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“Oh, Brutus,” said Marge, relief flooding through her. “Did you get stuck, sweetie?”

She moved to take Brutus from Johnny, but suddenly Jerry growled,“Not so fast.”

And when she glanced at the ferret-faced ex-con, she saw he was holding a gun, and pointing it straight at her!

Chapter 38

Dooley and I had arrived at the park and found ourselves looking out across the duck pond. As far as I could tell there was no sign of Brutus… or turtles, big or small.

“I don’t see any turtles, Max,” said Dooley, who’d noticed the same unmistakable absence of turtles. “Unless they’re very, very small, and they’re hiding in the water, in which case we can’t see them.”

“So let’s ask one of the ducks, shall we?” I suggested, and proceeded to address a nearby duck.

“Mr. Duck!” I said. “Any turtles around these parts that you know of, sir?”

“Or cats?” Dooley added.

The duck stared at us.“You have got to be kidding, right?”

“No, I can assure you that I am not kidding,” I said.

“Me neither,” said Dooley.

“This is a duck pond, cat,” said the duck. “No cats allowed.”

“I can see that,” I said. “And a very nice duck pond it is. So how about turtles?”

“Now why would you think that a duck pond would contain turtles?” asked the duck, who clearly wasn’t the avuncular type of duck.

“A friend of ours recently met a turtle,” I said, deciding to reveal all and leave nothing out. “And this turtle said she’d escaped from a pond where plenty of other turtles were also kept prisoner.”

The duck smiled, as far as a duck can smile. It’s a tough proposition since beaks are not all that conducive to displaying facial expressions. “Do you see any armed guards, cat?”

I looked around.“Um, no.”

“Any fencing? Preventing a stray turtle from escaping this apparent hellhole?”

“No, no fencing,” I said, starting to see what the duck was getting at. “So I assume there are no turtles being kept in this pond against their will?”

“You assume right, cat. There are no turtles in this pond, and even if there were, they would be free to leave, and I’d encourage them to do so at their earliest convenience.”

“Weird,” said Dooley as we walked on. “So no turtles and no Brutus. So where could he have found a second pond in Hampton Cove?”

“I don’t know about a pond, Dooley,” I said, suddenly remembering something, “but I know exactly where we can find turtles. And plenty of them, too.”

Now I know that we as a society should give the criminal element every chance to rehabilitate, but sometimes it is simply not feasible for these hardened folk to do that. Take Johnny Carew and Jerry Vale for instance. They keep getting caught for various crimes committed, and they keep promising the judge that they will change their ways and be good and law-abiding citizens from now on. Only to turn around and once more embrace a life of crime the moment they’ve changed their prison attire for their civvies.

I’m not saying it wasn’t possible for Johnny and Jerry to have opened a pet shop, but I’m saying the odds against such a contingency were staggering. And what pet shop sells thousands of turtles? There simply isn’t a market for a mass offering of the short and stubby species, am I right?

“I think I know where Brutus went off to,” I said therefore.

“To stop another wedding?” Dooley suggested.

“To try and be a hero to turtles.” Brutus had presumably decided to become the Nelson Mandela of turtle liberators, and had gotten himself in trouble as a consequence.

“You know, I was thinking that to stop Marge and Randy’s wedding all we have to do is paint Randy in an unfavorable light,” said Dooley as we hurried out of the park and in the direction of the pet shop I’d seen. “So all we need to do is ask ourselves what Marge doesn’t like in a man.” He glanced at me. “What doesn’t Marge like in a man, Max?”

“Um… she doesn’t like it when a man makes noises when he eats,” I said as a for instance. On more than one occasion I’d seen her give Tex a dirty look when the latter slurped his soup. “Or doesn’t pick up his laundry from the bathroom floor. Or leaves the toilet seat up. Or forgets toput out the garbage. Or forgets her birthday, or wedding anniversary.”

“That’s a lot of stuff. I think we can work with that,” said my friend. “So tomorrow we make sure the toilet seat is always up when Randy has visited the bathroom, that his clothes are left all over the bathroom floor after he’s taken a shower, and, um… I’m not so sure about the slurping sounds, Max. Though we could make slurping sounds and hopefully Marge will think it’s Randy making them. What do you say?”

“Look, Dooley—all these things are minor points of irritation. If Marge really loves Randy Hancock, no amount of dirty laundry on the floor or soup slurping will make her change her mind if she wants to marry the guy. But as we all know by now Randy is gay, so Marge can pursue the man as much as she likes, it won’t make much of a difference.”

“But… I’m gay, too, Max.”

I glanced at my buddy, wondering what he was going on about.