Free The Whiskered Spy by Nic Saint Page B

his temper. “Then tell him I’m in charge here and if he doesn’t like, he can lump it!” he said in the tones of one who’s had about all he can take and can’t take no more. “Now listen here, you… you… Hello? Hello? Hell and damnation!”
    And on this last word, he slammed down the receiver. It doesn’t often happen that you see a man of God lose it like that, and the spectacle was a fascinating one, to be honest.
    “Who does he think he is, calling me up in the middle of the night?”
    The voice intruded upon my reverie and for a moment I wondered where it had come from. It sounded like Father Sam, only more subdued somehow, as if spoken in an undertone.
    “I’m in charge and I don’t have to take this.”
    Once again I had the impression Sam had spoken, only this time I’d been watching him carefully, and his lips hadn’t moved! I threw a quick glance over at Stevie, to see if he was experiencing the same phenomenon, but my Ragamuffin friend was licking his butt, lost to the world.
    “Next time he phones I’ll tell him his suggestions stink. That’s right. Stink. Ha! That’ll teach him.”
    A jagged lump that seemed to have inserted itself into my throat prevented me from crying out in terrified horror, and I swallowed it down with some effort. My eyes and ears hadn’t deceived me: I was hearing Sam, even though he wasn’t speaking!

18

Reading Minds
    “ N ow where did I put that final draft?” Sam thought, as he started rifling through his desk drawers.
    As clear as if he was enunciating the words, I could hear Sam’s every single thought! I sat staring at the man from my hiding place, slowly shaking my head. This wasn’t possible. This wasn’t… Then I remembered something Dana had said. Something about planting thoughts in people’s heads. Could it be? Nah, of course not. Or could it?
    “Ah, here it is. Now where were we? Mh, yes. Jack Mackintosh is relaxing in his den, watching a game, when suddenly the doorbell rings. He goes to open the door and finds Zoe hovering on the mat. He quickly steps outside, trying to induce the girl to take a hike, when…”
    My eyes were bubbling and my ears were ringing. This wasn’t really happening. And yet it was.
    Sam had taken out a pencil and was jotting down notes in the margin. “Mrs Mackintosh isn’t home,” he was saying to himself. “So why doesn’t Jack invite Zoe in?” He sat back in his chair, and tapped the pencil thoughtfully on his papers. “Of course. He doesn’t want the neighbors to see.” He smiled and wrote another note as he stuck out his tongue and spelled the note in his head. “He doesn’t want the neighbors to know about the affair. Especially Mrs. Mueller. There. Not bad.” A wide smile creased his face as he admired his own cleverness. “I’m so smart!” he thought.
    For a moment I’d had the distinct sensation I was going mad, but now I knew this was really happening; only humans could act this silly.
    “Jesus, I’m clever!” the man was thinking.
    “Jesus, he’s an idiot!” I was thinking.
    “I’m a frickin’ genius!” Sam thought.
    “He’s a frickin’ moron!” I thought.
    “I’m hungry,” Stevie thought.
    It was the first thought of Stevie’s that had penetrated my consciousness, and I only had two answers as to why that was: either Sam’s mental processes had dominated my cerebral cortex to the exclusion of all else, or Stevie simply didn’t think all that much. I leaned towards the latter, especially since Stevie’s next thought was, “I wonder what tastes better, left chicken breast or right chicken breast?”
    I was drowning in a sea of imbecility and for a moment toyed with the idea of simply exiting the scene stage left, then fought down the inclination and decided to hang in there, lest I missed vital information pertaining to the case.
    Father Sam seemed to have exhausted his creative faculties, for he threw what I now knew to be the screenplay for Murder in the Park on his