Mr Whiskers sat on the bench seat next to the remaining fish tank in a state of deep concentration as he thoroughly attended to urgent matters of hygiene. That is to say that he was loudly and rather intensely licking his own genitals.

  “Oh Mr Whiskers,” Murder repeated. “To the farm, with all due haste!”

  The licking stopped, a leg lowered and Mr Whiskers looked down at the little fish.

  “Wrong bucks,” said Mr Whiskers. “She’ll be wanting the paper kind. And it just so happens that I know where you can find loads of the little pieces of paper.”

  “Great. Let's go,” said Murder.

  Mr Whiskers seemed to consider this. “If Sally buys the shop, does that mean I’d be a full-time shop cat?”

  “If you want to be, sure,” replied Murder. “You would make an excellent guard.”

  The cat stood up and arched his back in a big stretch, his claws extending and digging into the seat. “Purrrfect,” said a stretching Mr Whiskers before lying back down.

  “Where are these bucks?” asked Murder, looking up at the giant cat who had already saved them twice today and now appeared to be coming to their rescue yet again.

  “There is a place nearby that I have visited on my nightly prowls. A small out-of-the-way house with absolutely no curbside appeal, right next to a lot of factories where the owners keep strange hours and even stranger chemicals. I think they make some kind of catnip for humans, and I’ve seen them trade it for loads of paper bucks.” The cat paused and started licking its paw before a thought struck. “What day is it?”

  “Sunday,” squirted Dr Flibbles. The cat yawned and sat back up.

  “Well then, no rest for the wicked. There will be a bag of bucks coming tonight. I could go in and carry out some green papers.”

  “You can't just walk in there, pick up a bag of money and saunter off, Mr Whiskers – you’ll need a plan. You can't just rely on being a cat this time,” said Dr Flibbles.

  The cat harrumphed. “Planning is something other animals do; cats don’t plan – we go with the flow.”

  “Do you remember all those dead and dying fish you saw this morning? They went with the flow when the tank smashed,” said Dr Flibbles. “I planned to go to the lowest part of the floor if something like that ever happened, and I survived.”

  Mr Whiskers appeared to consider this. “Perhaps style alone won’t be enough on this rare occasion, so just this once, I’ll let you plan today, and if I feel like it tonight, I might even follow your plan.”

  “We’ll need more information,” announced Dr Flibbles. “How many people are in the house? Do they have any animals? Where is the money kept?”

  “So many questions, such little inclination for me to care,” replied Mr Whiskers.

  “I shall conduct reconnaissance on the property myself,” said Murder.

  “And how are you going to do that?” asked Mr Whiskers, nonchalantly preening his paws. “You don’t have legs and I don’t have a little fish tank to carry you around in.”

  Murder looked at the puddle that still remained in the corner of the room, where they had been earlier that morning, and then back to the cat.

  “We’re not doing that,” said the cat. “I’m not going to carry you around like royalty in a cat-shaped litter.”

  “I can offer you another sacrifice of flesh? One of the big ones,” replied Murder.

  “I’ve eaten ten of you today, and I can take any one of you at any time I want. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “We’ll get Sally to name the shop after you,” said Dr Flibbles. “People will come from far to pat the eponymous Mr Whiskers.”

  “I have always wanted to be e-pony-niminous,” replied Mr Whiskers. What’s that mean again?”

  “Like James Bond,” replied Dr Flibbles.

  “Ah, stylish and breeding daily? That does sound like me,” said Mr Whiskers. “And, I suppose that if I had my own shop, I could finally make the switch to being a full-time indoor cat.”

  “You could indeed,” replied Dr Flibbles.

  “We’ve got a deal then,” said Murder confidently.

  “How are we going to manage—Ouch!” said Spots, cut off by a fin slap from Dr Flibbles.

  Only a few minutes later, Mr Whiskers stalked atop the brick wall that encircled the strange-smelling house, with a small fish head sticking out of his mouth.

  “Dhear are heahain hings I canh shay wiff you ng eye ouffh,” mumbled Mr Whiskers.

  “So long as that includes ‘whoops’ and ‘yum’ that’s fine by me,” replied Murder. “You’re doing great. Mind giving me a quick gargle?” asked Murder.

  Mr Whiskers put his head back and gargled Murder with a little water he held in his mouth. “I hae hiss,” mumbled Mr Whiskers.

  As they walked the perimeter of the neglected old house, Murder saw no car in the driveway and no movement through the windows. He could see into three bedrooms; the master bedroom hosted a solitary fish inside an ornately decorated aquarium that rested atop a cheap foldable table. The rest of the layout was harder to determine. The large central room where you would expect to see a combined dining and kitchen area had its windows blacked out on all sides, making it impossible to see what went on inside. Having only some of the windows entirely blacked out somehow made the house look even more suspicious. At the back of the house, one of the high windows had been removed and a ribbed aluminum duct about twelve inches in diameter protruded a few inches from the wall.

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  “A den of iniquity if I have ever seen one,” said Murder.

  “Hae you eva sheen one befhorfe?” mumbled Mr Whiskers through a fish.

  “I have given much thought to how I would lay out my own den,” replied Murder. “Privacy and adequate oxygenation would be high on the list. Can we go inside? I don’t think anyone's home.”

  A quick inspection revealed that none of the doors were left ajar and all of the windows were closed. The only way in was the tube.

  “Hol on,” said Mr Whiskers.

  “What? How?” replied Murder with a hint of panic.

  The cat jumped down from the brick wall at the back of the house and landed deftly on the overgrown grass. Mr Whiskers stalked across the grass and scrambled up the side of the house and into the ribbed aluminum tube that led inside. Any pretense of stealth went out the window via a loudly rustling tube.

  The pair emerged from the air duct on the floor of a tiled room that resembled a chemistry lab. There were burn marks on the walls and patches of unpainted drywall where cupboards had been removed. Cheap plastic foldable tables like the one they had seen in the bedroom were set up along three walls and every inch of them was covered by flasks, beakers, thermometers, fractional distillers and enough complicated apparatuses to keep a glass blower in business for a year.

  “Hiss hace smews horriwle,” said Mr Whiskers.

  “Look out for other cats,” replied Murder. “I see ten bags of cat litter stacked over there.”

  “I donh smew any ova cahs,” replied Mr Whiskers.

  “Let’s look around,” said Murder. “We need to find those bucks.”

  Adjoining the former kitchen (now chemical spill waiting to happen) was a dingy lounge area with three well-worn lazyboys made from artificial leather that was slowly dissolving from all the solvents in the air. Along one wall, an oversized television was loudly tuned in to a local news channel that was almost as toxic as the kitchen. On another wall was a large blue flag depicting an eagle flying under a yellow sun. The rest of the room was almost bare and the carpet had been removed, leaving a concrete floor, on which lay a few plastic tubs and an obscene amount of kitty litter stacked high next to the front door in thirty-liter bags.

  The two smaller bedrooms each consisted of a mattress that lay directly on the ground with no other furnishings. Foul-smelling sheets and dozens of beer bottles, empty cigarette packets, lighters and little glass pipes lay haphazardly strewn on the floor.

  The larger room was another story. It was clean and well cared for with a large, immaculate fish tank housing a single red Siamese fighting fish, a double bed that rested on four casters and a small flat-screen television that hung on the wall above a narrow nightstand. Its cables dangling conspicuously, unplugged and too short to reach the nearest plug.

  “I hear homeone comhing,” whispered Mr Whiskers as best he could.

  Murder’s small fish head furtively poked around the doorframe of the master bedroom and took in the scene.

  “They’re coming. Quick, drop me in the aquarium and come back tonight,” said Murder.

  Mr Flibbles didn’t need to be told twice. He jumped atop the fish tank and let Murder slip through a small gap where a cable for the filter interrupted the seal of the lid. A fraction of a second later, a tall man holding a blue tote bag entered the master bedroom and saw the cat standing on his fish tank. He had the thick stubble of a two-day afternoon shadow, Central Asian features, and wore a dirty tan suit with a flat cap.

  The man screamed unintelligible profanities and lunged at Mr Whiskers, who shot straight out the room and towards the open front door, avoiding kicks from two men in tracksuits as he ran by.

  Murder found himself in an unfamiliar fish tank being death-stared by a large red Siamese fighting fish. It had large flowing fins that resembled an elegantly trailing gown. It swam straight towards Murder, its long draping fins billowing as it moved.

  “What are you doing in my tank?” demanded the red fish.

  “Just dropping by,” replied Murder, swimming backwards as quickly as he could.

  “Looks like Vlad didn’t get the hint when I killed the last little fishy he brought in, and the one before that,” said the beautiful deranged fish. “He was fishing out bits of the last one for days, he was. I tore ’em up real good, I did. The clams didn’t complain that week.”

  Murder now noticed the fish wasn’t entirely solitary; there were dozens and dozens of clams filter-feeding on the bottom of the tank. If he listened carefully, he could make out faint murmuring from the strange creatures below him. The background noise of the tank wasn’t coming from a water filter – it was a hundred little voices. Constant, incessant whispering voices, slowly growing louder. Indistinct yearning murmurs took on a more desperate tone. Murder’s presence seemed to have provoked something in the usually placid creatures. They began opening up and tasting the water with tentacled lips. It wasn’t long before Murder couldn’t ignore them if he tried – they were screaming for flesh and blood and violence, screaming to be fed.

  A thought struck Murder: if he killed the only fish that was supposed to be in the tank, his cover would be blown. He was counting on hiding among the substrate and what he had mistaken for rocks that adorned the bottom of the tank, but it looked like that wasn’t an option. This was just like that movie Deborah had put on the salon television – the one that led to a customer complaint because the main character ate someone. Murder had liked the movie, and remembering it gave him an idea.

  The fish that was ominously, murderously and very elegantly swimming towards Murder was perhaps an inch bigger than him, but most of that he realized was all show; the extra skirts of skin wouldn’t help in a fight.

  You’ve got this, Murder told himself. You’re unstoppable. You are the one who knocks.

  “Hwoy yah!” cried the billowing red fish, striking out with one of its fins and impacting Murder’s side unexpectedly.

  Murder darted around and started biting, but the fish quickly broke loose, leaving a patch of scales in the jaws of Murder and a bleeding wound on his opponent’s back.

  “Hyah!” screamed the injured fighting fish as it landed another blow on Murder’s side.

  The impact stung as bad as the time he had been flicked by a toddler in the spa. The fish obviously had some moves; Murder would have to try to end this quickly. He feigned a retreat, baiting the fish into attacking his caudal fin, which he quickly thrashed out of the way to turn around and bury his face in the wound he had already inflicted on the fish’s back. With a quick succession of powerful bites, Murder had made the hole big enough to bury himself in the larger fish up to his pectoral fins.

  When the thrashing stopped, only one fish remained. A bloated red Siamese fighting fish lay sideways, almost motionless on the bottom of the tank, its skin stretching and contorting as if someone were trying it on for size. After a few moments, the flowing Siamese fighting fish righted itself and began swimming again, its color a brilliant red, except for a small wound on its back, through which could be seen a second set of muddy brown scales.

  The solitary fish’s life was laid bare before Murder. He had been made to fight many fish in this tank. Usually there would be an audience, exchanging bucks and small plastic bags with one another after he won. Then the man that slept in this bedroom would move the small wall-mounted television and put his winnings away. It had been a short, cruel life, and in his final memory, Murder saw himself through strange eyes.

  The tank took on a light-pink hue as tiny pieces of blood and debris fell like snow onto the filter feeders below, and the chittering whispers of the clams fell silent.