Page 11 of Whiskers on Kittens

After returning the Blanton’s to its spot on the shelf, I retrieved the sake and poured Ernesto a small share, aware he couldn’t have too much. “I want that barrel, vampire.”

“How did it go from me owing you a bottle to an entire barrel?”

“You made the mistake of giving me an opening. I have what you want, and it’s worth an entire barrel to me. Learn from this, Easton. This is how I got to where I am. I don’t let anyone step on me, and when they try, I up the ante and corner them. I will contact all my Japanese friends and blacklist Ernesto from buying any decent sake until I tell them otherwise. And they’ll humor me because I’m a pitiful little single female feline who has no other amusements. He will be stuck begging me for my visible shelf sake or getting inferior drinks from common liquor stores. His pride demands he gets one of my bottles. I might be generous and give him several—maybe. An item is only worth as much as the buyer is willing to pay for it. In this case, it may very well be that a single bottle of sake, that cost me nothing, might be worth an entire barrel of wine. That’s three hundred bottles of wine. I’ve room in my wine cellar for all three hundred.”

Accepting his sake, Ernesto saluted me with the cup, and took a sip. “She wins because she plays the game, she plays it well, and outside of hours, she’s a good sport about it. If you find out what she wants, hold it against her ruthlessly. She’ll appreciate you cornering her. It shows you’re putting in effort and care about the game as much as the reward.”

Well, if he wanted to back me into a corner and hold his body against me, I certainly wouldn’t mind. My virus chuffed in my head, her equivalent of a purr, as clouded leopards couldn’t purr, nor could we roar.

Apparently, when He had designed the perfect cat, He had forgotten the little bones allowing other cat species to purr. We made up for it in other ways, though, so I forgave Him for the oversight.

In my opinion, we’d been the first species of cat to rule over the world. Our roaring and purring brethren had needed a little extra help to bring them closer to the clouded leopard’s level of perfection. If we could purr and roar, the other felines of the world would fall into a state of depression over their inferiority.

Amused over having conquered the vampire, I poured Easton a glass of Maker’s Mark and served it with one of my perfect cubes of clear ice. I did the same for myself, although I only took a little. I saluted the wolf with my glass. “May you survive the next month or so of your life with your sanity intact.”

Shaking his head, he tapped his glass to mine. “And may you make it even a day without another item on your permanent record.”

“It’s just a little criminal mischief!” I sipped my Maker’s Mark, sat on the last free stool, and placed my glass on the polished wood surface. “All right, Ernesto. Rescuing kittens is up my alley, but it’s an alley I’ve never been down before. What can I expect from the type of person who would kidnap kittens? What steps do we need to take to prevent the kidnappers from hurting them?”

“Lycanthrope girls are exceptionally valuable, especially when young, so at the minimum, the girl will be treated like she’s worth more than her weight in gold. The boys are also worth their weight in gold. On the market, you’re looking at an easy six figures once the boys have been groomed for brothel work. The girl will be easily worth twice as much as the boys. She’s a one and done sale. The brothels can reuse the boys. The girls are harder to train for brothel work, and they’re harder to train not to bite or otherwise transfer the virus.” Ernesto wrinkled his nose, stared into his sake, and heaved a sigh. “If it’s a small group, the kidnapper will sell them to a larger market for a much smaller fee. In that case, they might go for ten or twenty grand each. The kidnapper would get a decent pay, and the buyer would get a good bargain. Young and untrained isn’t a problem when integrating them into the illegal markets like that. The high-ticket buyers want them young, pliable, and infected.”

I hissed, took another sip of my drink, and regretted I’d only given myself a little. “So, unless we really screw something up, the kids should be safe.”

“Generally, the kids are treated well initially. It’s easier to keep happy kids calm and cooperating. The kidnappers, especially if they moved fast and got across state lines, will coerce the children through doing fun activities they like. Amusement parks, sporting events, and so on. They’ll be groomed to trust their captor through fun activities. It might start with little things, like movie nights, treats, and so on. As the children adapt to being separated from their parents, they’ll become more at ease with their kidnappers. In our experience, this process can start working in as little as a week or two. Within a month, the children adapt; they begin to accept they won’t be seeing their mothers and fathers again. Their kidnappers start taking on the role of being their family. That’s when the grooming really begins.” Ernesto knocked back his drink and slid the glass Amy’s way. She got up, went around my bar, and rinsed it in the sink before locating where I kept the sake set. “Because Christmas is coming, you might have some better luck; it’s harder to adapt them with the holiday reminding them they have parents. They’ll probably make an allowance for that, working to target two months to begin the process of grooming them for brothel work. Well, the boys. The girl will be groomed to be a sophisticated wife, possible business partner, and right-hand woman of someone rich and powerful. Of the children, the girl is the safest. She’ll be taught the sex trade and what is expected of her, but she’ll be kept a virgin until she’s sold. She’s more valuable that way.”

I knocked my drink back, bonked myself on the nose with the oversized ice cube, and contemplated throwing the glass across my den. Before I could act, Amy plucked it from my hand, scolded me with a shake of her finger, and put it in the general safety of the sink.

“Are you going to have a temper, too, Mr. Goody-Goody Copper Man?”

Goody-Goody Copper Man? Rather than reach for my glass and implement my plan to make a mess, I grinned at the upstanding, handsome officer of the law and waited for his move.

“I’m thinking about it. But, as it’s too good of a drink to waste and I’d rather not spend half the night hunting down glass shards today, I’ll behave. I might be convinced that a little excessive violence might be permissible in this case.” Easton glanced my way. “Just this once, I’ll look the other way, but you’re going to have to curtail your other forms of mischief while we’re on this job.”

“Be glad I provided a good car so I wouldn’t feel any urges to steal one. But if something happens to my Lexus, I will be contemplating acts of vehicular theft to get back on the road in a hurry.”

“If something happens to your Lexus, we will have more problems to worry about than our next ride. I saw your driving record, and it’s pristine. Why do you even have a car like that when you don’t even speed?”

I grinned at him. “I do my speeding on a racetrack, of course. Why accept anything but the fastest my car can give me? And when I’m not playing around on a racetrack, I take stunt driving lessons. If you need a getaway driver, I’m your woman.”

“Heaven help me,” the cop groaned.

“Sorry, heaven can’t come to the phone right now,” I quipped. “How can I help you?”

Easton slammed back the rest of his drink and slid the glass my way. “I think I need another drink.”

Laughing, I got up to serve him another round of Maker’s Mark. “In good news, if you survive through me, you can survive through anything.”

FIVE

“Do you have that in writing?”

After evicting Ernesto and Amy, I gave Easton the choice to roam around my house or flee to the comforts of the guest house. To my amusement, the cop opted to stay. The alcohol likely helped murder his common sense, and I left him checking out the book collection in the den. As I wanted to keep an eye on my guest, I made use of the main floor office, which had the sophisticated antique look expected of an attorney, bookshelves loaded with legal reference materials, history books, and other titles designed to trick people.

Some overestimated. Some underestimated. In either case, I won, as I could maneuver around those who misjudged my intellect and drive through the presentation of my public office. After booting up the computer, I went to work detailing life in the prison, marking where I felt an angel might want to elaborate on my experiences, and otherwise grading the prison complex on a variety of categories ranging from enrichment activities, forced labor, exercise, food quality, security, and layout.

I tempered my criticisms with where I felt the prison did a decent job; I couldn’t fault them on the medical front, and I made a recommendation that some hospitals should take note of how the prison system managed emergencies, of which I had created several during my stay.

However, I slammed the prison system for its feminine care, inability to keep the genders from mingling in inappropriate fashions, and the various ways I’d noticed the inmates bypassing prison rules.