NTB/LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #227: Who Killed the Cat With Glasses? Part One
Arthur Spitzer
arspitzer2 at gmail.com
Sun Jan 2 13:14:04 PST 2022
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or you can try google groups racc for the full Who Killed the Cat With Glasses?
'Who Killed the Cat With Glasses?' was written by Saxon Brenton, Scott Eiler, Rob
Rogers, and me (Arthur Spitzer) at RACCCon 2012 at a Starbucks in Benicia,
California (where Rob lives). It's a NTB story with some LNH characters, and
some of Scott's SW2010 characters thrown into the mix. And Brad Pitt also shows
up.
But what is it?
So, there's this cat in the middle of the road -- a cat with glasses. A dead
cat with glasses -- but is it -- MURDER???!!!!! (I mean maybe the title is
referring to some standup comedian who killed the cat with glasses with their
hilarious jokes? Perhaps?)
Anyways...
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|____| \__] \__ | |_| \__/ |_|\_\
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|_| OF NET.HEROES
ADVENTURES #227
=====================
Who Killed the Cat With Glasses? Part One
=====================
From: EDMLite robrogers72 at gmail.com
Date: Wed Jul 4 17:52:58 PDT 2012
RACC-Con/NTB/SW10: Who Murdered The Cat With Glasses?
'Who Murdered The Cat With Glasses?'
Written by and copyright 2012
Arthur Spitzer, Rob Rogers, Saxon Brenton and Scott Eiler
A story for RACC-Con 2012
----------
It was a dark and stormy night. A cat lay in the middle of the
road. A cat with glasses. The wind howled and the rain pounded,
heedless of the poor, pitiful form that had been reduced to road kill.
Actually, no, that wasn't quite true. There wasn't a cat with
glasses. There were several.
That was more or less the nub of the problem.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
In the lab up the hill, Doktor Schroedinger looked through
his viewing machine. "Ahh, sehr gut. Und I see zhis is one
of *my* catz." The cat was wearing glasses.
"Und now, der critical moment. Zhall it live, or die, or...
zomething in between? Worldz zhall zplit based on der
anzwer." The Doktor turned off his viewer.
"Und zo it beginz."
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
"Poor bugger," Detective Crumple murmured, squatting down to
stroke the whiskers of the cat as two other officers drew a cloth over
the body. "Physics got 'im."
"Well... yeah," Officer Molloy said, waiting for Crumple to stand
before handing her a cup of coffee. "I mean... cat meets bumper.
Meeting doesn't go so well. End of cat. That's more or less how
these things go, isn't it?"
Crumple stared at the officer. "Ever take physics, Molloy?"
"I was a poetry major, ma'am."
"How about geometry?"
"I know my shapes, if that's what you mean."
"Okay, then," Crumple said, taking a sip of her coffee. She
nodded at the body. "Highway Patrol puts the initial impact of
the vehicle against the cat... there," she said. "Skid marks left
by the vehicle indicate that it had been over... there... exactly
thirty seconds earlier. And the cat's body... is here. See
anything unusual about that?"
Hoping that the question was, as so many of Detective Crumple's
questions were, rhetorical, Molloy waited, taking an extra-long sip of
coffee to avoid having to say anything.
"Perfect. Right. Triangle," Crumple said. "This was no
accident."
"You think somebody killed this cat on purpose?" Molloy asked.
Repeating someone else's statement was, he found, often an effective
way of pretending to convey information. "Why? I mean sure, lots of
people don't like cats."
"You know, this used to be my beat," Crumple said, staring at the
blocks of office buildings, university dormitories and fly-by-night
research laboratories surrounding them. "Quiet place. Occasional
trouble with dealers, a few pimps from time to time. But the ones who
gave me the most trouble? The physicists."
Molloy spat, a long, glistening arc of coffee that hung in the
air for a moment like a beige rainbow.
"Physicists?" he asked.
"Gets boring in those labs, late at night," Crumple said, as the
pair of paramedics gently lifted the fallen cat and dropped it into a
green plastic garbage bag. "People do... unusual things. Things that
might seem unbelievable to anyone who's never spent fifteen years of
their life chasing a dissertation that simply refuses to show its face
to the world."
"Like give glasses to cats?" Molloy asked.
"Like make bets," Crumple said. "Bets on scientific postulates.
Bets on hypothetical questions. See that box over there?"
Molloy stared at a greenish crate, halfway open, that lay in the
weeds along the side of the road.
"That," he said, "is a box."
"Check it for hairs," Crumple said. "Feline hairs. Because it's
my be life that our friend , the late Mr. Felix – or whoever he was –
was in that box. Or perhaps he wasn't. For a long time. And now...
now he most definitely is not. And that allowed someone to collect on
a bet."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" said Molloy, who had
no earthly idea what Detective Crumple was saying.
"I'm saying our investigation should begin," she said, "with a
visit to the office of Dr. Schroedinger."
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
"It was a hit," said the cop grimly.
It was another street, another dead cat. And only a few blocks
away, which may have made it either less or more suspicious.
His partner looked at him. "I know this cat, said the first cop.
"MacCavity. Sometimes calls himself 'The Wolf Burglar'."
"A bit pretentious," observed Sgt. Kidd, dubiously.
"Yeah, it is. Anyway, there was word out earlier this evening
of a break in at the university labs. The description matched
MacCavity." He frowned, "But he has a better reputation for stealth
than that."
"Maybe he's getting older and slower?"
"Could be. He's been around for over thirteen years."
"That's pretty old, in cat years."
"It is," agreed the first cop.
"One last caper, to prove he still had it, and he couldn't cut
the
mustard," mused Sgt Kidd.
"He was seen, was chased, and run down like road kill? That
sounds more like a mob hit." The first cop frowned as he stared at
the face of the dead cat. "Hold up a second." He reached down and
pulled. The face of MacCavity turned out to be mask. The so-called
'wolf burglar' was revealed as: some other cat, who was wearing
glasses.
They stared. "How could he be wearing a mask that looked
realistic when he was wearing glasses underneath?"
The first cop responded. "Yeah, I know. He can either wear a
realistic mask, or glasses. Can't have both."
Kidd mused. "But what about those, y'know, Schrodinger cats?
You put 'em in a box, and they're either alive or dead, but you don't
know which. So they're really both."
"Oh, so you think someone put this cat in a box?"
"No, no! This cat can wear glasses *and* a mask, because we
still don't know who he is!"
Sgt. Kidd felt around the cat's neck, and found a seam. He
pulled the head. It popped out.
A tiny robotic head with binoculars and a speaker rose out the
neck socket. "Ah, you have seen through my plan for a bionic cat.
You'll be glad to know, several other extremities are programmed in a
different manner."
The cat reared up on its hind legs and tail. Its front paws
popped off. A blade popped out of each socket.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
"He was a dark and stormy knight..." said Kid.
"What the hell are you talking about?" said Sarge staring at his
fellow cop.
"I dunno. Just thinking about this screenplay I'm writing,"
said Kid.
"Quit fooling around! We're here to solve a murder! Who
murdered this cat? This cat with glasses!!!" said Sarge in a very
serious voice. A serious voice that you only ever use when you're
investigating a cat who has been murdered that wears glasses.
"Yeah, I know. But wouldn't that be a cool movie?"
"No it wouldn't. It wouldn't be a cool movie!"
"It would if Brad Pitt was the dark and stormy knight!"
"No, it wouldn't!"
"Yes, it would!"
"My god! What is wrong with you two?" said some distressed
woman. "Why aren't you two solving this murder?"
"Relax lady," said Sarge. "We're in the middle of a
conversation about whether Brad Pitt is cool."
"Yeah, lady," said the Kid as he pointed his gun at her. "Just
hang in..." And then there was a loud bang. And smoke came out of
his gun.
"Oh my god, Sarge! I shot her!! I killed her!" said Kid with
panic in his voice.
"Did you?" said Sarge. "I'm not so sure about that."
"What do you mean, Sarge?"
"Maybe that's what she wanted us to think. Maybe that was her
master plan all along."
"I'm not following you."
"This whole thing looks like some kind of a murder-suicide pact.
That's what I'm thinking. Obviously this lady whoever she was killed
the cat with glasses. And then she tried to frame you for her own
suicide. It's just that simple."
"Really? So I didn't kill her?"
"Yep, it's really quite obvious when you have a brain as big as
mine that that's what happened. Well, looks like we've solved this
case."
"Wow, another case solved!"
"Yep, now what were we talking about?"
"How Brad Pitt is totally cool."
"No, he isn't."
"Yes, he is."
"Isn't it."
"Is."
And somewhere on the road was a dead cat. A dead cat with
glasses.
And another mystery solved.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
The office of Dr Schroedinger was at Calisotta State University.
It turned out to be reassuringly prosaic. No complicated quantum
principles were incorporated into the architecture. No blasphemies of
Lovecraftian space threatened to drive a visitor insane. There wasn't
even any prints of M.C.Escher hanging on the wall. There did seem to
be a lot of unfiled paperwork sitting in semi-organized piles, but
technically speaking those constituted a fire hazard, which was a
different type of menace altogether.
The detectives pulled up outside the office. It had two doors.
"Which one should we try?" Molloy said.
Crumple responded, "You know the procedure, rookie. We cover both
doors."
So Molloy went to the back, and knocked. The door swung open on
its own, revealing a lobby with two more doors. As he walked in, the
door behind him disappeared.
"What the hell!?" Molloy took out his walkie-talkie. "Crumple!
What's going on!?"
A burst of static came in response. Like three Crumples were
trying to respond.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
And the cat with glasses stepped out of the shadows and looked at
the various cops that were standing around his dead body.
"Bloody hell," said the cat with glasses, who was also wearing a
trench coat. "What the hell was I drinking last night? Shit, is
this a dream?" And then he noticed the lady on the ground. It was
some lady that he had never ever seen. "Christ! What the hell is
going on?"
And then everyone standing around his dead body noticed him.
"Hey! It's another cat with glasses! Kill him!!"
"Oh shit!" said the cat with glasses (and now a trench coat)
making a run for it.
But before the cops and everyone else could kill him, a car ran
him over.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
"Damn, another dead cat with glasses!" said Kid looking at the
dead cat. "Who was driving that Yugo? It kind of looked like Brad
Pitt, but it can't be since Brad Pitt is too cool to drive a Yugo."
"I'm pretty sure I did read somewhere that Brad Pitt does indeed
drive a Yugo," said Sarge.
"No! It's not true! It's just not true!"
"Face it, Kid. Brad Pitt drives a Yugo and he's completely
lame. These are the facts."
"Why do you hate Brad Pitt, Sarge?"
"I don't hate him. He's just lame."
"Maybe you just haven't seen any good movies involving Brad
Pitt. How about Fight Club? Have you seen Fight Club?"
"Yeah, I saw that. I guess that would have been a good movie --
if it weren't for the fact that Brad Pitt was completely lame in it."
"I feel sad for you, Sarge."
"What the hell are two talking about?" said some other cop that I
can't be bothered to give a name to. "Why aren't you solving this
murder instead of blathering away about Brad Pitt?"
"We already solved this case. It was Brad Pitt," said Sarge.
"No, it wasn't," said Kid defending his hero.
"Look," said Sarge pointing a gun at the strange cop who didn't
have a name. "My partner is a rookie cop who doesn't quite
understand..." And then Sarge's gun went off. And the strange cop
without a name fell to the ground. Dead.
"You killed him!" said Kid.
"Sure -- from your untrained rookie eyes, that's what it might
look like. But obviously from my more experienced older cop eyes it's
quite obvious that there is some conspiracy going on here. A
conspiracy that is trying to frame us for all of these cat with
glasses murders. And all of the other murders that are happening.
There's something big going on here, Kid. Very big. Who knows how
far this conspiracy goes?"
"Who do you think is behind it, Sarge?"
"My best guess would be Brad Pitt."
"Man, Sarge. Why do you think Brad Pitt is responsible for
everything wrong in the world?"
"Because he's lame."
"Is not!"
"Is too."
And so it goes.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
Neither officer noticed the figure several hundred feet
above them, standing on the thin metal rail that separated
the highway overpass from the ground below and swearing
to himself. As the figure in question was a cat, and the
swear being uttered something that would have sounded like
“meeeeyeow!” to human ears, these facts were not altogether
surprising.
Whomever had killed the cat below had done it to send a message,
MacCavity mused. But who? And why? To lure him out of retirement for
one last score? To frame him for what would otherwise be the perfect
crime? Or was it simply because the killer was a cat, and cats tended
to be bastards to one another?
He sighed, shook his head, and began to meander his way down the
overpass… only to have his path blocked by an orange-and-white tabby.
One look at the interloper told MacCavity that he meant business.
<<Looking at your handiwork?>> the new cat growled.
MacCavity sighed. <<New at this, are you?>> he meowed. <<Look,
whoever you are…>>
<<My name,>> said the cat, who sounded uncannily like Antonio
Banderas, <<is… Habanero!>>
Somewhere in the distance, a mariachi band strummed a succession
of chords.
<<Seriously? The Fourth of July Miracle Cat?>> MacCavity asked.
<<But of course,>> said Habanero, his tail swishing. <<So… are we
going to do this the easy way? Or are we going to stare at each other,
fur bristling, and then leap at each other, clawing and
scratching and biting, until one of us tastes blood!>>
The mariachi band added a chorus.
<<Look,>> MacCavity said, feeling the weight of his thirteen
years. <<Much as our readers would enjoy reading a good catfight… I
didn’t kill that cat. Whoever he is.>>
Habanero produced a piece of paper.
<<And what if I told you I had, here, your signed confession>> he
said.
<<I’d say that was doggypoop,>> MacCavity spat, uttering what
was, in cat, one of the foulest curses imaginable.
<<And why is that?>> Habanero demanded.
<<BECAUSE I’M A GODDAMNED CAT AND CAN’T READ OR WRITE, YOU IDIOT!
>> MacCavity meowed.
Habanero’s eyes narrowed.
<<I believe it is time, my friend,>> Habanero said, <<that I
showed you how I came by my name…>>
The mariachi band fell over itself in an orgy of strumming, as
someone in the far distance shouted “Ariba!”
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
At a café not far from the scene of the now (in the eyes of the
police) closed case of the squashed feline, a young woman stirred her
cinnamon dolce de leche mocha Azteca frappuchillito with a peppermint
biscotti. A shadow fell across her table, and she looked up.
And kept looking.
"Holy crackbabies," she said, and immediately wished she hadn't.
"You're Brad Pitt!"
"I'm aware of that," Pitt said.
"In my cafe! Brad Pitt!" the woman repeated.
"Is this your cafe?" Pitt asked, looking around. "I was hoping
you were a customer here. In fact, I was hoping you happened to be
Dr. Thelma Annlouise, the noted feline ophthalmologist."
"You are. I mean, I am. I mean..."
"Dr. Annlouise?" Pitt asked.
"Yes," Dr. Annlouise said, wishing she hadn't asked for quite so
much Azteca in her frappuchillito.
"I wonder," Pitt said, handing her a small, twisted pair of
spectacles wrapped in a handkerchief, “what you might make of these."
"Not a pair of mine, that’s for sure," Dr. Annlouise said, and
then blushed. "I mean..."
She straightened up, her professional instincts kicking in.
"Interesting. The lenses are tinted... but to a slightly different
degree. My guess? They belonged to a cat that had one green eye and
one blue eye. The different color eyes absorb light to a different
degree, you see."
"That fits," Pitt said, eyeing her biscotti. "You mind?"
"No. Of course not," Dr. Annlouise said, as Pitt slammed the
biscotti into his mouth, demolishing it in two messy bites.
"These glasses," Pitt said, "were found... not far from here...
on the body of a cat with eyes exactly like those you described."
He removed a pair of glasses of his own from the pocket of his
trenchcoat – a darkened pair of rounded 'granny' glasses – and put
them on.
"I have to go," he said. "But thank you for your information,
doctor."
"Wait!" Dr. Annlouise said. "How... how did you find me? How
did you get those glasses? And what are you doing, running around and
investigating cat-related crimes? Shouldn't you be acting in a film,
or making out with Angelina Jolie, or something?”
"Neither takes as long as you might think," Pitt said, donning a
black suede fedora. "Leaving me plenty of time to pursue my true
calling... as a member of the Net.Trenchcoat Brigade!"
She looked at him in incredulity. "The Net.Trenchcoat Brigade!
But... how?"
"There was a hideous experience in a graveyard, and then they
stole my razor."
[Flashback]
"Okay, Brad, in this scene your character of Louis is in the
covered graveyard, searching for another vampire who's in hiding,"
explained the director. "You intend to find him and confront him. So
for this shot we need you to walk across this patch of ground looking
both grim and wary, stand before this crypt, and then open the crypt
door."
Brad nodded. He didn't remember anything like this in the
script, but last minute rewrites weren't uncommon in Hollywood's
Development Hell.
"Roll 'em!" went the director. The clapperboard clapped, but
from where he was standing Brad couldn't see that it made no reference
to _Interview With A Vampire_, but instead read: Brad Pitt's secret
origin as a Net.Trenchcoat Brigader: sole take.
Brad walked across the sound stage, looking appropriately grim
and wary as he'd been told. The fake mist swirled. An owl hooted,
which was strange, because normally sound effects like that would be
added in during post production. There was something wrong, but Brad
mentally shrugged and assumed that it was simply something to do with
the take. That wasn't a big deal; they'd probably just redo that
scene later if the director didn't like it.
He stood before the crypt. He reached out open the crypt lid.
The lid flew off (obviously made of balsa wood), and someone in zombie
makeup jumped up, grabbed Brad, and gave him a tongue kiss!
[End flashback]
"And that was the hideous experience in a graveyard," said Brad
as the flashback smoke cleared. They tried to pass it off as just a
joke, but later on my shaving gear had disappeared. Every time I
bought a new razor, or even shaving foam, it would always disappear."
He looked at her. "Since then the only time I've been able to be
clean shaven is when I'm being prepared in makeup." He ran one hand
absently over the stubble on his chin. "Other than that I've been
cursed with a perpetual five o'clock shadow that can never grow longer
or shorter, and a burning need to put on a trenchcoat and fight occult
crime."
She stared at him. "Lord have mercy."
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
Brad Pitt left the cafe. Time to hunt. But... hunt whom? Never
mind where a cat with different-colored eyes would come from, or who
would give it glasses. The real question was, who hates cats?
Pitt sat down on a park bench with his Venti paper cup of steamed
milk, and meditated. Before long, the answer came to him. Brad
Pitt's evil twin hates cats!
Now, where to find Evil Brad Pitt? Certainly not in a trendy
cafe. So Good Brad Pitt strode off toward the seedy part
of town.
It was only seven PM, and the bars were open. Good Brad picked
the ugliest-looking one, and walked in. Five regulars were sitting on
barstools upholstered largely with duct tape, huddled over their draft
Pabst Blue Ribbon beers, and watching Net.ropolis Net.Guard soccer on
TV.
Good Brad pointed at the ugliest-looking regular, who was wearing
a trenchcoat, sunglasses, and a knit cap. "You! Cat-hater! I'm
calling you out, Evil Brad Pitt!"
"Ah. The supreme moment." Evil Brad stood up. "Is Brad Pitt
good? Or evil? Or... both?"
The bartender and the other regulars looked on in amazement. But
not at Brad Pitt(s).
The barroom floor was filling up with interested-looking cats.
Wearing glasses.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
"... Agent O'Hanrahan, thank you for coming here to Martinez.
We've had a rash of road kills. Most of them are missing cats,
identified by the owners. One was apparently a stray - and it was
wearing glasses. And all of them were missing their spines by the
time we found them."
"So you need the United States Insight Battalion."
"Correct."
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
In a private room at the Martinez Police Department, Mary
O'Hanrahan entered death, cats, spines, and glasses into her uplink.
As search terms, that is. The results said nothing about glasses.
But it did seem, Contra Costa County of California had a recent
history of animal sacrifice - and it was the home base for Black
Brady, the Spine of Satan.
Time to go hunting spines, Mary thought. She'd topped up the
power levels of her battle suit, just in case.
She slammed the data stick with information relating to the
Black Brady case into the USIB port of her suit and waited for the
rush of data to fill her headset monitor.
There it was, she thought, moments later. Spines. Loads and
loads of spines.
Tingling.
--==### !RACC-Con 2012! ###==--
==========
Next Week: Who Killed the Cat With Glasses The Conclusion!
==========
Arthur "Same Classic Channel. But Same Time? Probably not." Spitzer
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