Words With Fiends (5 page)

By way of answer, Tomlinson abruptly clapped his beefy hands. With a graceful vertical leap, Roma landed in the older man's arms. From the safety of her owner's arms, she gave Hank what Darla could only interpret as a smug look before snuggling with her long snout tucked beneath the lapel of his gi.

Tomlinson, meanwhile, gave his stepson a cold look. “Roma knows how to behave in the dojo, which is more than I can say for some other people.”

“Well,” Darla brightly broke in, “I think it's time for Robert and me to head out so we're not in the way of the next group. We'll see you Sunday morning, Sensei.”

She made her quick bow to Tomlinson and Hank; then, grabbing Robert by his gi sleeve, she dragged him toward the changing area.

“But I wanted to watch the sparring class,” he complained as he stumbled after her.

She halted and let go of his sleeve. “Sorry, I just wanted to get us out of fist range in case something happened. This isn't the first night I've seen those two do a little verbal sparring, and it always makes me nervous.”

She glanced over her shoulder and saw in relief that the two men had apparently parted with nothing worse than the few harsh words already exchanged. Even so, she wasn't going to hang around. “Stay if you want,” she told the teen, “but I'm going to leave before—”

Before Mark shows up
, was what she intended to say. But she made it only halfway through her sentence when she caught a whiff of stale cigarette smoke, and a familiar nasal voice chimed in behind her, “Hi, Darla.”

Too late.

Wincing a little, Darla turned back around to see Mark Poole and his overstuffed gear bag wandering in from the training area. “Long time, no see,” he trotted out the old cliché, and then grinned in appreciation of his perceived wit. “You staying to watch me spar tonight, maybe give me a little encouragement?” He dropped his gear bag at his feet and opened his skinny arms in what was a blatant invitation to a hug.

Appalled, Darla took a reflexive step back. Nothing set off her redhead's temper like some guy trying to coerce a woman into a “harmless” embrace. Maybe she should demonstrate on him the little stomp-and-shove technique they'd learned tonight.

Just in time, however, she recalled that the man was a customer, and so she managed a tight smile instead.

“Hi, Mark. Actually, I'm going to change and then run back to the store before it closes so I can help out James. But good luck with class tonight.”

“Uh, sure.”

Taking the hint, he awkwardly let his arms fall to his sides again, looking so downcast that Darla almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Then he gave Robert a quizzical look. “You're the kid who works for Darla at the bookstore, right? You gonna watch tonight?”

“Only if there's, you know, blood,” was Robert's exaggeratedly cheerful reply. Only Darla noticed that he followed that declaration with the silently mouthed word,
creepoid
.

Buoyed by her employee's reaction, Darla now suppressed a grin. Out of the mouth of babes . . . or, rather Gen Y-ers. Robert would probably spend the class cheering on every opponent Mark sparred against. She only hoped that he wouldn't be too blatant about it.

Mark looked as though he was struggling to reply with something clever, and not having much success. He was saved from total humiliation, however, when his cell phone abruptly rang from the recesses of his gym bag. He gave a guilty look around—dojo rules said all cell phones off in the training area—and quickly dug the phone out from under his sparring gloves. Then, with a glance at the caller ID, he pressed the “Talk” button.

“Gotta take this,” he told Darla. “Don't say anything to Sensei.”

Darla gave a silent sigh of relief. “Don't worry, I won't tattle.” To Robert, she added, “I'll see you later,” before heading off to the changing room.

This had not been the best of evenings, despite the sensei's offer to give them their belt test early. First there had been that secondhand stress from witnessing the altercations between Master Tomlinson and Mrs. Valentine, and then Master Tomlinson and his stepsons. Then there had been that incident with Chris. And Mark's unalluring presence was the cherry on a not-so-tasty sundae. All in all, she wasn't in the mood tonight to hang around the dojo. She'd check in with James at the store, and then spend some quality time with Hamlet in advance of the cat whisperer guy's arrival Saturday morning.

A few minutes later, she slipped out the front door, leaving behind the faint echoes of shouting fighters and the inevitable whiff of gym sweat. Unfortunately, she found Grace Valentine outside, leaning against the building a short distance from the door, her short blond mink jacket leaving her fishnet-clad legs exposed to the cold night air.

She seemed not to notice the chill, however, for she had her cell phone pressed to her ear and appeared to be intently listening to someone on the other end. In her free hand, she dangled one of those long, skinny cigarettes that gave off a surprising amount of toxic smoke for all its dainty size. Grace's red lips were bright beneath the light from the studio window and still twisted into an angry line. Whether that emotion was directed at the person on the phone, or was simply a holdover from her earlier verbal fisticuffs with Master Tomlinson, Darla couldn't guess.

As for Chris, he stood on the sidewalk a few steps from her, hunched so low into his blue, down-filled coat that Darla could see only his sweat-darkened bangs as he fumbled with his own cell phone. Apparently, he still was in trouble with the sensei since he wasn't inside sparring with the rest of the advanced students.

She didn't know if Chris noticed her, but his mother certainly did. Catching Darla's eye, Grace shot her a look that made Darla hope the woman's mob connections were limited to her wardrobe.

“Yeah, hold on, wouldja?” she abruptly barked into her cell. Then, pressing the phone against her surgicallyenhanced bust, she turned her attention to Darla.

“Hey! Yeah, Cherry Top, I'm talking to you,” she called, pointing in Darla's direction with her cigarette. “Don't think I didn't see what happened tonight. If you'd have been paying attention, you wouldn't have walked into Chris's fist, and then Tom wouldn't have banned him from sparring tonight.”

“I know . . . sorry,” was the safest response that came to Darla's mind. She'd long ago learned not to engage the crazy, and Mama Valentine definitely fell into that camp. Defending herself would only make matters worse.

Grace, however, was not appeased by her apology.

“I know your type,” she persisted, cigarette waving wildly. “Ladies like you come to class, thinking it'll be fun, or maybe you'll find a guy. Well, let me tell you, it ain't like that. It's hard work. You
ladies”—
she made the word sound like an insult—“you never last. So just don't screw things up any worse for my kid before you get bored and quit. I don't care what Tom says, Chris is gonna be in that tournament, or else.”

Definitely a “run when you can” moment, Darla swiftly decided as the woman took a threatening step in her direction. She was pretty sure that Grace could take her in a fight, even wearing leopard print pumps and a mini skirt. The sooner she beat it, the better.

Determined not to let Grace have the last word, however, Darla managed a bright smile in return. “Well, nice chatting with you. 'Bye, Chris,” she added in the youth's direction and gave him a friendly wave. “See you next class.”

Chris glanced up from his phone, appearing startled before promptly returning his attention to his phone. Grace looked a bit surprised, too, Darla saw in satisfaction. With a final sneer in Darla's direction, the woman stuck her phone back up to her ear and resumed her conversation.

Darla gave a mental shrug.
I tried,
she reassured herself as she started back in the direction of the store. True, she might have given up a bit easily in the face of Grace's outrage, but that didn't mean she was intimidated. It simply was that she had plenty on her plate to contend with without worrying about being on a high schooler's mom's bad list. Hamlet was her priority for the moment. She could only hope that this so-called cat whisperer she'd hired would find a way into the clever feline's psyche and discover what it would take to return Hamlet to his ornery self once more.

Darla pulled out her phone—her usual safety precaution when walking alone in the evening—and the now-familiar xylophone sound chimed, indicating an opponent had just played a word in one of her dozen open games. Swiftly, she pulled up the screen for a look.

This player was an anonymous competitor with the user name
fightingwords
(Darla's was
pettibooks123
). And he—she?—had lived up to that moniker, Darla thought with a smile. This was their eighth or ninth game, and the wins had been pretty evenly split thus far. Both of them usually scored high, with only a handful of points determining the victor.

Actually,
fightingwords
was the only random user that Darla played anymore. She had been burned too many times by unknown, casual players who flitted from game to game, quitting halfway through whenever they were behind on points. Worse, however, were the cheaters. These were the ones who had installed a sneaky little app to their game that allowed them to play all seven letters at once for an outrageous score, no matter that the word formed was nothing but a jumble. The minute someone slapped up a word like
ypeortn
and gained a cool seventy or eighty points because they were on triple word and triple letter spots—plus a bonus for using all their letters at once—it was Darla who swiftly resigned!

Before scanning her own letters for a suitable word, Darla checked out her opponent's latest offering.
Twenty-four points . . .
decent enough score, courtesy of a “double word” square. As for the word played, she decided with a rueful smile that it was oddly appropriate for the situation at hand. For, glowing up at her from the backlit screen was the word
sucker
.

DARLA FROWNED AS SHE REVIEWED HER NOTES FOR
hamlet's appointment with the cat whisperer.
Nine thirty
, she confirmed, checking her watch to see that it was already a quarter to ten. She'd actually been down in the store since nine, keeping a close eye on Hamlet in case he decided to try his occasional disappearing act. But, as he'd done the past few weeks, the feline had barely budged from the spot where he was lounging, in this case on one of the more inaccessible shelves in the food and cooking section. He was lying on his belly and stretched to full length, paws dangling like small black pompoms from the shelf's edge.

Darla had all but given up on the cat whisperer guy when, just a few minutes before ten, she heard a sharp rapping on the front door glass.

“Finally! Don't go anywhere, Hammy,” she warned the cat as she hurried to unlock the door. “This visitor is for you, not me.”

And we want to get our money's worth,
she mentally added, recalling again just how much this little bit of cat psychoanalysis was going to set her back. With what this guy charged, she could keep Hamlet in kibble for a year. But if his techniques worked, she wouldn't begrudge him a penny.

Eagerly, she unlocked the door to find a gently smiling young man standing before her on the stoop, fists crammed into his jacket pockets. Her first disappointed thought was that the cat guy had stood her up, since this person didn't look like someone who charged beaucoup bucks for a consultation. Obviously, her visitor was some homeless man who had wandered to her door wanting to get out of the cold, or else was looking for a handout.

Darla gave him a sympathetic look-over. The fellow wore a patched denim coat, the sleeves of which rode a good three inches short on his skinny arms and was far too thin for the weather. Though scrupulously clean, his battered jeans suggested not so much fashionable distressing as real-life wear and tear. She was about to send him on his way with a couple of dollars and directions to the nearest shelter, when she noticed the red ball cap with the blue embroidered words,
Have You Hugged Your Cat Today?
,
that he wore over his stringy blond hair.

So much for first impressions!

“Hi, I'm Darla Pettistone,” she finally managed, smiling and sticking out her hand. “You must be Brody Raywinkle, the cat whisperer.”

“If you don't mind, I prefer the term feline behavioral empath
.
”
Easing one fist from his pocket, he bypassed the handshake to gingerly pass her a creased business card with that same title beneath his name. “That whole cat whisperer thing sounds a little
woo-woo
, if you know what I mean.”

“Sorry,” she replied . . . though, to her mind,
feline behavioral empath
flirted with woo-woo territory, too. Tucking the card away, she added, “Please, come inside.”

She gestured Brody in and locked the door behind him again, covertly studying him as she did so. He seemed to be something of a germaphobe, given the way he'd avoided her handshake. And obviously, his exorbitant consulting fees went to something other than his wardrobe.

Hopefully a good sign?
she thought.
On the bright side, unlike that cat guy on the animal cable channel, he didn't cart around a blinged-out guitar case filled with cat toys—something told her that Hamlet would not have approved. Though, when it came down to it, she suspected he wasn't going to think much of Brody, either.

“So, where's our client?” he asked with a glance about the store.

Darla pointed to where Hamlet still reclined on an upper shelf. “There. You probably should know that—”

“Wait!”

He raised one shoulder in lieu of raising a hand, stopping her short. “I don't want to crowd my mind with any preconceived notions. All I need to know is his name, how old he is, how long he has been here, and how long ago his problems started.”

Gamely, Darla filled in those blanks, earning a nod when she was finished. “Perfect,” he replied. “Now, if you can bring me a chair—preferably wood, no cushions, please—I'll find out why Hamlet is not functioning at his highest level.”

Darla hurried to find an appropriate seat. By the time she had wrestled a vintage ladder-back chair from its spot in the social sciences section, Brody had made his way over to the shelf where Hamlet lay. Now, the pair eyed each other, Hamlet's green eyes suspicious emerald slits, and Brody's wide brown eyes reflecting calm watchfulness. Darla quizzically studied them both as she set the chair next to the man.

“I'll be opening the store in another minute,” she reminded him. “Are you sure we shouldn't take Hamlet upstairs to the lounge where you won't be disturbed?”

“We're fine here. Give us half an hour or so.”

He took the chair Darla had brought for him and arranged it a couple of feet from the shelf, sitting with his elbows propped on his knees, and his chin propped on his fists. At this intrusion into his personal space, Hamlet opened his eyes wider and pulled his paws under him, as if preparing to haul tail. Then, apparently deciding flight was too much effort, he relaxed and settled in a similar position to Brody, chin on paws and cool green eyes unblinking.

The first influx of Saturday morning customers did not disturb them. In fact, the two were still staring down each other thirty minutes later when Jake came strolling in, her black leather duster billowing from a gust of cold air before she shut the door behind her. A faint whiff of cigarette smoke accompanied her as well, and Darla wrinkled her nose. Apparently, Jake's attempts to ditch the smoking habit still hadn't fully taken, though she was proud of her friend for having cut down to just a couple of cigarettes a day.

“Hey, kid, my printer just croaked,” the PI said by way of greeting. “Mind if I borrow yours? I've got a photo here I really need to get printed,” she explained, waving a shiny silver flash drive which Darla assumed held said files.

“No problem,” she agreed. “Any special kind of paper?”

“No, I . . .”

Jake trailed off, having caught sight of the man-feline stare-down the next aisle over. Joining Darla at the counter, she lowered her voice and asked, “What the heck is going on between that guy and Hamlet?”

“Remember I told you the other day that he seems to have some kind of PTSD thing going on? Well, Brody's here to figure out how to help him. He's Hamlet's feline behavioral empath,” Darla softly told her, proud that she'd managed the unwieldy title without stumbling over her words.

Jake opened her eyes wide. “Feline behavioral who? No, never mind. So, is he doing a Vulcan mind meld or something?”

“I guess,” was Darla's doubtful reply as she glanced at her watch. “Whatever it is, I don't think either one of them has blinked for a half hour. I just hope I'm not paying overtime here. Now, what about your document?”.

Jake handed over the thumb drive. “It's the one tagged Putin101. Give me five . . . no, ten copies, and that should be enough.”

Nodding, Darla booted up her computer and turned on the printer; then, casually, she said, “I guess this has something to do with your case for our gangster friend?”

“If you mean
Alex
, then yes.” The older woman hesitated, and then added, “I guess it doesn't hurt to tell you, since I'm going to be showing her photo around town. His mother has gone missing, and I'm trying to track her down.”

“Oh, no, how awful.”

Regretting her previous flip attitude, Darla tried not to feel guilty now as she pictured some tiny old lady in a babushka wandering the streets of Brooklyn. Gangster or not, surely the man was frantic with worry.

“Shouldn't he call the police, too?” Darla asked as she plugged the tiny drive in a free USB slot. “I mean, it's a good thing he has you on the case, but if poor old Mrs. Putin is suffering from Alzheimer's or something, then maybe the authorities should be notified.”

“Believe me, this isn't a case for the cops.”

Something in Jake's dry tone made Darla glance up from the computer. The PI was shaking her head, while a smile played about her generous mouth. “Go ahead, look at her picture, and you'll see what I mean.”

Puzzled, Darla quickly opened the file. An image popped up on screen, and she blinked. After a moment of stunned silence, she said, “Wow. Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Jake replied “Yeah, kid, that's poor old Mrs. Putin . . . aka the Russian Bombshell, as I like to call her.”

Russian Bombshell.

That pretty well nailed it, Darla thought as she stared at the exotic beauty whose image filled her screen. The woman looked Jake's age, maybe a couple of years older. Her hair had been cropped into a fashionably short do and hennaed to the blazing shade of red favored by Eastern European women of a certain age. Her gray eyes had an exotic Slavic tilt to them that was exaggerated by the heavy black liner she wore. Her full lips had no need of any artificial plumper and appeared even larger with the application of red lipstick a shade darker than her spiky tresses. Staring at the screen, Darla was seized by a momentary urge to rush to the salon down the street and demand that her own auburn hair be chopped off into something that chic.

“But I was expecting . . . I mean, she's so—”

“Young? Hot?” Jake supplied, the smile broadening into a grin.

While Darla began printing the photos, her friend continued, “I have to admit, I was pretty shocked myself when Alex showed me the picture. Seems she married his father back in Russia when she was sixteen, so that only puts her in her mid-fifties now. Old Mr. Putin—and he really
was
old, almost thirty years older than his wife—died last year. Apparently Mrs. Putin is making up for lost time and lost youth. Alex thinks she's run off with a younger man.”

“Well, good for her,” Darla replied with an approving nod, handing over the finished prints and unplugging the thumb drive. “Can you imagine being sixteen and married to someone middle-aged like that?”

Jake snorted. “Even worse, can you imagine being forty and stuck with some guy who probably is too old to—”

She broke off as Darla gave a frantic wave and gestured in the direction of Brody, who was well within earshot.

“Well, you know what I mean,” she finished with a wink. “Anyway, Mama Putin took off one day last week while Alex was at work. Packed up all her clothes, all the tchotchkes. All she left behind was a note that pretty well translated to
See you later, Sonny
.”

“But what's wrong with that?” Darla wanted to know. “She's over twenty-one. If she wants to run away with some totally inappropriate guy, he can't stop her.”

“I know, but Alex insists that this particular inappropriate guy”—she gave the phrase finger quotes—“is only interested in her money. She doesn't speak much English, and he's worried the guy might coerce her into getting married and signing over all her assets. But don't worry, Alex understands that all I'm going to do is find her and let her know that he's worried and wants to be sure she's okay.”

Privately, Darla suspected that the man's true motivation was finding his mother's supposed boyfriend and kneecapping him, but all she said was, “Sounds like a straightforward enough case. Feel free to stop back by if you need to print up any more pictures.”

“I will. Say, why don't we grab a bite tonight over at the Thai place after you get off work? I'm dying to know what Mr. Cat Whisperer has to say about Hamlet.”

“Uh,
feline behavioral empath
, if you don't mind,” a gentle voice behind them corrected.

They both turned to see that Brody had left his chair and had wandered up to the register. A glance at the bookshelf showed that Hamlet had vacated his post and was nowhere in sight. Darla wondered if he had finally tired of the stare-down and stalked off, or if the two had parted by mutual agreement.

“Oops, sorry,” Jake said, not sounding terribly sorry at all. Turning to Darla, she added, “Okay, gotta fly. I've got pictures of Russian bombshells to show around town.”

The PI departed in a swirl of leather, leaving Darla alone with Brody. Her earlier anxiety returning, she asked, “So, what's the diagnosis? Did you figure out why Hamlet's so depressed?”

“He suffered a terrible trauma a few months ago,” the man began, his expression dismayed. “Not only was he hurt physically, but he was damaged spiritually. He faced the biggest challenge of his many lives, and he fell short. Now, his body has since healed, but his psyche has not. And I believe there was something more recent that distressed him, too.”

Darla nodded, first recapping the original incident that had traumatized them both, and then relating the closet scare.

“I think being locked in like that brought back all the bad memories, kind of like a flashback,” she told Brody. “He's definitely been moping ever since.”

“And with good cause. Hamlet feels like a failure and unworthy to remain here as mascot.”

“What? He told you all that?” Darla asked in wary disbelief, trying to recall just how much detail she had given the man's assistant when she'd made the appointment. As best she could remember, all she had mentioned was the vet's recommendation. But maybe Dr. Birmingham had given him Hamlet's medical history . . . no breach of confidentiality there, since HIPAA didn't apply to pets.

If Dr. B hadn't said anything, however, then that whole man-cat mind-meld thing must actually have worked!

Brody, meanwhile, was nodding. “He's most upset over the fact he failed you, since you are his human family. He's been trying to atone for it ever since.”

“But I don't understand. Hamlet was a hero. He risked his life for me!”

“From your point of view, perhaps. But from his, things are far murkier. Cats have their own code of honor, you know.”