Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Cut

He liked to organize weekend getaways for the company’s upper crust, and spy on them while they held secret meetings in their rooms, gossiping about Flake, or plotting against him. Many an executive had been given the boot after such a weekend, for scheming against the boss. It had been a way for the designer to keep his fingers in every possible pie, and hold the company reins firmly in hand. According to Pussy all of his other houses were equipped with the same setup, and even the company headquarters in Paris.

With another flick of the paw, Pussy booted up the system, and all the screens flickered to life—in black and white, of course. She handled the joystick with remarkable ease, and brought up one screen in particular: the main meeting room in the basement, where the conference was about to begin.

She flicked a button and now we had sound, too. She hopped down from the console and moved swiftly to the door. “Watch and learn, you guys.”

“Maybe you should stay,” I suggested.

“I told you, Max—I can’t,” she said, with the same pained look she’d displayed before. The loss of her human had hit her hard, that much was obvious, but the uncertainty about her future was even harder to bear.

“We’ll tell you everything you need to know,” Dooley promised.

She smiled. “You’re good cats, both of you. Never change, will you?” And with these words she left the room, and allowed the hidden panel to swing back into place. Now we were effectively cut off from the rest of the house.

“Never change?” said Dooley. “What does she mean, Max?”

“I have no idea,” I said, jumping up onto Flake’s chair—the one where he spent all those hours spying on his own people—hunting down the plotters.

“Because we do change, don’t we? I noticed this morning that a black hair is growing out of my left ear. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there yesterday.”

“A lot of hair grows out of your ears, Dooley. It’s because you’re a cat.”

“Yeah, but like I said, this particular hair wasn’t there before. And I know this because it’s black, and I don’t have black hairs growing out of my ears.”

I wasn’t going to discuss the color of the hairs in Dooley’s ears, for judging from the buzz sounding from the speakers, the meeting was about to start. And since I didn’t want to miss a thing—for Pussy’s sake—focus was key.

“I could always pull out the hair, of course,” Dooley went on. “But I’m not sure if that’s the way to go. They do say that when you pull out a hair it only grows back thicker and more horrible than before. Or I could cut it. Maybe cutting a hair doesn’t alter its shape and thickness? What do you think, Max?”

“I think I don’t really care about a single hair in those hairy ears of yours, Dooley,” I said as I watched the screen intently.

“Ouch. That’s a mean thing to say, Max.”

“It’s one hair! Who cares?!”

“Well, I care. If hairs are going to start growing indiscriminately without my permission, what’s next? I might turn into the hairiest cat alive if this keeps up.”

“Lady cats love hair on a male cat,” I said, in a bid to get him to shut up.

“They do? I didn’t know that,” he said, perking up.

“Oh, yeah. The hairier the merrier. Mark my words, the more hair you grow, the more attention you’ll start getting from the ladies.”

“Oh,” he said. “I never looked at it that way.”

He lapsed into silence, and I got ready to learn what I could about Pussy’s fate. Then, suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw that Dooley was performing a peculiar ritual. I turned to him, and saw he was biting himself!

“Dooley! What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to pull out more hair,” he said between two nips into his fur.

“But why?”

“You said it yourself, Max. The hairier the merrier. So I figure if I pull out all of my hair, it will only grow back thicker and shinier, and it will increase my appeal with a factor of at least twelve.”

“Dooley, that whole spiel about hair growing back thicker is only a myth. It grows back, but not thicker than before.”

“It doesn’t?” he said, a tuft of gray hair between his lips.

“It doesn’t. So please stop pulling out your hair and start watching the meeting with me, will you? We owe it to Pussy to do this right.”

“Okay,” he said, and spat out his hair, which fluttered to the concrete floor of Flake’s secret control room.

On the screen, about a dozen people had taken a seat around the table. At the head of the table an old woman sat, and when I say old I mean ancient. She looked about a hundred, was seated in a wheelchair, and was sucking from an oxygen mask. Behind her stood a sturdy female nurse, administering the oxygen from a bulky tank on wheels.

For the rest there were plenty of men and women in suits, and they all looked very serious and businesslike.

“First off, I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re all deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic death of our friend and founder, Leonidas Flake,” suddenly spoke a man with a natty little mustache and thick-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, and his hair was combed neatly back from a high forehead. He now raised a glass of what looked like champagne. “A toast. To the man. The myth. The legend. Monsieur Leonidas Flake.”

Echoes of his words rang out around the table, all those present standing for a moment—except the lady in the wheelchair—and raising their glasses in a salute to Leo Flake.

“I call this meeting to order,” said the chairman. “And I think I speak for all of us when I say that the tragic events have shaken us to the core. Leo’s death came as a shock to me personally, but I think it’s imperative that we carry on. Leo would have wanted the company that he built from scratch to continue and to flourish, even without him.”

“Is it true, Xavier, that Gabe is the culprit?” asked a woman with wavy blond hair.

“It would appear so,” said Xavier, adjusting his glasses. “At least that’s what the police have told me. Gabe has been arrested, and he has been charged.”

Sounds of shock reverberated through the room.

“But why?” asked a well-coiffed older lady. “Why did he do it?”

“A lovers’ tiff?” said Xavier, who seemed to be the one in charge. “A jealous rage? A momentary lapse of sanity? Who knows? I’m sure the police will keep us abreast of the exact circumstances of Leo’s death. The only thing we need to concern ourselves with right now is the appointment of a new president and CEO and figuring out how to take this company into the future. Leonidas was a strong leader. A hands-on leader. And until the very last he designed all of his own collections, with the assistance of a small cadre of minions like myself,” he added with a smile, “but always under his guiding genius. So the first question we need to ask ourselves is this: can we continue existing at the high level of excellence that we have, in the absence of the master couturier?”

For the next half hour or so, a discussion ensued on what, exactly, constituted the Leonidas Flake brand, and if it was possible for anyone to step into the shoes of the master, and provide continuity for a company now officially in crisis. Apparently in the recent past several talented designers had been hired to assist Flake, only to be kicked to the curb by the old master within the space of weeks or sometimes even days. It would appear he’d figured he’d live forever, and hadn’t condoned anyone to take the baton.

The only one who’d come close was this Xavier person—full name Xavier Yesmanicki—who confessed he was more a glorified administrator than a creative genius like Leo Flake. At the end of the discussion, Xavier had assumed the role of president and CEO, and now the conversation turned to the recruitment of fresh talent, either in-house or outside the company, to create the spring collection—the fall collection had been created by Flake.