Killin Machine Page 5

  *

  I happened to glance up at my living room window just as Detective Plansky was walking up to my porch. My heart sunk. What the heck does he want now, I thought to myself. I opened the door before he could knock and stood in the doorway.

  “Well, how about that? You look as though you were expecting me. Why would that be, Mr. Barnes?”

  “I just happened to see you walking up.”

  “You weren’t looking out for me?”

  “Listen, if you came here to keep bugging me about Mrs. Hankowitz I’ve still got nothing to say to you.”

  “I’ll be civil about this, Barnes. Why don’t you grab your jacket and we can talk about this downtown at the station.”

  “About what? I have nothing else to tell you. I’ve got rights.”

  “Mr. Barnes, did you go out on a date with Anna Krumb last month on the ninth? A Raymond Barwell was also in your company?”

  “So? Is that some kind of a crime now?”

  “Mr. Barnes, Anna Krumb is missing. Grab your jacket.”

  I sat in the police station for the night while Plansky and another cop played bad cop bad cop in a really psychotic and scary way. One minute they’d be offering me a cookie and the next they smash the whole plate on the floor and throw the cookies into me while they demanded that I tell them where the missing women were. I cried and laughed manically off and on and when the sun came up they sent me home. When I got in the cat was waiting for me.

  “Mao?”

  “Torture, that’s what.”

  “Mao.”

  Yeah, that Plansky’s really got it in for me. He won’t rest until he gets me behind bars. I’m sick of him.”

  “Mao.”

  For a couple weeks things went better and I didn’t have anyone showing up at my doorstep accusing me of anything. I played with the cat and started working on a new novel. I outlined most of it and realized that it had potential. One evening, I sat out on my steps and listened to the neighborhood, as the sun went down. I soon noticed that I heard no chirping from birds, no chattering chipmunks. It seemed almost like there was nothing alive outside anymore. It reminded me of the way films depicted the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. I couldn’t even recollect seeing a fly for weeks, when I thought about it. I hadn’t seen a mouse in months. It was eerie. I sat there in the dark, in the silence, and petted the cat. For a moment it seemed like there was nothing left but me and her in the world, and then suddenly there was a young girl walking down the sidewalk.

  “Is that the cat that everybody’s complaining about?” She asked rudely. “What’s its name anyway?”

  I was sick of my neighbors, and the look on her face set me off. “Killin Machine,” I told her. The cat hissed and flashed her teeth right on cue and the girl turned and ran off as fast as she could.

  The following week, I worked in the yard, cleaning up leaves and garbage that had blown down the street and collected against the shrubbery. While raking along the side of my house, I noticed that the door to the crawl space had been pulled farther out. The cat must’ve done it so that she could still get in and out. When I got close to the entrance, the stench was overwhelming. I saw bones piled just inside the entrance. What on earth? I tried to peer inside. It was too dark to really make out anything so I decided to go inside and grab a flashlight. I came back out with it and crouched down at the entrance of the crawl space. I aimed the flashlight into the dark and turned it on. I nearly lost my balance. There was an endless mound of bones that piled higher and higher the deeper under the house that I shined the light. My heart pounded and my breaths shortened. I spotted Bingo’s collar and bell sticking out of the pile a few yards back. I pulled some gardening gloves from my back pocket and put them on. Then I crawled into the hellish scene that was below my home. It was disgusting. The air smelled like death, and rot, and plastic chew toys. I felt bones breaking under my knees as I crawled toward Bingo’s collar. Then my fingers caught something else. Something long and rigid. I pulled it from the bones and quickly dropped it when I saw the familiar green serpent’s head on the end of the cane. It had belonged to the old crazy coot that had gone after the cat. Next I spotted a mailbag. I broke out in a cold sweat as my heart continued to race. I turned the beam down at the ground and backed out from under the house as quickly as I could, kicking bones that clacked against each other and tumbled all over the place. Someone was setting me up! Plansky was going to find all of the evidence that he could ever want and I’d never see the light of day again.

  I got to work and gathered up all of the bones and other evidence that I could find. I nearly forgot about Bingo’s collar until I spotted the cat playing with it. I took it from her and she said, “Mao.” And then I stuffed it into the fourth bag that I had filled. I waited until it turned dark. The bags were so heavy that I had to drag most of them to the car. I loaded them in the back seat and then the cat and I drove out to an area where I knew I could find some heavy rocks. I placed some of the rocks into the bags with the bones and then we drove to a bridge and stopped in the middle, making sure there were no other cars in sight, and then we pitched the bags into the water and watched them sink out of sight.

  We got back and I sat out on the porch with the cat and looked up at the stars.

  “Life has been a roller coaster lately, cat. I met a girl that I really liked and then she hated me. Then, Mrs. Hankowitz who I really didn’t mind got kidnapped and murdered by a psychopath that set me up for the crime. And then Anna got murdered and I was set up for that.” I rubbed her head. “You’re the only good thing that’s happened to me.”

  “Mao.” She licked my hand.

  We might have to get on the road. Get out of the country. I don’t think Plansky’s ready to give up. I’ve met his kind. Thorough, obsessed. He’s going to be a real problem for us.”

  The cat hopped off of my lap. I figured that it had seen a mouse in the dark. I looked at the craters on the moon and reflected on everything that had happened. Suddenly the cat was standing in front of me in the moonlight with something in her teeth. I bent forward and tried to see what she had. It definitely wasn’t a mouse. She dropped it on the ground and my heart stopped when I saw what it was. Polansky’s badge and chain.

  “Oh no! Oh no! Where did you find that?”

  “Mao.”

  “Weaponized animals,” I mumbled, as I figured out who had killed everyone. “You did it.”

  “Mao.”

  “You were protecting me.”

  “Mao.”

  That’s no way to live. We can’t just go through life eating anyone that makes things difficult.”

  “Mao?”

  “Because you can’t. It’s just the way it is.” I dropped my head in my hands. “What are we going to do?” We both needed some sleep.

  Strangely, I slept more peacefully that night than I had in weeks. Maybe because I figured that I didn’t have an enemy left in the world. The cat had probably eaten them all. I figured out what I had to do and the next morning we had a talk.

  “I really appreciate that you were trying to protect me and I also realize that I was the one that misled you into thinking that you could just kill anything that you wanted but we’ve got to make some changes. First of all, I need you to promise me that you won’t kill any more people.”

  “Mao?”

  “Yes. I mean it.”

  “Mao.”

  “I’ve got a plan. Everything’s going to be alright. You’ll see.”

  I called my brother Frank and asked him if he was interested in the greatest mouser history had ever known. I explained that the city was just no place for the cat. She needed more space to roam. He remembered how much Gemma had liked the cat and thought that having a pet might do her some good, help her come out of the funk that she’d been in. He told me to bring the cat out to them, and so, the next day I drove out to their farm with her.

  “Listen to me, cat,” I told her as we drove down the highway, “I’m bringing you out to a ki
lling paradise. There’ll be more creatures to kill out there than even you can handle. But I’m going to point out some of the farm animals that are off limits. You can’t touch those ones. Okay?

  “Mao”.

  “Gemma, she lives out here, so she’ll rub your head at night for now on. Oh, and it’s very important that you remember your promise and don’t eat any of Gemma’s siblings or her parents.” I reached over and rubbed her head. “It’s been a great thing knowing you. The best roommate anyone could’ve ever asked for. You’re a real good listener, and an exceptional hunter.” A bird flew past the car and the cat leapt up and looked out the window. “I’m really going to miss you.”

  “Mao.”

  When I got to the farm, I opened the door and let the cat out. She looked up at the trees that were filled with birds, and all of the animals running about, and her eyes widened. I hunkered down and pointed to the livestock and laid down the law of kill and no kill. Then I stood up and said, “Go ahead,” and she pinned her ears back and bolted toward the woods. I visited with Frank’s family for awhile. He showed me more rocks and dirt and stuff that he owned out there and then I left.

  The next day I got started on the novel that I had outlined. The words flew from my fingers to the pages. It was called Killin Machine. About a rash of murders in a small town where the local cops never discovered the corpses. I finished it in three weeks and sent it out to a publishing house. It was out only a month and my manuscript got accepted for publication. I was amazed and elated. Even with my new found success I couldn’t help but miss the cat. After a couple of months I called Frank to ask about how Gemma was doing, and to ask about my cat.

  “It’s going great. Gemma’s finally adjusted. She’s happy again, just like her old self. She told me that she had made a promise to you that she would tell me and then she revealed to me that she had been having trouble with bullies at the new school. I was going to take a day off work so that I could go to the school and straighten things out but before I got there she all of a sudden was happy and said that everything was fine. Things must’ve just worked themselves out. You know the way kids are.”

  “Yeah, I do. That’s great news. What about the cat?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you about her. She’s like Big Foot. She’s becoming one of those legends. The creature that is rarely seen. You just hear about her. The kids see her in passing glances now and then. Usually way out in the woods. Louis said that he thought he saw a deer running through the woods with that little cat chasing after it but I told him that he was seeing things. The neighbors were saying that they can’t believe that a cat so small like that could make it through the winter outside.”

  “So you don’t even know where she is?”

  “I’m real sorry about that, Jake. There’s nothing we could’ve done. That cat likes to roam. I hope she’ll be okay. Maybe sometime she’ll get her fill of the woods and come back to the house.”

  “Maybe.” I realized that Frank was right. I never had any control over the cat either. “She’ll be alright, Frank. Don’t worry about her.”

  Killin Machine just kept moving up the Times Best Seller list until it was number one. I got invited to come on The Larry King Show and talk about my book.

  “With us tonight I’ve got Jake Barnes, an overnight success with his bestselling novel Killin Machine about multiple murders in a small Midwestern town. How are you doing, Jake?”

  “Real good, Mr. King. Thanks.”

  “You can call me Larry, Jake.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Larry.”

  “How’s it feel, Jake, having a best seller?”

  “Twenty gaga, Larry.”

  “Huh? Twenty what?”

  “It’s just an expression that I made up that means totally cool.”

  “Impressive, Jake. You’re like the Snoop Dog of the literature world, creating your own language. For Shnizzle dizzle as he would say.

  “Should I read one question from one of our listeners before we get to the book, Jake?”

  “That’d be great, Larry.”

  “Okay, this is from Pam Grubner of Duluth Minnesota and she wants to know what kind of underwear that you wear. Oooh, a sexy question, Jake.”

  “Only Feingold’s most delicate French briefs, low cut. Feingold’s, they reward your bottom at the end of a hard day.”

  “I think the ladies will be happy with that answer, Jake.”

  “Are you a sponsor for Feingold’s, Jake.”

  “No. I just appreciate a good quality pair of underpants.”

  “So do I, Jake. I really do,” said Larry, suddenly looking sincere. “One more question, Jake?”

  “One more.”

  “What do you do for a good time, Jake? Hmm, that’s a pretty good question too, Jake.”

  “I like to go out to the clubs and dance to Madonna or sexy robot voices.”

  “A little vogue. That’s always fun.”

  “Very fun. Twenty gaga.”

  “Okay, Jake. Enough of the questions. Let’s get right to the book and your experience writing it. I understand that you actually knew or had at least had contact with each of the missing persons that the characters in your book were based upon.”

  “That’s true.”

  “You didn’t kill anyone just so that you could make the bestsellers list, did you, Jake?” Larry laughed.

  “Just the dog. I killed Bingo, Larry.” I laughed a little too hard.

  “Tell me about your relationship with…”

  *

  A couple of months passed and it got cold. And I did find myself worrying about the cat. I called my brother and he told me that he still hadn’t caught sight of her. He told me that I was welcome to come out and we both could look for her. He thought that she might still answer to my voice. A week later I took him up on his offer. I arrived at his farm in the afternoon. No one was home. I should’ve called before I had left. I sat on the porch and cupped my hands to my mouth. I called out for her for ten minutes but nothing happened. It seemed warm out but it started snowing. An hour later I was still sitting outside, worrying that some hunter’s bullet had found her. A school bus pulled up on the road and an army of kids unloaded and started marching my way, Frank’s kids. When they reached the house, we talked outside for awhile, and then they invited me inside. I told them that I was just going to sit outside for a while longer. They filed into the house, except for Gemma, who sat down next to me, her blue eyes beaming just like they used to.

  “Are you okay, Uncle Jake?”

  “Yeah. I’m alright, Gemma.”

  “You look sad.”

  I smiled.

  “So, Gem, your dad told me that those kids from school and that teacher stopped bullying you. I figured that you probably gave at least one of them a stab with a pencil that you sharpened over and over. Because that’s what I would’ve done. That’s the kind of thing that bullies understand. Probably the best way to handle them.”

  She stared out into the field at the falling snow. ‘Can you imagine that entire field covered in blood, Uncle Jake? There’s a lot of blood in the world.”

  She was so morbid. She was going to end up as crazy as some of my aunts had been. “I guess I can’t, Gemma,” I said, and sighed.

  “There’s a lot of blood in people’s bodies, isn’t there?”

  “I guess so, Gemma.”

  We sat in silence and watched the snow fall for a while. Then she asked me, “Do you miss the cat?”

  “I do. But I know that being out here was what she wanted.”

  “Do you want to say hi to her?”

  “Huh?”

  Gemma stood up and called into the field. “Black Cat! Black Cat! Black Cat!”

  A black streak suddenly came across the field toward us like a torpedo. And then the cat was standing in front of me, gusts of steam flowing from her little mouth with each breath.

  “She’s really happy out here,” Gemma told me with a smile. The cat moved forward and bu
tted her head up against my ankle. I picked her up and hugged her.

  “She really likes you, Gemma,” I told her, as I rubbed her behind her ears. “She understands you, and you, her.” The cat got down and then climbed up on Gemma.

  “Not everything about her,” Gemma said, stroking her head. “I still don’t know why she saves all of their bones.” The cat flashed her little yellow eyes at me.

  “Mao.”

  “Your new house has a crawl space, doesn’t it, Gemma?”

  “Yeah,”

  “Run into the house and grab some bags, will you? We’ll need to clean it up.”

  THE END

  I really hope you enjoyed it.