Castle Kidnapped

Nineteen Long Island

Chico’s was busy that night, the dance floor a scrummage of writhing humanity. Snowclaw couldn’t get over the noise in the place. It had taken some getting used to. He didn’t quite understand what all the thumping and screeching was about, though he knew it had something to do with music. And the dancing was completely incomprehensible. Snowy took it to be some complex courting ritual. But what did the flashing lights have to do with anything?

It didn’t matter. His job was to look after things. Check for proper dress; no jeans, no tennis shoes, no generally sloppy outfits. Chico’s had to be a “class act,” was Nunzio’s way of putting it. The other host, Dave, checked the little cards that the young ones held out that supposedly proved they were old enough to be admitted to these adult doings.

Snowy’s proper job was throwing the drunks out. That had only happened once since he started. A bartender refused to serve a customer who had glugged a little too much swill, and the customer got a little rowdy. (Interesting sidelight here: the bartender was actually worried that the guy might go out and wreck his metal wagon and get real ticked off at the bartender for giving the guy exactly what he was screaming for — more swill!) Snowclaw had followed directions to the letter. First he was polite, then firmly insistent. When that didn’t work, he picked the guy up, carried him out into the parking lot, and threw him in the dumpster.

That was pretty funny, Dave had told him, but basically it was overreacting.

Snowy didn’t know about that. The guy had been pretty nasty. Besides, all that happened was the little creep got his pride wounded. Snowy wouldn’t think of actually hurting any of these hairless humans. They were all so soft and squishy.

For all of that, though, they were feisty little devils. Like the guy he threw out, coming back with a policeman in tow, demanding that Snowy be arrested. The policeman heard Snowy’s story, then told the guy to forget it. Then the guy started giving the cop all kinds of grief, so the cop and his partner beat the compost out of the little twerp and threw him in their metal wagon, which he didn’t have to drive.

Feisty little devils.

Oh, he forgot the one incident where the female threw a glass of stuff into her mate’s face. Something about the female walking into the place and finding this guy cavorting with another female in a dark corner. She got upset at this behavior. Why, exactly, Snowy didn’t know. Apparently humans were supposed to keep to one mate at a time. But, then, what were all these females doing out on the floor making sexual movements with all these different males? He’d seen females doing it with male partner after male partner, and vice versa. Snowy didn’t understand, but he supposed there was some rationale behind it all. He didn’t expect it to make any sense, and in any event he didn’t care much.

The apartment above the joint was uncomfortable until Dave showed him a way to turn the heat off. Dave had done it, but had given Snowy a funny look.

“The heat really gets to me,” Snowy explained. “I come from a cold place.”

“Yeah, but it’s February, f’crissakes. Where you from, the North Pole?”

“Nope.”

“Where, then? Canada?”

“Uh … yeah, Canada.”

“A Canuck, huh? Glad to have you in the USA. C’mon, I’ll show you how to work the videotape. You like porno flicks? Nunzio distributes them.”

Now, these were interesting. He had always wondered about the mechanics of it. Basically the same, except that the male didn’t keep the eggs for a while, like back home. Well, actually, there weren’t any eggs to speak of. There was just sort of doing it, and that was it. Ordinarily he didn’t like to criticize, but the male’s equipment being exposed all the time like that — that was dumb, it seemed to him. And dangerous! Amazing. Funny, too, was the fact that there didn’t seem to be any particular time of year for this sort of stuff. Everybody just rutted away like crazy, no matter what the weather. At the drop of a snowshoe.

Different world, different ways of doing things. That was the way you had to look at it. It didn’t bear thinking about too much. Besides, he had other problems.

Like contacting Linda, somehow. He knew how to work a telephone now, but he didn’t have a number to call. As for begging help, he couldn’t very well ask too many questions, or he’d be thought mighty strange, if he wasn’t already. Somebody had told him, “Dial Information,” and had given him a number, but that was no help at all.

“What city?”

“Um … I don’t know. I’ve been there, but I really don’t know where it is.”

“Sorry, sir, I have to know what city.”

“Well, what cities are there?”

“Pardon, sir?”

“What cities do you have?”

“Sir, I can check the New York metropolitan area for you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“What name?”

“Linda.”

“Last name, sir?”

“Oh. Uh, Bar … Bar something. Barkey. Bar-kay.”

“Spell that?”

“What?”

“Can you spell that for me, sir?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“One moment, sir…. Sir, checking the New York metropolitan area, I find no listing for a Linda Barkey, or Bar-kay. I do have an L. Barcus on West Forty-seventh Street in Manhattan.”

“No, I want Linda. Uh, never mind. Thanks.”

Click.

Well, that was that. Of course, he could just start walking again, but that sure as heck wouldn’t do much good. Halfway House was a good hike, he knew that.

And most of all … Great White Stuff, was he hungry!

Human food just didn’t make it. He could eat the stuff, but … gods, it was like eating water. Nothing to it, no taste.

It would be a real embarrassment if someone caught him guzzling drain cleaner and eating bath soap, as he had taken to doing of late. The soap was nothing, but the drain goop packed a real punch. Good stuff.

Dave had looked real puzzled when Snowy came home with a grocery bag filled with paraffin wax candles and ten bottles of Thousand Island dressing. That got Snowclaw worried.

But apparently there wasn’t any real cause for concern, because Dave told him that Nunzie had a new job for him.

“There’s a truck with contraband goin’ to Pittsburgh. You’re ridin’ shotgun. Nunzie likes you. Thinks you’re doin’ real good.”

“Uh-huh. Okay.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s a milk run. Cigarettes, that’s all it is.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They come up from the South. You know, without tax stamps on ’em? Then we ship ’em all over. We make two hundred percent profit. Even at that, it’s peanuts, really, but it’s part of the family business.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah. If you do good, Nunzie might put you on with the cash crop shipments. You know, the coke, the smoke, and the poke?”

“Uh-huh.”

Dave smiled and thumped him on the back. “You’re okay, Snowy. A little strange, but okay.”

“Uh-huh.”