THE CAT'S PRIVATE EYE PART 3: COMA CITY copyright2012 m.s.

I fell through the dark void wondering if I should have called that dumb black cat, Mr. Lim's bluff. He'd threatened my life if I didn't take the job of bringing to him a woman Colleta Bare, who incidentally, pushed me out of a window. I was falling fast, just my head.  My spirit cabinet had already hit it's mark down below. I was wondering when this day would be over, so I can go home, enjoy an issue Highlights magazine and a can of Schlitz.

Just as I was fretting, I too hit my mark. Tearing through three ceilings. The last was a bar, filled with the strangest people I'd ever seen. Siamese twins, people with toasters for heads. Four legged strippers dancing around spiderwebs. A guy with his dog attached together by an umbilical cord. And the Frankenstein monster serving at the bar.

Of course where I landed, didn't make me any more normal. It seemed I, Johnny Zero, had landed on a headless body. Now I'm stuck. He sure was happy. His hands kept feeling me up. He was sitting at the bar, pouring beer in my mouth, turning a matchbook over and over in his hands. COMA CITY, it stated on the cover.

I was drunk. I was pissed. And I was worried about my spirit cabinet. I turned to the man attached to his dog , “Where the fuck is my spirits?”

The dog laughed, smacked his knee. “That was the best joke I have ever heard, buddy.”

I snarled at him. “Sometimes the kind of people in these places, make me sick.”

The man and his dog pulled out a knife.

I smiled. “Hey, you wouldn't cut a floating head, would you?”

They lunged at me with both knives. Suddenly, a hand smacked one blade out of the man's hand and in an instant later gave the dog two right crosses. The man and his dog whimpered and and ran out the bar with their tails between their legs.

I knew that hand. He helped Colleta throw me and my spirit cabinet out the window.

“I would thank you, but your the reason I'm here---remember you tossed out a window.”

“I'm afraid you have me mixed up. Sounds like my brother, Calvin—a left hand! Open windows are his forte.”

END PART 3