A delicatessen touch

It takes cunning and careful planning to steal heavily guarded treasure, but does it also need a touch of Mad Mad Mad Madden’s idiosyncratic plans?

They’d tried all the obvious things, of course. Squint-Nose McGee had learned the hard way that the doors closed whip-fast and were made to withstand substantial impacts at speed. He’d been Stan, before.

Big Al, tough, with scars all over his face and one ear mostly missing, had suggested a full-frontal assault. No-one heard, though, him standing only hip high to most of the other bruisers and biters, and they’d spotted a different opportunity.  A window. Protesting mightily, voice suggesting lungs bigger than his diminutive stature could have physically allowed, Al was parcelled through the opening. The fall on the other side couldn’t be that far, right?

The crew held their breath.

Ears cocked for sounds of, surely, imminent success.

The crack of a broom made them all flinch, and Big Al zipped out the door empty-handed, tail between his legs and with a welt on his backside that may as well have spelled out ‘shame’. It didn’t, mind you, being only big, red and painfully blotchy, but it should have, if the world had any kind of narrative sense. “Just big ol’ gussies with crack-aim,” Big Al grumbled, as he licked his wounds back at the hideout.

So of course, Al mentioned the plan he’d suggested first. The plan, he swore up and down with a rabid glint in his eye, that would work. They watched. Waited. The delivery arrived, and the crew sprang into action in a whirl of furious movement and barking shouts. Intimidate, grab and run.

But the dibbles had just finished banging up ol’ Smokey Tramp down the road, and the commotion drew them in like moths to a flame. Scuzzy Ferdinand and Wirehead Yips went down, trussed up, and lobbed sideways into the back of a paddy-wagon. Headed for the needle, unlucky SOBs.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. 

The crew didn’t trust Velvet Shadow. Her ilk worked alone, and there were age-old grudges to be considered. But she was quick, quicker even than Flea Spot, who could jump like his namesake, three times his own height straight into the air. Got the other half of his name from the same namesake; pink, pimply and always scratching.  

Velvet, her voice a dangerous purr from the darkness, said she could slip in and out, leaving them none the wiser, for a price. A cut of the goods. 5% finder’s fee, to pay an expert cat burglar. They agreed that this seemed fair, though they fully intended to scruff her at the first opportunity and make sure they kept the whole haul. No honour among fleas, or thieves.

This proved to be the case, though not in the crew’s favour. Hard Henry, who could be mistaken for a horse or a piece of especially ugly architecture in poor light, and Disproportionate Nares cornered Velvet after they spotted her creeping out the back door. Much posturing ensued - bared teeth, snarled threats. Drool and other mucuses, since Nares was involved. Velvet’s hackles were up and didn’t go down.

She made excuses. Of course she did. Something about protective glass casing, everything wrapped up tighter than their empty bellies. She mewled pathetically, claiming she hadn’t managed to filch even the teeniest sliver, but the crew figured her for a cheat and a liar, and they weren’t going to let that stand. But when it became clear her deception wasn’t going to fly, she planted a foot straight on the front of Nares’ face and used him to spring-board up and over the wall before they could grab her. Later that day, back at the hideout, the crew all agreed it had been monstrously unfair, using Disproportionate Nares’ remarkably large schnozz like that. When the world burdened someone with such a ripe target, taking advantage of it was simply plucking low-hanging fruit, and rude.

Oh yes, they’d tried all the obvious things.

So when Mad Mad Mad Madden, who had already had a few ‘mads’ cut out to make his name usable and often just went by Tim to make things easier, came up with a plan, the crew was willing to listen.

And laugh.

But when all the obvious things had failed, perhaps it was time to try the non-obvious? Even if it sounded more insane than inspired.

Hard Henry was the base, a solid foundation upon which to build. Squint-Nose went next, after some discussion. It was going to be Nares, but upon consideration they all agreed that no-one wanted slimy discharge from the crotch region. Nares and Tim were the arms; it was a struggle fitting them into the sleeves of the pilfered trench coat, and one cuff dripped slightly, but they managed it. Flea Spot, with Big Al clinging on for dear life, leaped prodigiously to land atop the stack of his crew-mates, and for a moment it seemed that Al might topple right off. But Big Al was made of sterner stuff than that, and would never admit that something as trivial as a great height was even mildly intimidating, so he straightened his posture and made sure the hat was hiding his ears. Carefully, he affixed the piece-de-resistance of the disguise, and they were ready.

“Ain’t no-one never seen a one of us wearing one of these, have they? Stands to reason, then, since no sensible folk be wearing ‘em and only humans got the necks and the what-not the fingers what have you, then if we be wearing one they’ll be thinking we’re humans, won’t they?”

The rest of the crew hadn’t been quite sure they agreed with - or even understood - Tim’s argument, but they were hungry. And it certainly seemed that his predictions, such as they were, were accurate, when they lurched into the delicatessen and pointed out a selection of cold-cuts and shaved meats, which the deli-owner hastily wrapped and shoved over the counter.

The owner wiped down a glass countertop, slimed with unguessable humours as his latest customer shambled out of the store. The strangely lumpen figure caught its head on the doorframe, knocking it clean off, but that didn’t seem to deter it at all - the dismembered head sprouted four paws and scampered after its lumbering body, as the deli-owner turned to his equally stunned wife.

“Did I really just serve six dogs in a trench-coat and a clip-on tie?”