Read Online Pet Noir by Pati Nagle - Free Book Online Page A

me down the hall to an office about half the size of the chief’s. Three desks were crammed into it. Devin sat down at one and took a long slurp out of his coffee cup before putting it down and firing up the com unit.
    â€œWhat do you need three desks for?” I said. I hadn’t meant to talk to him, but I was curious.
    â€œI don’t. I share this office with two other agents.”
    â€œWhere are they?”
    â€œSheila works swing shift, and Ralph works graveyard. That way we each get the office to ourself, mostly.”
    â€œThen what do you need three desks for?”
    Devin shot me an impatient look. “So we can each keep our own stuff here, OK?”
    â€œOK, no need to get cranky! Sheesh.”
    â€œSorry, Leon. This is a little earlier than I usually get up.”
    He took another long pull from the coffee cup. I went over to an empty chair at one of the other desks and hopped onto it, then up onto the desk. Walked across an untidy stack of papers to Devin’s desk and sat down to watch him scanning data about Stratoma.
    â€œDon’t suppose you heard those guys’ names,” he said.
    â€œThe fish-faced one is called Lou.”
    â€œYeah, I know—Lou Feeber. I got his name from the paperwork on the shipments. I meant the other two.”
    â€œI think one of them was called Vinnie.”
    â€œVinnie. Let’s see if we get a hit on that. Aha—Vincent Malone.”
    The chunky guy’s head appeared over Devin’s holopad, grinning stupidly as it slowly rotated. I moved closer to see the text at the bottom of the field.
    Looked like our man Vinnie was brand new at Stratoma. Devin brought up his employment record, which looked like a patchwork quilt. He’d done a little of everything that required brawn, and not much that required brains.
    â€œNew hire,” Devon said. “Interesting. Lemme check if Stratoma’s got any other new guys.”
    He keyed in a search command and started zipping through a succession of employee files. I watched the floating heads come and go over the holopad until I spotted one I recognized. It was the wiry guy from the warehouse.
    â€œThat’s the other one!” I said.
    â€œGus Lyman,” Devin read. “OK, Gus, what are you about?”
    Gus’s employment was a little steadier than Vinnie’s. He was also new at Stratoma. They’d both been hired a little more than a week ago.
    â€œWhy are they sending new guys out on the smuggling run?” Devin mused.
    â€œMaybe the old guys quit,” I suggested.
    â€œHm. Trouble in paradise?”
    I gave him my best blank stare. Like, do I even know or care what makes humans tick? Particularly specimens like Vinny and Gus? No.
    Devin brought up both their records side by side and sifted through the data for a while. “No past employers in common. Vinnie was out of work for a while before Stratoma hired him.”
    I began grooming my face. Hadn’t really done it since that bite of Devin’s sandwich I’d eaten earlier. Thinking about it made me hungry, which made me mad. I wanted to get out of there. I didn’t want to have to ask Devin, or any human, for food.
    We didn’t talk for a while. Devin was absorbed in the data feeds. I hopped down and began sniffing around the floor of his office on the off-chance of finding a crumb of something. Looked like the cleaning crew had been pretty thorough, though.
    I caught an interesting whiff from one of the drawers of another desk—peanut butter crackers, I thought—but when I tried to open the drawer it was either locked or too heavy for me. With Devin in the room I really couldn’t put my back into it.
    The door slid open and the chief walked in. I was under a desk at the time, and I decided to stay there. I wasn’t really feeling very charitable toward the chief. I sat down to listen and watch.
    â€œWhere’s Leon?” he said.
    Devin shrugged.