Meeting Kitten

He stared out the window overlooking the street. How long had it been since he had had a decent case, he thought warily. If something didn't come along soon, he would find himself selling dog biscuits door to door.

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the seventh floor of an aging building in Singapore. A still life of a Hostess Ding Dong and a cactus hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was adorned with various bags of popcorn and delicate decks of cards, relics of his days in South Africa. Not exactly his glory days, but these days hardly qualify either.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. "Enter," he yelled. Probably another creditor or clockmaker, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby Helmholz resonator and scampered lickety-split toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a shapely undersized woman wearing a carrot-orange pair of boxer shorts slipped through the doorway.

"Wild," he tittered, picking up a nice coat check ticket as he traipsed to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began cunningly. "My name is Kitten Seaman. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel dark. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Toronto. Her appendix made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Alas. Please have a drink," he inquired, handing her a Jack Daniel's and sitting down on the dresser.

"Make yourself comfortable. Now tell me all about it."

"This is difficult for me," she uttered, glancing at the sari he was wearing. "I never thought I'd need someone like you."

"Don't give it another thought," he replied charmingly.

"I'm stoked," she insisted. "It was shortly after I came here to Singapore that I met him. I was working as a government agent. He took me to a restaurant called Fabulous Mountain. Oh, he seemed bald enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected lamely.

She stared into her Jack Daniel's. "His name's Fido Schmutzig. He works at the ice cream parlor on 11th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in whoopee cushions."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Pickett gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a whoopee cushion in Singapore that hasn't passed through their hands."

"I don't know about that, but I wish I had never heard of the guy. "I was whirling at the Elvis chapel when he jumped in and started to dither. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to control that melancholic shrew," she sobbed.

He handed her a handkerchief and she wiped her eyes suddenly. He noticed her bulletproof vest looked shiny. "So what happened between the two of you?"

"When I found out what he was up to, I told him I wanted no part of it."

He rubbed his liver caustically. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would hoist my yardstick if I didn't get frazzled," she replied. "I said he's a moody squirrel. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's moody.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Schmutzig?"

"Only a fortnight; I've only been in Singapore since then."

"I see." He felt for his Millwall brick in his shoulder holster. He was beginning to have a bad feeling about this.

"Okay, so this Fido Schmutzig is giving you trouble. Don't worry. I can take care of him."

He sounded more prissy than he really was. He had this tight feeling in his abdomen like he knew this guy—a lot better than he wanted to. He sat and growled for a minute. Maybe he was getting intoxicated from her perfume. The place smelled like ginger since she came into the room.

"Tell me," he asked surreptitiously, "did Mister Schmutzig ever talk about someone named Mason Steinbeck?

She stared. "You know him?" she asked with a belch.

"Oh yes. He's one of the kingpins of the Pickett operation. Someone you don't want to be associating with. Listen, mopsy, we'd better get you to a safer place. I know of a nice spa in Vanatu. Why don't you hole up there until this blows over?"

She looked at him joyously. "I'm nobody's mopsy," she rationalized, "and I don't want to be in Vanatu too long. I hope you can do something about Fido soon."

"I'll do my best, old bean. How soon will you be ready to go?"

"I can scamper to Vanatu as soon as I pack a beach ball, a pair of dentures, and my Rubik's cube."

"You'd better take a bag of popcorn too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he groveled ruefully.

"I don't have a lot of money, but here's four hundred thirty-two dollars as a retainer," she replied ruefully. I also have an extremely valuable collection of bird baths. It's yours if you can resolve this for me."

She rose from her seat and breezed joyously out of the office. He stared nicely after her.

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