Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 136, No. 5. Whole No. 831, November 2010

Chemo Boy and the War Kittens by Brian Muir

The story “Chemo Boy and the War Kittens” has a special significance for award-winning film writer Brian Muir, for he has battled cancer himself, more than once. We’re happy to be able to report that his health is currently good, and that 2010 is also treating him well in other respects: Broke Sky, an indie film he co-wrote, which won nearly a dozen film-festival awards, recently premiered on cable, on IFC. The series to which this new story belongs is surely one of the strongest P.I. series running at short-story length.

On the sole of my boot it spread; a Rorschach smear, crumpled legs reaching out in a quest to crawl, to spin a web, to hide in a dark crevasse waiting for juicy prey. I scraped it off into the kitchen garbage. Spiders have never been my favorite.

If Thumper had seen it creeping around, he would have scampered away, the big sissy. But he was asleep in a cool spot under the bed on this warm April morn.

Summer had made an early cameo in Portland and didn’t want to yield the spotlight to spring’s curtain call just yet, some roses coming out of the wings before their cue, blossoming deep scarlet.

I finished my cereal at the houseboat window. Waves lapped in the wake of an outboard puttering down the Willamette, fishermen in search of spring Chinook. They were wasting their time. With the warm April and not much rain lately, the river hadn’t risen enough for the fish to move. The runs were still holding up on the Columbia, so these guys on the river weren’t doing much but moving water around.

I walked up into the Sellwood district and The Coffee Shack. I said my how-dos to Rossa and he slid a brew across the counter, straight up. I slapped down change and he turned to grind beans, not interested in conversation, meaning he’d lost big at the casino the night before. Best to let him stew when he’s boiling about bad cards.

Other than me, the place was empty. I checked behind the Blazers’ team photo on the far wall, what passes for my P.O. box, surprised to find a folded note stuck there. I stuffed it in my pocket and took off.

Moments later, under a shaded awning, I sipped my joe and read the note. It was from a woman I’d helped a couple of years ago, who was being stalked by her coworker. A dash of the creep’s own medicine had scared him off; the woman no longer lived looking over her shoulder and she had a pleasant new coworker.

The problem she needed help with now involved a tortoise named Gamera.

Karen’s home was a modest two-story on Tolman not far from Reed College. An old pine snuggled the side of the house, cooling half of it with shade.

We caught up on old times in the kitchen over coffee; I used my Coffee Shack cup, saving her the wash on a mug. Among Karen’s crop of strawberry-blond locks, grey hairs took a proud stand, a middle-aged woman’s war paint. Her green eyes and warm smile of white teeth no doubt fueled MILF fantasies for young men at the grocery store, but she seemed satisfied staying single. Raising a teenaged son put more than enough strain on even the most casual of relationships.

The story she told me had been in the news over a month ago: A tortoise had been found in a field not far from here, near death. Someone had snatched him from Karen’s backyard, turned him over, and stabbed him with a length of rebar, leaving him on his back to bleed out. When I’d seen the story on TV I hadn’t made the connection to Karen’s name, so enraged was I at the thought of this defenseless animal being tortured with no way to defend itself or scream for help, slowly dying in silence.

Karen took me into the backyard to meet Gamera. Normally, he’d have the run of the place, but since the attack he was being housed in a large, reinforced chicken-wire cage with fresh lettuce heaped in one corner. A tube protruded from one nostril, leading to an oxygen tank on the far side of the cage; one of his lungs had been punctured by his attacker and the organ was still repairing itself.

Karen opened the cage and let me scratch Gamera atop the head. Hard to tell if he enjoyed it or not, but he didn’t pull back into his armor so I’m guessing my touch wasn’t too offensive. For a sixty-year-old (the vet’s best estimate) who had undergone a near-fatal stabbing a month ago, Gamera seemed to be faring pretty well.

“He’d lost a lot of blood by the time he was found,” Karen said. “But the vets say he’ll make it. Psychologically, I don’t know. Since he doesn’t meow or bark, I can’t tell how he’s feeling.”

“I know what you mean. My rabbit at least squeaks and squeals sometimes, so I can get a feel for what he’s going through.”

She nodded. “After we got him back, he didn’t want to eat. I had to force it down him. But he’s doing better.”

“The cops have no leads?”

“I can’t even get them on the phone anymore. They gave it a lot of legwork at first, especially after the news coverage, but now it’s not a high priority.”

“You could call the news again, ask them for help. The public is a sucker for a good animal story.”

“I tried. They said they would send somebody over but it was the same day that biker got hit.”

“The one who rode the hood of the car for six blocks? I remember.”

“Pretty soon there’s going to be a civil war between bikers and motorists in this city.”

“I’m already stocked up for it,” I told her.

She smiled but didn’t think it worth a chuckle, her mind dark with other matters. “The police figure Gamera was targeted; it seems more likely to them than a random attack.”

“They’re right.”

“I can’t imagine anybody I know doing something like this. It doesn’t make sense.”

“How about somebody your son knows?”

Karen glanced at an upper window, curtains drawn against the sun. “He says no. But I don’t know… with everything he’s going through right now…”

I squeezed her shoulder. “Mind if I talk to him?”

Donny’s room seemed par for the course for a boy of nineteen not prone to sports. Comic books lay scattered about the room; sci-fi and horror-movie posters decorated the walls; his computer screen pulsed with a fantasy game: bearded barbarian with bloody mail and gleaming broadsword.

In the chair before the desk, skin pale for lack of sun, Donny’s shoulders poked out like chicken bones, jeans hanging off his legs like a scarecrow’s wardrobe. His face was open and wide, not even a hint of stubble on his head, bald as a squid.

“Obviously, you’d be pissed if you knew who did that to him.”

He glared. “Obviously. Duh.”

Nothing but teen ’tude.

“Yeah,” I said. “Dumb question.”

I scanned the room, eyes falling on a shelf of ornate figurines of Japanese movie monsters.

“I’m guessing you’re the one who named the tortoise. Gamera? Wasn’t he the giant turtle that could tuck in his head and legs and go spinning through the air like a Fourth of July pinwheel?”

He grinned for the first time since I’d entered his sanctum sanctorum, the smile of someone who’d found a kindred spirit. A gap showed in his bottom teeth. “Touché,” he said. “A woman after my own stripe.”

“Touché? Your own stripe? Does that gamer-speak work on the ladies?”

He shrugged bony shoulders, “Not really.”

“Looks like it worked on that one.” I pointed to a photo tacked on the cork-board amidst pages torn from Wired magazine: a cute Eurasian girl and Donny arm-in-arm; Donny with a full head of long blond hair.

As Donny’s eyes found the photo, longing flashed and then was gone. “She’s not my paramour… my girlfriend. Not anymore. Since graduation we don’t really hang with the same crowd.”

“What’s her name?”

“Calico. Well, her real name is Marise. But everybody calls her Calico.”

“Like the cat?”

He nodded. “Because she’s mixed race, like a calico’s fur is different colors.”

He shifted tiredly in his chair, changing the subject: “You going to help track down the scoundrel who hurt Gamera?”

“Scoundrel? Back to gamer-speak, I see.”

He shrugged.

I said, “I can think of a few other descriptive insults for whoever did that to Gamera. Most have fewer letters than ‘scoundrel’ and cut right to the meat of the matter. Not suitable for a family audience, as they say.”

“Using that sort of language might take the sheen off the luster of such a fine maiden.” He grinned.

I grinned back. Maybe that overblown verbiage would work on some of the ladies after all.

He said, “When you find whoever did it, let me have a crack at them. I’ll inflict injuries my avatar hasn’t even been programmed for.”

“Touché.”

Calico had an apartment off Powell, in a run-down complex up around 120th. Sitting in my Willys Jeep outside, I kept an eye on the complex, watching her enter the building in the company of a roughly cute twentyish guy of the black T-shirt set, his shorts ending down around his shins, a chain loop dangling from one pocket. The stocking cap over his dark curlicues was a pointless gesture in this heat and made him look like an idiot. But Calico obviously had no problem with it as the two snuggled arm in arm.

As evening fell, I chowed fast food, trying to decipher the tailgate of a pickup parked in front of me, adorned with a Jesus fish that had swallowed a Star of David. Burger grease dripped onto my jeans, making me bounce and curse a blue streak. That stuff is hell to wash out, ruining a perfectly good pair of True Religions. I’d often thought about wearing thrift-store duds on recon, but my vanity precluded such sound rationale. By the time I looked up from trying to dab out the grease spot, Calico and Stocking Cap were climbing into an old VW with mismatched paint, she driving.

As the VW chattered down the block, I shoved the Willys in gear and took off after.

They drove a couple miles, sticking to the Southeast side, pulling over at a little one-story job with a weed-choked lawn. The open garage door spilled light onto the cracked drive. Rolling past, I managed to side-eye a drum set in the corner of the garage, near a wall of hanging tools.

I parked halfway up the block. Sat for a few minutes and waited.

Then I heard the sound.

It slammed into my ears without warning, a pounding, crying, screeching sonic boom. Like the noise a drunk driver might cause mowing down a marching band at ninety miles per hour, complete with bloodcurdling wail of the entire horn section crumpled in the street, legs snapped in compound fractures.

I got out of the Jeep and walked toward the house, face scrunched, legs not willing to take me into the abyss.

Stopping at the end of the drive, I kept one hand over an ear, not much help. Calico twanged bass licks while Stocking Cap pounded the skins like a serial killer whose modus operandi involved bashing heads with ball-peen hammers. The singer doubled as lead guitarist; he should’ve picked one or the other, his reach far outdistancing his grasp. Sweat glued his long hair to his cheeks as he wailed indecipherable lyrics.

The sound waves tickled my face. Shouting, I couldn’t even hear my own voice over the roar. The band didn’t stop playing until the song was finished, many moons for yours truly.

Calico swung her gaze my way. “What did you say?”

“I said, do your neighbors ever complain about the noise?”

The singer answered in a voice much higher than the gravel his vocal cords produced while ‘singing.’ “As long as we stop by midnight, they’re cool.”

“Tolerant people.”

“Or they like good music,” Stocking Cap sneered.

“That’s your spin.” I tore a flyer off the guitar case leaning against the garage wall. The bright blue paper shouted: Friday Nite at the Rue Morgue! 8 PM! The War Kittens! The graphics showed four silhouettes, cat people wielding weapons.

“The War Kittens? That’s you guys?”

The singer nodded, surly.

Me: “Sounds like something out of a Zelazny novel.”

The singer: “Who?”

Me: “Never mind. How come there’s four of you on the flyer but only three of you here?”

The singer again: “Had to cut one loose, baby. Call it a clash of personalities.”

“Call me ‘baby’ again and I’ll show you a real clash of personalities.”

He shrugged.

Calico tipped her head toward the hairy singer. “That’s Manx.”

“Why, because he lost his tail?”

“’Cause my last name’s Manxman—” As if wanting to add an insult directed at me, he smartly cut himself short.

Calico pointed at Stocking Cap. “That’s Rex. A Rex is a type of cat, too. They have curly fur.”

“And high body temps,” said Rex, twirling his sticks, “Because I’m so hot.” He pounded a quick solo, not without its licks but still whiffing of amateur.

“A rim shot would have sufficed,” I offered.

“And I’m Calico,” she said.

“Because you’re mixed race,” I surprised her. “Donny told me.”

“You know Donny?”

“Met him this morning. Helping him out with the Gamera situation.”

Rex rolled his eyes. “Not that freakin’ turtle again!”

“It’s a tortoise,” I said.

“Whatever. I just don’t see what the big deal is.”

“You think it’s okay for someone to abuse an animal?”

“It’s not like it’s a kid or something.”

“Cool it, Rex,” Calico seemed irritated by his attitude.

“Cops already asked us about this,” sneered Manx. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

“Just a friend of Donny’s. Like you, Calico.”

She lowered her eyes. “I haven’t talked to him since last year—”

“That’s all over,” Rex cut her off.

To Calico I said, “If you want to tell me the history — in private — leave me a message at Rossa’s Coffee Shack. You guys too, if you can think of anything that’ll help me with the Gamera thing.”

Rex scowled. Manx tightened guitar strings.

I nodded and turned to go. “By the way, what are the War Kittens at war with?”

Manx lifted his proud chin. “Conventional rock ’n’ roll.”

“You certainly are.”

Providence Portland up on N.E. Glisan dominated a neighborhood of middle-class homes and shops; the new Center of Hope cancer clinic towered next to it. Between light clouds, sun broke through to warm the manicured grounds.

I’ve been to hospitals with metal detectors, but Center of Hope doesn’t have one. Not yet, anyway. As if patients don’t have enough to worry about being sliced and diced in the name of healing, we have to add the possibility some nutball might sneak a firearm in with deadly intent. Problem is, if said nutball’s intent is potent, he’ll get the gun in, believe it. In terms of true safety, a metal detector is about as effective as trying to stop a spiked mace ball with a slice of cheddar.

At one point during my elevator ride, the doors opened and I heard a patient moaning somewhere like a gutshot bear. I got off on the seventh floor, where family members delivering flowers traversed the halls, dodging nurses in colorful scrubs.

In the infusion clinic, a wall of windows looked out on pinetops reaching to touch passing clouds, hungry for water. Eight or ten black leather recliners lined the walls. In each sat a patient hooked to an IV: a thin, sixtyish man with his feet up, asleep; a Filipino woman with a scarf around her balding head laughing with a friend; a middle-aged woman with a pasty face and garish red wig puzzling over a crossword, chewing pencil eraser.

In a corner chair near the window, Donny’s head lolled back, mouth open, napping. I flagged a nurse checking IV bags but before she could respond, a young woman sidled up next to me, her hair cut in a short bob with faint stripes of green still visible from an earlier visit to the salon. Her eyes were the color of sea foam and her hospital scrubs had Scooby-Doo on them with a nametag: TABIE CASSIL.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“You a nurse?”

She chuckled. “No, just a volunteer. I’ve only been here a few weeks.”

“I thought you seemed a little young. I’m here to see Donny, if that’s okay. I’m a friend of his mom’s.”

“Karen? I know her. It should be cool, but he’s probably tired. Varla? Donny okay?”

Varla, the nurse, glanced at Donny in the chair. “Just drowsy.” She smiled and swept past.

Tabie informed me, “Some of the meds they give patients during chemo kinda wipe them out.” She watched Donny, green eyes warm with friendship. “It’s crappy what he’s going through.”

“Crappy’s a good word for it,” I offered, before crossing the room and quietly unfolding a chair next to Donny’s recliner. I smiled at the Hispanic man hooked to an IV in the next recliner, full head of black hair that hadn’t fallen out yet, knee bouncing impatiently.

Donny’s chest rose and fell inside a Joker T-shirt, breaths deep and smooth. A comic book lay cover-down on his stomach along with his cell phone. A needle taped to the back of one hand, the thin IV tube curled up to a half-full bag of clear liquid hanging from a metal stand. This was Donny’s third treatment of six in his battle against Hodgkin’s. Doctors were optimistic.

I sat and watched him for a few minutes. Eventually he snorted, eyes fluttering as he left a dream to focus on my smile.

“Ah, fair maiden,” he said tiredly.

“Sorry to bother you.”

He got his bearings, sitting up. His cell started to slide off his lap but I caught it.

“How you feeling?”

“I’ve fared better.”

“Too bad you’re not a superhero. You wouldn’t have to go through this.”

“Didn’t help Captain Marvel.”

“The guy that said ‘Shazam’?”

He shook his head. “The other one. Mar-Vell, Captain of the Kree. Jim Starlin gave him cancer and killed him off in ’eighty-two.”

“Raw deal. Who’d’ve thought a superhero’s greatest archenemy would be the writer?”

He grinned. “Indeed.”

“You’ll beat it.”

He tilted his head to the slowly dripping IV bag. “Though my weapon be of liquid chemical and not forged broadsteel, the enemy shall nonetheless be vanquished. Or like my mom always says, ‘One foot in front of the other.’”

“I hear you.”

“I’m thinking of having a T-shirt made that says ‘Chemo Boy.’”

“What’s the logo on your chest, a big IV bag?”

He barked with joy, strong and loud, “Absolutely.” Chuckling.

“Where’s your mom?”

“I’ll text her when I’m done and she’ll pick me up. I don’t like her hanging around here.”

Wanting to fight the good fight on his own. Karen’s usefulness came into play at home, where she could cook him meals when he felt like eating and force him to eat when he didn’t, put some weight on those weary bones of his.

“Hope you don’t mind, I talked to your friend Calico last night.”

“About what?”

“Not much. How long were you two an item?”

Donny glanced across the room where Tabie leaned in the doorway, watching. She grinned sadly and turned into the hall.

“Not long. I wasn’t musically inclined… had no place in the whole War Kittens thing. Not that I wanted to, anyway.”

“And their war against conventional rock and roll?”

He sputtered. “They’re at war with everything. Well, Rex and Manx are, anyway. At war with politics, religion, life. Haters.”

“But not Calico?”

“She never used to be. I don’t know… Once I was diagnosed… I guess it was too much for her.”

“It’s a tough thing for some people to deal with. Don’t be too hard on her for it.”

“Never. But that doesn’t mean I have to like that jerk she’s seeing.”

“You think he’d have any reason to hurt Gamera?”

“Does he seem like the kind of guy who would need a reason?”

“Thanks for the ride,” Donny said, weak as he kept pressure on the taped gauze on the back of his hand.

“Don’t mention it,” I answered.

In their backyard, Karen fed Gamera a leaf of redhead lettuce.

“Hey, buddy,” said Donny, and the tortoise lifted his head at the sound of his best friend’s voice. Donny knelt to scratch him on the chin.

After a moment, Donny stood and nearly lost his balance, his legs wobbly. Karen helped him up, kissed his cheek. “I’ll check on you later, hon. See if you want a soft-boiled egg or something.”

“’kay.” Donny shuffled into the house.

Karen stared after him. “You a mother?” she asked.

I shook a no.

“It’s tough seeing him sick like this. When he was a little boy he’d scrape a knee and I’d kiss it better, give him some ice cream after a sore throat. But I can’t just kiss this better.”

“Frustrating, I know. May I?”

I held my hand out for the leaf of lettuce drooping in her grasp. She’d momentarily forgotten Gamera. The tortoise stretched his leathery neck out trying to snatch the greens, but Karen had the lettuce just out of his reach.

“Oh. Sure.” She handed the lettuce over.

I knelt before Gamera and he glanced at me with his cold tortoise eyes before fixating on the lettuce in my hand. I held it out for him. The oxygen tube in his nostril didn’t seem to be impeding him as he bit down on the lettuce, tearing off a tatter and chewing slowly, jaw grinding side to side. He stuck his neck out in a grand gesture when he swallowed — galulp — and took a step toward me, wanting more.

Karen watched Donny’s upstairs window. “You believe in reincarnation?”

She required no answer, just needing to talk: “I think I do. But before we come back, we’re shown the life we’re about to be born into. And we’re given the choice whether to come back or not. Even if the life we’re shown is full of pain and suffering, the only way for us to learn is to come back and live it. You probably think that’s hippie-dippie nonsense.”

She chuckled, self-deprecating, and continued:

“Anyway, with each life we lead, we learn more and our souls get stronger. Donny’s got a strong soul. He’ll get through this bump in the road.”

I scratched the big tortoise under the chin as Donny had done. “What about Gamera? He have a strong soul?”

“All animals do,” she said. “We’re the ones who still have a lot to learn.”

I nodded my assent, and during the pause that followed, changed the subject: “What do you know about the War Kittens?”

“Marise… I mean Calico, she and Donny went to high school together. The two guys went to Gresham, I think. There was another one, too…” She pondered, trying to recall a name.

“Donny’s not part of the Kittens so Calico drops him for the drummer? Doesn’t make her look so loyal.”

“There was more to it than that. By then Donny had been diagnosed. Calico was standing in my kitchen when I told her. She lost it. Her legs gave out under her. We held each other on the floor for a good ten minutes.”

“Maybe the drummer was her out, so she wouldn’t have to deal with Donny being sick.”

Karen shrugged. “I hoped she’d be bigger than that. I think she still has a flame for Donny, but I’d never tell him that, get his hopes up.”

“Any lingering jealousies that you know of?”

“Boys don’t usually open up to their mothers about their love lives.”

“I meant from the drummer, Rex.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Karen opened Gamera’s chicken-wire cage, picking his front end up and setting him down pointed in the right direction. She nudged his backside until he crept into the enclosure, trailing his oxygen tube, one hind leg weak and nearly useless from his wounds. But he kept trudging.

“That’s it, boy,” she said. “One foot in front of the other.”

Off Moreland on one of the side streets, not far from Mount Tabor Park, The Rue Morgue crouched between the back of an auto-parts store and a closed carpet warehouse; a giant black stone cat, its gaping-fanged maw curtained off with ebony canvas, being tended by a doorman at a red velvet rope of all things. Rumor was the deed to the club belonged to a Northwest author with heavy coin he’d made selling the movie rights to his horror novels.

Above the big dark feline’s pointed ears, curled inside its tail, glowing marquee letters dripped blood-maroon: WORRY DOLLS! ZUNI FETISH! WAR KITTENS! Hard to believe these unknowns would attract a line as long as the one snaking down the sidewalk. More likely, the manager was using one of the oldest tricks in the book: Keep a line out front even though it’s empty inside, tricking people into thinking something’s going on in there, causing them to gather like curious crows.

The kids in line ranged in age from about fourteen to college kids from Reed and Warner Pacific; the younger ones dressed too old and the older ones too young. If you ask me, a fourteen-year-old girl with chili red lipstick, halter, and torn fishnets isn’t appropriate, and I’m no prude. Glo-green bands decorated many a spindly wrist, indicating the wearer was of age to drink alcohol. Presumably.

I stepped up to the doorman, a thinnish white guy affecting Poe with dark unkempt hair, narrow moustache, high velvet collar, and ascot cravat. He looked like he might be strong enough to stop that aforementioned fourteen-year-old if she got rowdy… and had one hand tied behind her back.

I smiled, flipping my back-length raven locks. “Any way into this place without standing in line?” With my black greatcoat I figured I was a shoo-in for the club’s dress code.

He grinned, all kinds of nasty thoughts going on behind dark, bag-laden eyes.

“And don’t get cute,” I warned.

His grin faded.

“I’m the War Kittens’ press agent. They just hired me.”

“Got any credentials?”

“You kidding me?”

He held out a wand. I opened my coat, let him swipe me. I’d left my silver-plated friend in the Jeep. He whipped out one of those day-glo alcohol bands to snap around my wrist.

“You sure I’m old enough for one of those? Judging by half this crowd, you might not be too accurate at guessing ages.”

He snarled, “You can’t get booze without it.”

I snatched it from him and made my way inside.

The interior was cleaner than I’d expected, given its gothic inspiration. Darkly clean, without nihilism and grim attitude; posh goth. The centerpiece of the dance floor was a fountain formed of a pile of skulls, thick red “blood” dripping from eye sockets and open snaggle-toothed jaws.

Clearly the club manager hadn’t been playing any tricks on the line outside; the place was packed. Being crowded by this many teens made my skin prickle, sort of like tiptoeing through a field of black wasps. Only I prefer wasps.

I hugged the corner of the bar, barely enough room for both lungs to take a full breath. I got the attention of one of two bartenders, this one wearing Dracula’s cape, which didn’t really go with his orange curls.

“What’ll ya have?” he asked without really caring about my answer.

“I only drink… wine…” I intoned in my best Lugosi.

He stared blankly, not getting it.

“Screw it,” I said. “Gimme a Hamm’s.”

“Let’s see your wristband,” he said without a smile.

“You kidding me?”

He popped a Hamm’s and passed it across.

The band onstage finished their set, if that’s what you call it, a minor pause in the general cacophony of the place. Five black guys playing rock and roll of some sort was a nice change, though their Watusi-style war paint and grass loincloths didn’t seem overly PC to me. This must be Zuni Fetish, saying their goodbyes to the crowd and hauling their gear off to make room for the War Kittens.

I scanned the crowd, ears throbbing from the previous racket. On the floor, some kids made out while others danced to music pumping from house speakers.

A shaggy club bouncer, looking like the orangutan from Poe’s tale stuffed into a black sport coat, pulled aside the backstage curtains and shouted. After a moment, Rex and Calico emerged, both dressed much as I’d seen them before, Calico in a short skirt and Rex in his ridiculous stocking cap, dark curls trying to escape from under it.

The bouncer said something to them, to which both shook their heads, Rex doing so with great vehemence. The bouncer nodded and turned away. Calico wore a look of sad concern. Rex put a comforting arm around her.

Weaving across the dance floor, elbowing any number of goth goofballs out of my way, I intercepted the couple just before they disappeared backstage.

“You again,” sneered Rex.

“Me again. Just a couple more questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Calico readily agreed before Rex could cut me off.

I directed my questions at Calico. “I’m trying to get the timeline right. First, you and Donny are an item. At the same time, Rex has his eye on you.”

Rex protested, “Hey, it wasn’t like that.”

I continued, “Then someone attacks Gamera.”

“Not that friggin’ turtle again!”

“It’s a tortoise. Then Donny is diagnosed with cancer. You can’t handle it and break it off with him.”

Calico hung her head, ashamed.

“Then you start shacking up with Rex. Do I have the timeline right?”

Calico nodded.

Rex sputtered, “You saying I attacked the turtle because I was jealous of Donny or something? Like I thought that would get me Calico? That’s the stupidest plan I ever heard!”

I pondered a moment. “You’re right. It is a stupid plan, even for a guy who wears a stocking cap in seventy-degree weather.”

After a long second or two he realized he’d been insulted and his mouth dropped open, face scrunching like a kid trying to understand the D on his report card.

I stepped out the side exit into an alley and the door clanked shut behind me, locking me out. I looked up and down, hearing only the squeak of a rat in the dark and the whoosh of traffic at the alley mouth.

I sidestepped a stream of soapy water running down the pavement, not wanting to decorate my boots with some homeless guy’s secondhand vino.

Coming out of the alley, I swung a glance at the club entrance. The ersatz Poe was still keeping the line at bay. The orangutan bouncer was in heated discussion with a youngish girl, her hair cut in a bob, wearing a wife-beater and cargo pants. I watched the argument for a full minute before I realized I’d seen this girl before: the volunteer at the infusion clinic over at Providence Portland, Tabie.

I thought things over for a moment. A couple of jigsaw pieces fell into place, completing a picture that didn’t match the one I had on the cover of my mental puzzle box.

Tabie waved her arms at the bouncer, fingers sending him an uncouth semaphore before she stormed off.

I found her halfway down the block, leaning against a streetlight inhaling a cigarette. In the lamp’s phosphorous glow, the streaked highlights in her hair jumped out like a Siberian tiger’s stripes.

“Tabie?”

She looked up, glowered.

“We met before,” I reminded her, “At Providence.”

Her eyebrows scrunched. “Oh. Right.”

She sucked her cig, her mind heavy with other things.

“So let me ask you… Tabie. You sometimes spell it ‘Tabby,’ with a ‘Y’?”

She shrugged. “What of it?” Not the peppy girl I’d met at the hospital.

“Like a tabby cat, the streaks in your hair. You were one of the War Kittens, weren’t you? At least, until what Manx called a ‘clash of personalities.’”

“Why am I talking to you?”

I ignored her surliness. “Forget talk. Just listen. I’m filling in a sequence of events.”

“What sequence? What events?”

I counted them off: “Donny and Calico are an item. Meanwhile, in the band, you were the one with a thing for Calico, not Rex, like I thought. But Calico wasn’t feeling it. This causes friction in the band and they kick you out. In a fit of rage and jealousy, you blame Donny and lash out by hurting Gamera.”

She clenched her jaw, looked away.

“Then Donny is diagnosed. Bad timing all around, I suppose. You feel bad about what you’ve done and volunteer at Providence as your way of making amends, at least in your own mind. On top of all that, Calico ends up with Rex. You still can’t have her.”

She flicked her cigarette to the sidewalk. Orange sparks exploded.

“But why hurt Gamera? He’s just a poor defenseless animal.”

She lowered her head. Her shoulders jerked up and down as she began to sob.

“I don’t know… I wanted to hurt Donny… It’s because of him… and Calico… the band doesn’t want me around…”

“No, hon. It’s because of you the band doesn’t want you around.”

Tears fell from her face, sparkling in the passing headlights before splatting to the dark sidewalk.

Her words coughed between hitching sobs, “I… I’m sorry but… it’s just a… just a turtle…”

“He’s a tortoise.”

A few weeks later, I scarfed down a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast, running behind schedule. I was planning on giving Donny a ride home after his treatment and saying hi to Karen and Gamera. Rinsing my bowl in the sink, I caught sight of Thumper scampering by the open door and down the hall. The rabbit only moves that fast when he’s spooked, and one thing spooks him more than any other.

I found it on the floor near the stereo, hiding behind a cabinet leg; a big juicy brown one, ugly as sin. I nudged it with the toe of my boot and it unfurled its many legs, creeping out across the rug where I could nail it with a good stomp, raising my booted foot to do the deed.

Then I paused, the thought flicking through my mind that what if Karen’s theory about reincarnation was right? What if I come back as a creepy-crawly?

Hauling across the shag, the spider tried to reach a crack in the wall, the dark spot under the easy chair, any hiding place to let it live another day.

From a pile of junk mail I grabbed that old War Kittens flyer. I set the edge of it on the rug in front of the spider, leaving him no choice but to crawl up onto it.

Holding the flyer as far from my body as possible, I held it out an open window to dump the spider out. He didn’t want to go, too stupid to know I was saving his life. I shook the flyer and the thing dropped off, dangling from a glowing filament. I yelped, feeling somehow attached to the spider; it to its web, the web to the flyer, the flyer to my fingers.

I swung the spider to the wall of the houseboat where it clung above the cold, lapping Willamette.

Before closing the window I watched. The spider appeared to accept its new surroundings, turning and stepping spindly legs in some direction only it had reason to, in slow arachnid symmetry, one foot in front of the other, in front of the other, in front of the other…

Like any other survivor.