The Lion’s ShareWes Noyer, P.I.
Saturday, Oct 1
Le Chat Noir—that’s French for ‘The Black Cat.’ Old friends on the force call me that to get a rise out of me, but I’m not a bakery treat and they’re no longer friends. They’re just a bunch of men and women who don’t know how lost they are, yet. Le Chat Noir—they’ve been calling me that so long I don’t think they remember my real name anymore. So long that I adopted it and even put it on my P.I. business card under my name, Wes Noyer, which itself serves as a reminder of who I really am. The subtitle is my new badge, in a figurative sort of way, and people remember it. The common folk think of it more and more fondly. Those cockroaches in the underbelly of the city are beginning to feel dread at its mention. It hardly ever gets a laugh anymore. When Le Chat Noir is on your trail, you’d better watch the shadows, or so they say.
On the morning of Saturday of October 1st, the Addams couple stood in my office wringing their hats as if they meant to speed up my arrival by doing so. I had a stop to make at the corner store for breakfast, though, for whipping cream—the hard stuff—and this had me running a few minutes late. When I finally arrived, I poured myself a saucer and lapped at it as the man and woman, both middle-aged, faces aged with worry, looked at one another as if to ask if they should just speak or wait a little longer.
‘Detective Noyer—,’ the man began but I held up a paw to silence him, then corrected him with, ‘Private investigator. I prefer investigator. Detective reminds me of the force. It reminds me of all the cases that went cold due to the bureaucracy and quotas. Now the only thing around here that goes cold is my cream, I assure you.’
‘We’ve heard you’re the best,’ the man said in a practiced manner. He had been waiting for his turn to speak. He acknowledged nothing I’d said with a real response. The man simply gave a thoughtful nod. His face, though heavy with worry, spoke of an easy life and a nature of trust. He had rarely if ever been conned or cheated, much less told no. This was likely because of his overall friendly demeanor and rich company. Though privileged, he maintain an attitude of respect. I was used to such fruitless dialogues. People who came to me were desperate and shunned by the police just as I was. Incapable of a smile and less capable of a warm welcome.
‘And the worst…’ the woman muttered under her breath. Though my keen cat ears heard it, I pretended I didn’t. She was stressed, so I let it slide. She would come to trust in my skills in time.
Her husband shushed her, then continued, ‘It’s our Lucy. She’s missing.’
Pulling out my notepad, I asked him to describe Lucy. He answered in fragmented sentences as if he were a witness to a masked robbery and not describing a beloved one at all. This was not uncommon in my line of work. Who describes loved ones on a regular basis, after all? Not many.
‘White. Neatly maintained fur,’ he said. ‘About your height. Sweet.’
‘A cat?’
‘Is that a problem?’ I took his response as an affirmative.
‘No,’ I said, not entirely sure myself. ‘No problem. Would she have a reason to run away, Mr. Addams?’
He shook his head. ‘We treat her like the princess she is.’
This Lucy was last seen Friday night according to Mr. Addams. His thin mustache was wet with grief for the entirety of his visit. Lucy supposedly disappeared while the two were at work. Snatched, perhaps, from their small mansion on Main street. Honest, as I was, I told the couple that their Lucy probably ran away. At this they became angry, taking my assumption as a personal attack. Then they softened, pulling shawls of desperation tight around their bowed shoulders, which muffled their mouths except when needed to plead: ‘Please.’ There was money in this case, too, but it was the hopelessness in their eyes that really gripped me. The police wouldn’t touch this case since it was a certain failure, but in my capable paws and with my street connections, I had a good chance. I told them I’d take the case. Asked for half the payment up front and a meager sum for expenses I’d likely accrue on my investigation.
I studied the photo of Lucy that Mrs. Addams loaned me in the lamplight of my office. The photo had already been damaged with her troubled fingers by the time I got it. Still, Lucy’s pleasant face was recognizable. She was indeed a very pretty cat. Purebred, no doubt.
After another saucer of cream, I stopped at my usual spot, a cabaret by the name of The Lion’s Share. It’s a shady joint lousy with faces you quickly forget if you ever managed to remember them at all. You don’t go to a cabaret for fine dining, but the grub was decent, the cream hard, and the stage show a collection of poets and interpretive dancers. Nobody went here for any of those things, though. They assembled at The Lion’s Share to plan gigs, divvy up takes, and hide information from curious ears.
I came to shake that information out of them.
After ordering a cream on the rocks, I grabbed my usual booth in a dark corner. From my corner I could see both entrances and the stage. It was Felipe Femur & The Skeletones playing that night, one of the better performances in my memory. A jazz ensemble consisting of an Australian vampire on stand-up bass, a sickly looking witch on cauldron drums, a plump werewolf playing a mean saxophone, and a skeleton singing and shaking maracas with vigor.
As they played their jazz rendition of Monster Mash, my memories emerged and nearly swallowed me whole. I gargled the rest of my cream and shook myself awake, burying my past as I always did. As I had to…
I might have missed him if I hadn’t looked up just then. Lars ‘Legs’ De Tullio, the youngest, scrawniest, least experienced De Tullio brother, leaned on the bar counter, looking untouchable. He plucked a switch-comb from his jeans pocket and teased his blonde pompadour. Then, sipping at his glass of milk, he began to survey the room, his gaunt head bouncing to a beat altogether different than the one the band produced. I widened my eyes so that the stage light would reflect off them. They glowed yellow, I knew from the reflections of recollection.
My eyes caught Lars De Tullio’s attention and after he squinted a moment into the darkness of my booth he took off running. I dropped a Lincoln on the table and took up chase, catching Lars halfway down the side alley behind The Lion’s Share, thinking he needed a better nickname that Legs. I couldn’t tell if the sweat on his forehead was from his short run or fear, but I know he had something to hide.
‘Why are you running, Legs?’ I asked. Climbing up his slender leg, I dug my claws in deep as if to fish the answers out through his skin.
‘Running?’ Lars laughed nervously. Light from the adjacent street cut across his face. ‘Who’s running. I just remembered I was supposed to meet up with Cornelius and Fred.’
‘Meet up with your brothers and break some laws?’
‘That’s none of your—’
‘Business?’ I worked my claws in deeper. ‘Tonight it very much is my business. You saw me and you ran, because you know I’m on a case. And I think you know whose case.’
‘No—’ Lars hissed as I dug my claws deeper and began to wiggle them. Lars felt the tickle and began to laugh. ‘OK! OK! I’ll talk. Just let me go.’
I did. Retrieving the photo of Lucy, I held it out to him.
‘What do you know about this poor cat?’
It took him a moment for him to stop wincing and open his eyes to look at the photo. He looked it up a down before a subtle smile sprouted on his lips.
‘What a beauty,’ Lars said, unable to contain a giggle. This stray giggle was disconcerting. I couldn’t be sure if it was just a lingering laugh from when I tickled him, or the result of some secret knowledge. I couldn’t ask without losing ground, so I kept my mouth buttoned. Lars added, ‘Sure is a pretty girl.’
‘You’ve seen her? Where is she? What do you kno—’ Something collided with the back of my furry head. I was so eager to hear what Lars knew that I failed to keep an ear out behind me. A lesson learned. A lump to remember.
I woke up in a pile of trash in the same alley, but Lars was long gone. After making my way to the nearest payphone, I hesitated before calling the Addams family. They needed to know how serious the situation was. That Lucy could be in real trouble. If Lucy was mixed up with the De Tullio trio, the case was about to get a lot more dangerous. After fiddling with a couple quarters for a few minutes, thinking, I decided to spare the Addams for now. They were worried enough already and I didn’t want to come to them without some good news, or at least something definite. I’d have to find out what the De Tullio brothers were up to in a less direct way.
I brushed myself off, removing a brown banana peel from the shoulder of my coat. Flicking coffee grounds from my fedora, I was neat again. Even so, I spent a moment licking my fur coat clean. I’d made two passes before I found it. A hand written note stuck to my belly. It had a number on it. As I was by a payphone and it looked to be purposely planted on my person, I called the number. The phone rang and I suddenly wondered if it were just a number someone had thrown away and someone not worth calling. The worst I’d suffer was the embarrassment of saying ‘Sorry wrong number,’ I reasoned, but when the person on the end of the line answered it was immediately clear the number had indeed been meant for me.
‘Good evening, Inspector Noyer.’ The voice was deep and male. Unfamiliar. ‘Lucy doesn’t want to be found. I suggest you stop looking, or the next time you wake up… you might not…uh…wake up.’ The voice cleared his throat. ‘Just stop trying to find Lucy!’
‘Who is this?’ I growled into the phone. ‘Where is she?’
I was answered only by the click of a receiver dropping into its cradle and by a dial tone. The line was dead.
It would seem someone had big plans for Lucy and the conversation, if you could call it that, did the opposite of what it intended. I wasn’t going to give up. I was going to try harder, I decided, as I made my way back to the office, keeping to the shadows near the building sides to avoid both being seen and the puddles that plagued the streets. I needed to clean myself up and collect my thoughts. It was going to be a long night.
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