Callahan's Place 09 - Callahan's Con (v5.0) Read Free Page B

point of fact, Mr. Nificent, I happen to be fully authorized to—”
    “Author-ized?” Doc Webster interjected.   “Nonsense.   Where’s your elbow patches?   Your coffeemaker?   The beads of blood on your forehead?   The line of creditors hounding your footsteps?   No offense, Ralph.”
    “I doubt she’s authored a thing in her life,” Long-Drink agreed.   “She looks like more of an editor, to me.”
    She rebooted.   “In point of fact, I am fully authorized by the state to investigate and make recommendatory suggestions for disposition vis a vis the educational slash residentiary status of minor children deemed to be in a state of potentialized risk.”
    “Wow,” Marty Pignatelli said.   “You carry a piece?”
    She gave him a withering glare.
    “Not even a throwdown?”   Marty’s an ex-cop.
    It had been over a decade since I had last heard someone use the word “slash” in a sentence which did not also have the word “prices” in it.   I couldn’t help wondering who was responsible for major children.   And of course, “…state of potentialized risk,” was one for the archives.   But I wasn’t thinking about any of those things, just then.   I was beginning to understand just how much trouble I was in.  
    This was no mere garden variety bureaucrat: this was the hydroponic monoculture logic-resistant kudzu-gene Frankenfood kind.   She didn’t need a damn gun.   Sweat ran down my back into my shorts.
    It was time to start proffering olive branches.   “Field Inspector Czrjghnczl,” I said, carefully placing the accent on the ‘rjgh,’ this time, “I don’t think anyone here would question your authority, your responsibility, or your probity.   Would we, folks?”   I put just enough spin on the last three words that the response was a strained silence.   I went on, “There’s really no need at all to approach this in an adversarial spirit.   I’m sure that with open, honest communication we can arrive at a mutually—”
    It was working, I could see it in her eyes.   My submissive display was pulling her back from the very edge of a snit.   There was still hope for negotiation.   I was trying to recall everything I knew about stalling, when without warning the situation went completely to hell.
     
    *   *   *
     
    It happened too fast to really grasp, but as I reconstruct things, what started it was Pixel the cat, materializing on the countertop behind me…less than a foot from where Harry the parrot still sat on his little porcelain throne.   Yes, he’s that Pixel: the Cat Who Walks Through Walls, former master of Robert A. Heinlein; he wandered into our company and took us captive shortly after Mr. Heinlein’s death in 1988.   You’d think Harry would be used to his sudden appearances by now, after more than a decade of mutual ballbreaking, but it still gets the little guy every time.   He screamed “ Jesus Christ ,” erupted from his commode like a Nike from its launch rack, and made a beeline for whatever he happened to be looking at at the moment.   Which was Field Inspector Czrjghnczl, of course.
    From her point of view she was suddenly under scuz missile attack, albeit a missile trailing feathers and profanity.   Her reaction must have been just as automatic as his: she tried to bat Harry out of the air with her deadly briefcase.   She had excellent reflexes, too; the only thing that saved Harry a nasty concussion was the twenty-five pounds or so of cat that seemed to be attached to her arm all of a sudden.   Painfully attached: I’ve seen Pixel dice melons with those claws.   He doesn’t like it when anyone but him gives Harry a hard time.
    Still operating on hardwired programming, she let go of the briefcase and tried to fling him from her arm.   But just as she got to the point where she planned to “snap the whip” and use centrifugal force to unseat him…he was just gone .   She ended up in a spinning, off-balance stagger.   Alf