The Defective Detective : Cat Chaser (7 page)

Arriving at the ladies toilet, I said nothing, just gestured to the door.

“W-what if it’s in there?” Lori stammered.

I sighed and burst through the door.

“Anyone in here?” I shouted.  “Mister Tiger?  Yoo-hoo?  No?”

I stepped back into the corridor.  “No-one in there.  I think it must be a boy tiger.”

Lori looked down at her shoes, refusing to make eye contact, as she darted inside.  I breathed deeply, leaning against the wall and picking a piece of raw chicken off my trouser leg.  The walkie talkie, whose timing had never been great, chose this moment to pull another blinder and fizzed into life with those four words again.

“It’s on its way.” said Jacob.

“Shit,” I said and stepped back into the ladies toilet.

Lori screamed her scream-queen scream.

“For Christ’s sake, shut up,” I said.

“I’m using the toilet here,” her voice shouting from a cubicle against the far wall.

“Can you keep your voice down, Jacob’s just told me it’s coming this way.”

“I can’t go while you’re here.”

I shook my head.  She couldn’t be serious.

“What are you talking about, there’s a tiger out there.”

“I need to use the toilet,” she insisted.

“And, what?  You expect me to sacrifice my life for that?”

“I can’t go with you here,” she whined.  “I reeeeeally need to go.”

“No,” I said.  “Just no.”

“This is the ladies.”

“This is insane, listen-” I gave up and opened the door a fraction to see if it was out there.  The walkie talkie spoke again, telling me that the coast was clear.  I walked outside, waited and fumed.

“Thank you,” Lori said when she eventually emerged.

I remained silent as I escorted her back to the office then stormed back towards the lift.

Downstairs on the second floor, Ray was exactly where we’d left him.  As I threw open the door of the room he was cowering in I glanced up to the camera, acutely aware of our audience.

“What the fuck happened?” I screamed.

The walkie talkie hissed into life. Erin spoke.  “Is he there?  Ask him what the hell he was playing at?”

I nodded towards the walkie talkie and he shrugged.  Didn’t even bother to answer.

“Tell me,” the anger hot in my cheeks.  “Tell me why you pissed our one chance to catch that fucking beast up against the wall?”

“I-” he began.

“Actually I don’t know if I even want to know, you fucking idiot.”

“Sorry,” he managed.

The walkie talkie spat static and this time Jacob spoke.  “What’s going on?”

I breathed in and out a couple of times, staring at Ray, just turning the whole thing over in my mind before I finally pressed the button.  “He’s fine.  It’s fine-”

“Clint,” Jacob interrupted.  “I think you two might want to get up here.  It’s coming your way again.  You should be able to make it to the lift before it gets to you if you run.”

“Come on,” I said quietly and held out my hand.  Ray pulled himself up to a standing position and followed me
knock-hissing
our way down the corridor.  And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the tiger stepped into view.

Ray shouted and we ran for the lift, I got there first and pressed the call button.  Apparently my luck had turned because the lift was waiting, the doors slid open and I stepped inside.  Ray was only a few steps behind and hopped the final few metres into the metal box.

I felt calm.  I felt like I knew what I was doing.

I looked out at the corridor and saw the great orange and black mass of whiskers, teeth and hatred growling down on us and I remember I thought to myself ‘don’t make the same mistake you made the last time, press the right button’.  I reached over and pressed one of the buttons and time began to run seriously slowly.

The calmness was good because I felt like I wasn’t going to go to sleep.  There was a clarity to it, staring into the tiger’s yellowy eyes, I knew I was doing the right thing.  And then all I could hear was Ray’s voice saying, “You’re pressing the wrong button.”

I looked across and I was pressing the ‘hold doors’ button and Ray was shouting and I just kept pressing the ‘hold doors’ button.  The tiger slapped its big paws, one after the other, moving forward, approaching the threshold of the lift and by this time Ray was trying to drag my hand off the panel, to press the buttons himself, but I just kept pressing that ‘hold doors’ button.

The tiger finally moved into the lift space, just its front two paws, it’s head and enormous shoulders nearly taller than us sitting struggling on the floor.  I took my finger off the button and turned to Ray, “Your turn.”

Ray took a great lungful of air, reached into his coat and pulled out a small dictaphone.  Stretching forward, he pressed a button on the side of it and an unmistakable tune began piping from its tinny little speaker.

We miss you hissssssss…

For a moment I forgot how to blink, staring at the effect of The Cure inadvertently performing ‘The Lovecats’ to this enormous beast.  As the double bass slapped away and the piano tinkled the tiger responded by rolling onto its side in some bizarre display of trust.

My legs went from under me, not sleeping this time, just exhausted from the adrenaline.  I crumpled into the corner of the lift just watching and trying to remember how to blink.

~*~

Coming 17/9/10.

T
his work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Dial M For Monkey
(2006)

Adam Maxwell's first collection of short stories is inventive, funny, dark, and hugely entertaining. Effortlessly fusing pop culture, gunplay, and simians, Dial M For Monkey contains a vibrant mixture of short stories - and short-short stories including 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' which featured in McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

The Night Before The Christmas Before I Was Married & other festive tales
(2009)

Charles Dickens has dominated the Christmas short story market for too long and he's so bloody depressing... wouldn't you rather read something that was funny, had comedy misunderstandings, people accidentally getting engaged and generally was a lot more entertaining and less depressing? Then you're in luck...

Let's be honest, Christmas can be a pain in the arse (or a pain in the 'ass' if you're from the other side of the pond) and this collection features some stories that I think we can all relate to...

Whether it's becoming accidentally engaged to your ex when your fiancee is coming home for Christmas...

Or perhaps you're spending Christmas with the in-laws, your wife is stupifyingly drunk and you destroy the presents...

No?

In that case you'll want to see what happens when two master hypnotists clash over an argument concerning a Christmas tree...

All these things and literally two others are dealt with in this collection of Adam Maxwell's Christmas stories.

He has asked me to tell you that he hopes these things don't happen to you this Christmas. And he also hopes they don't happen to him.

The Defective Detective : Murder on the Links
(2010)

Murder. Intrigue. Alcohol. Detectives. Clues. Golf. Laxatives. What else do you need?
When a body is discovered on the golf course the identity of the killer seems obvious. The question is can Clint get to the bottom of the mystery before the stag party catches him?

www.feedbooks.com
Food for the mind