“A naked Chuck Crush showed up in Marge’s bathroom this morning,” Dooley announced as we both lay down next to Kingman, who’d resumed his position in front of the store.

  “Chuck Crush?” said Kingman, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. “What did he want?”

  “The George Calhoun footage,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s right. George and Chuck are like this,” said Kingman, intertwining his claws to indicate how close Chuck and George were. “Well, looks like it’s started already.”

  “And a paparazzo offered Odelia fifty thousand dollars for the film,” Dooley continued.

  Kingman whistled through his teeth. Yes, cats can whistle, though it’s not an easy trick to master. But Kingman, who’s a keen whistler, has perfected the technique. Usually he whistles after passing females, but now it was more as an expression of his astonishment. “That’s a lot of money. So did she accept?”

  “No, she didn’t,” I said. “She told the paparazzo to get lost.”

  “If I were her I would have taken the money,” said Kingman. He shrugged. “But that’s just me, of course. I guess I take after my human in that sense. I just love the money.”

  We all looked up at Wilbur, who was happily sniffing a hundred-dollar bill before giving it a kiss and tenderly tucking it into his cash register, like one would a baby.

  “I don’t think they want to give that film to anyone,” I said. “They agreed to keep it as a guarantee George won’t come after them with his lawyers and take them to court.”

  “A lawyer showed up at the house this morning,” Dooley supplied. “He said he represented George and wanted Tex to hand him the film and sign an NBA.”

  “NDA,” I corrected him.

  “Or else he would sue.”

  “See, that’s the trouble with these Hollywood types,” said Kingman. “They immediately threaten to sue. That’s why you need to get this film out into the open. That way they can’t sue.”

  “I would think that’s exactly when they’d sue,” I said.

  “No, see, the moment that film is out there, you’re safe. There’s nothing they can do. Of course you don’t publish it yourself. You leak it, so it can’t be traced back to you.”

  “Huh,” I said, wondering if Kingman was right. It would certainly ease the pressure George was bringing to bear on our humans. First that lawyer, then Chuck Crush and then the paparazzo. If this kept up, soon all of George’s friends would descend upon the house to lay their hands on that film.

  But since I had other, more pressing matters to consider—namely how to convince Odelia to buy me this Pet Funnel 5000—I soon forgot all about George and his embarrassing film, and gave myself up to thought.

  12

  And I probably would have lain there indefinitely, for I had to admit Kingman had selected a perfect spot to engage in one of cats’ favorite activities, namely people watching, if not suddenly I detected that same small group of kids bearing down on us once again, uttering cries of ‘MokeMax is close!’ and ‘This time I’ll catch him!’

  “Oh, no,” I muttered, and tried to hide underneath a crate of fresh tomatoes.

  Unfortunately it appeared as if our positions were already compromised, for as the kids approached, they immediately zoomed in on us, making a beeline for me and Dooley.

  And so for the second time that morning, I bellowed, “Run, Dooley, run!”

  And then we were running for our lives once again. This time I made the tactical decision to head indoors, hoping they wouldn’t follow us into the store, but of course those pesky kids defied all reason and the rules of propriety and did exactly that.

  Dooley and I raced through the shop, threading our way through the legs of the myriad of customers sampling Wilbur’s fine wares, past the counter where fresh meats and fish are sold, past the fridges filled with dairy products, and into the private space Kingman had shown us only moments before. But judging from the excited chattering from the kids, led by that blond-haired girl and that freckle-faced snotty-nosed kid, that plastic strip door curtain didn’t deter them from following us, and neither did the sign that said, ‘Private! Keep out!’ And then we were faced with a barrier that seemed both inviting and formidable in its refusal to let us pass: the high-tech Pet Funnel 5000!

  “It won’t let us pass, Max!”’ said Dooley, as the thing plainly refused to budge.

  The light blinked red, and it even made a tinny beeping sound as if to say: ‘You will not pass!’ Even Gandalf the Grey could have picked up a thing or two from this machine.

  And so we decided to try a different tack, and raced up the staircase, hoping that the kids would at least not follow us there, as it led straight to Wilbur’s apartment above the store. They wouldn’t dare to go there, would they?

  But of course they did!

  “I’ve got ‘em!” the snotty kid bellowed.

  “We’ve got ‘em cornered!” the blond girl screamed, their phones held out like weapons in front of them, and apparently showing them exactly where to go!

  “I don’t believe this,” I told my friend as we slipped underneath Wilbur’s bed in the hope of riding out this storm. “They seem to know exactly where we are at all times!”

  “I don’t know how they do it, Max,” said Dooley, panting hard. “It’s almost as if they can smell us!”

  Moments later we heard them moving closer, and I could already hear the nasally challenged kid snuffling and whispering, “I think they’re under the bed!”

  “I saw them first!” said the fair-haired girl. Her and the other kid seemed to be the ringleaders.

  “They found us, Max!” Dooley cried in utter dismay.

  “I know—let’s give them the slip—out through the balcony. Now!”

  And so we raced from under the bed, and made our way over to Wilbur’s bedroom balcony, and glanced around frantically for an avenue of escape. All I could see was another tall tree, and even though I was getting sick and tired of trees, I saw no other recourse than to make the jump, and moments later both Dooley and myself were up another tree, watching as five kids stood crowding on Wilbur’s balcony, excitedly pointing their phones, and gibbering that they’d found us and how they were going to catch us!

  “I don’t get it, Max!” Dooley said. “How do they do it!”

  “And more importantly: why!” I returned his heart’s cry with a question of my own.

  And since the snotty kid seemed eager to make the jump, too, but was held back by the blond girl, and presumably also by the memory of that fireman who’d recently had to save him from that other tree, we climbed as high as we could, straight to the top.

  And as we watched on with distinct interest, suddenly Wilbur himself appeared on the scene, and bellowed, “What the hell are you kids doing in my bedroom! Out! Get out now!”

  And even though the kids were obviously reluctant to abandon their prey, they adhered to Wilbur’s wish to rid his bedroom of five nosey kids by following him out.

  And then it was just Dooley and myself again—up there in that tree!

  “Now how do we got down from here?” asked Dooley.

  “We can always jump back to that balcony,” I suggested.

  But to do that we first needed to climb down again, and as I have already amply demonstrated, while climbing trees is a cinch for us, climbing down is a lot harder.

  And as we sat there in that tree, wondering how to proceed, all of a sudden we saw movement in Wilbur’s bedroom again, only this time it wasn’t the kids, or Wilbur, but a young blond woman, who reminded me of the blond woman Kingman had described. She was rifling through Wilbur’s stuff and glancing back to the door in a way that made me assume she was extremely eager not to be detected by the homeowner himself.

  “What is she doing, Max?” asked Dooley, looking on with distinct interest.

  “Looks like she’s looking for something,” I said as I watched her like a hawk.

  “Looking for what?” asked my friend.

  “Money, maybe?” I said. “Wilbur probably keeps some ready cash at hand.”

  Many people incorrectly assume that since Wilbur runs his own business, and has a flourishing shop on Main Street, he must be the local Scrooge McDuck, swimming in gold. I very much doubt that is the case, though. Oftentimes your small business owner isn’t swimming in gold so much as drowning in bills, and has trouble keeping his head above the water.

  As we watched on, the woman now appeared on the balcony, took out her phone, and urgently spoke into the device. “I can’t find it, Marky. Are you sure it’s here?” She listened for a moment, then grimaced. “I’ve looked everywhere, and I don’t think he’s got it.” She listened again for a few beats, then said, “Poole? As in Tex Poole, that nice doctor?”

  “She’s talking about our human, Max!” Dooley said. “She’s talking about Tex!”

  “I know, Dooley,” I said, as I tried to hear what this Marky person was saying. Unfortunately, even though cats have powerful hearing, I couldn’t quite catch it.

  “Okay, Marky. If you’re sure,” said the woman, and then disconnected. She stood staring off into space for a few moments, then returned inside, and was gone.

  Moments later, Kingman appeared on the balcony, saw us clinging to that tree, and laughed heartily. I guess we did provide a pretty funny sight.

  “I better get Wilbur out here,” said Kingman. “Unless you want to keep hanging out there all day?”

  “No, Kingman,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “Me neither,” said Dooley in a small voice.

  And shaking his head at such merriment, Kingman disappeared, and even though I would have spurred him on in word or deed, it was obvious he wasn’t in a hurry to get us out of our predicament!

  And so we watched first how Wilbur appeared, who also produced a loud guffaw when he saw us clinging to his tree, then disappeared again. It took another twenty minutes before Odelia and Chase arrived, and Chase, bless his heart, heroically made the jump from balcony to tree, and was soon carrying both Dooley and myself down from there, to return us to terra firma, where Odelia was patiently awaiting the second rescue operation of the day.

  “What happened?” she asked once we were safely down again.

  “Those darn kids again,” I said. “They were chasing us.”

  “They seem to know exactly where we are all the time,” said Dooley.

  “They look at their phones and they can pinpoint our location,” I added somberly.

  “Poor fellas,” said Odelia as she crouched down and gave us both a cuddle.

  We moved inside, and Chase now washed off some of the bark which had stained his jeans with a rag and some water from Wilbur’s sink.

  We both glanced up at the heroic cop. “We love you, Chase,” said Dooley fervently.

  “Yeah, you’re the greatest, Chase,” I chimed in.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Wilbur grumbled, who’d followed the rescue operation and now handed Chase some soap and a towel. “First those kids breaking into my bedroom, then some woman claims she got lost looking for the toilet, and now your cats.”

  “That woman was looking for something,” I told Odelia. “And I have the impression it’s got something to do with that film.”

  “Yeah, she’s going to try and find Tex next,” said Dooley.

  This caused Odelia to frown.

  “What did this woman look like?” she now asked Wilbur.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. Now can you please get lost? I can only leave my store unattended for so long, you know. I’ve got a business to run here, not a cat shelter.”

  And then he stomped out of the kitchen, always the busy storeowner.

  “She was young and blond,” I told our human.

  “And she was very pretty,” Dooley chimed in.

  “Mh,” said Odelia, then relayed our words to Chase, causing the latter to frown with concern.

  “I think I know who this woman is,” said the cop.

  He took out his phone and started playing a movie. And as we all watched, I saw, for the very first time, the famous George Calhoun footage. And as the woman glanced up at Tex’s overflying drone, I immediately recognized her, and so did Dooley.

  “That’s her!” I said.

  “What are those people doing, Max?” asked Dooley now.

  “Um, well they’re kissing, Dooley,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said, then asked, “But why aren’t they wearing any clothes?”

  “Because… they’ve been swimming, and sometimes people like to swim without any clothes on. It’s more enjoyable that way.”

  His face cleared. “Of course! Because clothes cause friction, and without clothes you can swim a lot faster!” He then started to explain the details of his theory to Odelia, but our human wasn’t listening. Instead she was clearly thinking hard, and it was obvious that this George Calhoun business was cause for great concern.

  So I decided that maybe now wasn’t a good time to broach the topic of the Pet Funnel 5000. Which was a pity, because I could have showed her the revolutionary pet flap in question, and Kingman could have demonstrated it to her and Chase.

  Then again, if you want something, you have to pick your moments, and now didn’t seem like the right time. It’s all about delayed gratification, people.

  And so as Odelia and Chase stood conferring, and I stood staring at the wonderful Pet Funnel 5000, suddenly my collar started beeping, and so did Dooley’s. In fact they were beeping so loud, with lights flashing intermittently, that I had the distinct impression our fancy new collars had suddenly turned into a pair of explosive collars, and were about to go KABOOM!

  13

  As Odelia checked the app connected to her cats’ collars, she saw that an alert had appeared in the form of a little red dot, and when she clicked the dot, it said that the collar was now in tracker mode, whatever that meant. She simply turned off the tracker mode, and the beeping stopped, much to the relief of both Max and Dooley.

  “I thought I was going to explode!” said Max.

  “Me, too!” Dooley cried.

  “I have no idea why that happened,” she intimated, as Chase looked over.

  “What’s that?” asked the cop as he gestured to the brainwave mode.

  “I should probably read the instructions,” said Odelia. She clicked on the icon in the shape of a wave, and immediately got a graphic interface that seemed to show what was happening inside Max’s brain.

  “I wonder if you can somehow make that thing interpret their thoughts,” said Chase, intrigued. The app looked like one of those screensavers, with plenty of wavy lines.

  “I seemed to remember Vena saying that the brainwave functionality is still in its infancy,” said Odelia. “So for now it’s just a lot of cool graphics but isn’t operational.” She tucked away her phone and decided to focus on other, more important stuff. “We need to figure out what to do about that film,” she said. “First off, how is it possible that everybody suddenly seems to know about it? I thought you agreed to keep it a secret?”

  Chase gave her a guilty look. “I talked to Alec this morning, and he confessed that he mentioned the film to Dolores. She’s a huge George Calhoun fan, and he happened to mention what he saw, and even though he swore her to secrecy, you know what Dolores is like. She probably told her entire circle of friends, and all of her colleagues, and as a consequence now the story is doing the rounds of Hampton Cove.”

  She shook her head. Dolores Peltz, the police precinct’s dispatcher-slash-receptionist, was probably the biggest blabbermouth in town. Which explained why Wilbur knew about the film, and so did George Calhoun’s lady friend.

  “Look,” she said, after giving the matter some thought. “I think maybe the best thing would be for us to hand that film over to George and be done with it.”

  “But what if he sends his lawyer after us? We did film him on private property, so he probably has grounds to launch a suit.”

  “I have a feeling that if we hand back the film, he won’t come after us. All he wants is for that film to disappear. He can handle the rumor and the innuendo. What he can’t handle is actual footage being leaked online. That would ruin him, and destroy his marriage.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Chase. “I’ll have to discuss it with your dad and your uncle first, but if they agree, we’ll hand over the footage to George and that’ll be the end of it.”

  Somehow Odelia had the impression it wouldn’t be as simple as all that, but at least it was a good start.

  Her phone chimed and when she glanced at the display she saw that her editor was trying to reach her. “Dan has been bugging me to write an article about the George Calhoun film,” she said.

  “But I thought Dan didn’t want the Gazette to wade into tabloid territory?”

  “He doesn’t, so instead he wants me to write a tongue-in-cheek article, alluding to the film, but not actually coming right out and tackling the subject.”

  “So he wants you to write about it, without writing about it.”

  “Something like that.” She shrugged. “I’m heading down to the office. I need to discuss this with him face to face.” Frankly she didn’t want to listen to Dan trying to convince her to write that article for the umpteenth time that morning. Honestly, if the man wanted to publish an article about George Calhoun’s romantic escapades, he probably should write it himself, since she really didn’t feel like tackling the tacky topic herself.

  She glanced down at Max and Dooley, and after making sure they were fine, and their recent adventure hadn’t caused any lasting physical or emotional damage, she took off. She had a ton of work, and had already lost a lot of time saving her cats from treetops.

  And she’d just left the store, and was on her way back to the paper, when suddenly a limo glided up to the curb and the door opened and a voice called out her name. When she glanced over, she saw that none other than George Calhoun himself was in the limo.

  He’d taken off his sunglasses and was beckoning her over.

  “Mrs. Kingsley,” he said suavely. “Will you allow me the pleasure of your company?”