Midnight Crossroad

“I saw a truck hauling ass away from here. What happened?” he asked, every line of his body tense. “Where is Fiji?”

“She’s been taken,” said the Rev.

“Little Timmy fell down the well,” said a tiny voice, and the two men looked around wildly to find the source.

“Who said that?” Bobo asked.

“Don’t even ask,” the Rev said, with a kind of tired exasperation. “Let us pray for our sister, for she has been taken, and we must recover her.”

“What are the cops doing?” Manfred demanded.

“I haven’t called them. This is something we have to do. The man who took Fiji has had enough time to switch vehicles or possibly to reach his destination.”

“Have we heard from Fiji at all?” Bobo asked.

“She’s handcuffed and gagged,” the Rev said.

Bobo made a shocked and angry noise, as if someone had poked him with a hot needle.

“We need to go across the street to the pawnshop, Bobo,” the Rev said. Manfred wondered why. “We’ll take the cat with us.” The cat in question raised his head and looked at the Rev with his eyes slitted in indignation. “Manfred, if you would put the cat under your rain poncho, it would protect him on our way across the street.”

Manfred felt almost as unhappy as Mr. Snuggly, but he lifted the poncho, scooped up the cat, and pulled the yellow plastic down over him.

The second they were inside the pawnshop, Manfred set Mr. Snuggly on the floor. The cat stretched and began inspecting all the chairs he could choose to sit in. Naturally, he selected the one Bobo favored, and in a second he was curled into a ball in the middle of the chair, purring loudly.

Bobo hardly seemed to notice but drew three chairs together around that one so that they could talk. They all sat, and the Rev told them that he had been alerted to Fiji’s plight—and he used the word “plight”—by the cat.

If the Rev had had much of a sense of humor, it would have been highly gratified by the expressions on Bobo’s and Manfred’s faces.

“And what’s so funny about that?” said the same small, bitter voice they’d heard in Fiji’s store.

They both turned to look at the cat.

Mr. Snuggly said, “I can talk. Woo-hoo.”

Manfred filled his lungs with an audible gasp. It appeared he’d forgotten to breathe. “I thought so!” Bobo said triumphantly. “From that day I dropped the gardening fork on my toe. I knew I heard someone laughing. So, cat, you were the one who actually saw someone take Fiji?”

The cat nodded and then closed his eyes, intending to resume his nap.

“Wait a minute,” Manfred said. “You have to tell us all about it.”

“The man came in the front door, and when she came from the kitchen, he took her.” He put his head back down and closed his eyes.

“She fought?”

“Oh, yes,” said the cat, opening his eyes a little, very reluctantly. “The case got broken, and some of the glass landed very close to me. I could have been cut! But he hustled her out into the rain and handcuffed her. I saw him when I got up on the counter to watch. He put something over her mouth and shoved her into his truck. Then I ran over to the chapel, because I knew she would give me permission to leave the grounds under the circumstances. I roused the Rev by an almost supernatural effort.”

“Almost supernatural,” Manfred repeated.

“Yes. He heard me and listened to me, and now here I am, warm and almost dry and in a good chair. When I wake up, you can give me some salmon.” Mr. Snuggly’s eyes drifted shut and he relaxed into sleep.

“Somehow I thought a talking cat would be friendlier,” Bobo said. “Ah . . . more caring?”

“He might talk, but he’s still a cat,” the Rev said, as if that were explanation enough.

“Setting aside the talking cat and the fact that he doesn’t seem too concerned about his owner, which I know is a lot to set aside, this is about Fiji,” Manfred said.

“Yes, and I will say two things here,” the Rev told them. “Bobo, though God tells us not to judge, you have taken the easy way out two times in a row, or your friend down below has.”

For a wild moment, Manfred thought the Rev’s downcast eyes meant Bobo had a connection with the Devil, but he understood after a long second that the Rev meant Lemuel.

“What do you mean?” Bobo looked bewildered.

“Did Lemuel not settle your problem with the first two thugs this Eggleston sent?”

Bobo flushed deep red. “Yes,” he said. “Lemuel and . . .”

“Lemuel and Olivia,” the Rev said. “And do you not suspect that it was Lemuel and Olivia who went over to Marthasville and burned down Eggleston’s house?”

Bobo became even redder. “I don’t know that,” he said.

“But you believe it’s so.”

Manfred looked from the wizened old minister to the big blond man, trying to absorb all these new ideas. “So,” he said cautiously, “you’re telling Bobo that Eggleston wouldn’t have resorted to kidnapping Fiji if Lemuel and Olivia hadn’t been so drastic in their reaction?”

“I am saying we’d have a much better chance of getting her back unharmed.”

“Okay, point taken,” Bobo said. “But what now?”

The Rev looked almost approving. “Good. The right spirit will lead you into the paths of righteousness,” he said. “We must find where he has taken her, and we must rescue her, because the police will not be able to do this.”

“But won’t we have to take measures as drastic as the ones you’re condemning?”

The Rev said very patiently, “Now is the time to take measures. Her welfare is at stake. It’s not the answer to every problem. It is the answer to this problem.”

“If you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” Manfred said suddenly. He’d just caught on.

“Exactly. And Lemuel and Olivia are hammers.” The Rev nodded, glad now that he felt they were all on the same page.

“Lem will be up soon,” Bobo said, glancing at a clock.

“It’s too bad you’re not a tracking creature,” the Rev said. “But Lemuel will do his best.”

“Olivia’s not here?” Manfred was looking all around him in furtive glances, worried that Lemuel would pop up out of nowhere and scare the shit out of him.

“No, she’s gone.” The Rev looked sad, whether because he missed Olivia, thought she would be useful if she were here, or regretted whatever cause had taken her away, Manfred could not decide.