Previously on The Wax Buzzard Files, a whole bunch of stuff happened; some of which was important. If you want to learn more, then you probably should.
The chase was on! And we were only missing the music. Miss Nomer stomped the accelerator and the tires smudged the floor with tracks as they took off down the hallway. It only took us about twenty minutes to get them reattached to the car; from there it was through the fire escape door, and over the railing. We landed on a watermelon vendor's cart, sending chucks of the stuff half a block in all directions. Fortunately most of it hit a crowd that was coming out of The Gallagher Experience, making the world just a little more poetic.
I glanced back to see that Mr. Happy's henchmen (who for simplicity I'll refer to as Zanzibar and Jake) were right behind us. Miss Nomer gave me a side glance. "Please don't tell me we've got company."
"Okay," I shrugged. "Mind if I turn on the radio?"
A trash can bounced off the windshield. And another. Jerk teenagers throwing trash cans at a speeding car. “I hope you all die!” Miss Nomer shouted at them with such conviction that they really seemed to regret their actions. Last I heard, one of them joined the Peace Corps and did a lot of good work. Punk.
"Are we being followed?" she asked me.
"You just said you didn't want to know."
"Of course I want to know!" she growled. "I just don't want to hear the words 'we've got company'. That phrase really gets under my skin."
“What an esoteric personality quirk,” I observed. “Does it bother you when it’s in quotes? Like, hey, remember a few seconds ago when you told me you didn’t want to hear the words ‘we’ve got company’?”
“Are they back there or not?” she roared.
I checked over my shoulder. "Yep, they're still back there. And there’s no need to growl and roar like that."
“You’re the one choosing the verbs,” she elucidated. I said nothing, but she didn't hear me since I only said it to myself.
Miss Nomer spun the steering wheel to avoid hitting a cute puppy, opting instead to crash through the window of a Hobby Lobby. It was the right call.
"I'm going to try to lose them in the school supply aisle." I don’t know why she needed to tell me that, but one sharp turn to the left later and we were careening past safety scissors and Elmer's glue, leaving a trail of construction paper behind us. And we scared some poor granny in her tracks when I rolled down the window and waggled my fingers at her, going "Bululululuh!”
“I’m going to make a break for the front entrance,” she declared.
I asked if she wanted me to come with her. She shot me a look and we zipped through the sliding glass doors and into the parking lot. I checked over my shoulder. Zanzibar and Jake were exactly where they’d been before. "Still there," I said.
“Hold tight!” she ordered. I threw my arms around her as she weaved the vehicle through back alleys, tunnels, drawbridges, a museum, and a Chuck E. Cheese. She finally slowed down to twenty when we got to a school zone, and I leaned back in the passenger seat.
“You know that wasn’t what I meant,” she told me.
“I know,” I said. “But you seem to be having a bad day. I thought you could use a hug.”
She stared at me with no expression on her face except for a blank expression which I don’t think should count. After a few awkward moments, seven to be exact, she said, “Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said, knowing full well that it was chronologically impossible at that point. “So if you don’t mind me asking, what happens when you actually do have company?”
"I may have made that out to be a bigger deal than necessary." Her demeanor became much more pleasant, tolerable even. It made me instantly overlook the record number of traffic and health code violations she’d accumulated in the past half hour. She offered me her well-manicured hand. “Catsy.”
I accepted with whatever adverb you can turn the word ‘charmed’ into. “Is that Egyptian?”
“It was supposed to be Cathy. Birth certificate typo.”
“Unlikely,” I said. “The H is four keys to the right of the S. You were named Catsy on purpose.”
“You have quite an attention to detail, Detective Guffey.” She gave me a wink that I didn’t have before.
“Enough to keep me from trying to go up the down escalator,” momentarily losing myself in the reflection of me in her eyes. I needed a haircut.
"Are they still behind us?"
"I'm certain of it," I said, in no uncertain terms.
"You're kidding me!" Catsy checked her six. Zanzibar and Jake gave her a polite wave. "Well why didn't you tell me they were in the back seat?"
It was a disturbingly good question. I didn’t have an answer then, and I don’t have one now.
Catsy sighed. “We may as well grab lunch then. How do you guys feel about the Hibachi Grill?”
I would have preferred a chicken sandwich, simple and light, but I was outvoted. I was sure this was going to be a lunch date I'd never forget. As of this narration, it remains the case.
Don't click here unless you want to get stuck reading Chapter Four.
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