Asprin, Robert Lynn – Catwoman – Tiger Hunt (With Lynn Abbey)

“Not me,” Tiger replied, hesitating but not retreating.

“And to think that he found this in the attic.” Bruce paused long enough for confident disbelief to register on Tiger’s face. “Makes you wonder, though,” he continued, “what else this Bruce Wayne fellow’s got in his attic. If you know what I mean.”

Tiger’s face was transformed. The suspicion was replaced by slit-eyed thoughtfulness. He studied the guard, and he thought about the idea the guard had put into his head. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “It does.” Not that he believed for one moment that the icon had come out of Bruce Wayne’s attic, but the museum had taken the bait easily enough. A wealth of possibilities unfolded in Tiger’s mind, and were covered over again. He had other things to do right now.

Like getting that icon out of the museum and using it to get back in the Connection’s good graces. Burglary wasn’t his strong suit. The icon appeared to be sitting on top of a cheap fiberboard pillar inside a flimsy acrylic box. He couldn’t see any security except for these middle-aged rent-a-cops. He knew he had to be wrong. He’d been wrong about the icon from the get-go. He’d never guessed the dark, morbid picture the Russian showed him wasn’t the picture the Connection was buying. He thought the new, revealed picture was just as ugly and overpriced, but he could see the gold and the jewels and he knew he couldn’t afford to make another mistake.

“You guys for real,” he said to the guard still standing beside him, “or are you just for show ’cause the real security’s somewhere else?”