Catsby: A Novel

Chapter 12

It took me weeks to fight off the infection resulting from Catsby's ill-fated blood donation. There were several times my doctors thought I should have died, and a few times they may have actually tried to kill me because of awful things I allegedly said. When I get feverish I've been known to turn into a bit of an anti-Semite. If that makes me a "bad person," then I guess I'm "guilty as charged." Much to the chagrin of the Anti-Defamation League, I survived. My new Gentile doctor finally discharged me after fourteen days.

The bad news was that I would be able to return to work.

The good news was that I got a bona fide doctor's note for missing work, which would cover me back to the day I left early with Tucker for his little hotel party.

Tucker hadn't visited me in the hospital. Then again, I hadn't told him anything about the incident. I didn't mention it on social media either. All it would do would worry my friends and family, and I wasn't in the misery business. You might say I was in publishing and that's practically the same thing, but I digress.

On the train ride home, I answered a call from an unknown number.

"How you feeling, Old Spice?"

"Catsby," I said, recognizing the purr in his voice. "I'm feeling much better. Thanks for taking care of my hospital bill."

"I...didn't take care of it," he said slowly.

"That must be why they chased after me," I said. "Good thing I had my strength back."

"I was going to offer to pay your bill," he said. "Since it's not an issue any longer, though, why don't I take you out to lunch?"

My stomach grumbled. I hadn't eaten anything but hospital food for fourteen days. "I'm on my way home now. Did you want to go out today?"

"Works for me," he said. "You might want to meet me at the Jersey Shore first. It appears there's been an incident of some sort at your house. In fact, that's the main reason I called."

An incident? That didn't sound good; that sounded bad. Very bad. You don't call good things "incidents." When you say that Johnny had an "incident" at school, that probably doesn't mean he scored a 780 on his SATs. More likely, Johnny was caught playing with himself in the girl's locker room.

"What happened? A break-in?"

"I'm looking out the window right now," Catsby said, "and there are several fire trucks battling a blaze. I don't know how much of your house is left—there's too much smoke to tell. You didn't leave a gas burner running on your stove or anything, did you?"

Oh no.

Judi Dench.