Feline Private Investigators

Author/Biographer: Mark St Jefferson

Agent: Ben Gun

Type: Grey Tomcat

Special Abilities: He's a cat, surely that's special enough. OK he can also communicate in Cat, Rat and Dog speak, he can understand the human tongue and recognises the shapes of some written words.

Me: So Ben, here is where I am supposed to write something about you.

Ben: What for?

Me: So we can tell others about what you are like, what makes you the cat you are. So they can see what a smart cat you are.

Ben: Go suck your tail!

Me: Hey that's not nice!

Ben: I never said I was nice! Look you spend a few days seeking your dinner from garbage cans and sleeping in the draughty basement of a Tower Block. Then lets see how nice you are! I dragged myself up from out the gutter, to get where I am today. While you sat on your fat behind in a warm, cosy apartment.

Me: Whoa, That's quite a hard-boiled dialogue you have there. Where did you get it?

Ben: The human I stayed with when I was a youngster. He used to read detective novels to me every day. We also used to hear the reruns of the plays on the radio. I guess I just kind of picked it up.

Me: But Ben Gun isn't a detectives name!

Ben: I know that Schmuck! He also liked R.L. Stevenson, I was named after a character from a book called Treasure Island. You see, like him I was abandoned, my mother left me just after I was weaned, after that I had to fend for myself until I found Frank.

Me: Who's Frank?

Ben: He was the human that used to look after me and read the stories to me. He was a Tramp or Hobo as they call them in some places. He lived in an old abandoned goods yard, though I can tell you, he wasn't any Bum, he had the smarts. He had just decided to get out of the Rat-Race and cut his own dice as they say.

Me: Sounds like he was a nice man. What happened to him?

Ben: They tore down the goods yard and took him away. I was supposed to go with him but I got caught with two of my friends and imprisoned in a research lab.

Me: Yikes! How did you all escape?

Ben: Well I chewed the end of one of the guards fingers and made a run for it. But I couldn't break my buddies out before they were shipped off somewhere. That's why I became a detective.

Me: What, so you could find them?

Ben: No, I lost that one. But I swore then that I was going to try and help my fellow species wherever I could. So I made for the Smoky City and set up my office as a Feline Private Investigator. I got a shock, I can tell you. I had lived a sheltered existence up until then, and I was amazed at just how much I didn't know about a cats life in a big City.

Me: What do you mean?

Ben: You wouldn't believe me if I told you!

Me: Try me!

Ben: Okay. Well where do I start? There's the territory issues, which are much more complex than you humans think. Then there's the gangs, the Leaders and their associates, there is the drugs, the gambling, the corruption and the deceit. Then there is the politics, the religion and the police.

Me: I thought you said you didn't get involved in human affairs.

Ben: Who's talking about humans?

Me: Oh come on! You don't seriously expect people to believe cats have their own Police Force?

Ben: Look buster! Cats have had over 4,000 years of living alongside humans. We have had more than enough time to develop our own ideas of what's right and what's wrong. Just because they don't quite match your own self important viewpoints, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Me: Okay, I'm sorry, it's just a difficult concept for us lowly humans to grasp hold of. I just can't imagine a prison stacked with feline felons.

Ben: That's because cats are not stupid enough to believe locking someone up for a couple of years, will make them a better cat.

Me: What about gambling? Surely cats are not interested in possessions? So what do you gamble with?

Ben: You mean you've never had a cat that's come home late, after losing her collar?

Me: Yes well of course, but she got it caught on a tree or something.

Ben: Ha! That's what you think. Cats are far too agile to get caught like that. We also have other things that we consider of value: Like hunting rights, territory, and of course sex.

Me: So what sorts of cases do you get involved in?

Ben: Well I had one where I checked out a monster for a queen. But that was simple it was just a machine. Then I had to help a watcher get to safely out of town.

Me: What's a watcher.

Ben: A group of cats who keep their eyes on what humans get up to. Then recently I had a bizarre case involving a religious Egyptian artefact.

Me: Sounds interesting, tell me more.

Ben: What so you can write a book about it?

Me: Well now there's a thought...

Ben: Well in that case........