It’s not often that I take a case from the mail. And I can’t say I’ve ever been given a lead from a dead man before. But when I got that case, placed gently on the desk, I could tell it held a mystery. Something that needed to be cracked. A trail for a good sleuth hound to sniff out.
And did Colt give me something good. A corrupt preacher, rotten to the core but gilded in gold. A shiny wrapped pile of rotten shit conning the good, foolish folks out of their money and doing the most heinous things with it. Women. Gambling. Drugs. Complete wasting of what was supposed to be holy man, falling into corruption.
Even with the profits of Zion backing the prophet, it had to come from somewhere. The cork board and tied messages would’ve been insanity to someone else, but not me. It was a trail, one that I was able to find like a hawk.
All it took was trailing the known rat back to where he’d get his stuff from. And there I found the real reason that the Voice of Zion was rotting away. There he was, nesting in the hall of a loan shark and dealer, a monster of a man really. This ain’t the first time I’d heard of Gino Carelli whispered around, but it was hard to track down someone involved in so much.
But Tony Vincino? Really?
And then there it was. A stinking rat that had his nose far deeper than cheese, and a fat cat that had no problem whacking his foes into the realm of the Ferryman. Surprising them both revealed them to be exactly what they truly were.
Rats flee sinking ships, even when they’re the one they’ve placed themselves in. Hunger drives them to continuously consume, even if that means they eat each other to survive. And it’s never enough, so they go and seek food where they shouldn’t. More times than not, they pay the price.
Cats on the other hand, have a bit of a risk with them. They bite, hiss and have a tendency to lash out at what threatens them. One could even say that they’re pretty trigger happy, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. Happy to tear up their own digs to get to what they want.
But in a world of cats and rats, it takes being a hound to be on top. Hounds can sniff out the crumbs of rats left behind, and chase them down with ease. They chase the cats away, hunting them down and leaving nothing behind.
Troy is the rat, the one that keeps on leaking everything.
Gino is the cat, loud and hissing with spite.
And me?
I’m the hound, sleuthing the truth out from the crimes hidden. And with my nose on this, I’m aiming to get my jaws around a rat and a cat.
And there’s nothing that you can do to make me let go.