A book in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series

At three in the afternoon on the first Thursday in March, I got Barnegat Books settled in for the weekend. I dragged my table of bargain books inside, closed the door, and turned the cardboard sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED. I ran the cash-register tape-the work of a moment, alas-and took the checks to my desk in the back room, where I filled out a deposit slip and prepared a mail deposit. I returned with a box a little over a foot in length. It was shaped like a little house in a child’s drawing, peaked roof and all, with a handle where the chimney ought to be. I opened the hinged top, set it on the floor, and looked around for Raffles.

He was in the window, treating himself to a few rays. I called his name, which might have worked if he’d been a dog, but he’s not and it didn’t. Raffles is a cat, a declawed unmanned tailless gray tabby, and if he even knows his name he’s not letting on. True to form, he didn’t stir at the sound of my voice, but lay motionless in what little sunlight there was.

So I crumpled a sheet of paper, and that worked. We have a training ritual that involves my hurling paper balls for him to run down and kill. It probably looks like a game to the casual observer, but it’s serious business, designed to sharpen his mousing skills. I guess it’s working; I stopped finding gnawed book spines and suspicious organic matter on my shelves the day he moved in.

I threw the ball of paper and he was off and running. He had it before it stopped rolling, sank the memory of his claws deep into it, took it in his mouth, shook it fiercely to and fro, and left it for dead.