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Oh, darn it. And to think I thought having a human bodyguard would be fun. Clearly I’d been mistaken. And the worst part? We couldn’t even talk to the guy!

Chapter 17

When Chase had accepted the assignment he’d known it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, and now that he was walking in the park, trailing four cats on their way to something called ‘cat choir,’ he was already feeling the strain.

As a rule he was more of a dog person, though he’d come to like and appreciate his girlfriend’s cats in the time he’d spent with them. But still. Having to spend the night looking after four felines while they gathered with dozens of other felines in a park?

Not exactly his idea of a good time!

And so when he finally reached the playground, he was surprised to find that there were so many more cats than he’d anticipated. There were cats all over that jungle gym, cats in the sandbox, cats on the swing, cats on the seesaw and cats on the slide. In fact there were cats everywhere he looked, and they all seemed to be looking at him, too.

And then there was the meowing. Oh, dear Lord, there was so much meowing going on, and mewling, and mewing, and even caterwauling.

It was frankly a little disconcerting to realize that there existed this entire cat population in Hampton Cove that he hadn’t fully been aware of until now.

Max, Dooley, Harriet and Brutus seemed a lot more relaxed about the prospect of encountering this many felines than he was: they mingled with the others, and soon he couldn’t even make out where they’d gone off to. They’d disappeared in a sea of fur.

So he simply took a seat on one of the benches placed there for the moms and dads watching their kids play, and thought that any would-be cat killer would have to be seriously suicidal to try and attack the cats on their own turf, where they were clearly in the majority, and would stand no nonsense.

His phone chimed and he picked it out of his pocket.“Hey, babe,” he said.

“And? How are you holding up, Mr. Catsitter?”

“Frankly, babe? I don’t think your cats need a catsitter at all. There’s so many cats here this cat killer would have to be absolutely crazy to try and attack them.”

“I still appreciate you watching out for them. Oh, and watch out for the…”

Just at that moment the caterwauling had reached a crescendo, and he couldn’t make out what Odelia was saying. It sounded a lot like ‘shoes,’ which of course was just nuts.

But just then, completely out of the blue, a shoe struck him in the head, and he grunted with dismay. The shoe dropped into his lap and he saw that it was an old shoe, and a sturdy one, too.

“What the…” he muttered as he picked it up and studied it. And that’s when a second shoe hit him in the chest. “Oh, for crying out loud!” he said, and got up, glancing around. And then he saw it: in one of the houses facing the park the lights had come on, and an irate citizen was screaming, “Damn cats with your damn screaming every damn night!”

Yep. This was going to be a looooong night.

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Poor Chase was being pummeled by one of our regulars. There are people in this world who appreciate art, and then there are the cultural barbarians, who hate it. And it was just our rotten luck that the park where we like to practice our art is surrounded by these cultural barbarians, who choose to express their disapproval of our nocturnal activities by throwing shoes and other objects in our direction.

I’ve long since passed the moment where I truly care about this peculiar human habit, but obviously Chase, being subjected to this abuse for the very first time, was shocked to be on the receiving end of several items of footwear.

Although in actual fact it had happened before, and in our own backyard, no less, where our next-door neighbor Kurt Mayfield is also a very avid shoe thrower.

Chase now stood shaking his fist at the irate homeowners who stood shaking their fists at us. All in all, the cop wasn’t having a good time, I could tell. And I felt for him.

“Maybe we should tell Odelia to call off this guard duty thing,” I suggested now.

“But what if the cat killer strikes again?” said Dooley. “I feel much safer knowing Chase is right there keeping an eye on us, Max.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I felt much safer, too.

“I think Chase should do this all the time,” said Harriet. “I’ve always wanted my own bodyguard. Makes me feel like a real star. Like Kim Kardashian or Gwyneth Paltrow.”

I’m not sure Chase would enjoy the prospect of being reduced to mere guard duty, on the same level as Kim or Gwyneth’s bodyguards, but then the man couldn’t understand what we said, so it wasn’t as if he’d ever know.