Slim's Goodbye. John R. Erickson

eyes almost bugged out of my head when I heard that. There I was, dying of bacon hunger, roasting on the fires of starvation, waiting in line for him to . . . I caught myself just in time and noticed that Kitty was watching me.

      I beamed up a smile. “Take your time, Pete. Shop around. We want you to have the very best. And if that piece doesn’t suit you, here, let me . . .”

      “Hank!”

      Oops. That was Sally May and, okay, maybe I’d jumped the gun just a tad. Timing is very important in these deals, and just to prove that I was being sincere, I gave Sally May a look that said, “Just trying to help. No kidding.”

      It worked. I know it worked because she said, “That’s better. Nice dog.”

      Heh heh. Little did she know what evil thoughts lurked . . . but then, she wasn’t supposed to know. I had her fooled, that was the important thing.

      I sat down again and watched Kitty-Kitty play with his bacon. Can you believe that? He had this gorgeous, great-smelling piece of bacon fat right there in front of his stupid . . . right in front of his nose, and he played with it! He patted it. He speared it on his claws, held it up, stared at it, sniffed it, licked it, pitched it up, pushed it around, and oh yes, every so often he would cut his eyes in my direction to check my reaction.

      Luckily, he couldn’t see my reaction. It was all happening inside, and there was quite a lot of it. My eyes were bulging, my heart was racing, my breaths were coming in rapid bursts, my mouth was watering, and above it all, I kept hearing this voice that said, “Open outer doors, flood tubes one and three, and plot a solution.”

      Do you know what that means? It means that one part of my inner bean was urging me to attack, pounce on the little sneak, and give him the thrashing he so richly deserved. But I caught myself just in time and kept it all inside.

      Or I tried. This was about to drive me nuts. I turned pleading eyes toward my pal, eyes that said, “Alfred, this is cruel and unfair. Do something.”

      You know what? He did. He checked out his mom, saw that she was looking away, and in a flash he snatched the bacon away from Mister Hateful, flipped it into the air, and . . . heh heh . . . I took care of the rest.

      Old Pete was so shocked, he didn’t know what to say. But then he started getting mad.

      “You stole my bacon, Hankie.”

      That was right. And what did he plan to do about it?