Cat In A Leopard Spot

Chapter 53

Cat Burglar

“This is the first time I’ve ever literally been a cat burglar,” the first man in black whispered to the second man in black.

“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this stunt,” the second man in black said, “but I have to admit I’m enjoying it.”

Their voices came soft and distorted, like the buzzing of insects more than human syllables.

But they understood each other.

Like twins, they both wore tiger-striped cat faces that resembled camouflage paint. It was hard to see the human features beneath the feline.

They crouched together, catlike, in obscuring foliage as dark as the night itself, watching a dappled big cat lying in the moonlight.

“You’ll have to lose the gloves when you handle him,” the first man warned. “He needs to recognize your scent immediately.”

“And what are you going to do to handle yours?”

“Hope he remembers me. Get yours first.”

The man rose, tall as a Joshua tree it seemed, and approached the fence. He stripped off his black gloves and thrust them through his broad black belt, then held his fingers to the wires and made a scratching noise with his bare fingers against the metal-studded leather of his belt.

The leopard rose, darted to him, and sniffed his hand. It rubbed its side against the fence as the man bent and began snipping thick wires with the heavy-duty cutter he removed from his boot.

When he pulled the torn section away, he bent to put a collar almost as big as his belt around the leopard’s neck. “Hello, Osiris,” the odd mechanical voice whispered. “I’ve come to take you home.” A lead clicked onto the collar ring as Osiris stepped through the gaping wires like an obedience-school dog.

The second man in black edged nearer, cautiously extending his bare hand to Osiris. After the big cat had sniffed his fill, the man straightened and took the wire cutters from his partner in crime.

“That other cat doesn’t know you,” Osiris’s master warned. “It might be a lot harder to bring along.”

“That’s why you’ll take Osiris to the van first. I’ll come along after you’ve got him caged again.”

The man nodded, and led the leopard off into the moonlit desert landscape.

Max prowled past some other containment areas, evoking a guttural noise from a majestically maned lion.

His prey was in the next enclosure, and harder than the leopard to spot: black as any shadow. Max tried the same trick of scraping his nails on fabric, but nothing happened. He bent to begin cutting the fence. Though the sound snapped at the night’s quiet no one came. This visit had been timed to avoid the guard’s nightly rounds.

The snipping sounds did what fingernails didn’t.

In an instant, Max was face-to-face with a huge black fanged head.

He froze, still crouched in place. Opened a bare hand and hoped the scent would waft into the massive black nostrils only inches from his own masked nostrils.

The panther snuffled noisily at his hand, at his hidden face. Max stood as slowly as he could, inch by inch.

The panther rubbed absently on one stiffening leg. Max stroked his head. He unfastened the huge leather collar and leash he carried coiled around his neck—his cat burglar garb didn’t have the secret pockets that the Cloaked Conjuror’s did. He slipped it as softly as a wish around the beast’s neck, took a deep breath, and was rewarded with a short purr.

He began walking, and the panther, reacting to previous training, walked with him.

The sixty yards to the paloverde thicket that concealed the black van seemed the longest of his life. There was not only the panther stalking beside him, who might balk at any moment, but the open desert where he and it made such obvious targets.

The guard would be coming by here soon, but Max didn’t dare run, or look back.

They passed as if on parade, man and cat, until the stunted trees, gathered like an inkblot, were close enough to absorb them into their safety and shadow.

CC stood at the gaping van doors, patting the carpeted floor of a cage. “Up,” his mechanical voice rasped.

As the panther leaped into the cage, CC swung the door shut and Max closed the van doors as softly as he could.

It was not softly enough.

“Hey!” a distant voice objected.

They scrambled for the front of the van, CC’s cape flying around his figure.

A powerful flashlight beam caught Max’s mask full on, just before he leaped into the van’s driver’s seat where the keys were still in the ignition.

The engine growled into life, generating an echo of growls from the enclosures behind them.

“Stop!” the guard was shouting, his voice vibrating from his sand-pounding pursuit.

Max gunned the motor, spraying gravel, and drove back into the desert, soon leaving everything behind him but sagebrush.

Behind his ever-present mask, CC laughed. “This was a kick. I don’t get out much. I’m glad you forced me to come along. But why did you want to take the panther as well? It complicated everything.”

“It was a performing animal too. It craves more of a life than retirement, no matter how cushy. I figure you can always use a good cat.”

“But did you ever figure out who took Osiris and why?”

Max stared into the desert vistas passing through the stabbing spotlights of the van’s headlamps. “The Synth was sending you a message all right. It was a spite crime. You would never have seen Osiris again. They sold the animal to Van Burkleo for a few hundred, no questions asked, expecting it to be dead meat in days.”

CC growled through his mask, a sound of disgust that was echoed by one of the big cats. “Why wasn’t he?”

“The Synth didn’t reckon on Van Burkleo’s vanity. I checked up on him and his widow. Van Burkleo was born in July. He was a Leo, astrologically. His wife’s birth name was Linda. She reinvented herself as Leonora after she married him. Like a lot of hunters, Cyrus Van Burkleo identified with his prey; even the women of big-game hunters drip with pricey gold charms of lions and tigers and bears. Then along comes a leopard named Osiris, an unintentional tribute to the mighty hunter’s first name. He probably intended to keep it as a mascot.”

“That didn’t suit the purpose of the Synth.”

“No, and I suspect they had an agent here at the ranch to see to that, but Granger charged in and changed everything.”

“If the big-game people identify with their prey, why kill it?”

“Some people need to conquer any creatures big enough to kill them. I’ve always thought they’re out to find, track, and silence the fear inside themselves. Or maybe it’s the eternal independence of the Other they’re out to kill. They’re like the worm Ouroboros, swallowing their own mortality.”

“Whew. That’s way too philosophical for me. I’m just glad to get Osiris back.”

CC looked over his shoulder. “Those two are nosing each other through the bars like a couple of small-town gossips over a fence. They make a handsome pair. I wonder what they’re communicating.”

“At least they get along. I’m wondering something else: what the guard will make of his glimpse of my face wearing your mask.”

“Shoot! Do you think I’ll be fingered for this kidnapping?”

“I doubt he got a good enough look to be sure what he saw, but maybe we’ll start some leopardmen rumors. I’d like to shake up the Synth.”

“Fine. You do that. I’ll get back to business as usual. Osiris will be happy to get back to his usual digs. We’ll have to rig a separate setup for, for…what should I call the black one?”

Pulling off the mask, Max smiled and thought of Midnight Louie.

“Call him Lucky.”