Mister Bunny And $88.01

 I was lying on the couch, waiting for the air conditioning to kick in and dozing off due to the heat, a hangover, and disinterest in the ballgame on TV because the Jays were pummeling the Yankees for the third day in a row.

My cat Henry was napping on my chest, and we were both startled awake by my apartment buzzer. No one ever buzzes my apartment. People call first. Actually, no one ever comes to my apartment. I meet people outside.

I staggered to the buzzer. “Hello?”

“Is this James Yates?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Police.”

Police? What the... “How can I help you?”

“Can we come in?”

“How do I know you’re the police?”

Silence.

“Hold on,” I said. “I’ll come down.”

I pulled on a t-shirt and went downstairs. Sure enough, it was the cops. Two uniforms, one plain clothes. I assumed the plain clothes was a cop because she did all the talking. She introduced the three of them by name but I didn’t really pay attention.

Looking at her notes, she said, “Where were you on the night of January seventeenth?”

Jeesh, what a question. Some random date five months ago. Would she expect me to remember that?

“How the hell would I know?”

“Listen, Mr. Yates, can we talk in your apartment?”

“Do you have a warrant?”

She looked at her shoes. The two uniforms looked at each other. No one said anything.

“Ah, never mind,” I said. “Come on up.”

They made so much noise coming into my apartment that Henry scurried into his cage, and burrowed into his stuffed animal friends.

She said, “Do you know Peter Baxter?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t think so. Who is he?”

“He was murdered January seventeenth. In a house not far from here.”

“Oh, that guy. I remember that happening. No, I didn’t know him.”

“We think you did.”

“What can I say?”

“Can you tell me where you were about nine on that night?”

“Probably not. That was five months ago. How would I... Oh, wait a minute.” I opened up my laptop and went to the website of my credit card company. On January 17, there was a posting from the Terrier and Rats for $88.01. “So,” I said, “if you go to that pub, they’ll be able to pull up that receipt. I remember now. I was trying to figure out the exact tip percentage to get it to exactly eighty-eight bucks. I couldn’t do it. I wanted eighty-eight coz that’s how many points the Raptors scored that night. They lost. The game would’ve been over about nine thirty or nine forty-five, so my receipt will be ten or ten-thirty. The receipt will have the time on it. So that’s where I was all night.”

She made a few notes, looked at me, said, “Thank you, Mr. Yates. Sorry to have bothered you.” And they left.

Henry came out of his cage, sat beside me on the couch, and we watched the end of the ballgame. Then I figured I’d go to the Terrier and Rats for a hair of the dog. I reached into Henry’s cage, pulled out Mister Bunny, unzipped his stomach, and took out a roll of money. I peeled off a hundred-dollar bill from what I’d taken from Peter the night I killed him for trying to rip me off on a heroin deal. I use my credit card only on special occasions.

Just because you have proof you paid at ten doesn’t mean you were there the whole time. I wonder if cops know that.

Bill Kitcher’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published, produced, and/or broadcast in Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Germany, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, the U.S., and Wales. His comic noir novel, “Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep”, the second funniest novel ever written, was published in 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing, and is available on Amazon.