probably unrelated, but it was a time-frame.
    “It’s a silly message, I know,” said Jane, “but it scared the hell out of me at the time. In fact, it still does.” 
    “What was the message?”
    “Meow,” said Jane.
    “I’ve heard the word,” I said.

26
    By the time I got back to 199B Vandam, it was pushing eight-thirty and Ratso was dunking a bagel into a bowl of wonton soup. The cat was sitting on my desk. Neither of them looked pleased to see me.
    The cat knew I was not carrying a grocery bag of cat food. She had a habit of looking in the cupboard with me every time I went to feed her, and she knew we were down to just two cans of Southern Gourmet Dinner. The cat hated Southern Gourmet Dinner.
    The cat was merely petulant, but Ratso’s expression combined equal components of fury and disgust. I knew he was truly angry when he left his food and began pacing up and down in the kitchen. I was glad I didn’t own a rolling pin.
    “You are not to go out,” he said with eyes blazing, “especially these first few days, without first checking with me. Even if you do check with me, I still don’t want you going out on the street alone. I’m to know where you’re at at all times. Do you understand?”
    I took the cassette tape out and put it on the desk. “Lot of rules for such a small company,” I said.
    Ratso continued to stare at me. “You’re goddamn right,” he said.
    “Why so hostile?”
    “Because you’re being an asshole.”
    “That’s Mr. Asshole to you, pal.”
    The bickering went back and forth for a while with the cat watching it like a slightly bored tennis fan. I played it out for a few more minutes and then Ratso somewhat grudgingly agreed to listen to the cassette tape with me.
    I took the ceramic hat off the top of the large Sherlock Holmes head I kept on my desk and reached inside for a cigar. The Sherlock Holmes head had been given to me by my friends Bill and Betty Hardin at the Smokehouse in Kerrville, Texas. I kept my cigars and other valuables in there. Ratso often said that it was hardly a safe place for valuables, but I always invoked the words of my friend Goat Carson: “Sooner or later, cats piss on everything.” The way things were going, the cat probably would’ve pissed on everything by now if it weren’t for the little ceramic hat.
    I took the tape out of my own answering machine and popped Jane’s in. I rewound the tape. Then I pushed the play button. The first voice we heard identified itself as Jim Landis’s. It sounded brusque and irritated.
    “Jane, it’s Jim Landis … It’s nine-thirty … What is this shit? A monograph on the Flathead Indians of Montana? You think they’re happening? You think anybody gives a shit about the Flathead Indians of Montana? I can’t believe you sent this on to me—the writing stinks, too—the whole thing sucks. Send the guy to the National Geographic . What the fuck’s the matter with you, Jane?”
    “Pleasant guy to work for,” said Ratso.
    “He’s got his own imprint,” I said.
    “If I worked for him I’d put my imprint on his forehead.”
    “Listen.” There was one hang-up and a message from Jane’s mother. Then we heard it. It began in a high register and cascaded evilly down to a bone-jarring growl. The same fiendish, half-feline half-human sound we’d heard at the Garden a moment before I’d been shot.
    “Any question?” I asked.
    “Not a doubt about it,” said Ratso.
    I lit my cigar with a rather feeble Bic. I’d had the Bic for four or five days. That was already pretty old in the lifetime of a Bic. I puffed thoughtfully on the cigar.
    “I agree,” I said. “That’s our man.”
    “Or woman,” said Ratso.

27
    “I’m not tailing Hilton Head,” said Ratso as we sat around the kitchen table later that same day. “I’ve already spent too much time with that little fruitcake.”
    “That’s an alarmingly homophobic attitude, Ratso,” I said. I was working on my fifth or sixth espresso and I