Free Cat on a Cold Tin Roof by Mike Resnick

was?”
    â€œNo, just that he had some business with you.”
    â€œDid he have a couple of friends with him, or maybe waiting in his car?”
    â€œHow would I know which his car was?” she replied. “And he was alone.”
    â€œNo message?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œOkay, thanks,” I said, starting to climb the stairs again.
    â€œI’m a landlady, not a message desk,” she said as I reached my door.
    I put the key in the lock, turned it, and entered. Marlowe was snoring on the couch. He opened one eye, stared blearily at me, and went back to sleep.
    â€œI wish just once you’d run up and greet me with tail a-wag when I walk into the place,” I said.
    I wish just once you’d remember your job is to feed me and let me sleep twenty-two hours a day , he seemed to reply.
    I thought maybe I’d open the mail, but I remembered that I hadn’t picked it up yet. Finally I decided Marlowe looked too damned smug and comfortable, so I put the leash on him and walked him down the street where he watered Mrs. Garabaldi’s petunias, and the fact that they were dead didn’t stop her from opening her window and treating the neighborhood to some Italian words they never heard in a spaghetti Western.
    I took Marlowe back home, opened a can of baked beans for him, and left the apartment while he was busy alternating between mouthfuls of food and growls at unseen rivals. I remembered to check the mailbox on the way out, found that I had only one letter—a reminder from my dentist that I hadn’t seen him in three years—and climbed into my car.
    I drove downtown, parked illegally since I knew I could count on Jim Simmons to fix any parking tickets, and walked to the edge of the rundown Over-the-Rhine area a bit more than a mile away. I attracted a few stares and a couple of panhandlers and a forty-ish hooker, but nothing out of the ordinary for the vicinity. Then I reached Ziggy’s Cut-Rate Tailor Shop with his Lincoln parked out front and walked in.
    Ziggy, all five foot two inches of him, was sitting on a chair behind the counter, reading the Racing Form . The same half-dozen pairs of trousers that had been there for the last ten years were on hangers, attached to the wall behind him.
    â€œHi, Eli,” he said, looking up from the Form .
    â€œYou ought to change those pants, Ziggy,” I said. “No one wears cuffs anymore. Someone might get the idea that you’re a fence who just uses the tailor business as a front.”
    â€œHah! That’s all you know!” he shot back. “Cuffs are making a comeback.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked. “The only thing they were good for was stashing your cigarette butts until you could dump ’em outside, and no one smokes anymore.”
    â€œYou do.”
    â€œWell, hardly anyone.”
    â€œWe gonna trade pleasantries all day, or are you gonna tell me why you’re here? I’ll be happy to sell you a suit while we wait.”
    I shook my head. “No, it’s business.”
    â€œIsn’t it always?” he said. “Okay, what are you after?”
    â€œI don’t think anyone’s had a chance yet to bring in what I’m looking for yet, but I want to warn you.”
    He frowned. “ Warn me?”
    â€œYeah. There are going to be some very big, very hot, very dangerous diamonds on the market pretty soon.”
    â€œHow big?”
    â€œI haven’t seen them,” I said. “What if I told you they might retail for ten million?”
    His eyes widened. “Ten million ?” he repeated. “Not ten thousand?”
    â€œCould be seven or eight million, could be eleven or twelve. Ten’s a ballpark figure.”
    â€œThat’s some ballpark!” he said and uttered a low whistle. Then he frowned. “Are you sure ? Because no one in Cincinnati is sitting on ten million worth of diamonds. If they were, I’d have heard about