Cat Pay the Devil (10 page)

She'd longed to jerk off the blindfold and get a look at him. If he'd hurt Bennett…And if he hurt Charlie…Unable to see his face, she cringed from helplessness. But how could anything have happened to Mandell? Mandell was quick, and he always went armed…No, Cage had to be bluffing. How could he have had
time
to get at Mandell?

She and Mandell had had dinner together in the city just last night, a wonderful Chinese meal at Tommie Toy's. They'd talked for a long while over tea and dessert. Surely, at that time, Cage was safely in jail—in jail until sometime this morning, apparently. But not a federal prison, just a city jail, overcrowded, understaffed, far easier to figure a way out…If he had found Mandell after he escaped…

“That big house of your niece's, looks to be about half a mile this side of Hellhag Hill, right along the crest there. Easy to spot, easy access in and out, too.” He'd grabbed and shaken her. “You want to tell me what you did with 'em?”

When she remained silent, he hit her again, harder. He said nothing more. He turned, and left the house. She heard
both cars drive away, crunching little rocks under their tires. She thought the other man was Eddie Sears, Cage's old partner. She'd seen Eddie only once in person, ten years ago. And she had seen a mug shot or two. Thin, long face. Younger than Cage, thirty-something. Brown hair. When the cars left, she'd fought to get free. But now, what seemed like hours later, she was still fighting.

T
he frail vine sagged under Dulcie's weight, but as it
tore she scrambled up fast; the trellis was fragile, too, swaying and cracking. The smell of the jasmine blossoms was too sweet. She was clawing up at the little, double-hung window when beneath her hind paws a slat broke. She fell, clawing at the sill, ripping down the rusted screen. As she was snatching through to the window's mullions, she managed to dig her claws into a little crosspiece and hang there, desperately swinging.

“Hurry!” Kit hissed unsympathetically.

Reaching and stretching, she clawed at the top of the frame until she got a grip. The window slid under her weight, dropping like an elevator. She swung up fast, bellying through the torn screen, pulling and tearing her fur, then regained her balance crouching atop the double-hung window, staring down into the dark little bathroom. She heard Kit storm up the trellis behind her, moving so fast that when two more rungs gave way, Kit's momentum car
ried her to the sill—with a desperate leap she was through the window, right in Dulcie's face. They dropped to the sink together, then to the floor as softly as they could. They'd worry later about how to get out. Boldly, Kit took the lead, slipping through into the hall—seeming not to remember how she had, not long ago, been trapped while snooping in a felon's house and unable to escape.

The Jones house smelled of old wood, old dust, old clothes worn too long, an unpleasant mélange of stale scents trapped in closed spaces. Following the voices, they looked from the hall into the living room, then slipped in, bellying beneath an unoccupied armchair into dust that threatened uncontrolled sneezes. Peering out, Dulcie looked up at the masks and shivered. How could anyone live among the hideous faces that leered down from the dark walls? The primitive masks had, she felt sure, come from South or Central America; she had seen many like them in the library, in books on primitive art. Interesting that Greeley had lived most of his life in Central America.

Dulcie knew only one other human who had spent much time in those countries and who cared enough about such artifacts to collect them, and that was Greeley's ex-wife. Sue loved Latin American art, though the items with which she filled her shop were smaller than these masks and more appealing, bright, fanciful carvings and weavings of a cheerful nature, whimsical pieces far removed from these bone-shivering presences that reeked of all the devil myths Dulcie had ever heard—though the concept of the devil had come late to Latin America. These images, she thought, would be based on other spirits, on some equally evil underworld putrefaction. Whatever the case, the collection unnerved her, seemed to speak to something deep and ancient within her feline memory, to stir some timeless presence far too men
acing. Why would Lilly Jones want to live among such monstrosities?

Above them in the too hot living room, Lilly and Greeley made dull and hesitant small talk, the topic of conversation at the moment being the weather. The dry old woman behaved as if she and Greeley were quite alone in the house, not as if a hostage were locked in one of the rooms; she did not seem nervous, did not pause to listen for sounds from some other room.

But if Wilma was here, did Greeley know that?

Could he be here to take delivery of Wilma, to take her away somewhere? But, then, why wouldn't he simply tell Lilly to take him to Wilma? And,
would
Lilly Jones hide Wilma at the risk of her own arrest? From what Dulcie knew of Lilly, she did not seem the kind to take risks, even for her own brother.

Except, Lilly would be more afraid of Cage than of the law. Cage could be mean and coersive, and Lilly was reclusive and weak, not nearly bold enough to defy her brother. Dulcie sighed. Nothing would make sense until they knew why Cage wanted Wilma. Dulcie's housemate wasn't some heiress with unlimited funds for a ransom. What could she have, or know, that would make her so valuable to Cage Jones?

But maybe Greeley was here looking for some
thing
, and not for Wilma at all.

But what? And why now, just when Wilma had vanished?

Greeley had abandoned the weather as a topic, and was digging for information, feeling Lilly out with questions about as subtle as a Great Dane in a crystal store; but at last he got down to specifics, wanted to pack Cage's clothes and take them to Cage, and bring some papers, too, that Cage had put away. Could Lilly get those for him? He'd be glad
to get them himself, save her the trouble. He said Cage had mentioned a small box he wanted, and that Cage had told him where to find it. The old man seemed as nervous as a cornered rabbit in his eagerness to break away from Lilly, to get at the rest of the house on his own. He kept at it until Lilly said, “What are you looking for, Greeley? What do you think Cage has hidden here that you want so badly?”

Greeley widened his eyes in surprise. “Just what he told me to get, Lilly. Oh, you can't think Cage has hidden something illegal? Oh, my. If them cops search the house, looking for him, and they find something incriminating…”

“I told you, they have already searched.”

“But they'll be back,” Greeley said darkly. “Now that Wilma Getz has disappeared, they'll be back here looking for her. You can bet on that. And if they find something illegal in your house…” Greeley shook his head. “That would make you an accessory, Lilly. There's a terrible long prison term for that.

“Of course, if it's something he's brought across the border, carried up from Panama, that makes it a federal offense, with an even longer prison term—for Cage,
and
for you, if you knew about it.”

“That doesn't make sense,” Lilly snapped. “An innocent woman, alone. No one would put an old woman in prison. What a foolish thing to say.”

“Norma Green went to federal prison when she was eighty-seven, for passing forged checks. Eileen Clifton was sixty-eight. Sentenced to twenty years by the feds for taking her kidnapped granddaughter across a state line. Her
granddaughter
! Anything that goes across a state line…”

Kit's ears were back, her yellow eyes narrowed with disbelief; Dulcie swallowed back a hiss of disgust.

“Them federal judges are sticklers for the law, Lilly. Don't
make no difference, your age. If you know that he's hidden something here, you're aiding and abetting. Them judges will see you do federal time, sure as hell is filled with brimstone. Well, I'd just hate to see them even book you, even take you off to the local jail…” And Greeley kept laying it on, about how bad the prisons were, about the sexual bullies and prison gang wars. It was hard to know what Lilly was thinking, with that sour poker face. When Dulcie could stand it no longer, she cut her eyes at Kit and they slipped out from behind the chair into the shadows of the hall.

Trotting swiftly through the shadows from one room to the next, they didn't look for whatever Greeley was after, they wanted only to find Wilma; poking into closets, they prowled a room used for sewing, two unused bedrooms, a dark room dedicated to storing boxes and other junk, and a large linen closet, skillfully and silently sliding open closet doors, poking their noses behind the brittle shower curtain of a second bath—all to the background of Greeley's wheedling and Lilly's sour, one-line refusals. And even as they inspected each depressing room for Wilma, it was hard not to keep an eye out for whatever Greeley had come here to find.

Slipping up the stairs from the hall to inspect the second floor, they made quick work of the four other bedrooms, the last of which was redolent with Lilly's lilac scent, Lilly's clothes and shoes in the closet. Nowhere was there the faintest scent of Wilma, no hint that she had been in this house.

They found Cage's room, though, and he had been there recently—same sour male smell as in Wilma's house. Cage had, within the last few weeks, slept in the front bedroom; a few of his clothes hung in the nearly empty closet.

Interesting that Lilly had said no word, when Greeley claimed that Cage had sent him for his clothes. But still,
nothing really made sense; Dulcie hated when things didn't add up.

They tossed Cage's room more thoroughly than the others, though Wilma certainly hadn't been in there; they found nothing valuable that Greeley might want. Heading back down the stairs to the first floor, the drone of Greeley's voice met them, accompanied by a faint clicking. And when they peered around from the hall, they saw that Lilly was knitting—having grown totally bored with Greeley's wheedling—her needles flying through some project fashioned in pink yarn, she was so engrossed she seemed hardly to notice Greeley.

Some women knit when they're nervous, when they need a calming diversion. Some knit when they're angry. As the cats watched the needles flying and the rows of pink stitches building, Lilly seemed to grow calmer. Greeley, apparently running out of hot air, sat watching her, stone faced, then at last he rose.

“I'm sorry to have troubled you,” he said stiffly. “I hope, Lilly, you are doing what's best for your own welfare.”

The cats smiled as Lilly hustled him out the door; behind her back, they fled for the kitchen; and there they waited crouched on the worn linoleum until they heard her return to her knitting, sighing with relief to be rid of him, her needles once more clicking away madly. They prowled the kitchen, pausing to sniff thoroughly at a door that smelled strongly of musty basement and of gas and oil from the garage.

Could Wilma be down there, so securely confined that Lilly felt no need to go downstairs and check on her? Could she be drugged, or so hurt that she could not escape? In her terror, Dulcie leaped and snatched at the doorknob, clawing and swinging, making too much noise. She couldn't see if the separate dead bolt was locked. But, fighting the door, she
heard the knitting stop, heard the hush of Lilly's footsteps on the carpet. Frantically, both cats fought and kicked—until Lilly entered the kitchen, then they slid behind the refrigerator, a tight squeeze, the motor hot against their fur.

They listened as Lilly opened a cupboard, apparently getting herself a little snack; they could smell vanilla cookies, could hear her munching. When, rattling the package, she headed for the living room again, they followed on her heels. Dulcie's mind was on the basement, on the windows at the back of the house where the cliff dropped away and the daylight-basement looked out at the ravine. And, slipping past the living room as Lilly again bent over her knitting, they made for the bathroom. Onto the counter, and then they were up and out the window, leaving tabby and tortoiseshell fur caught in the torn screen. Ignoring the trellis, they broke their fall among the bushes and fled for the back of the house. Only there did they pause to lick their paws, bruised from the doorknob, and their bare tender skin where the screen had pulled out hanks of fur.

“Will it ever grow back?” mewled Kit who, six months ago, couldn't have cared less how she looked. Now she sounded as foolish as the vainest house cat.

“It will,” Dulcie said dryly, studying the basement windows and, for a quick escape, the grassy canyon that dropped away below them.

The canyon was far narrower here than where it fell away behind the seniors' house. Pine and eucalyptus trees grew up its sides, climbing to within a few feet of the basement, casting their shadows across the dirty basement windows. There were no screens.

Each cat leaped to a low sill and began to work at a slider, trying to jimmy its old brass lock. It took maybe ten minutes and made way too much noise, too many choruses of
dry scraping, before Kit's lock gave way; under her insistent claws and then her pressing shoulder, the bottom half rose up with a loud, wrenching screech that turned the cats rigid. They expected any minute to hear the door in the kitchen fly open and Lilly come rushing down the stairs.

When they decided she hadn't heard them, they leaped into the basement, into a mildew-smelling, clutter-filled storage room behind the garage. They could see, up front, past a row of deep, built-in cupboards, an old Packard that was just the kind of car Clyde would covet, a vintage model badly wanting Clyde Damen's loving restoration. Dulcie stood very still, scenting for Wilma, but not daring to call to her. Kit pressed close, her round yellow eyes big with unease in the shadowy, musty space; then at last they began to search, going first to the oversized cupboards.