Free Pet Noir by Pati Nagle Page B

pet me. “Hiya, little guy. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
    I mewed again. He scratched behind my ears and did a reasonably good job, so I purred.
    â€œHeh, heh. Cute. OK, here you go.”
    He pulled a scrap of meat out of his sandwich and dangled it over my head. I grabbed at it, and he let it drop to the floor. I pounced and commenced gobbling while Butch upped the urgency of his mewing.
    â€œYeah, here’s some for you, too, Cuddles.”
    Butch gulped down his meat while I was still chewing mine. He returned to the cute cat position and mewed for more.
    â€œNah, that’s all you get. Now scram.”
    The guy pulled his paper out of the chair, rattling it a little as a warning. Butch leaped away.
    I hastily gulped the rest of my meat and followed him. Had to stop myself from calling a thank-you over my shoulder.
    â€œHe was nice,” I said as we strolled toward the front of the smoking room.
    â€œAlbert. Comes in for lunch most days. He’s always good for a bite, but only one.” Butch paused to sniff under a leather couch near the door, then looked at me. “So, what would you like to see?”
    â€œUh—well, actually, I didn’t get breakfast. Is there any place else we might get some food?”
    Butch gave me a quizzical look, then chuckled. “Kid, this is the rotunda. You name it, we can find it.”
    My mouth started watering. “Fish?”
    â€œFish, OK. You got your fish and chips at Molly’s, fancy stuff at the Steakmeister, crawfish at Pulsar but that’s up in the warehouse district, junk shrimp at Zip Fix?”
    â€œI kind of like their popcorn shrimp,” I put in.
    â€œIf you like shrimp you should try Ling-Ling’s Lightspeed. Or the Imperial Gardens—Ling-Ling runs both places. But it’s easier to get a handout at the kiosk.”
    â€œLet’s try that then,” I said, my stomach growling.
    â€œRight this way.”
    He strolled out into the rotunda. For a moment I was scared to follow him. The chief and Devin were my only reliable food source, and I had never been out on my own before.
    I had to work up the nerve to walk away from the chief, but Butch’s hulking presence was a comfort. I took a deep breath and stepped out into the world.

4. The Stratoma Strategy

    I hadn’t really had a chance to observe the rotunda at my leisure before. I’d always been hurrying after a human, except for the one trip in the puke box. Now, strolling along with Butch, I could take in the smells, the color and constant motion. The rotunda is always busy. It’s where the humans go to eat and play, to see and be seen. Lots of courting activity. Lots of activity, period.
    Underneath its starview dome, the rotunda is made up of concentric rings of commercial property between wide walkways landscaped with trees and benches and stuff. There are some tables here and there for people to sit and eat stuff they get at the kiosks, but the main purpose of these areas is to keep the traffic moving.
    Butch led me away from the outermost ring, where all the fancy restaurants with starview windows are, inward a couple of rings. The corridors that crossed the rings were smaller and didn’t have any of the trees or furniture, though they were lined with kiosks, most of which didn’t sell food. They sold other stuff instead—clothes and magazines and music and lots of things that were useless but looked pretty. I understood human commerce pretty well, though why they shelled out their credit for the useless-but-pretty stuff I still hadn’t figured out. There was a lot of it for sale in the rotunda, though.
    Butch turned onto the third walkway in, and I followed. I could smell food ahead: the greasy spicy fried-corn smell of tacos, a smell of cooked green stuff, bread, melted cheese, mustard. The taco and cheese smells made my mouth water.
    I stuck close to Butch. He passed by a Mex-Sector kiosk and made a