Chapter 130: Cage Match

A thief gets into Jake's office and more.

Her green eyes lit up when she saw that the raccoon in the blue business suit was standing in the office's doorway and she gave him a cute smile even while her long tail twitched as if she was going to play with her prey. Jake stood at the doorway and just stared at the sexy black cat in the very tight black spandex jumpsuit, he willed himself to look into her eyes and not at her slim curvy body. The cat's footpaws were seemingly casually propped upon the oak desk as if she didn't have a care in the whole world. "So what do you want Selena?" he finally asked in a very brisk businesslike tone.

"Oh come on Jake, aren't you the least bit surprised to see me in your office this morning?" she playfully purred back.

Instead of answering, the raccoon just sipped from his mug of coffee.

"You're not being very talkative this morning?" she sighed in a disappointed sounding tone before she sat up in the chair. "I guess you don't like surprises anymore?"

"Your being here is not a surprise."

"You don't know how hard I worked to break into this place! Runnel Security is the pinnacle of modern security surveillance, but I beat it!"

"No, you didn't!"

"Of course I did, I got all the way up to your office without being…" her words froze when she saw that the raccoon had picked up a remote and the big screen on the wall began to show images of her entering the building and her slow deliberate progress towards the third floor.

"I told Tails not to call the cops until I got here this morning, call it professional courtesy. Now get out of my seat."

"Well, you didn't exactly rush to get here!" Selena muttered before she lifted her footpaws from the desktop and stood up, giving a sensual stretch even while she peeked to see how the handsome lean male raccoon reacted. She frowned when she saw that he only took another sip of the coffee. It was then that she suddenly realized the raccoon was drinking his coffee from a mug and not a bistro cup, which meant that he had been in the building long enough to make a pot without her knowing it!

Instead of taking a seat in one of the nearby chairs, she leaned against the sturdy desk and watched while Jake calmly walked past her and sat down in his chair.

"I told you that we should have called the cops," an angry voice growled from the doorway and the cat glanced over to see that there was a middle-aged rat standing there.

"Ah and so enters the real brains of this operation! Allen Ratzolli, you keep the financial end of the company running, just as Tails does the hardware and software end of things," she proclaimed while she sat down on the edge of the desk and playfully kicked her footpaws back and forth.

"This is Jake's company," the rat named Ratzolli said while he remained standing in the doorway.

"Sure, he's the pretty face who wines and dines the clients," the cat scoffed before she twisted to lean over the desk. Even as she spoke, she had stretched out her right paw toward the raccoon who just sat there watching her antics. He flinched some when her paw caressed his muzzle.

"Stop it!" Jake finally softly snarled.

"The pretty face who shows off by sneaking into places where others don't think he can," Selena continued. "He is the notorious master thief who has gone straight and is now the bane for the rest of us poor burglars."

"Ouch!" the raccoon protested before he slapped the cat's paw away from his face. "What the hell?"

The cat just grinned when she held up a strand of fur and it wasn't the same color as the light gray which was under his whiskers, it was white. "You're getting old Jake and you are not the same young coon who started this business. You're slowing down and you are not as flexible as you were over ten years ago."

"What are you after?" Ratzolli asked while he slipped the tranquilizer gun he had drawn back into its shoulder holster. "Just what games are you playing?"

The cat settled back into a chair while she threw the rat a smile. "It is very simple, I need a job."

"A job?" Jake scoffed. "You want me to hire you?"

"Times are getting hard and my current associates are putting the pinch on me. They took ninety percent from my last job and that made it not even worth my time to pull the heist," she said with a pout.

"I wouldn't call hitting a mall jewelry store a heist," the raccoon continued in a belittling tone. "You cut your way into the room from the lingerie store next door, which is how you avoided the alarm system. Once inside, I'm sure it was easy enough to break into the safe."

"A girl has to make a living," she said with a shrug. "After all, that is how I started my career as a teenager with Slick Willie."

"I thought you were under Le Rouge's protection?" the rat asked.

"He can't protect me in jail, where he is now currently rotting. Besides…"

"You are afraid of Chuckles," Jake cut in. "But he is in jail too."

"Do you think being in jail can stop that crazy wolverine? He still has his ways to get what he wants out on the street. The cops may have got the brains of the operation, but they didn't get everyone in his gang."

"Don't you think that Chuckles won't like you leaving his employment?"

"He doesn't even know who I am and Le Rouge has been telling me to get out before it is too late, but I can't go it alone."

"Leave!" Ratzolli snarled.

Ignoring the rat, the cat turned back to face the raccoon. "I'm really good, I can tell you what jobs I have already pulled off."

Jake put his paw up, "I have a good idea of who you've hit."

"They have mostly been ACME or Hunnybear clients," the cat said in a desperate pleading tone. "How many of them have turned to you as a replacement for their security needs?"

"Leave!" the rat repeated.

The cat threw him a look, her hackles had risen and her back was bowed slightly. She paused because Ratzolli had drawn his pistol again.

"Selena, you can always go straight," Jake interjected. "Give up a life of crime and find a nice quiet normal job, preferably someplace far away from this city."

"That is why I came to you!" she seemingly snapped in frustration.

"No!" Jake softly said. "The answer is no."

With an angry hiss, the feline stormed out of the room. She brushed past Ratzolli who still had the gun in his paw and with a flick of her tail disappeared down the hallway. "I'll make sure she leaves," the rat said as he turned to follow her.

Less than an hour later, Selena was sitting in a booth and playing with the plastic stir stick she had in the cup of coffee she clutched in her other paw. The diner was busy and there was an untouched plate of grits and sardines in front of her. After she had left Jake's office, she had changed out of her tight black outfit and into a very businesslike light gray pantsuit and a white blouse. The solid black furred cat had also carefully applied fur dye to give herself some white stripes and now she didn't appear to be the infamous burglar that she was. Sitting there at the table, she looked like many of the other white-collar employees who were occupying the booths around her.

"I told you that wouldn't work!" a heavyset koala bear in a tan suit snapped before he took a seat across from her. "Runnel ain't no bloomin' idiot! His place is tighter than Fort Knox."

"Oh, that was just the first step in my plan," the cat giggled while she lounged back into her chair and gave her companion a mysterious grin.

"Just what are ya up to sweetheart?" the koala bear asked.

"You'll see!" the cat replied with a devious-sounding laugh. "And so will Jake Runnel!"

It was the scent of coffee that caused the raccoon to sit up in his bed and he gripped his head from the pain of the hangover he was experiencing, then his pale yellow eyes widened in surprise when he realized that his wife was still sound asleep in the bed next to him. Softly he slipped out from under the haphazardly strewn covers and crept silently over to a nearby dresser where he gently opened a drawer and pulled out a cylinder-shaped rod. With a slight whisking sound, the taser baton extended to its full length. It was at that moment when he also realized that he was only dressed in his underwear and the hazy memories of the previous evening began to return to him. He had gone to Tundratown to play cards with Kevin, Raymond, and Maurice, where he also partook in too much of the polar bear's thick brown ale. The raccoon could barely recall that it was Renato Manchas who drove him home in a limo and the tall black jaguar had carried him upstairs to his bed. He also remembered trying to kiss Marie while she struggled to get his clothes off before he passed out.

Picking up his cell phone, he padded his way towards the door and hesitated at the top of the steps. Jake winced when the top step made a creaking noise while he began to descend down the wooden stairs towards the front hallway. Stopping at the foot of the stairs, he frowned when he saw the home's burglar alarm had been disengaged. Carefully he continued his way through the dark rooms downstairs, watching for any danger which might be lurking in the darkness. Finally standing in the kitchen, he saw that the coffee pot was on and there was a small slip of paper on the counter in front of the machine. Picking up the note, he read the message.

Thanks for the photo sweetheart, you should really buy yourself a pair of pajamas and brush your teeth before you go to bed because you smell like a brewery. Anyway, I won my wager with Le Rouge. He had bet me 5K that I couldn't get into a Runnel Security protected building without being caught and since your house is one of those buildings, I figured why not? You really might want to upgrade your home's own security, this was too easy.

P.S. I told you that you should have hired me!

Hours later Nick was standing in the kitchen, watching the raccoon with the bloodshot eyes reviewing the outdoor security cameras on his laptop. "I don't get it?" Jake grumbled. "Somehow she got her paws onto the code for the alarm and waltzed right inside. I just change the code only two days ago, like I do every month."

"Don't look at me, I didn't give it to her," the fox said with a shrug.

"Honey, did you or the kits give anyone the alarm code?" the raccoon called out to his wife.

"No, I just wrote it down and put it in my special hiding place," Marie answered while she poured herself a cup of coffee.

"Wait! Wait! What special hiding place?

"Well, you always make the codes too hard for the boys to remember and so I write them down and stick a copy under that big rock in the front yard."

"You put the alarm code under a rock outside?"

"Yes."

"I always tell my clients never to write the code down, but memorize it!"

"Then stop changing it so often."

"That's not…," the male raccoon began to explain until he saw the look that the female raccoon gave him. "Yes, dear."

Two days later, Nick stood there and watched while Tails finished installing the new burglar alarm system to the house's front door. "Let's see Selena get past this!" Jake said with a grin.

"Don't you think that is a tad bit too much for a residence?" Nick asked.

"This is the newest state-of-the-art biometric security system. It not only takes a code but also scans your right eye's retina before it allows entry."

"I've seen ones like it before in high-security buildings, but still don't you think this is too much for your house?"

"There is no way anyone can sneak into my house again."

"And what has Marie said about all of this?" Nick said with a shake of his head.

"I haven't told her," the raccoon replied as he admired the newly installed alarm. "I am, after all, the master of my castle."

"Sure, Jake," the fox snickered even while he reached for the doorknob. "Keep telling yourself that."

"NICK, DON"T!" the tailless rat yelled in a panic but it was too late. An ear-splitting alarm wailed and suddenly a steel cage dropped down from above ensnaring not only the fox, but also the raccoon and the rat inside its stout bars.

"A cage! Really, Jake, don't you two think this is too much?" the fox tried to holler over the alarm. "Come on and let us out."

"I would, but the retina scanner is too far away to work," the raccoon yelled back.

"Then how are we going to get out?"

"The release mechanism is inside of the house, in the hallway."

"Why don't you call Ratzolli and he can come over and free us?" Tails asked as the smaller rat looked around for some way out of their predicament.

"Why don't you?" Nick asked the rat.

"My phone is in my toolbox over by the door, just out of reach."

"What about you, Jake?"

"My phone is on my desk…in my office…which is inside of the house," the raccoon slowly, but loudly, muttered his answer and then he looked up at the tall fox with some hope in his eyes.

"Nope, my phone is in my suit jacket and that is tossed on top of the nearby shrubs," Nick finally sighed out his answer.

"So we are stuck here?" Tails grumbled. "I have a hot date tonight that I don't want to miss."

An hour later, the raccoon, the fox, and the tailless rat sat there while a crowd of neighbors gathered. Ratzolli had been called, but he was across town and it would take him another hour in traffic to get there. They tried to lift the cage but it was too secure and the bars too thick to easily cut with a hack saw. Finally, Nicky and Freddie returned from school, and with a dexterity only matched by his father, Nicky shimmied up one of the porch railings and carefully walked across the roof. It took him only a few moments to pry his bedroom window open and he quickly disappeared inside. After what seemed like forever, there was a hissing sound and the cage lifted back into its recessed hiding place even as the blaring alarm became silent once again.

"Well, at least we know it works!" Jake proclaimed in an embarrassed tone to everyone gathered around them.

Life returned to normal at the Runnel household while Jake and Nick settled down in the den to watch sports on the television while sipping on a few refreshing drinks. The game had just begun when there was once again the annoying sound of the new alarm and the two friends leaped from the sofa. Quickly they ran to the front door and Jake pulled the door open only to see Marie standing there inside of the steel cage. "JAKE RUNNEL!" she angrily screamed while she stood there with her arms crossed.

The next day, the roundly chastised "master of my castle" had the alarm and the cage removed.