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“But I thought you said you weren’t going to show your face there again until all of your fur had grown back?”

“I know what I said, but it has grown back a little bit already, and besides, I miss our friends and I’m sure they won’t laugh at me, right?”

Dooley wasn’t as relaxed about my prospects of being laughed at as me, but he, too, said he missed socializing with our friends, so moments later saw two cats flit through the pet flap—well, flit perhaps isn’t the right word for a cat weighing in at twenty pounds moving through an opening designed for amuch slimmer cat, but please bear with me.

So Dooley flitted through the pet flap, I wormed my way through, and then we were zipping along the sidewalk, and soon swept into the park to join our friends for cat choir.

Harriet and Brutus were already there, of course, and so was Kingman, holding court near the jungle gym as usual. Shanille, Father Reilly’s cat and also cat choir’s conductor, was frowning before herself, probably deciding what musical pieces she was going to teach us this time, and plenty of other friends were milling about shooting the breeze.

As you may have guessed by now cat choir is basically just an excuse for us cats to get together of an evening and socialize.

“Max! What happened to you!” Buster cried when he caught sight of me.

“I had a close shave with danger,” I quipped, having decided to make light of my predicament.

“More like a close shave with a razor blade,” said Buster, who is intimately familiar with all things sharp. He inspected my midsection more closely. “Pretty rough work,” he said. “At a glance I’d say they used a blunt blade. Definitely not Fido’s work. I’d recognize his signature style anywhere. So where did you go?”

“Max didn’t go the hairdresser’s,” said Dooley. “He got stuck in a window and was shoved through by an angry homeowner who doesn’t like cats.”

“Oh,” said Buster, taken aback by this, then made a face. “Brrr. You were lucky to make it out of there alive, Max. Those cat haters can be brutal when allowed to go unchecked.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“So who was this cat butcher?”

“Quintin Gardner,” I said. “We were trying to figure out what happened to his wife Vicky, who disappeared twenty years ago.”

“Oh, I remember hearing the story,” said Buster, nodding. “Didn’t she go out for a pack of cigarettes one night and never came back?”

“You’re probably thinking of someone else,” I said.

“Right, right,” said Buster vaguely, then patted my bare belly. “Next time use some aftershave, Max. Takes the edge off.” And with these words, straight from an expert’s lips, he strolled off.

I glanced down at my belly, and saw that Buster was right: there was still a certain measure of razor burn, or, to be more exact, the scratch marks where I’d been shoved through that window. I sighed. The last couple of days had been really tough: I’d been booted through a window, almost drowned—thrice—been shat on by a crazy pigeon, and kicked out of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory by its managing director or CEO.

“I hope Odelia disinfected those wounds, Max,” said Dooley now. “Wounds like that can get infected, and you can get sepsis and die.” He studied me carefully. “How are you feeling? Any headache or nausea? Dizziness? Feeling faint?”

“None of the above, Dooley,” I said with a laugh. “In fact I feel fine.”

“Mh,” he said dubiously, clearly not inclined to take my word for it. “I think you should go and see Vena,” he said finally.

“Vena!”

“You’ve been through a lot. You may have residual trauma. Even brain damage, for all we know. Just to be on the safe side Vena will have to do a CAT scan and make sure.”

“I’m not going to see Vena and I’m not having a CAT scan, Dooley. I promise you that I feel perfectly fine.”

“Mh,” he repeated, then placed his paw against my forehead. “You’re running a fever, Max,” he determined. “If I were you—”

“Look, I’m fine, buddy,” I said, shaking off his probing paw. “I promise you.” I glanced around and caught Brutus’s eye. He was looking at me intently, and now wandered over.

“How are you feeling, Max?” he asked solicitously.

“I’m fine,” I said.

His gaze dropped down to my midsection, only this time, instead of making fun of my sixteen-pack, he shook his head.“I don’t like the look of you, Max. Are you sure you’re fine? Sometimes these traumatic experiences tend to linger, and make their full impact felt much, much later. And I’m not just talking about the door incident—you practically drowned tonight, buddy.”

He placed a paw against my brow, earning himself a nod from Dooley.

I closed my eyes. This was starting to get a little ridiculous.

“You’re hot,” said Brutus. “I don’t like it, Max. I think you should go and see Vena.”

“I’m not going to see Vena!” I cried. “I’m fine, I’m telling you—fine!”

“Delirium,” said Dooley with a knowing nod. “I see it in trauma patients all the time.”

“How would you know anything about trauma patients!” I said, quickly losing my customary equanimity.

“You forget I’m an expert, Max,” said Dooley.