Excerpt
Lyn hunched down and, keeping his head under the profile of the office wall until he got to where the doorway stood open, duckwalked as cool as any Chuck Berry impersonator had ever duckwalked.
As he did so, a cat, gray and male, stepped quietly out of the office where the conversation was happening.
Lyn almost toppled in surprise.
It was smallish for an obviously grown tom, but bulky. Muscular, not fat. Short Maltese hair, and green/yellow eyes that focused on him like the cat couldn't tell if Lyn was a threat or simply dinner for twelve.
Surprised, Lyn stopped in his tracks.
The voices grew louder, and he motioned the kitty to stay quiet.
Yes, he felt stupid the minute he did so.
The cat's expression grew bored, but kept its intense gaze directly on him, holding a countenance that said he was still deciding if he would rather take a nap or gouge a piece of Lyn's shin.
What the hell?
Was it the service controller's cat? An employee's?
Just another stowaway?
He didn't know, but the last thing Lyn needed was to have a feline intruder give him away now.
The cat sat upright, pulled up a forepaw, and—extending one talon—began to clean (or was that sharpen?) that talon with a harsh motion that, as far as Lyn was concerned, felt like a threat.
One false step, that talon said, you get this right across the face.
It was enough that Lyn felt certain muscles tightening in ways that were more than uncomfortable.
The cat let Lyn enter the office, though.
Lyn took one more look at the cat, and decided he was in too far to back out now.
Rolling from duck walk position to crawling on all fours, Lyn shuffled to the chair, picking up the shirt and pants and cradling them in one arm.
There were shoes, too, but they were too big—something that made Lyn wonder about the other clothes, but he figured he could make do with too large there. He was no beggar and chooser.
The shoes were ugly, too. He'd rather go barefoot. So ixnay on the oozeshay.
The jacket, though.
That, he liked.
He could see wearing it on stage, really. Soft and something toward synthetic snakeskin. Just looking at it made his fingers ache to play. It would catch the light in that perfect way that good stage clothes had.
Finally relaxing, Lyn could make out the conversation.
It was definitely coming from the small office across the way.
"I told you, Crawford. It just doesn't work that way. We can't be digging into the bins every time you get a tickle up your ass."
Lyn gave a wicked and sad smile at the same time. Logistics. You wouldn't find him caught dead in a logistics job.
"I don't care what you said, Jayal," Crawford replied in a controlled tone. "We've got a prospective buyer on the hook. So, I need the crystals and I need them now. I know neither one of us want any accidents to happen now, do we?"
Lyn frowned.
He'd been on the back end of that kind of tone before—complete with a quiet edge that conveyed so much more than whatever words were included in the message. Crawford sounded miffed. And Crawford sounded like he wasn't taking 'no' for an answer.
The word 'crystals' stayed caught in Lyn's ears.
Whatever was going on, it most definitely was not some random conversation about a standard shipment.
Crawford was some kind of muscle.
After a long hesitation, the first voice responded.
"I'll need some time."
"Much better, my friend. I think you're making your way back to our good side. You've got until tomorrow, second four."
There was a long pause.
"All right."
Suddenly growing anxious, Lyn pulled the jacket down off the rack, and for good measure, the hat, too, then, slapped the hat onto his head and—as quietly as he could while cradling shirt, pants, and jacket, and giving the cat a silent nod of thanks—crawled back to the doorway, turned into the hall, and stepped calmly back to where he could duck behind rows of lockers.
Just in time, too.
As he caught his breath, the two speakers emerged from the meeting room.
