The piano came from somewhere above and smashed against the pavement just behind our hero Ace Chandler, who then turned, considered the scattered ivory keys and the mangled, splintered wood. “Well,” Ace said, looking at Johnny. “That was queer.”
The two shrugged, and continued on. “Oh yeah,” Ace sang, unaffected. “Gettin’ some burgers, gettin’ some burgers, gettin’ some burg-burg-burgers!” Ace continued his hamburger song, Johnny nodding along to the uncertain, frenetic melody, until our pair of heroes came to a cross street. Ace pushed the little button, muttering to himself, “Burgers, I love burgers, with cheese and onions, it tastes like America!”
Ace’s song was finally interrupted by a loud crack and a “ping” sound. Looking up at the “Stop” sign, Johnny tapped our hero on the shoulder. “Uh, Ace,” he said. “Was that bullet hole there before?”
“Dammit Johnny,” Ace said, doing a little hamburger dance now. “I can't go noticing every little bullet hole in every little stop sign. You've got eyes.”
"But, my cataracts," Johnny demurred. "I... Never mind."
When the two turned onto Dealey, and came face to face with a full-grown male African lion, Ace finally ceased in his pre-burger revelry. “I believe,” he told Johnny, as the two were wildly running from the lion that was chasing them, “That some skulduggery is afoot.”
“What?” Johnny yelled, adjusting his hearing aid.
The pair ducked into an alley. The lion walked past, confused and hungry-looking.
Ace, breathing heavily now and coughing, pulled out a cigarette.
“Cousin,” he said. “Someone’s trying to bump me off.”
“Who could it be?” Francis said, back at Headquarters. “Prussian Pete? Doctor Blackwood? Those guys who sent you that note last week?”
“Eureka!” Ace yelled.
Indeed, the week before, a mysterious note had arrived in the mail. “Ace--we’re going to kill you,” it said. “Next week--probably sometime later in the week--maybe Wednesday, but definitely not on Tuesday or Monday. Also, probably not on the weekend. Okay, so probably between Wednesday and Friday--we’re going to kill you. (evilly) Hahahahahahaha.”
Ace had forgotten about the note shortly thereafter, as Johnny and he were to meet for hamburgers, but, digging it from the trash bin in his office, he took note of the black cat scrawled on the bottom of the note.
“The black cat,” Francis said. “The calling card of the Main Street Pussy Cats.”
The Main Street Pussy Cats and our pleasant-smelling hero had a long history indeed. He had busted them twice for rum running in the 1920s, and once for cockfighting.
They were particularly fond of using animals as weapons. “Possum” Jones, the gang’s leader, got his name for his preferred method of combat, which was swinging possums, by the tail, at his opponent. It was much the same for “Muskrat” Peters, “Housecat” Jefferson and Possum’s cousin “Nutria” Jones. “A lion” Ace said, shaking his head. “It must have been old 'Jungle Cat' Baker, the no-good nogoodnik! Let's go, we're gonna catch us a tiger by the tail."
After stopping for hamburgers at Greasy Pete’s, our gang of crime fighters went across town to the Pussy Cats’ old hideout. Economic revitalization had turned what was once a seedy hotbed of opium, gambling and the most affordable hookers in town into a pristine bastion of glass office buildings and people who always wore pants--even still, Ace smelled treachery, and took to investigating.
Using his trusty grappling hook, our hero ascended the side of the old tannery where the Pussy Cats used to hang out. Now the location of a graphic design studio, the townspeople watched Ace curiously as he made his way, step by step, up the front of the building. Finally arriving on the roof, Ace came face to face with an unkempt twenty-something wearing red, horned-rim glasses and smoking a cigarette. As a man who fought the reds for most of his waking life, Ace hated the young hipster immediately.
“Huach” the kid said, as Ace kicked him in the stomach. “What do you know about the Main Street Pussy Cats! Where were you yesterday at five o’clock! You think you can get away with ruining Ace Chandler’s afternoon stroll!”
“Wha-who-what” the kid said, spitting blood onto the gravel. “What are you talking about? I work here.”
“Applesauce! That’s what they always say,” Ace said. “Which one are you? Muskrat? Possum? Housecat?”
“This is a graphic design studio, dude” the hipster said. “I work here.”
Ace thought about kicking him again, but the kid pulled out his wallet. “Look,” he said. “Look, this is my ID card.”
“Oh,” our hero said, scratching his head. “Are you sure you’re not a Pussy Cat?”
The kid looked up at him confused, and still shaken from the stomach-kicking.
“Well, I guess I believe you, kid,” Ace said. “Good day.”
As he turned to make his descent, Ace paused. “Hey kid,” he said.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Can you butt me?”
“What?”
“Well don’t you speak English?! I want a fag.”
“Fag?”
“A cigarette! Now make with the ciggy, before I reintroduce my wingtips to your gut!”
“Take the pack,” the kid said, and tossing them to Ace. “Just leave, please.”
“Thanks kid,” Ace said. “Now you keep your nose clean.”
Back on the ground, Ace lit one of the unfortunate hipster’s cigarettes. “It was a dead-end,” Ace told Johnny. “No, there are no Pussy Cats here. Just a graphic design studio, whatever the hell that is.”
“Uh Ace,” Johnny said. “Look over there.”
Across the street, tucked under a pet shop called “Pussy Cats! Pussy Cats!, was a small room whose sign read “Main St. Pussy Cats Hang Out,” with a large, illuminated arrow pointing to the front door.
“Well I'll be,” Ace said, laughing. “I reckon it’s high time we got some answers.”
Ace, Johnny and Francis were hiding under a pile of coats just outside the front door, when, several hours later, it swung open with a creak. Ace held a finger up as if to say, “Whoa--not yet,” or “I’m number one.”
Whoever it was, he must have not noticed the six legs emerging from a curious pile of coats that hadn’t been there earlier, because he walked by undaunted. When the footsteps faded, when their pitter-patter was approaching the limits of audibility, our white toothed hero sprang into action. With his shoes in his hands, so as to not draw the attention of the trailed, he followed the man for around a half a mile. The man stopped suddenly, at a “Do Not Walk” sign, and Ace crept up behind.
“Surprise!” Ace yelled, and the man turned.
Just before the net sprang from Ace’s trusty net gun, he recognized the man’s face. It was Possum Jones, the ring leader and big cheese of the Pussy Cats.
Possum, his oxygen tank and his trusty possum struggled against the netting, which made Ace laugh. Possum tried to swing his possum at Ace as he approached, but realizing that he hadn’t enough space or freedom to mount any effective possum beating, Possum set his possum down, defeated.
“Looks like you’re all tangled up,” Ace said, wishing someone was around to hear his joke.
“Ace Chandler,” Possum said. “You finally did it. You finally caught the Possum.”
Ace gathered the entangled possums, and summoning his associates with his trusty duck whistle, began to drag them back to headquarters for a cool drink, some questioning and, as he told Possum, “a whole lotta’ waterboarding.”
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