Dorsai - Taxi

After that, she didn't have anything else to say until I pulled up at the address she'd given me. It was a small house on a small lot, but neat, tidy, and looked to be in good repair. It took her a few seconds to realize we weren't moving; when she came out of whatever daze she was in, she told me "Thanks, Jim. I owe you more than I can say. Will you at least let me pay you for the ride, and maybe have a drink? I need somebody to talk to, and I think you're just the person."

I considered it for a moment before answering "Okay, I'll take you up on the drink. Don't worry about the ride; I was on my way home, anyway, and getting you here isn't much off of that."

She graced me with a smile, and got out. She waited until I'd shut down and locked my rig before leading the way to the front door. The outfit she had on was pretty damn form-fitting, and I could see that she had a particularly fine ass sitting atop a couple of nicely-shaped legs and from the way she moved – that she was not just fit, but graceful as well. It was nice watching her walk ahead of me.

The inside of her place looked to be fairly nice. It wasn't loaded down with antiques or anything, just simply furnished and decorated. The couch she directed me to was large and very comfortable; when I was seated, she told me "I'm going to go ahead and change out of this into something more comfortable. It won't take me but a minute. What would you like to drink?", followed by a list of the liquors she had on hand. I named my preference, and she said that sounded good to her, too. With a brief "I'll be right back…", she left. As I was sitting there, a couple of cats wandered in, and both came over to check me out. It didn't take long for one of them to take up station on my lap so she could purr at me while I rubbed one of her ears; the other sat on the arm of the couch where he found my chin-rubbing skills acceptable. We were still like that when Bonnie made her reappearance – wearing only a too-large football jersey and a pair of panties. I knew the jersey was all she was wearing up top by the faint swaying of her breasts as she moved; the panties were revealed when she sat at the other end of the couch after setting my drink on the end table, and tucked her legs underneath herself.

A clearly amused Bonnie told me "I see you've met Antony and Cleopatra."

"Yeah, they came in to see who the tourist was, and decided I was okay."

"Oh, Cleopatra likes pretty much everybody, but Antony's a little pickier. Actually, I'm surprised and impressed that he's letting you touch him."

"Okay, the surprised I can understand. But impressed?" I asked.

"Yeah, impressed. If Antony is willing to let you rub his chin like that, then it tells me a lot about you; most people don't like, or don't understand, cats enough to be able to relate to them. You do, and that's actually kind of rare."

I smiled as I told her "I'm owned by a cat at home" – she laughed – "by the name of Demosthenes, so I get plenty of instruction on how to please my betters."

She got a slightly puzzled look on her face and asked "Demosthenes? That sounds familiar… Greek, I think, but I can't remember exactly."

"Demosthenes was guy in Greek legend that wandered the countryside with a lit lantern, day or night, looking for an honest man."

"And has your Demosthenes found an honest man?" she asked, taking a sip of her drink and watching me over the rim of the glass.

"If he hasn't, it isn't because I don't try", I answered.

About that time, Antony decided that he needed some attention from her, and simply walked across me to get to where Bonnie was sitting – much to her amusement. With my hand free, I took a sip of my own drink, which turned out to be some damn fine scotch. When I set the glass down again, Bonnie asked "How is it that an honest man is willing to tell lies to a police officer?"

I considered what I wanted to say for a few moments before answering "You told me that you were involved with those animal rights types, but that you bailed out on them when they started trashing the place and leaving those whatever-they-were things around. The way I figured it, there wasn't any purpose to letting you get busted for the crap they were doing. Yeah, you went IN with them, but you also left when they went too far. I think that it would be a bigger injustice for you to get lumped in with whatever punishment they get, than it was to lie to the Sarge. If I was wrong about you, then you'll probably end up getting busted for something else later on. If I was right, then this was the wakeup call you needed to get your shit together. Either way, I don't think it's likely to happen again."

"Well, it was a wakeup call, and I am going to get my shit together, as you put it. I can only hope that those clowns have at least some honor, and don't get ME arrested, too, because they're mad I ran out on them."

"You said that it wasn't long between the time you decided to split, and when the security people turned up?"

"No, not even a couple of minutes, I don't think. Why?"

"They may decide that you just did a better job of hiding or getting away than they did. Or it may pop into their heads that you left because you knew security was coming – there's no telling. Whichever way it goes, you still need to figure out not just what you're going to do, but what you're willing to."

"What do you mean 'willing to do'?"

"I mean, if you decide you don't want to be part of their group any more, how far are you willing to go to keep it from happening? If they threaten you with something, what then? Do you give in, or are you going to 'fess up to the cops if necessary to put an end to it? That kind of thing."

She nodded her understanding, and got lost in her own thoughts for a bit. After I'd taken another sip of my drink, she came out of it and asked "What do YOU think about all of this? What I was doing, and who those folks are, and such?"

"I don't fault you in the slightest for your desire to help abused animals. I know that there are still too many places that don't follow the 'rules' about how they treat the animals they use. One of the arguments used by animal rights people is that animals are animals and people are people, and that there's nothing to be learned from using an animal to try and find cures for human problems. Except that any biologist will tell you that there are similarities between humans and some animals. So while finding a treatment for heart disease that works on, say, a pig isn't an exact cure for a human, it's certainly close enough to let them know whether or not to at least try it on people. Another part of the deal with them is that they try to lump all animal researchers together, so that if or when they find even ONE that abuses animals, they can use that as justification for going after all such research. Before you went to that place tonight, what did you know about them?"

Embarrassed, Bonnie admitted "Not much. Nothing, actually, except what the others told me."

"Think back about how the animals looked tonight, and decide whether or not they looked 'abused' to you."

She did, and when she was done, she told me "They didn't – not even a little bit. They were all friendly, and seemed to be pretty happy, and in good shape."

"That's because the place you went to does behavioral research, not medical. You probably missed the newspaper article some months ago that told how that facility even has what they call a 'Care Critters' program to take dogs and cats into hospitals as therapy for some of the patients. All they ever do with the animals they have is try to figure out why the animals do what they do; none of them is ever given any kind of drugs or chemicals, injected with anything, operated on, or anything else. In fact, there's a waiting list of people that want to adopt their test animals when they're done with them. Does that sound like the kind of place that was worth the crimes you committed? Trespassing? Breaking and Entering? Theft? Burglary? Or any of the things that the other folks with you started doing?"