‘So what was it?’ asked Joe.
‘She said her friends would be very grateful if I didn’t win the race on New Year’s Day.’
‘Shoot,’ said Joe. ‘Some little favour! So what was the big favour she was going to do in return?’
‘She said that her friends would let me have the rest of my career and my family the rest of their lives,’ said Zak Oto.
Joe shook his head sadly. It would have been nice to work for and with Zak, but he knew a no-no when he saw one.
He said, ‘Listen, I’m sorry, but this is one for the cops. It’s probably nothing, just some nutter, but go to the police anyway, just to be safe. Get them poking around and if there is anything serious behind all this, the people concerned will soon get the message the Law’s after them …’
‘She said not to tell anybody.’
‘She would, wouldn’t she? But you’re telling me, so that shows you’ve got enough sense not to be intimidated. Naturally I’m flattered I’m the first but all the same …’
‘You’re not the first,’ she said. ‘I told Jim Hardiman. Used to be my coach. Now he’s the sports director at the Plezz.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said to forget it. A nutter. I should train hard and not talk to strangers and let Starbright take care of anyone who got persistent.’
‘Sounds good advice. Why aren’t you taking it?’
‘Yesterday morning I got these notes.’
She handed him two postcards. They both had reproductions of cat paintings on them, one of two kittens watching a snail, the other of a whole family of cats playing with an empty birdcage. He turned them over. No stamps, though one did have a sort of damp mark in the stamp square as if someone had stuck something there. They both had messages printed in red ballpoint.
REMEMBER, YOU’VE GOT FANS EVERYWHERE
and
WHEN WE SAY EVERYWHERE THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT WE MEAN
‘These don’t change things much,’ said Joe, all professional reassurance.
‘Yes, they do,’ said Zak. ‘The first one I found in my locker at the Plezz. Which was locked. The second I found on my pillow when I woke up yesterday morning. I think these people are telling me they can go anywhere, do anything. Like cats.’
‘You don’t seem so scared of cats,’ said Joe, looking enviously at Whitey.
‘No, but if he was three times as big as me I’d be scared,’ said Zak.
‘Fair enough,’ said Joe. ‘So why exactly have you come to me?’
‘Because it’s the twenty-ninth, which leaves three days till the race. Seems to me my best chance is for someone to find out what’s going on in those three days.’
‘You’re probably right. But the people with the best chance of doing that are the cops.’
‘Definitely no,’ she said with an authority belying her years. ‘They work for the Law. I want someone working for me.’
This seemed an odd way of putting it but Joe didn’t beat his brain trying to figure out what she meant.
He said, ‘Suppose, as is likely, I can’t find anything out in three days?’
‘Then I find out about it myself on the track,’ she said slowly.
‘That’s crazy! If you’re that worried, why not pull a muscle, catch a cold or something?’
‘The voice told me, don’t think of scratching. I’ve got to run and lose or else all favours are off. Joe, it’s not just me that’s been threatened. I can hire muscle like Starbright to give me some degree of protection. But someone who can get close enough to leave these notes the way they did isn’t going to have any problem targeting my family.’
‘Turning up with me in tow could tip these people you’ve been talking.’
‘Hell, you not that famous, are you?’ she smiled. ‘I’ll say you’re some old friend’s old uncle who’s lost his job and I felt so sorry for you, I’ve taken you on as temporary bagman.’
‘That why you chose me, I’d fit the part so well?’ said Joe unresentingly.
‘No. Positive recommendation,’ she said, standing up and putting Whitey on the desk despite his plaintive protest. ‘Tell me, Joe, that pic up there, who’s it by?’
Surprised, because the only picture in his office was the photo of a recovery truck on the free calendar advertising Ram Ray’s garage, Joe followed her gaze. She was looking at Whitey’s tray still perched on the curtain rail above the window.
‘Sorry, I just stuck it up there to dry …’ he began apologizing.
‘You mean you did it yourself? Joe, that’s really great. Do you exhibit?’
‘No! Look, it was just sort of an accident …’
‘Joe, don’t put yourself down. We’ve had a couple of seminars on the Creative Accident this semester and what comes out of it is that all art is a form of accident, or maybe none of it is, which comes to much the same thing. Will you sell it to me?’
‘No!’
It came out a bit explosively and the girl (Joe knew better than to call girls girls these days, but they couldn’t put him in jail for thinking it!) looked so tearfully taken aback that Joe’s soft heart ruled his soft head and he heard himself saying, ‘What I mean is, you want it, you take it. Gift from me. And Whitey.’
Give credit where it’s due was a Mirabelle motto.
‘Well, thank you, Joe,’ she said, clearly overwhelmed. ‘And thank you too, Whitey.’
She picked up the cat from the desk and gave him a big hug.
Story of my life, thought Joe. I do the deals, he gets the profit.
‘Joe,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to run. Literally. You will take my case, won’t you?’
‘I’ll take a look at it,’ he said. ‘But listen, you haven’t heard my rates …’
‘Charge me top dollar, Joe,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m going to be a millionaire, haven’t you read the papers? I’ll be at the Plezz most of the morning. Come and see me there about twelve thirty. OK?’
And she was gone, clutching her tray like a championship trophy.
Joe looked down at the cat postcards she’d left on the desk.
‘Well, I guess I’m hired, Whitey,’ he said. ‘And I don’t know whether to be glad or not. This one could be a real problem.’
And the cat looked at him with an expression which said, the only real problem you’ve got is you’ve just given away my toilet tray, and what the shoot do you intend doing about that?
Despite the fact that it was still only nine o’clock, breakfast felt a long way away.
Joe popped round the corner to Mr Palamides’s hardware shop where he bought a new litter tray in puce plastic. He foresaw trouble with the colour but it was all Mr P had.
‘OK, it does shout at you,’ he said to Whitey. ‘But have you seen the new gents at the Glit?’
The