Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Chapter 18

Trapped, Stacked, and Zapped

I am not surprised. My nappers repair to a deserted building probably on the south side of Chicago cheek by jowl and growl with Bad, Bad Leroy Brown of song fame. They dump my carrier on a hard concrete floor dulled by forty years of dust, dirt, and random elimination.

They leave me in the carrier, deprived of food, water, and facilities.

They have no idea that I can unzip my prison with the flick of one fang. They have no idea that I am a self-directed “plant,” not the green growing sort, but a live listening device.

“I still say we should have snatched the little redhead,” the one I will call Lefty says.

“Nah,” says Shifty. “This is better. The little redhead will get real hysterical about the pussycat being grabbed. You saw her in the airport.”

“If we’da got the cat in the airport, we’da have the goods by now. Whoever thought Cliffie Effinger had anything anyone with big-time cred would want?

“You remember that little piece of plumbing poison?”

“From back in the street gang day, almost forty years ago at St. Matthias.”

I hear packing crates being shoved around, beer can tops being popped, and, ugh, cheap cigars being lit.

“Hand me some of that sausage. Ole Effinger sure landed in a soft spot. The wife do not look so bad even now.”

“She was younger then.”

“So were we then.”

And I was not even here then, so get on with it, fellas. Although it is interesting to realize that Mr. Matt’s given name—which is Matthias, not Matthew—has a long Chi-Town history.

“What are we doin’,” Lefty says, burping, “holding alley cats hostage?”

“The Vegas contacts are under a lot of pressure on this. Money’s money. And I hear ole effing Effinger knew the key to where a lot of it is just lying there waiting to be claimed. Nothing on the Vegas end is coming up likely, not even that big underground safe that was found a few days ago. But a few months ago rotten little Cliffie made a trip back to Chicago just before the honchos nabbed him for a little waterboarding interrogation.”

Lefty shudders. “I would have screamed like a girdle.”

“‘Girl.’ Screamed like a girl.”

“They do not scream as good as they used to.”

“That is because they are ‘liberated.’ Anyway, Effie gave them nothin’ and then had the bad taste to croak. After-hours at a major Strip attraction, no less. The thinking in Vegas is he left the key to the stash up here with the ex-wife. Well, not ex-wife. Widow. Some folks still do not believe in divorce.”

“Chicago is a very backward place, compared to Vegas.”

“Right. The thinking in Vegas is Cliff’s priest stepson going there to look him up gave the rat religion and he went to Chicago to leave the wife he left a pot of gold. Or the secret to finding it.”

“Who went to Chicago? Cliff or the priest stepson?”

“It is the ex-priest stepson.”

“The blond guy with the redhead?”

“Right.”

“He did not dress much like a priest.”

“None of them do these days. It is a marketing thing. Jeesh.”

“I do not know if I want to mess with priests. They can call down all sorts of trouble on you. I have never had one tackle me so hard like he did in the airport over this sissy cat carrier.”

“Ex-priest, otherwise he would not be traveling with the redhead. Forget him. We have the carrier. We have the pussycat in it. We have the hostage. The thinking in Vegas now is we can shake up Cliff’s Chicago connections, and get what he hid up here.”

“Who is doing all this thinking in Vegas?” Lefty asks.

“The answer to that is above our pay grade.”

“We have a pay grade?”

“No! It is just an expression. Now forget about who is behind this. Knowing that will get you a ride on a sinking ship. Do you want some easy dough?” Shifty eyes my carrier. “Who is gonna stop us now. Animal control?”

The mutual yuks echo off the concrete ceiling twenty feet above.

Lefty nods, finally appeased. “The Congressional crooks in Washington are eating into my Medicare coverage. I have a lot of work-related injuries. They are killing the middling class. Let us do it.”

“So,” says Shifty, “I will leave a message on the phone. Gawd, these little lit-up buttons do not always depress. It is depressin’.” His dexterity on a smartphone keypad is like watching King Kong tap dancing on a piano keyboard.

“You do not have the victim’s number on speed dial?” Lefty asks.

“These busted fingers cannot punch in all those little keys.” Shifty (who cannot shift, it seems) grunts. “Hmm. No answer. They are still out. Good. I will leave a message to make them squirm.”

He takes a deep breath, then coughs. Cigars will do that to you.

“Listen, folks. We got your damn cat. We do not like your damn cat. We will call every hour to see if you got what you know we want. We will chop off an inch of your damn cat’s tail each time we call if you do not come across with the, uh, stuff we want. You know what we mean. Then we will start on the legs. So, uh, cough it up, and we will have an exchange where you can leave … er, what we want and collect what is left of your cat.”

There is silence as Lefty shuts off the cell phone.

“That was not very professional,” Shifty rebukes him.

“Whadda mean, ‘professional’? We do not even know what the Vegas bunch wants. They have left us in the dark looking stupid.”

I could point out that is not very hard, but hold my tongue in case they get an itch to chop it off in sections.

“And I do not know about all that cat-chopping you have committed us to. They have nasty, infected claws, you know. We could get rabies.”

“I was just saying that. You gotta threaten the hostage, and not with something namby-pamby. You gonna eat the whole sausage roll?”