Puss 'N Cahoots

cigarette.
    “The trick is not to let a raindrop hit the end.” Renata inhaled deeply.
    Tucker looked upward, blinking.
“Smells so awful.”
    Mrs. Murphy, standing next to her friend so as not to get her bottom wet, replied,
“Some of them mind the smoke, others don’t, but it burns my nostrils.”
    “Supposed to calm the nerves.”
Tucker thought a moment.
“Must be like chewing a bone. Calms my nerves.”
    “Chewing a bone won’t give you lung cancer.”
Mrs. Murphy didn’t much like chewing bones herself, although if they were quite fresh she could be persuaded to do it.
    “Murphy, you have to die of something,”
the corgi stated.
    “That’s the truth. What is it that Harry says?”
    “When the good Lord jerks your chain, you’re going.”
    “Someone sure jerked Jorge’s chain. One clean slice.”
Mrs. Murphy shuddered.
    “Seemed like a nice man. I never smelled fear on him, or drugs. Boy, I can always smell drugs, can’t you?”
    “Yeah, they sweat them out, whether prescribed by the doctor or bought on the street. Hard to believe the humans can’t pick up those chemical odors. But you’re right, Jorge smelled clean enough.”
    As the two animals talked, the women smoked quietly.
    Finally Renata spoke. “All the movies I’ve done, all those murders and killings and blood on the bodies, it’s different when it’s real. I can’t believe I fell apart. I’m sorry. I didn’t help the situation one bit.”
    “Renata, a six-foot-eight-inch linebacker would scream, too, if he’d never seen someone with their throat slit.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “I’m a farm girl. See a lot.”
    “Dead bodies? Humans, I mean?”
    “A couple.” A big drop fell on Harry’s head. “Thank God, that wind has died down. Kind of brings a chill, though, doesn’t it?”
    “Does.” Renata looked out over the darkness. Her eyes were adjusting and she could see movement in the closer barns. “Were you really a postmistress?”
    “Was. But I always farmed. What did you do before becoming a movie star?”
    Renata shrugged. “The usual—waited on tables. I even delivered messages by bicycle when I lived in New York. That was death-defying.” She smiled. “If the buses and cabs didn’t run you down, the potholes wiped you out.”
    “You must have quick reflexes.”
    “I do.”
    “Most stars have their own production companies. Do you?”
    “No. I can’t run a company.”
    “You could hire someone to do it.” Harry thought it wise to get away from the murder. She wanted to keep Renata calm.
    Renata waved her cigarette in the air and immediately regretted it, for a fat raindrop landed on the end, the sizzle and smoke signaling the demise of that Dunhill. “Dammit.”
    Harry said, “Bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried.”
    “You’re right about that.” Renata flicked the extinguished fag into a puddle. “Sayonara, my little tranquilizer.” She paused. “Hire someone. Right. Then I just pay his or her salary, and they have to justify it, which means meetings, scripts they think I should read, along with what my agent shoves down my throat. And then I need to rent a decent office, maybe in Twentieth Century City or downtown Wilshire Boulevard. It adds up. Until I think I can really do it right, I’m not wasting my money, and like I said, I don’t think I can do it right.”
    “You weren’t born with money, were you?” Harry asked as Mrs. Murphy and Tucker observed Renata stiffen, then quickly relax.
    “No.”
    “Takes one to know one.”
    “What else do you know?” Renata tossed this off lightly, but an edge crept into her voice.
    “Nothing.” This wasn’t exactly true, because Harry knew Renata wasn’t a happy woman. She’d thought the rupture of her relationship with her trainer, upon whom she depended to help her improve, would cause unease. She wondered if there wasn’t more to that relationship. But underneath all, Harry felt a sadness. She didn’t know why, but does anybody know why anyone else is unhappy, really?
    “I haven’t heard that expression since I was little, ‘Takes one to know one.’ Funny.”
    “In Virginia we use a lot of old expressions you don’t hear much. Virginia is a world unto itself.”
    “So is Kentucky.”
    “Used to be part of Virginia.” Harry couldn’t help this tiny moment of bragging.
    “I know.” Renata reached into her thin jacket to fetch another cigarette. “Learned it in school. I wanted to get out of Kentucky so