Lethal Purse 4: Swizzle

This is the fourth in this series of the comical adventures of Sylvester B Stilldumm, entrepreneurial  investigative engineer, and his two associates, Butch and Swizzle, a pair of nasty cats.  

Lethal Purse, 4

Swizzle

The big news is that Swizzle has arrived in town.  Swizzle is Butch the Cat’s first cousin, on his mother’s side, and somewhat of a black cat in the family.  Apparently he was raised in a den of iniquity, on the South Side of Chicago, and has a propensity to throw his weight around first, and ask questions later.  They say Swizzle’s good at stirring it up; he just does it from behind the scenes, so he doesn’t get the blame credit.  My name is Stilldumm, B Sylvester.  I’ve taken to introducing myself with my last name first, my first name last, and that pesky B right in the middle, but not acting as a verb.  I mean, Sylvester B Stilldumm, sounds a bit too suggestive. 

Around here, throwing his weight around, is liable to get him put to work, so Swizzle keeps a low profile.  Hear that caterwauling on the back fence?  No way is that Swizzle.  Uh, uh.  He keeps a lid on it, and lets his weight do the talking.  In my experience, I have only seen Swizzle, stick his nose into the public sector one time, and it had quite the effect, so I may as well tell you about it, so that you can see why it is, that Swizzle gets what Swizzle wants.

Big Guy was coming into town; that’s all I was told.  It wasn’t even Swizzle who broke the news, leaving that up to one of the hangers on.  Suffice to say, when Big Guy rolls in, it’s usually in a Rolls Royce.  Swizzle likes to stay low on the radar at all times, trying to blend into the crowd, instead of stirring it up.  But he’s more than capable.  He once caused a riot in a crowded venue, by going below and stirring it up so much, in the underground dens of the mice and rats, that they flooded up above ground and into the crowd, causing a fair amount of consternation.   That’s Swizzle for you, stirring it up.

Another time, during an NFL football game, he made his way to the visitors’ side of the field, and put such a fright into the quarterback, that the visitors forfeited the game.  He had that kind of effect on folks.  No one actually saw what came down, and Tebow was’t saying anything afterwards, so the best we could do is guess.

But we did not have to guess about what came down the night that Big Guy came to town.  Getting close to midnight, headlights on the horizon, there was in a caravan of limousines, being escorted by these motor-cops, who drove Harleys that were colossal in size, just begging for Swizzle to take notice.  He did.  He couldn’t help thinking of a bowling alley and tenpins, when he went after the face of the lead rider, and got a splayed paw up under that helmet.  

When that head rider went down, sideways, he took out the two motorcyclists directly behind, and the domino effect continued until all ten of the accompanying Harley riders were down, with Big Guy effectively stymied from being able to carry out the agenda that was planned for that night.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were strict orders not to hurt anyone, at least not too much, so Swizzle had chosen the moment fortuitously, when the pack had slowed down, to allow for the flow of city traffic.  The net result was that it all took place in a sort of slow motion panorama of grace and beauty, with the whole performance being conducted by Swizzle, tail twitching, his body skittering back and forth, seemingly everywhere, and yet nowhere, all at once, until it became clear that his work was done.  Big Guy was stifled--again.  It was noteworthy, because Swizzle had elevated his game up another notch, and Big Guy could only grind his teeth and have his secretary schedule a series of dental appointments. 

Now Swizzle was again making an appearance, leaving one and all to squirm, wondering what kind of mischief he was up to.  For being only ten inches tall at the shoulder, and weighing in at eighteen pounds,  but looking double that because of the way he had had his fur done, sticking straight out like a body afro, he produced quite the electrifying effect.  Being well supplied by Thomas Edison, I was not in need of additional electricity, so I convinced Butch to intercede on my behalf, and to find out what Swizzle had in mind.

Good move that.  It turns out he had a catapult, mounted on a catwalk, where a cat burglar had caterpillars lined up catatonically, having caught a case of cat-scratch fever, while at the cathouse.  It was all quite catastrophic.  Butch defused the whole thing by catching catnip in a cat’s cradle and using a cat-o’-nine-tails to categorically catalog comments to cats.  It was all over before the fat lady had an opportunity to sing, so that’s how Swizzle was able to stay in the background.

I, meanwhile, was called upon to explain the whole mess, which I did in the aforementioned fashion, leaving Big Guy scratching his head, looking as though he could use a new flea collar.  Let’s leave it at that, before we get ourselves in any deeper than we are.  I told Butch to keep his cousin on a leash next time, and Butch informed me, that case- hardened steel was fine to keep burglars out of my garage at night, but was nowhere near up to the task of stopping Swizzle, if he wants to stick his paw into my business, and stir it up--just a bit.