Catwoman - Tiger Hunt

"You?" she asked, pointed at the gouges in the door and frame.

With a quick nod of her head, Catwoman bent down and went to work on the lock. It was a delicate chore; she'd damaged the mechanism on her previous visit. Hadn't Eddie been back since then? Finally the tumblers fell into place and the bolt could be drawn. She flipped the light switch and, despite knowing what was there, her heart skipped a beat. Everything was as she remembered it. In the pit of her heart, she believed that no one had been in the room since she'd left it.

"Omygod. Omygod." Bo

"Just point and shoot. You're sure to get something illegal. There's a piece, a Siberian tiger box, in the room where we came in. Save a shot for that. I'll take a look in the other rooms to see if there's anything else we should have."

"Just point and shoot," Bo

She unbuckled the backpack and opened it. When Catwoman left the room, she had both cameras on the floor beside her and was pulling on a pair of lightweight kid gloves. A moderately thorough search of the rest of the apartment assured Catwoman that except for the jewelry box in the bedroom there was nothing outside the now-unlocked room worth photographing. She was also positive that Eddie Lobb had not been back. This made her irrationally uneasy. If Eddie had been gone this long, there was no reason to think he'd be coming through the door any time soon. But reason had no effect on the acid churning in her stomach. She returned to the cat room to tell Bo

"Stop that!"

Catwoman was much stronger than Bo

"Don't touch things like that! What else have you touched?" Glancing around, Catwoman could answer her own question: everything on the right side of the room was subtly out of place.

"I've done the wide-angle shots in high-speed color; now I'm going for the close-ups in low-speed black-and-white. I'll get great enlargements. I've got to move things if I'm going to get good pictures. I'm wearing gloves. It's not like I'm leaving fingerprints around. Besides, I've never been arrested. There wouldn't be a match on file."

"But he'll know someone's been here."

Bo

"You think so?" Catwoman said slowly, chewing on a steel claw. Bo

"Yeah. Wait. I've got a better idea. Instead of just moving them around, we'll move them around in a pattern. See how he's got everything so it's looking down at his desk here? Well, let's make them look someplace else---the door. The door where you made those scratches. Like all the tigers turned their heads to see you walk in. Oh, it'll be great. I wish I could see his face! I mean, we will see his face eventually, 'cause these pictures are going to make everybody at WW weep blood. I promise you. They'll call lawyers, judges, all kinds of people. This Eddie Lobb guy---by the time we're done with him, he's go

Catwoman wasn't listening. She was busy following Bo

Mother of midnight---Eddie Lobb was coming home!

Bo

"I'm scared," Bo

"You'll be fine," Catwoman hissed as the apartment echoed with the sound of a metal bolt withdrawing from a metal socket. "Go down the hall, get out the window. Go to the fire escape and climb to the roof---just the opposite of how we got in here. Can you do that?"

Tears dribbled out of Bo

"Go. You'll be fine. Wait for me."

Catwoman turned off the lights, pulled the door shut, and guarded the hall. A second lock chinked free. They still had time. Nobody, not even Eddie himself, could get into this apartment quickly. She heard the drapes rustle and an involuntary yelp as Bo

She caught up with Bo

"Hey---it's over. It's all done." Catwoman tried to pull her to her feet, but it was like pulling lead. "You did good, Bo

Bo

It was tempting. Very tempting. With Bo

"They're not that hard to work, right? Just point and shoot?"

"Not quite, but almost. Here, I'll show you. Let me put a new roll of film in, too... ."

Moments later, Catwoman was headed back down the fire escape.

"Good luck!" Bo

It was a strange, warm feeling to have someone wishing her luck. Catwoman squelched it quickly. Luck was not something she liked to rely on.

Eddie was in the cat room. Catwoman could hear him yelling before she climbed through the window.

"Well, cancel it, I'm telling you. Screw the damn Bess-arabs and their dirty pictures! I'm telling you, somebody broke into my place while I was gone."