Puss 'N Cahoots

get locked inside your mind, in a way. And then how can you really grasp what’s real and what’s your fear? Booty didn’t have to kill Jorge. Even though the INS did raid the show, Booty and Charly had enough money to hire good lawyers. The show was raided; no one said they smuggled in illegal workers, only that they used them. I think he just lost it.” She tapped her temple with her right forefinger.
    “See, I think it was greed.” Harry shrugged. “The business had run smoothly up to Shelbyville. Booty wanted all the profits.”
    “Or a combination. I think Joan’s right; Booty’s judgment did fail.” Fair interlocked his fingers.
    “What a waste.” Larry put it in a nutshell, then turned to Renata. “What are you going to do?”
    “Pay for Ward’s legal fees regarding Queen Esther if that becomes an issue. I don’t think it will. But I won’t leave him in the lurch. He made one mistake, egged on by Charly and myself. As to driving in the workers, well, that was a bigger mistake, and he’d better learn from it. I’m not paying those legal fees.”
    “But what are you going to do about you?” Harry followed up on Larry’s intent.
    “Oh.” She blew air out of her full lips. “I’ll be a laughingstock for a while, but I haven’t smashed liquor bottles over anyone’s head or taken videos having sex, stuff like that. It appears the American public laps up this kind of tripe.” She stopped suddenly. “What I am is sick of myself. If I had to do something as absurd as stealing Queen Esther to bump myself back up, you know, I need to leave. I don’t like myself.”
    “You don’t mean leave Earth, you mean leave Hollywood, right?” Harry had a nervous moment.
    “Right. Harry, I’m not the suicide type. And,” she drew in a deep breath, “I’ve always been hostile and pooh-poohed it, but I think I need to get some help, therapy. That’s number one. Number two is coming back home. I won’t be able to put myself together back there on the meat rack.”
    “Good for you.” Fair turned around to look upward. “I went into therapy for three years, and it was the best thing I ever did for myself. Jesus, it can be painful, though.”
    “No pain, no gain.” Larry summed it up, using the line espoused by the health guru Jack La Lanne.
    “And who would have thought this would start with Grandmother’s pin being stolen and end up with it being found?” Joan mused, then looked at Harry. “Remember I said I didn’t think I’d like what we found if we found the pin?”
    “Do.” Harry nodded.
    “Honey, it’s an eight-hour haul.” Fair smiled at Harry.
    “Wait one minute. Birthday present.” Joan rose and went into the office, returning with a dark green plastic bag with a big pink ribbon on it. “Happy birthday from Larry, Mom, Dad, and myself. I hope you have at least forty more.” She handed the bag to Harry, who could feel what it was.
    Opening the bag, Harry held up a beautiful bridle from Fennell’s. “Just what I wanted. Oh, you all.” She dropped the oiled bridle back in the bag and got up to kiss Joan, then Larry. “I’ll kiss you, too. Thanks again for Shortro.” She kissed Renata.
    “That was one thing I did right.” Renata smiled. “Happy birthday, Harry.”
    Fair stood up. “This is your last day to be thirty-nine. Tomorrow I’ll give you your birthday present.”
    “How can it top my bridle or Shortro?” she teased him.
    “Well,” he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, then back to meet hers, “it comes along with me.”
    “I like it already.”
    The animals roused themselves, and Cookie walked out to the truck to say her good-byes.
    “Don’t guess we’ll ever see the likes of Miss Nasty again. Imagine how Booty felt when she grabbed that glass from him that he’d loaded with snake poison. She was faster and stronger than he realized,”
Cookie said.
    Mrs. Murphy recalled the sight.
“Funny, isn’t it, the look on his face when she grabbed the glass and how he picked her up when she died. He loved her.”
    “They’re family.”
Pewter giggled.

Dear Reader,

    Don’t you just love Miss Nasty? Karin Slaughter likes monkeys, so I created Miss Nasty for her.
    I hate monkeys, myself, but I do love horses. Mostly I play with Thoroughbreds, but there is a young Saddlebred on the farm, Blue Sky, and he’s such a sweetheart. For one thing he recognizes that I am far more intelligent than the human around here.
    Hope all is well in your world.