Purrfect Alibi (3)

Chapter 18

“Wait, what?”

He nodded sadly. “Come here.”

I came there—reluctantly.

He spread a few hairs on his chest. “See?”

Honestly I didn’t see a thing. Mainly because it was pretty dark where we were standing, and also because Brutus is the color of the night: blacker than black.

“What am I looking at?” I asked finally.

“The spots. Can’t you see them?”

“What spots?”

“The red spots!”

I squinted, straining my eyes and leaning in.

And this is how Dooley found us: me with my nose practically touching Brutus’s chest.

“Guys?” he asked. “Am I interrupting something?”

“He’s dying,” I said without preamble.

In response, Dooley came over and gave Brutus a kick against the rear end.

“Hey!” Brutus cried, jerking up. “What was that for?”

“Do you feel it?” asked Dooley, wide-eyed.

“Of course I felt it. You kicked me!”

“Now you’re in the sixth dimension and you won’t die.”

Brutus’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Finally, he reeled it back in and growled, “If you kick me one more time, I swear to God, I’ll kick you so hard your backside will become your new face and you’ll wear your tail as a nose.”

Dooley gulped at this. Milo probably hadn’t told him that even in the sixth dimension cats wouldn’t enjoy being kicked up the backside.

“Have you told Marge or Odelia?” I asked.

“About the sixth dimension?” asked Dooley.

I ignored Dooley. “Someone should take a look at those spots.”

“I’ve told Shanille and now I’ve told you and Justin Tucker over there.”

“Who’s Justin Tucker?” asked Dooley.

We both ignored him. Brutus was still sitting with his chest out and now I finally saw the spots. They were tiny and they were red. I didn’t like the look of them, to be honest.

“I’m afraid that if I tell Odelia or Marge they’ll take me to Vena and she’ll say I’ve got cancer and will put me down on the spot. I don’t want to be put down on the spot, Max.”

“I understand.” I did. No cat likes to be put down on the veterinarian’s table. It’s humiliating, not to mention unpleasant. We all want to die in our sleep after living a long and happy life. And be disease-free right up to the end. And stay far away from the vet.

Dooley, who’d been staring at Brutus’s chest for the past five minutes, now said, “You have spots on your chest, Brutus.”

Brutus muttered something I won’t repeat here, seeing as children and senior citizens might be reading about my adventures, too. Suffice it to say it was the verbal equivalent of Dooley’s sixth-dimension-inducing kick.

“So why Shanille?” I asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

“She’s a religious cat,” said Brutus. “I figured she would have some answers for me. And she did. She says I should invite Jesus into my life and he will heal me. She’s scheduled for me to get baptized tomorrow night in the baptismal font over at St. John’s Church. I’m going to do it, Max,” he added when I gave him a slightly skeptical look.

“Maybe she can wash off those red spots while she’s at it,” said Dooley. He moved to touch Brutus’s chest. “Is that paint or tomato sauce?”

“Don’t touch my spots,” said Brutus, deftly evading Dooley’s grabbing paw.

“Don’t touch his spots, Dooley,” I said. “They could be contagious.”

This was the right approach. Dooley’s paw froze mid-air. “Contagious?” he asked in a strangled, squeaky voice. “You mean… you’re really dying? Like, dying-from-a-contagious-disease dying?”

“You don’t have to rub it in,” Brutus growled.

Dooley immediately retracted his paw and took a few steps back. Dooley has a thing about dying and diseases. He doesn’t like them. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, a look of panic in his eyes. “I want to get baptized, too—but I get to go first!” he now exclaimed.

“Don’t tell me. You’re afraid Brutus will contaminate the baptismal font,” I said wearily.

Dooley nodded fifteen times in quick succession. “I’m going first!”

Looked like Dooley had found Jesus, too. Well, it was only a matter of time.

“Will you come with me, Max?” asked Brutus, giving me a pleading look.

“Of course I will,” I told the other cat. “I draw the line at holding your paw, though.”

Brutus laughed, though I could tell he’d been hoping I would hold his paw.

“So I go first, then Max, then Brutus,” said Dooley, who had it all figured out.

“Wait, what?” I said. “I’m not getting baptized, you guys.”

“Why not? The world is ending tomorrow night, Brutus is dying. What do you have to lose?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not into religion.” In fact the only church I prayed at was the church of Cat Snax. Now there was something I believed in.

“These are desperate times, Max,” said Dooley, switching to seasoned preacher mode. “And desperate times call for desperate measures. Do you really want to risk your soul burning in hell for all of eternity? Or do you want to join me and Brutus in cat heaven?”

“What does cat heaven look like, exactly?” asked Brutus, interested.

“No idea,” said Dooley. “You have to ask Shanille. She’s the expert.”

And so she was. “What about Harriet?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we tell her?”

“No, don’t tell her, Max,” Brutus urged me. “She’ll be devastated.”

“She’ll be more devastated when you die without telling her.”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” asked Brutus with more than a little heat. “I hope I won’t die. I hope Shanille will heal me.”

“I thought you said Jesus would heal you,” said Dooley, puzzled.

“I don’t care who heals me!” Brutus cried. “As long as someone does!”

“Keep your shirt on, Brutus,” I said, which probably didn’t make sense. Cats don’t wear shirts. Dogs do, but then we all know dogs are idiots.

“I’m desperate here, Max, can’t you see?” said Brutus, and I had to admit I’d never seen him quite as unraveled as this.

I could tell I was going to have to hold his paw. And Dooley’s. I was going to be the official pawholder of our little band of three. I didn’t mind. I liked Brutus. He’d grown on me ever since he’d come to live with us. If holding his paw got rid of his red spots I was all for it.

Brutus looked down. Dooley’s paw had surreptitiously slipped against his own. Brutus looked up, giving Dooley a look that could kill. Dooley produced a sheepish smile.

“I figured since we’re going to be Jesus buddies, we might hold paws,” he said.

Brutus lifted his upper lip in a snarl, and Dooley quickly removed his paw.

Brutus might be covered in red spots, but he’d lost none of his bite.