Chapter 34

Cut to the Quick


"Hey, dude. What are you in for?"

"I do not know," I answer the guy in the adjoining cage.

From what I can see, he is an orcaesque individual with white and black splotches all over, and I am in a new place I know too well: some veterinary facility.

"Bet it is the Big One," my cellmate says.

"What is the Big One?"

"Boy, are you wet behind the tail! Did not your mama tell you anything? You look old enough to know the score. You heard the song about what happens when those cotton balls get rotten: they pick 'em right off. You had your fuzzies plucked, right? So did I. It does not hurt too much, and it sure will make my people happier about my territory marking habits, but I will miss the good old days. Freedom of the city. Going to the fights now and then, especially when I was on the bill that night. Romancing a sweet young thing. Even visiting the road ladies. But it is better for the planet, so I cannot complain!"

"Well, I can!" I reply, appalled. "I am not remotely interested in the betterment of the planet, never having seen it. I believe this planetary good is a mythical entity invented to make poor dudes like us happy with our lots. Are you saying I will not be the dude I used to be?"

"Not if you were neutered."

"Neutered!" The word sears my soul. This is the end. I will yawn when I gaze at the Divine Yvette, and ask her to pass the saltpeter. I will lounge about the Circle Ritz, counting flies that land on the bird-bath. I will grow fat. Shall I wear my whiskers curled? Dare I eat a cockroach?

The carp will not swim for me. I will be a House It forever.

But how else to explain the pain in my posterior? The smell of anesthetic and my foggy memories of Miss Savannah Ashleigh's mad doctor? This is what she has done to avenge a crime that was not mine (though I certainly gave some thought to committing it). She has altered me forever! I will be fit for nothing but some light surveillance work. Who will protect Miss Temple Barr now?

Sadly, I lean back to try to gaze past my stomach to the area in question. Come to think of it, since I have been eating Yummy Tum-tum-tummy, it has been impossible to see anything but tummy in that vicinity. In fact, my usual fastidious grooming has not quite been able to reach the forbidden zone. Now there is nothing there to reach anyway.

What kind of street-smart detective has no balls, even if it is a girl? I know that mystery fiction features more oddball dudes and dudettes nowadays, with an admirable array of varying characteristics, including the occasional handicap. The handicap I could live with. Tear out a nail!

Go ahead. I will even wear glasses. But when has anyone ever heard of a eunuch P.I.?

I am so unutterably sad about this forced emasculation that I cannot even bestir myself to answer the cad in the next cell.

Midnight Louie as we know him is no more! Rest in peace. If only I knew where they were buried, I would visit them.


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