Рита Браун - The Big Cat Nap

“She knows animals. Softhearted, so softhearted.” The tiger cat smiled. “She gives to the animal shelter. Tight as she is, she’ll give money to panhandlers even. I wish she wouldn’t.”

“Why?” Pewter asked.

“So many of those people lie. They can work. A lot of them are drunks. It’s a scam. I don’t like to see her fall for a sob story.”

“Why don’t they just die?” Pewter remarked. “Any animal that doesn’t find its food, work for it, dies except them. They keep everyone going no matter how useless. It’s sick.” Pewter watched as Harry reached the edge of the pasture, which bordered the strong-running, deep-sided creek. “Well, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it’s sick, but it’s wasteful.” Mrs. Murphy considered the subject.

Flatface called down, “Humans think human life is more important than any other kind of life. Ego. All ego.”

“Harry’s not like that. She treasures life. Susan, Fair, and BoomBoom do, too.” Mrs. Murphy felt a flash of pride as Harry crossed back to the tractor and waved to Susan, careful to walk in her same steps so as not to tramp down more hay.

“The exceptions prove the rule,” Flatface countered, then called down, “Someone’s coming. I don’t know who it is.”

A snoozing Tucker awakened when the car reached a quarter mile from the house. If awake, the dog would have heard the tread all the way down to the mailbox, almost a mile away.

“Intruder.”

Harry heard the bark. She called to Susan, climbed up on the tractor, and—grateful the hydraulics were working—lifted the non-rotating bush hog up off the ground, as she’d shut off the PTO. Then she drove back to the house—where she beheld the alluring WRX STI.

“Harry.” Victor Gatzembizi greeted her, stepping out of the Subaru. “You could appear in a John Deere ad. You look darned good on a tractor.”

Swinging down, she replied, “Thank you. Victor, I am so sorry for all your troubles. Come on in and let’s have a cold drink together.”

“Thank you, but I’ve got to get back to the shop.” He turned as another car approached. “Jason’s driving me back.”

“How about if I give you both cold drinks to go?” She ran into the house, returning with two cans of iced tea. “Nothing’s as good as the tea you make yourself, but these aren’t so bad.”

“Thank you.” Victor took the cans and walked back to Jason, who was driving a Nissan Altima, newly repaired and out for a test spin.

“Nice car. I see so many of those on the road,” Harry remarked.

“Nissan, Subaru, Toyota. Good cars, but I’m telling you, the Koreans are catching up fast. Really fast.” Victor reached into the shiny black WRX STI and pulled out the keys, handing them to her. “I can’t stand to look at this car right now and neither can Mrs. Ashby. You keep it, drive it until after July fourth, and then tell me what you think.”

Harry hesitated a moment, thought about the circumstances. “I really don’t see how I can afford this, but I’ll keep it until then. I can imagine that seeing Nick’s car might be difficult.”

He shook his head. “Three men, all from my shop. I can’t find any connection other than that they worked for me. Not one of them played around with drugs, stuff like that. I even had a wild thought about one of them bringing in illegal immigrants. I’ve tried to think of anything that would be high profit, against the law. What is there but drugs and workers?”

“Prostitution.”

“Harry, I know Bobby, Nick, and Walt didn’t go that route. Watching porn, well”—he shrugged his shoulders—“probably, but paying a hooker? No.”

“I meant running a high-class or even low-class hooking ring. I bet you there’d be takers in the audience at drag racing.”

An astonished look crossed his regular, pleasant features. “Uh, I never thought of that. Anyone ever tell you you have an unusual mind?”

“Fair and my friends, all the time.” She laughed. “But you said illegal, and I assume high profit. That’s all I can come up with.”

He folded his hands together. “It’s driving me crazy.”

In the background, they heard the rumble of the truck as Susan drove the spider-wheel tedder, still at her chores.

“I can imagine.”

“I knew those guys, I really knew them. By the way, the report from the chief medical examiner’s office said Bobby was full of Quaaludes. He couldn’t have defended himself. I never saw him take any drug. He had to have been purposefully drugged, then killed.”

“I truly am sorry.”

“I’ve hired special security for the shop. I can’t really afford it, personally, for Jason”—he nodded in the direction of the Altima—“Sammy, or Lodi. I’ve advised them to always have someone with them when they travel. I’ve even suggested they not drive. Have a family member take them to work and pick them up—at least until this is solved.”

“Good advice.” Harry felt the keys in her hand. Someone—Nick, likely—had hung a lucky rabbit’s foot on the key chain.

After more chat and another thank-you from Harry, Victor and Jason drove down the long driveway. Harry felt the temporary use of the car was also a peace offering for Jason’s behavior the other day. She couldn’t wait to tell Susan, to give her friend a drive, but first Harry marched right in to the kitchen and took the rabbit’s foot key chain off the key. She put on a key chain of her own, with a little flashlight hanging from it.

That rabbit’s foot was anything but lucky.

T his is fantastic.” Susan, while hardly a car enthusiast, still appreciated the acceleration of the WRX STI when she mashed the pedal to the floor.

“That’s why it’s called a pocket rocket. Handles like butter.” In the passenger seat, Harry grinned.

Harry wanted to treat Susan for turning hay in the unremitting sun. What Harry had just cut needed at least two days to cure, partly to let the blister bugs run out. Susan had turned yesterday’s cutting. They showered after that sweaty job.

They’d known each other all their lives—sisters, really. Neither woman had siblings, a rare occurrence for their generation. Kindergarten, grade school, high school, Harry and Susan did everything together. They did attend different colleges but spent summers together and even went to Europe upon college graduation. Susan’s people had more money than Harry’s, but Harry’s wonderful mom and dad saved for a year to send her overseas as a graduation present. Susan was a business major, while Harry studied art history. Like most traveling young people, they enjoyed and endured many adventures. They returned to their native Virginia with a deeper appreciation of their own state and country, as well as a wider view of the world. Both had learned that every country has gifts and every country can do many things better than we do.

“Do you know how many years it’s been since I drove a stick shift?” Susan slowed for the intersection with Route 240.

As she lurched forward, one of the Zippo lighters with a flag on it given to the men by Blair Bainbridge slid out from under the seat.

“Given that you’re knocking the fillings out of my teeth, I’d guess it’s been a good twenty years.”

Laughing, Susan replied, “That’s about right. God, it is fun, though. I really feel like I’m driving the car.”