Utterly Mad

"Alright, what do you want?"

Patrick strode into Catnip's room like he owned it, and shut the door quietly behind him. Catnip didn't like that, didn't want the door closed. 'You couldn't,' she thought, 'kick someone's ass out through a closed door. Unless you were Lilith...' The image of Lilith kicking this man through a closed door made her chuckle a little. She would pay good chocolate to witness that.

"What's so funny? Feeling nervous rat?"

"No. Just say what you wanted to say and get out. I have work to do."

He made a circuit of her room. "Sure you do." He said.

It was a rather sparse room, the walls bare except for a single poster featuring a cat hanging from a branch and bearing the legend "hang in there." In the window, Catnip had hung her collection of shiny geegaws. Glass beads and Crystal prisms. Things to catch the light and brighten her darker days. Beneath the simple bed, barely hidden by the blanket, Patrick spotted the bottles. A veritable horde of booze, all of it unopened, all of it most likely swiped. He fished under and came up with a squarish bottle labeled "Captain Sam's Single Malt." Catnip watched him wordlessly as he helped himself to a stash which seemed more attractive every day.

"I think Tobin was murdered." He said after popping the cap and taking a deep pull from the bottle, "you have shit taste in liquer."

Catnip ignored the slight against her choice of drink. Catnip wasn't drinking them for one and for two, she didn't care for what she was drinking if she had been. She waited for him to go on, but it seemed that he expected her to ask for clarification. Satisfaction, he would not get. Catnip didn't like him, and that was a relatively rare experience for her. It had become more common here in Pricetown but she still got along with most people.

"And I think I know who. You see this?" He put a finger to his right temple and his eyes shifted in color. The iris expanded to let in more light, and Catnip realized that the man was a cyborg. "Impressed? I got them for work. The point is, these babies are fitted with a lot of interesting bits. Range finder, glare reducer, diamond cornea, and most importantly, short scale video capture, thermal imaging, and night vision."

"So you saw who did it then." Catnip said, reigning in her excitement and momentarily forgetting who she was talking to.

"Sure. I'm gonna meet with someone later tonight at my place. I'll chat em up, make em feel comfortable, then I'll take em over to the job site and confront them there. If I can get them to admit doing it, present them with the evidence, maybe I can squeeze some dough put of them before I turn em in!" He said, snickering. He took another belt from the bottle and wandered closer to Catnip. She could smell him now, the strong reek of alcohol. The bottle in his hand it seemed was not his first.

"So who was it then?" She asked, taking a wary step away from Patrick and his stink.

"Wouldn't you like to know? I'll tell you what, you do me a favor and I'll tell ya."

An alarm bells went off in Catnip's mind, loud and urgent. She wanted to ask what, but his proximity coupled with the sound of his voice and the set of his body told her. Carmelo, that long lost errand boy, had put on the same sort of demeanor when he made his deliveries. Though where his we're comical and sometimes a little charming, Patrick was just menacing and overbearing.

"I'm not interested."

"That ain't an option anymore." He said, sweeping up the distance between them, "Rats are only good for working, and the only work whores do is in the bed. You want to know who offed Tobin, your gonna have to work for it." His voice took on a husky desperate sound as he started in on his advances. Catnip tried to push him away but it only seemed to make him more feisty. He set the bottle down hard and grabbed her roughly about the hips and breasts and buttocks, groping and seeking.

"You whores only do it for a couple reasons. For the money or for the pleasure of it. I bet your the second, you look like the kind. I'll bet you moan like a-"

She hit him with the bottle. Shards of glass flew and both of them were soused in strong liquer. Patrick reeled and tripped over something on the floor, Catnip's mechanical gauntlet. It had been knocked off the single lonely table when he'd made his rush at her. It didn't take long for him to recover, and he was already trying to find an angle to tackle her, undoinh his belt as he did so while she brandished the broken bottle at him. Then, the door slammed open, and Minx rushed in. The thing in her hand was long, heavy, and most importantly padded. The bat. A sawn off luisville slugger some genius had wrapped in yoga mat to make it less lethal. She came in like one of the furies and unloaded on solid swing on Catnip's assailant, connecting with the side of his head and sending him sprawling to the floor.

Minx dropped the bat and rushed to Catnip.

"Put it down nip, I got him, I got him. See?"

Catnip did see. He was down, knocked out for the moment with his jeans halfway down his ass revealing an expanse of his time stained jockies. Still, she didn't drop the broken bottle, she was too shocked, too on edge and fighting off her conditioning. Minx took the chance and came in low. She managed to slap the bottle aside, cutting herself a little, before lunging in for the hug. Catnip screamed and fought her, but then someone else was there holding her too. It was L, sorry faced and worried.

Pinky was in too, and with her were two heavies. Guards she kept around for just such an occasion.

"Get this fuck awake and out of here. Minx, is she alright?"

"I think she'll be alright ma'am. She hit him with the bottle. Nip, where did you get all this booze?"

"It doesn't matter Minx." Pinky snapped, "head down to storage and get this dog some smelling salts."

It turned out the salts weren't needed though. As one of the heavies hefted him up, Patricks head lolled to the side and he groaned. The bruise forming just above his temple was going to be an ugly one, but that seemed to be all it was.

"Coming around d ma'am." Said the other guard. He turned to Patrick suspended in his colleagues arms and slapped him. "Wake up fuck boy, the madam wants a word."

He came around quick, and uttered a foggy "wazat? Fuckin hit me..." Pinky advanced on him, uttered "ok," and then did as he seemed to be asking. She slapped him, giving the other cheek a strike as well for good measure.

"Take this scum out of here and beat him to within an inch of his life if you ever see him so much as set foot within sight of the pleasure palace. Do you understand me?"

"Yes ma'am." The guards said in unison.

Catnip had dropped the jagged bit of bottle, and Pinky turned to her. She was shaking all over, revulsed in a way she hadn't been in all her life. The man had done little more than grope her, but she felt dirty. If this was what it felt like, she never wanted to be touched this way again. Minx let her go, and L soon after. Once released, Catnip threw herself onto her bed and curled up, weeping.

"I told you, life's hard chica." Pinky said, striding over and seating herself next to the distraught mechanic. She stroked Catnip gently on the temple and ahe pulled away, staring wild eyed up at her mistress. She was, for better or worse, her mistress.

"I want to go home!" She sobbed, burying her face in the pillow. Pinky gently stroked her shoulder. As a business woman, Pinky was strict and sometimes rather cut throat. But when it came right down to it, she felt for people. She was a madam first, but at times like this she could be gentle.

"I know." She said, "I know."