Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ was the poison for?" Erin asked, getting ready to look appalled.

      "To kill the cat," Kit explained. "But only if the atom decayed and the reaction broke the phial."

      "That's awful," Erin stated.

      "She's a cat person," Stuart said hastily, casting a warning glance at Kit, while Erin tried not to laugh. "It's okay, Erin dear," he cooed. "The cat wasn't hurt."

      "There was no cat," Kit said. "It was just a theory, the point of which was that you would never know what had happened in the box unless you looked; hence proving that nothing is real, or has any reality, unless it is observed."

      "Aah, I get it," Erin exclaimed, raising her palms to the painting as if she'd had an epiphany. "That explains why the scarlet is not repeated."

      "Exactly," Kit agreed, simply because she could.

      Stuart looked from Erin to Kit and back to Erin. "Would you excuse me for a second," he said, getting ready to escape into the crowd. "I've just seen Martin."

      "Thank you, Kit," Erin sighed with relief. "So, were you baffling the boring-as-batshit little man with a different variety of bullshit?"

      "No," Kit smiled. "It's all true, I swear. And there really was no cat - I promise. And yes, Schrödinger was a sick bastard. He could have put himself in his imaginary box and his theory would've worked just as well. As for the 'alternate universe' theory, that I got from the artist himself who just happens to be my brother Michael."

      "Well I never; so it is," Erin laughed as she peered at the signature. "Interesting."

      "Yeah, it's out there," Kit acknowledged. "Somewhere. Let's go get a drink, there's some people I'd like you to meet."

      "Grand idea," Erin agreed.

      "Hold it right there, Dufus-Brain!"

      Oh no! Kit thought. She swung around to face the bar just in time to see Brigit leap off her stool and throw a jug of water, ice blocks and all, into the path of a rapidly moving waiter.

      The leap itself had been remarkable for one who, by her own admission, was built for comfort not speed, but the never-to-be-confused-with-Buffy vampire-slaying stance was a truly perception-altering sight, especially as it was enhanced by a bizarre kind of ululation. Kit knew she would never be able to look at dear sweet Brigit the same way again.

      In the meantime, the waiter slipped, fell and skidded across the floor on his bum. When he came to a rest, with his feet tangled in the legs of a chair, Brigit sat on him and poked him in the chest.

      "You ain't goin nowhere, Scumbag," she added unnecessarily.

      "Anywhere; he ain't goin anywhere," Kit corrected. She stood with her arms akimbo gazing questioningly at the pile of drunken friend and crumpled waiter. "Brigit honey, why are you sitting on this nice man?"

      "You check his apron pocket before you go alleging any kind of niceness," Brigit pronounced as she rolled off him and clambered to her feet.

      "What the hell is going on?" Miranda bellowed, as she pushed her way through the growing circle of spectators. She knelt on the floor and patted her fallen employee's brow with her right hand while her left, obviously by accident, squeezed his inner thigh. "Tony, darling! Are you okay?" she asked, full of concern until she realised her silk trousers were getting wet. She stood up and looked concerned from there.

      "Oh no, Brigit," said Del. "What have you done, and what on earth was that yodelling?"

      "It was my Xena call," Brigit said, flouncing back to her barstool. "And as for what I was doing," she added, shifting her gaze between Miranda and Tony, "I was demonstrating why your friend there didn't have to hire a private detective to catch a thief. Although hire is not really the right word seeing no money entered the equation. All you had to do, Miranda, was pay attention."

      "What are you talking about?" Miranda demanded, using her extra-special, double-barrel 'how dare you' tone.

      "Am I right, Kit?" Brigit queried sweetly.

      "Yes, you are quite right," Kit announced. She turned to the waiter. "Are you going to take all that stuff out of there, or shall I ask my Muscle Girl to empty your pockets?"

      "I'm not touching him again. I've an idea of where he's been, now," Brigit remarked. "Miranda, you really should stop bonking the hired help."

      "Brigit Wells," Miranda stated firmly, "I do not bonk."

      "Ooh, that could cause problems," Brigit said. "But with any luck, you'll just explode from sheer sexual tension one day."

      "Oh my god, Brigie," Del moaned.

      "Four mobile phones, three wallets and a lovely little Glomesh purse." Kit itemised the loot as Tony removed it from his apron pocket. "Oh, and a condom. Shall I call the cops, Miranda?"

      "Um," her client hesitated, as she glanced down at Tony. A simple nostril flare, Kit noticed with interest, was all it took to transform the hint of regret in Miranda's otherwise cold-as-stone expression into a suggestion of complete disgust and loathing. Her earlier-stated preference for playmates of the young, adoring and unattached variety obviously had its delinquent downside.

      "Yes please," she replied crisply. "By all means, call the police."

      "We'll wait here," Kit said. "Let me know when they arrive and I'll take Tony out the back door."

      "Oh good. Thank you, Kit." Miranda faced the audience they had gathered and made shooing movements with her arms. "The sideshow is over folks, the main event is happening down the front. The Hojo Blues Quartet is about to perform."

      Once the 'folks' had done as they were told, Miranda stepped over the wet and worried Tony as if he was nothing more than a puddle on the floor. "And thank you for the sideshow, Brigit," she said. "It was, ah, revealing - to say the least."

      Brigit shrugged and smiled, but said nothing.

      "Fine. Well, I'd better get back to it," Miranda said. "Oh by the way," she added, putting her hands on her knees so she could loom over Tony, who had only just managed to sit up. "You are fired, you pencil-dicked traitorous little shit."

      Kit, Brigit, Erin and Del burst into laughter as soon as Miranda was out of earshot. Kit waved her hand over the pile of mobile phones, chose one at random and used it to call the local police.

      "Can I get up out of this water now?" Tony asked.

      "Yeah sure," Kit replied. "Go sit at the end of the bar, against the wall, next to my friend Brigit."

      "Christ! Do I have to?"

      "Yes," Kit snapped.

      Tony did as he was told, and Kit dragged a table in front of the bar, so that if the waiter-toyboy-pickpocket tried to make a run for it, he'd have a lot of things to clamber over. Then she ordered a round of drinks, including a coke for the thief and a special double martini for the thief-catcher.

      "That was very heroic," Erin commented, raising her glass to Brigit.

      "Thank you," Brigit smiled. "And you СКАЧАТЬ