The Maltese Kitten
by Denise Dumars

"O.C. VaNDevu," the guttural voice said over the receiver.

"Not bloody likely," Zip TaRgu shouted, and slammed down the phone. It was a Thursday afternoon and nothing was going to ruin TaRgu's perfect brooding silence. He unplugged the damnable thing then thought better of it, and plugged it back in.

As he glowered across the desk his gaze fell upon a shelf. How he wished to be a child again, to sit up there, blue crystal eyes ablaze in the afternoon sun, staring toward nothing, speaking not at all.

But he was an adult now. No more shelves. No more lazy afternoons. Ah, childhood. No work, no life--and no death. It had only been two days since his partner had been murdered. He'd just gotten back from the funeral.

Raising an ecru hand to his face, TaRgu could still feel the warmth of the funeral pyre softening his plastic cheek. His rather stiff eyelids rolled down with a click, and a single tear eased its way out. VaNDevu's funeral had taken place, as with most local dolls, at Kedro Toys' great melting pot, where plastics were remolded.

"God only knows where he is now," TaRgu said aloud, to no one. VaNDevu could even now be on his way to becoming an action figure, a baby doll, or--horrors—one of those politically incorrect fashion victims, all big pink lips and platinum saran hair.

TaRgu didn't notice the human woman that had come into his office. It was as if she had mysteriously materialized upon the chair before his desk.

"S-sorry," he said. "Didn't smell you come in." He snatched a tissue from a doll-sized cut crystal box on his ornate desk--a present from a satisfied customer.

"Gotta get these olfactories worked on," he said, digging in a nostril trying to start up the mechanism.

"That's okay," she said. Her voice was melodious, less booming than most human voices. "You seemed to be meditating when I came in, and I didn't want to disturb your peace."

"No problem," he said. "I guess I should've locked the door. Actually, we're--" he caught himself. Have to get used to saying "I" not "we" when I talk about the business, he thought. "What I meant to say is, well, I just got back from a funeral, and--"

The woman was on her feet, suddenly acting as skittish as a Petey Pig doll at a barbecue. "Oh. I'm sorry to be bothering you at--at a time like this. I'll come back, some other time--"

It was then that he smelled it. Ah, the olfactories kicking in. The fear. The dame was in trouble. He shuddered, shaking off his melancholy like an old trenchcoat.

He motioned for her to come back. "Aw, don't mind me. Sit down. Tell me all about it."

The tears started almost immediately, and she fixed TaRgu with eyes almost as blue as a doll's. As she bent her head down to use a tissue he could see her roots. A natural blonde, he thought. Bet the human guys fall all over this one.

"My poor fuzzy little kitty--" she began. "He was so young, only eight weeks--"

TaRgu interrupted her. "Sorry, ma'am. I'm a doll detective, not a pet detective. Maybe you've been seeing too many old movies--"

She didn't let him finish. "Please--hear me out."

"All right."

She took a deep breath and dried her eyes. "OK. I raise purebred kittens. Just recently I was successful in isolating a set of genes and assembling a Maltese. He was darling. Pure dark gray fur, bright orange eyes--perfect. And he was barely eight weeks old when they kidnapped him! I don't know how they found out. It's possible that someone coming to see one of the others could have seen him--I don't know. I'm usually careful about these things."

She rubbed her temples, like a doll trying to tease its memory into action. "All I know is, I come home Tuesday evening, and someone had disabled the security alarm, broken into a side window, and taken my little one," she was breaking up again, and TaRgu plucked a tissue for her before the tears came.

"Was anything else missing?"

"No, not that I could find."

She rummaged in her purse, and eventually pulled out a baggie. "But he didn't go without a fight. No, not my fuzzins. I found this about midway between the parlor and the window. I didn't know what to do at first. Then I saw your agency in the phone book, and, well..."

She handed TaRgu the baggie. He examined its contents. It contained brown hair that had obviously been ripped from a plastic scalp, commingled with a tuft of silvery gray fur.

"Looks like there was a tussle, all right," he said, clenching his jaw. He didn't like the idea of crimes against humans being committed by dolls. "Has anyone tried to ransom the kitten?"

"No, at least not yet."

"I thank you for coming to me and not going immediately to the police. We're very sensitive about crime in the doll community, you see."

A corner of her mouth turned up, and for a moment her sad countenance had a hardness about it. "Well, it isn't as if I'm exactly licensed to do gene splicing and cloning out of my Painted Lady," she said. "It's common in the business, though. I mean, I don't know how much you know about cats, but the Kitty AIDS epidemic nearly wiped out the purebreds. They just weren't as strong as the mixed breeds. We've had to make do--improvise as best we can."

"I understand," he said. Cloning fancy cat breeds seemed like a victimless crime. "Do you have any idea who might have done this?"

She shrugged. "Had to have been a competitor. I could put together a list, I suppose, of breeders. But as to the doll--" she shook her head.

"The doll angle makes sense to me if the perp was someone you knew. The doll could have been hired--or forced--to carry out the crime so that no DNA or other evidence was left behind."

She nodded, then rummaged in the large purse. "Here's my business card," she said.

"You're hired. Let me know as soon as you find anything out."

He looked at it. "Russian Hill Blues," it read. "Kittens by appointment. Felicia Corliss, 1*#978#(415)555-6665."

"Blues?" he said, puzzled.

"Yes, I deal in all the shorthair blues--Russian Blues, Burmese, Lilac Point Siamese. My little lost lamb is a Maltese--they tend to be a bit less blue than the others, though some think it's really an alternate name for the Russian Blue, but that breed has vivid green eyes."

He began to speak but just then the door to his office flew open.

"Oh," said a startled Marta VaNDevu, stopping short just inside the front door. She had changed clothes since the funeral. She now wore a stunning black sundress with white polka dots along with black and white spectator pumps, black gloves, and a black hat with a veil that ended just below her cinnamon-colored eyes. "I didn't think you'd be working after the funeral. I'm sorry, I--"

Felicia stood up, dwarfing the two dolls. "It's OK," she said, and TaRgu thought he caught her sizing up Marta quickly. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said, and TaRgu was unclear on just who she was addressing. Then the woman moved quickly toward the door.

"I'll be in touch," TaRgu called after her.

"Thank you, Mr. TaRgu," Felicia said on her way, pausing on the transom and sending a knowing look TaRgu's way before closing the door behind her.

Marta stood there for a moment, pressing on the corner of her eye with a handkerchief to make the tears flow. Then she flung herself into his arms. "Oh, Zeep," she said. "I couldn't bear to be alone after the funeral. Why did you come back here? Why didn't you come to see me?"

He had no answer for her, just held her as she wept. He knew everything about how she was feeling--knew everything about her, knew how O.C. had met her in a Dorian's department store in Tijuana, where she beckoned to him from a display of Marta Ama de Casa dolls. Now it was clear that she wanted him to take O.C.'s place in her life.

But as he held her he wondered, if I take O.C.'s place, just who might be waiting in the wings to take my place in her life?

This was going to take some serious thought. And on top of it all, he had a case to work on, with a depressing, doll-related crime right in the middle of it.

A kitten, huh? That brought back memories.

The circumstances of his becoming a detective were unusual; usually a doll's path was set by his or her maker. But Zip TaRgu was no middle-class department store doll--he'd spent his childhood on the shelf in a bad part of town.

The shelf was behind the counter of a liquor store in San Francisco's Tenderloin. The owner sold booze, cigs back when they were legal, and dirty magazines, plus some souvenirs. Up on a shelf he had a few dolls he'd enhanced to make them more interesting to the type of customers he catered to. Most customers just saw them and smirked; few bought.

On one end of the shelf was an Topgun Timothy doll. He had been remade-up as "Timeisha, the Tawny Transvestite." On the other end was a Martha Homemaker doll dressed up and renamed "Mistress Maravillosa, the Kitten with a Cat O' Nine Tails." Between the two sat a generic boy doll, his stiff brown hair shaved into a mohawk, rings stuck in his ears and his nose. He wore a tattered leather jacket and ripped jeans tucked into romper-stomper boots. "Zero Zipgun" was the doll's name.

"Zero Zipgun" could easily have spent the rest of his days on that shelf, considering how slowly dolls moved in the liquor store. But one day a couple of elderly men came in, obviously tourists, and took a shine to him.

"Ooh look at that, will you John? It's a punk doll!" said the one with silver hair.

"Brings back memories, does it Steven?" said the other one, who was wearing a rather obvious snap-on rug.

"It sure does. Would you believe the first time I visited San Francisco was in 1982?"

They both had a good laugh, and when they'd bought their beer they also asked "how much" for "Zero Zipgun."

As the transaction was being made, the last thing the Kitten with a Cat O' Nine Tails said to him was, "Good luck, Zipgun," as she kissed his cheek. "Be careful out among the humans."

Snug as a Fundie Fetus doll in her see-through plastic womb, Zip--as he liked to call himself, for he'd never taken to the name Zero--was tucked into Steven's backpack and then trundled on down Columbus Avenue.

After riding in the backpack for what seemed like an eternity it was dropped onto a library table, jarring Zip's eyes loose in their sockets. He was taken from it into the brightness of fluorescent lights. His head still spun.

"Cute, isn't he?" Steven said as he arranged Zip's arms and legs so that he sat perched on the end of the table. "You go ahead to the microfilm room," he said to his companion. "I'm gonna browse around the historical section for awhile." They left Zip alone.

Steven and his friend were gone a long time. From where he was sitting, Zip could easily see the San Francisco special collections. From the looks of things it wouldn't be hard to climb those shelves, especially once he spotted the handy step-stool and library ladder.

It was among these very un-doll-friendly things that he found his true calling.

That particular row of bookstacks contained fiction by classic San Francisco authors. He learned of Polk Street, where VaNDevu and TaRgu Investigations would later begin operations, from Frank Norris's novel McTeague. He read Jack London and Gertrude Atherton, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and George Sterling. But when he came to the detective writers--as he devoured page after page of fiction--he knew he had found his home.

From then on his life became a blur of activity--declaring his autonomy, getting his legal doll surname amidst human-sized piles of government red tape, and finally finding a partner to go into business with.

And that's when he met O.C. VaNDevu.

"You look like Goddamn Mr. Clean," was the first thing VaNDevu said to him.

He'd shaved the Mohawk but had kept the ear and nose rings, so he supposed VaNDevu was right. Despite the conservative-looking doll's gruff manner, he'd liked VaNDevu right from the start; the doll was solid, trustworthy--maybe just a bit too trusting. Too trusting of Zip and Marta, for sure. Too trusting of whomever the bastard was who'd blown him away in the fog-drenched San Francisco twilight in a filthy alleyway on a Goddamn Tuesday night, right at rush hour.

Nobody had seen anything, of course.

Manufactured in Orange County as a promotional doll before the financially-ruined county had given up the ghost, O.C. had by his very nature been entrepreneurial. When Orange County was taken over for a massive private prison project, he'd headed for the megalopolis by the Bay to make a new start. Zip knew that O.C.'d agreed to partner with him as much for his image as anything else, since he fit in better in this crazy town than the portly, gray-suited VaNDevu.

"Marta honey, go on home. I--have some things I have to deal with." He stepped back, but she held onto his hand.

"You will call me later?"

"Tomorrow. I promise."

She reluctantly let his hand fall to his side and then blew him a kiss. Then she turned, and with that enigmatic Latin expression on her face that had always both tantalized and mystified him, walked out of his office and gently shut the door.

He sat back down at his desk and leaned back in his chair, eyes rolled back and staring at the ceiling. Hell of a day.

The next morning he called Felicia Corliss. "Any ransom demands yet?"

"Nothing. Not a word."

"Then I think we have to assume that the kidnappers have some other motive."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment.

It was far past the usual time for a ransom demand in a kidnapping case. He was now truly worried about getting Felicia's kitten back alive. It was probably dead in a Dumpster and its precious DNA being mixed in some underground lab. He had an idea.

"Ms. Corliss, is there an alley behind your house?"

"Yes, yes there is."

"Stay there. I'll be right over."

She met him behind her grand old Victorian, which was painted light gray with magenta trim. "I was thinking," she said. "What if we try to retrace the doll's steps? I mean, we have some hair. Maybe there's a way to track the kidnappers that way."

TaRgu sighed, always amazed at how little most humans knew about dolls. "This is generic hair, Ms. Corliss," he said, producing the baggie from a pocket of his London Fog. "I can't even tell you if this came from a male or a female doll. Hell, I wouldn't know where to start."

Corliss bit her lip and had a strange look on her face.

"Why don't you go on back inside. I'm going to search thoroughly around here. The alley's certainly accessible to vehicles. I think a human had to be waiting to pick up the doll and the kitten. And humans always leave traces of themselves; their skin flakes fall like rain," he said. "No offense meant, ma'am."

"None taken," she said. "Here's a printout of cat breeders in the area. Now I'll get out of your, uh, hair," she said, and hurried up the steps to her back door. Besides a few more doll and cat hairs stuck on a spiny star jasmine bush, TaRgu found nothing in the alley. Human clues were muddled by the endless parade of homeless people that made San Francisco's streets their home. After walking around the block and looking through yards and around houses and businesses, he gave up. He called Corliss on his handset and told her he was going back to his office to think.

Once he was the office he had previously shared he locked the door behind himself, and went into what had been VaNDevu's inner sanctum. O.C. kept a vintage leather couch in there, for the express purpose of taking naps. TaRgu turned off the lights and took refuge upon it. He lay back and closed his eyes with a snick. Who had taken the kitten? Someone with no regard for the feelings of either dolls or cats. Who killed O. C., and what the hell was he doing in that alley? Tuesday musta been a bad day for a lot of people, he thought, rubbing behind his ears where a headache was beginning in his cranial seam. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, eyes jiggling in their sockets with his abrupt movements.

Then he darted across the darkened office and grabbed up the telephone, snapping in a long string of symbols and numbers.

"¿Bueno?" Marta answered.

"Marta, I've got to ask you something."

"What is it, Zeep? I'm so happy that you called. I was afraid you had forgotten."

"Do you have the Burberry that O. C. always wore?"

"His coat? Yes--he was wearing it the night he--he died. I asked them to give it back to me."

"Good, good. Can I come over? I need to see that coat right away."

"Well, yes of course, but--"

He didn't wait for her to finish her sentence; his mind was on fire. On the way over it started to come together for him. Did Corliss really think all dolls were stupid? Or just too trusting? If they were he wouldn't have been suspicious of her claim that she had chosen VaNDevu and TaRgu Doll Investigations out of the phone book. He and O.C. had worried about their agency being last alphabetically in the Yellow Pages. They'd joked about renaming the agency AAA A-1 Doll Investigations just to get more business. Corliss was unlikely to have picked it at random.

He didn't want to follow that train of thought to any of a number of possible conclusions. They were all too painful--for a whole lot of reasons. It felt like he arrived at the VaNDevu residence far too soon. He sat in the nearly vertical driveway for a moment, gathering his courage, rehearsing what he was going to say.

Marta met him at the door, and as always he was amazed to see how glamorous she looked even in a pink chenille bathrobe. She rushed to embrace him, but he fended off her attentions. In O.C.'s house, with him newly dead, it just didn't seem right. A lot of things didn't seem right lately.

"Where's the Burberry?" he asked.

She screwed her mouth up into a pout. "Over here," she said sullenly.

He found it draped across a dining room chair. Before touching it he pulled a monogrammed hankie from his pocket, and dug deeply into his nostrils. Human fear had a distinct smell, and animal fear had an even more potent one.

He snatched it up. Even before looking in its pockets he felt fine hairs tickling his nostrils and smelled the rank odor of feline fear. He threw the coat down.

Marta jumped back a step, startled.

He grabbed her by both arms. "What was O.C. doing in that alley. Tell me!"

"What alley, Zeep? What do you mean?"

He repeated his query and pulled her closer. She avoided his eyes.

"I don't know! All he said was--was--" she had a hitch in her voice, and was attempting to cry.

"I said tell me or I call the police right now!" he shouted.

"I don't know! All I know...he said not to wait up for him...we'd get on a plane to Puerto Vallarta and--"

Maddened by frustration and something like betrayal he thrust her aside and she fell, sobbing, onto the divan.

"I want to know just one thing. Who killed him: you, or the cat lady?"

"It wasn't me, Zeep, I loved him. I was so grateful to him. He said he had one last big case. That's all I know. We were going to go away together. Then somebody killed him. How could you think I would do such a thing?"

He unbuckled his shoulder holster. "If you won't tell me what happened, then I'll have to ask her," he said, and turned to leave.

"No, Zeep! Come back! I'm afraid for you. I love you!"

"You don't know what love is," he said sadly. "Good-bye, Marta," he said, choking on the words as he turned to leave.

He drove like a madman, then slowed and turned off the lights as he headed for the alley behind Corliss's house. He approached the Victorian from the back. Bypassing the lock's code was a piece of cake. He entered the house with his gun drawn.

Corliss met him in the kitchen, wearing a cheap red Chinatown kimono that had holographic cats woven into its brocade. "Have you found my kitten?" she asked, smugly.

"No, I haven't. But then I didn't search my office all that thoroughly. Maybe he's buried in a potted plant."

"Sounds like you've been doing some thinking," she said. "If VaNDevu hadn't tried to blackmail me, you know, none of this would have happened."

"I don't know what he did and I don't especially care. You killed him, and that's a punishable offence against a doll with a registered name," he said.

"Bring me the kitten and I'll give you the money, and we'll call it even."

"I said, I don't have the kitten. Now I'm going to call the police and they can play back what you've said from my memory, which will sound a lot like a confession."

She grabbed a carving knife from the counter and lunged at him, but he was faster, and his bullet caught her in the shoulder. She shrieked and went down on the linoleum, the wind knocked out of her, knife skittering across the floor. He punched #978#911 into his handset and fled. The cops'd get back to him. His job here was done.

He sped down Geary but the traffic backed up at Van Ness. It was well after rush hour--even worse than rush hour for a doll, as that's when all the doll drivers took to the road.

Marta was gone when he got to the VaNDevu residence. The house, its dark windows soulless eyes, looked as empty as TaRgu's heart felt at the moment. But on the porch there was box with a pink ribbon tied around it. His name was on it, along with the words, "I do know what love is."

That was all it said.

Soft, plaintive sounds came from within. When he was satisfied it was not booby-trapped he untied the ribbon...and fell backwards, barely keeping his footage as the Maltese kitten leaped at him from the box and held on for dear life.

Denise Dumars' poems and short stories have appeared in numerous genre and literary publications, including Space & Time, TransVersions, Grue, Haunts, and many more. She was the poetry columnist for The Writer magazine for seven years, and currently covers genre film for magazines such as Cinefantastique and Femme Fatales, and writes on Wiccan and occult subjects for such magazines as SageWoman and Fate. She is a college English instructor, specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature and creative writing classes. She lives in the South Bay, the most beautiful part of the L.A. area.