The Time of The Cat 18
EIGHTEEN
HELP ARRIVES
Sometime later, I was napping behind the wheel when she elbowed me and said quietly, “Is that him?”
I looked, and it was. I started the car and pulled out, timing my approach to intercept Rudolph as he crossed the street. He gave the car a flat glance and then a second, quick look as I stuck my arm out of the window and gave a low wave. I pulled up beside him.
“Man! You’re lucky I didn’t give the signal to have you taken out!” he said softly in his Eastern European accent.
“Got backup somewhere?” I asked conversationally, already knowing the answer.
“Since when have I not made sure I was covered in a meet?” he grinned.
“We had a little trouble here about an hour ago,” I told him, “and we probably should find somewhere else to talk.”
“Already heard about it on the scanner, and I’ve located another place where we can discuss whatever it is you want to discuss.” Then with a slightly puzzled expression, “What’s with the cat?”
“You’ve got your backup; I’ve got mine,” I said with a smile.
This elicited a rather rude snort.
“Don’t snort at what you don’t understand. Underestimating him would be a mistake,” I warned. Rudy shook his head in disbelief. He walked back around the corner, and shortly a dark, older Buick pulled around beside us with him driving. We followed.
It was only a few minutes before we were located in a run-down and quiet bar. Rudy still hadn’t brought his backup in, so I figured that we’d be warned if anyone suspicious headed into the establishment.
We had walked in and sat down near the back in a booth. At this time of day, there were only two other customers sitting near the front of the place. The barmaid came over and was disgruntled to find that we wanted soft drinks. Once she’d brought them, we began to talk in earnest.
It didn’t take more than about ten minutes to bring him up to speed on the important parts of what we’d been through. The main problem we had was convincing him that we weren’t crazy. We solved that by showing him the splinter-shooter gun and then the map. The map was helpful in convincing him, especially the fact that the “You-Are-Here” arrow showed our approximate location.
He looked both over carefully and then sighed, “If you hadn’t saved my life and we didn’t have such a long history, I’d still not believe it, but this weapon is pretty convincing. I can’t figure out how it actually works.”
“Don’t fire it off here!” I exclaimed as he moved his finger near the firing button. The button was located in the trigger position but wasn’t as comfortable. I guess the Pugs didn’t have quite the same hand structure as humans, so it must have made sense to them. Personally, I preferred a trigger, but that’s what I’m used to.
“Don’t worry, I’m smart enough not to let off a round, errr, needle or splinter or whatever you want to call it,” he said, putting it down on the table. He drew a napkin over it so it couldn’t be seen accidentally if the barmaid came over to our booth.
We spent some time discussing the situation and finally decided that we’d need Rudy’s “A” team of five in addition to the two of us. He had access to a rather large store of military-grade weapons, and his men would bring them when they came. They had their own equipment and some communications gear that we were missing. For our part, we had the anti-matter weapons in the rear of the SUV and the two splinter-shooters, along with our normal human weapons.
We parted company after agreeing on our next meet. Rudy went out the back door of the bar while we sat and finished our soft drinks. About fifteen minutes later, we sauntered out the front, got in the car, greeted Jefferson, and headed off to find a motel.