Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

“I do know a lot of things about the larger world. I guessed where I was. I seem to be . . . highly observant. I don’t like to be helpless. I don’t trust. I’ve been building my upper body strength to compensate for the casts on my legs. I’ve started moving them from the hip, though it hurts like hell. I’m not taking my knockout meds like a good little boy.”

Randolph was nodding sagely. “Your instincts are inbred. That’s what saved you in the . . . accident.”

“How?”

“You saw the brutal impact coming. You did what few people can manage in a crisis. You let your body go limp so it didn’t fight the blow. You also bowed your head into your arms, avoiding brain injury.”

“I seem to have scraped my pellucid skin pretty damn hard.”

“And your vocabulary doesn’t seem to have suffered.”

Old man Randolph grinned. He felt his scabbed cheek stretching painfully to grin back. Still, it felt good.

“So I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t an incompetent ass.”

“Never.”

“What was I doing? Where did I fall?”

“I don’t want to give you specifics, although you’ve trained to resist truth serums. You intended to ‘drop out’ from your current life, your current role, because some very nasty people were after you. You arranged your own accidental exit. Then someone else lent you an unsuspected helping hand. Only your lightning reflexes, superb physical condition, and raw nerve saved you from instant annihilation.”

“Lightning reflexes and raw nerve. You think I still have them? The superb physical condition is shot.”

“Indubitably. Trust your survival instincts. You’ll recover the rest with time. But trust no one, except me. I’ve brought you a world away from the scene of the attempted murder, but we’re dealing with an international . . . force here. I want you out of here as soon as you can limp away. Meanwhile, play the slowly recuperating invalid. Especially in the area of your memory. The more you remember, the more you endanger yourself.”

He nodded. The advice was useful . . . if he was really James Bond. See. He remembered all the petty, pop culture stuff, the learned-in-school stuff, just nothing about himself.

He considered further, then nodded. “They’ve sicced a psychiatrist on me to work on my memory.”

Randolph sighed. “The formidably brilliant and attractive Doctor Schneider.”

“You think she’s an enemy?”

“She is if she teases your personal memory back too soon. Do you think you can keep her dangling without learning anything?”

He thought. “A challenge. She’s very good at what she does.

I’m not quite sure what exactly that is yet. I’ll enjoy finding out.” He glanced at the older man. “Apparently I’m heterosexual?”

The hazel eyes twinkled. “Seriously.”

He smiled. Max whoever-the-hell-he-was smiled. Even though it hurt.

“Let the games begin.”

Boys Just Want

to Have Fun

Once the Fontana brothers and Uncle Mario are bound (but not gagged), their captors pause to shake out shiny heads of variously colored hair like show cats flaunting themselves before a captive audience.

And the Fontana brothers start spitting out a series of feminine first names. Obviously, this is not stranger-on-stranger crime.

And, just as obviously, the boys are not one bit amused by the revelation.

“What kind of cockamamie deal is this?” Uncle Mario demands of the women and his nephews. “I do not care who knows who, nobody disarms the Fontanas. If you know these dizzy dames, boys, you better get some bridles on them before they ride you all to the branding station.”

While the women boo and hiss Uncle Mario, the guys fight their bonds, no longer respectful of the firearms and furious at being corralled by their own girls.

“We used to know them,” Ernesto says coldly. “Before we found out what crazies they were. I am not kidding. Let us loose, or you will be sorry.”

“We are sorry already,” one woman says. “You are all ready to mount up and celebrate Aldo’s getting married, but you would not consider any of us for the altar to save your lives.”

“Maybe to save our lives,” Aldo puts in. He gives his brothers and uncle a cautioning glance. “We know who still holds the firepower, and the keys to our handcuffs, and maybe our hearts.”

One of the women dangles a set of keys small enough for a jewelry box.

The brothers boo her.

“Now, guys,” Aldo says. “I can see why they are so steamed. I am getting married, but we all went off to party without them, and I have not exactly seen you buying any engagement rings and doing likewise.”

“That is no reason to take us prisoner,” Julio grumbles.

“Prisoners of love,” one girl coos.

I feel a hairball coming on.

But Aldo leaps on opportunity. “See, guys! The girls just want to prove to you that they can give you a better time than any bachelor party paid escort. It is a matter of hurt pride.”

“You think?” Ralph asks.

“They are sure not doing this because they want me or Uncle Mario in their manicured clutches, right, girls?”

Uncle Mario curses under his breath, but the girls’ cries and whispers overwhelm him.