Cat Bearing Gifts (12 page)

17

H
AVING LEFT
P
EDRIC'S
room hidden in Clyde's backpack curled up atop his spare sweatshirt, Kit lay now beneath Lucinda's white covers pressed between the bars of the hospital bed and Lucinda's warm, familiar side. Her housemate seemed frail and vulnerable in her heavy bandages and cast, and wearing only the flimsy hospital gown. Whenever Lucinda slept, Kit drifted off, too. She woke when Lucinda stirred sleepily and stroked her back and head. Wilma sat close beside the bed in a folding metal chair, her brocade carryall hanging on a knob of the bed where Kit could slip easily down into it. Three times within the last hour, the nurse had come in. Each time, Wilma had risen to distract her, asking needless questions, going into useless detail about Lucinda's condition and care—maybe if she made a pest of herself the nurse would stay out of there for a while.

But nurses weren't easily distracted. This small, square Latina woman had answered Wilma's questions briefly as she checked and replenished the IV bottle and went about tidying up, picking up discarded tissues and adhesive tape and paper wrappers from the metal table, and then bringing Lucinda a fresh pitcher of water. Clyde was down the hall with Pedric, but soon someone would come to relieve him and to pass Kit back to Pedric again—like a library book forever changing hands. The time, by the big round clock above Lucinda's bed, was three
A.M
. and despite Kit's satisfaction at being with Lucinda, the predawn hour made her incredibly lonely.

This was the cats' hour, the shank of the night, the time when, if she were at home, she would be bolting out her cat door and down her oak tree to hunt the hills with Pan. Or they'd be lounging in her tree house listening to little animal sounds bursting suddenly out in the silent dark. But tonight, here in this strange town and strange building, shut in this small unfamiliar room among unpleasant hospital smells, she felt edgy and dislocated.

She knew that Lucinda and Pedric, lying bound to their beds, felt much worse, helpless and so far from home, felt far more displaced than she.

There were no windows in the ER—when dawn did come Lucinda wouldn't be able to look out at the sky, at the first hint of sun as she so liked to do. She always rose from bed when the sky was barely light, would put on the coffee and then, with the house smelling deliciously of that dark brew, she would sit at the dining table sipping her first cup, looking out through the big corner windows enjoying the sunrise, watching its blush brighten and then slowly fade again and daylight spill golden onto their little corner of the world, onto the round and friendly hills and the intricate tangle of rooftops spread out all below her.

And Kit herself, if they were at home, as they should be, would soon return from hunting. Another two hours and she'd bolt into the house as dawn broke, Pedric and Lucinda up and showered and in the kitchen making breakfast. She'd sit on the windowsill cleaning up, washing off the blood of the hunt. She'd long for a nap but breakfast would win, the three of them would enjoy waffles and bacon and then head out for a walk up the hills or through the nearly deserted village streets looking in the shop windows.

Would they do that ever again? Would her housemates come home healthy and well, ready to enjoy their long, free rambles and simple adventures?

But she knew in her little cat bones that they would, just as she knew the dawn was on its way, just as any cat at this hour would wake and begin to prowl restlessly—knowing something good was coming. Soon her housemates would be home again, as eager and hardy as ever; stubbornly Kit clung to that thought with a keen and sharp-clawed resolve.

She could hear, up and down the ward, little clinking sounds as late-night medications were prepared or other mysterious routines attended to. The smells of alcohol and human bodily wastes were not Kit's favorite scents; she longed for the smell of new grass and its sweet, cool taste. Around her the ER, though still shrouded in the hush of night, was slowly beginning to stir, the steps of the nurses quickening as they attended to late-night medications. Glass doors to several little rooms were slid open, curtains were drawn back. Whenever their night nurse left them alone, pulling the door closed as Wilma requested, the three of them talked in whispers. Lucinda sometimes slipped into sleep, but always when she woke she asked after Pedric.

“He's feeling better,” Wilma told her, “the concussion's not a bad one. As soon as we get home, the knee will be repaired. Clyde's with him now, to keep him awake.” And they talked again about that lost world where Kate had gone to learn about her forebears and had found only a dying civilization. All the anticipated magic was gone, only the cruelest creatures still blazing strong with their greedy hunger.

Wilma, like the Greenlaws, was comfortable with Kate's secrets. While Clyde, like Joe Grey, shied away from the tales. But, Kit wondered, what did Ryan think?

Ryan had cleaved easily enough to the knowledge that Joe Grey could talk, she hadn't been terribly shocked the first time the gray tomcat spoke to her—but still, Ryan had been raised in a hardheaded law enforcement family. Where were the limits of her sometimes willing imagination? What did she really think of a world teeming with remnants from the old Celtic tales that so embraced the cats' own history?

And what,
Kit thought,
will Pan think, when he learns where Kate has been?

She could imagine Pan's amber eyes blazing with a keen and hungry fascination, with a bold curiosity that would lead,
where
?

Kit herself had long ago come to terms with her own dreams of such exotic ventures, she had turned resolutely away from her own longing to descend down into the darkest pockets of the earth. When she was very young, when she first came to Molena Point, she had been drawn to Hellhag Cave that cleaved the hills south of the village, to its mystery, had sensed that dark fissure leading down and down, and down again deeper than any cat she knew had ever gone, she had longed to wander there, to discover whatever she might confront that would surprise and amaze her. Only fear—or a touch of good sense—had held her back. Then later she had been drawn to the cellars and caverns beneath the ruined Pamillon mansion that rose in the east hills above the village, intrigued by those dark clefts beneath the fallen buildings. But again she was afraid, she sensed evil there and a destruction she wouldn't dare to face.

But Pan was bolder. What would he do with Kate's secret? She thought Pan had never turned from danger. Her red tomcat had a hunger for adventure that had sent him traveling the coast of Oregon and half of California, one small cat alone never turning from a new and frightening adventure.
Oh
, she thought,
when he hears Kate's tale will he want to go there? Will he go away to follow the harpies and chimeras through that evil land, will he leave me for that adventure?

Or would he want me to go with him down to that dying place that could destroy us both?

V
IC WATCHED
E
MMYLOU
hurry down the hill tripping on the hem of her robe, watched her double-time up her own steps and inside. She was going to call an ambulance or call the cops, the damned old busybody. He should have done Birely while he had the chance, and now it was too late. Unless he could stop her, push on in and grab the phone from her. Had she even locked the door? He'd started down, two steps at a time, but then he thought about the car.

He had to get the Lincoln out of there before the cops came swarming all over. Maybe he'd been foolish stashing the money there, but where else could he have hidden it? He thought about moving the money before the cops arrived because it was too late to move the car, but he didn't have time for that. He was reaching to open the shed when the whoop of the ambulance nearly deafened him, its flashing lights stabbing between the trees, a white medic's van pulling up into Emmylou's dirt driveway.

He eased back into the bushes as four medics in dark uniforms piled out and Emmylou came out her door onto the little porch and started down to them. He watched the shorter medic with the mustache follow her up the hill while the other three hauled out their trappings: stretcher, oxygen tank, black bags, and fancy stuff he couldn't name. Sure as hell, there'd be a patrol car right behind them. What he couldn't figure was, why would that old woman call the medics for a sick tramp? Why would she care?

And where would they take Birely? Some fancy emergency room? What if he started talking, if they gave him drugs for the pain and he got blabby, talking about the money, got some cop curious enough to start asking questions. Emmylou paused up on the stone porch while the medics hurried inside. That yellow cat had followed her winding around her ankles, damn thing gave him the shivers, he could see it there in the bushes, it kept looking at him, its yellow tail twitching in a way that made
him
twitch.

They took a long time in there. He grew cold in his light jacket. He crouched in the bushes hugging himself, antsy to get the car out. What had that old woman told the dispatcher? Had she said there'd been a break-in? Would she want them to search the whole damn property? Two medics came out of the stone house carrying Birely on a stretcher. Emmylou stood to the side, watching. Damned old do-gooder. A third medic, dark-skinned Latino, was asking her questions, writing down her answers on a clipboard. Vic watched her sign a paper when he passed the clipboard to her, and wondered what that was about.

She couldn't be making herself responsible for some tramp she didn't know, she couldn't be promising to pay his medical bill? Talk about a bleeding heart.

Or
did
she know Birely? Maybe Sammie'd had pictures, family pictures. Maybe this old woman recognized him and had got all sentimental over Sammie's little brother? Or maybe she knew Birely from when Sammie was alive? Birely had come here once in a while but Vic couldn't remember if he said he'd ever saw anyone but Sammie.

If this old woman had any sense, she'd let charity or the government pick up the bill. The medics had to take Birely to the emergency room, it was the law, and the hospital had to treat him, the law said they couldn't refuse. So why
pay
for it? Hell of a waste of money. He watched the white van back around in the old woman's driveway and move on down the hill again, heading for some ER. Watched Emmylou head back down to her house, her bathrobe pulled tight around her. The black-and-white never had showed up. What had she told the dispatcher? Just that there was a man sick up there, and nothing about a break-in? Maybe said he was renting the place—all to protect Sammie's little brother? He waited a few minutes, was about to slip back down to the shed when she hurried out again, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and got in her old Chevy. Hell, she was going to follow the van to the hospital. What a patsy. When she started the car it belched out a puff of dark exhaust. Yellow cat crouched on the porch watching her back out and head away following the medics, and Vic thought uneasily about Birely there in the hospital blabbing about the money.

He waited until the Chevy had disappeared, then headed for the shed, smiling. Maybe he could silence Birely right there in the ER, and wouldn't that be a laugh. Shut him up before he spouted off about the money and the fancy Lincoln they'd stolen or, worse, about some of Vic's own, earlier ventures. If Birely died in the ER before he started bragging about Vic's successful robberies, and maybe about that store clerk he hadn't meant to kill, if Birely died right there under the care of a doctor, how could he, Vic, be responsible?

18

H
EADING FOR THE
hospital following two blocks behind Emmylou, her old green Chevy nearly bumper to bumper with the ambulance, Vic spotted the turn-in to Emergency but went on by. He drove on half a mile farther, turning into a wooded neighborhood with big, expensive houses set back among the trees, their grounds softly lit by fancy lanterns but only a few windows showing lights, at this hour. Rolling his car window down, he heard no barking dog. There was no one on the street, no night joggers with their fancy, lighted shoes, no reflective gear of a cyclist who might prefer the empty streets of night, no late partiers headed home. Big houses, three- and four-car garages, but most of the driveways empty. He drove until he found a place with two cars parked in front, a Mercedes and a Jag, and a Toyota sitting on the street. Pulling over beside the Toyota and killing the engine, he got out, slipping a short, oversized Phillips screwdriver from his back pocket.

In less time than it would take the householder to hear some tiny sound and turn on the lights, he was driving away again with his new license plates on the seat beside him. He stopped ten blocks away and switched the plates on the Lincoln, smearing on a little of the Lincoln's damp mud to make them match the rest of the car. Then he headed back to the hospital, following the big red signs to the emergency entrance at the mouth of the underground parking garage, easing the muddy, dented Lincoln along the first level to the back row where cops coming into the ER might not notice it.

Parking, he hit the lock button on the pendant with the key and walked back to the emergency room's wide glass doors, thinking about somewhere secure where he could hide the Town Car later for a few hours, get it out of sight. He couldn't take it back to the stone shed; the minute the EMTs filed their report with the PD, the cops'd be all over the place, the stone shack and Emmylou's house, too. And, in the ER, they'd be all over Birely, wanting to know how he got hurt, asking who else was involved, asking him why he'd been staying in an empty house with only a sleeping bag and where was his friend that the other sleeping bag belonged to?

Approaching the glass doors of the emergency room, he saw an ambulance parked down at a garagelike bay, which stood open but was dark inside. He saw no activity there, no sign of any medics, no stretcher or gurney visible. He moved on up the few steps to the glass doors of the admittance room; they slid open automatically for him. He was hardly inside, moving on past the clerk at the desk hoping she wouldn't try to stop him, when he spotted Emmylou sitting in a small glass cubicle to his left. Her back was to him, facing a desk where a young man in a white shirt and V-necked sweater was filling out papers. Turning away, he moved into the general seating area, sitting as near to Emmylou as he could, hoping to hear what she was saying. She didn't know him, she'd never seen him that he knew of, but he picked up a magazine to hide his face. He couldn't hear much through the glass, and their voices broken by the conversation of passing orderlies and nurses going in and out, carrying clipboards, pushing wheelchair-bound patients on into the ER. He'd catch a few words and then the meaning would be interrupted. He was pretty sure Emmylou was passing herself off as Birely's sister, he heard her clearly when she said there were no other relatives. He waited until the clerk led Emmylou down a short hall to a set of heavy double doors and used his ID card to open them. Quickly Vic followed, slipping in behind them, moving on down the row of small glass rooms as if intent on his own business. Center of the big space was all open, with an island of counters and desks. The clerk at the nearest desk gave him a look. He nodded at her and moved on past. Maybe his stained chinos and worn-out windbreaker got her attention, and his mud-stained jogging shoes. If he had to make another trip here, he'd have to do something about clothes, find something to wear that didn't make him stand out. Several cubicles down, he turned back to see where the clerk had led Emmylou, and nearly ran into two employees, right behind him. They were both in blue scrubs, with ID badges pinned to the pockets. They stood blocking his way, their expressions bland but businesslike. The white-haired woman's badge said
NELLIE MACKLE, RN
. Short hair, thin, a small woman, maybe a hundred pounds, and no physical threat to him, but her dark eyes set him back, hard and challenging. “Are you looking for a patient?”

“My neighbor. My neighbor was brought in,” he said. “At least I think they brought him here. Birely Miller? I heard he was hurt in a car accident, all the lights went on at the house and then I heard the ambulance and I thought . . . Well, he's kind of a loner, I wanted to know if he's all right, if there's anything I can do.”

Nurse Mackle glanced back down the hall, where Emmylou stood in the doorway of one of the glass cubicles, number 12, then stepped behind a desk to a computer. She looked at the screen for a moment, returned to Vic, but said nothing. The man, whose hospital badge had no name, looked down at Vic from a healthy six foot four. Dark skin, dark brown eyes that looked soft and understanding, but with a gleam of challenge. Big hands loose at his sides, his fingers twitching just a little.

“Only family is allowed,” Nurse Mackle said. “If you'll give us your name, we'll pass it on to his sister, she can let you know his condition.”

Vic said his name was Allen James, that he lived four blocks down from Birely. He made up a phone number. She wrote down his information, nodded, and looked meaningfully toward the big double doors. Her dark friend's look, too, implied serious consequences if Vic didn't do as she suggested.

He left the two, feeling like a felon, turned away knowing their eyes followed him. He moved on behind another nurse who was headed for the big, closed doors just beside a unisex bathroom. Most California bathrooms were unisex like this one, the door marked with both his and hers symbols and, in this case, a picture indicating wheelchair access. When he glanced back, the two inquisitors had moved on away, but as he passed the last little room and was about to go on out through the big doors, voices made him turn back to a brightly lit cubicle.

Its glass doors and canvas curtain were open. The patient filled the whole bed, his broad shoulders crowded against the side bars, his feet pressed against the bottom rail. Beside the bed a small woman, round and wrinkle faced, fuzzy hair the color of old newspapers, stood talking with a dark-haired, white-coated doctor. “You might want to go on home, Mrs. Emory, and get some rest. In a little while I'll be moving Michael to ICU, I want to run some more tests, and watch him for a few days. That was a bad fall he took.”

When he glanced up, Vic turned away, facing the door to the bathroom as if he were waiting his turn. “He can have one or two visitors at a time, Mrs. Emory, but they're not to stay long, you understand.”

Vic turned his back to them, trying not to smile. With the patient's name, he had all he needed to get back into the ER without being interrogated. When the door to the bathroom opened and a woman stepped out, Vic stepped on in. He used the facilities, ignored the sign that said w
ASH YOUR HANDS
,
and left. Keeping his back to Michael Emory's room, he pressed his hand to the mark on the wall as he'd seen the nurse do, watched the big double doors swing open. He moved quickly out through the waiting room to the dim parking garage; he still had things to do. He needed a change of clothes, and a haircut. Maybe a barbershop cut, not just him snipping around his ears with a pair of rusty scissors, making a mess. A haircut could go a long way toward keeping the cops off your back.

He'd gone through the packages in the Lincoln again, there was some expensive stuff there, all right. Maybe he could add a few things to it, unload the whole lot with that fence. Them bolts of heavy cloth for covering a chair or sofa, fancier, for sure, than the kind of upholstery goods they used in prison industries to cover the cheap office chairs they turned out. He'd found the old folks' two suitcases in the trunk under all the other packages, and had gone through them. Maybe he could sell the clothes, the woman's stuff had labels so well known even he recognized the value. But among the old man's stuff there was nothing for him to wear, even if it would fit. Two dress suits, white shirts and ties, the kind of clothes that would call attention to himself in just the opposite way from his own stained jeans and mended windbreaker.

Maybe when he returned to the hospital he could lift a pair of blue scrubs like everyone wore in there. He'd blend right in, except for the badge. Everyone he saw, nurses, orderlies, was wearing a badge. Did these people wear their scrubs to work, or put them on here? Maybe they got them from a supply closet, same as they'd get clean towels and sheets? And did they keep the closets locked?

He could think of a dozen ways to get tripped up, though, stealing hospital clothes. He kicked himself again for not snuffing Birely when they were alone and he'd had the chance. If he'd done him then, he'd be long gone by now, and wouldn't have all these details in his way.

But maybe Birely was so bad he wouldn't have to help him along, maybe before the night was over, the hand of fate would end the poor wimp's misery.

Heading upstairs to the main level, he glanced at his watch. Nearly four
A.M
. He found a phone, got the information he wanted. He was back down on the dim parking deck by four-thirty, easing the Lincoln out of the covered garage, turning down toward the freeway. Taking the on-ramp south, back toward the village, he wanted to get cleaned up, change his looks if he could, and get into some clothes that didn't make people stare at him.

He had the Lincoln's registration in his pocket giving the address, and now he had the phone number. One of the keys on the ring had to be the key to the Greenlaws' house, where the old man would have plenty of clothes. Let them two old folks give him a helping hand, it was their fault his truck was wrecked. If they'd been traveling at a decent speed he'd have been past the slide when the rocks fell, would have been well away from the damn delivery truck and would have never crashed into it.

Leaving the ER, he had wandered the main floor of the hospital until he found the courtesy phone on a little table in one of the seating areas. A nice amenity so patients' families like him, he thought smiling, could make local calls. Sitting down on the couch, he'd punched in 411, hoping Santa Cruz was in the same area code, because the phone sure as hell wouldn't reach long distance. Even these free spenders weren't going to let you call all over the country, at the expense of Peninsula Hospital.

But he'd lucked out, it was all the same code. He'd found the hospital pen he'd put in his pocket, jotted the names and numbers on a magazine, of the two Santa Cruz hospitals. He'd called Dominican first, asked for the room of Pedric Greenlaw, and he hit it right. The guy was there, secure in a hospital bed, maybe an hour away from Molena Point, and no way he'd be home tonight. He was advised that the patient was sleeping and that he should call back in the morning.

“And Lucinda Greenlaw?” he'd said, repeating her name from the car registration.

The operator would not disturb Mrs. Greenlaw, either, at this hour. “Try around eight in the morning, when the patients are awake,” she'd said shortly.

Hanging up, he'd called local information again, for the Molena Point residence of Pedric Greenlaw. It was listed, all right—as if the Greenlaws had no idea someone would want their information for less than a friendly social call. When he was automatically connected, the phone rang twelve times before he hung up. He waited a few minutes and then called twice more, let each call ring a long time, but still there was no answer. Jingling the Greenlaws' keys, he'd headed back through the hospital and down the stairs, out through ER to the parking garage.

Before he pulled out, he'd gone through the glove compartment of the Lincoln again, found the local map stuffed in with a handful of Northern California maps, this one a colorful tourist edition meant for out-of-town visitors. He'd found the Greenlaws' street, and now he headed there, down the freeway and off into the hills above the village.

The neighborhood was wooded with scattered oaks, and dark as hell with no streetlights. He saw no light in any window. No house numbers in the village, either. But higher up on the hill there were numbers on the curbs, in reflective paint. Driving slowly, he found the Greenlaws' place and pulled up in front.

The drive and garden were lit by low lamps at ground level, real fancy. The driveway and walk were of stone, a huge oak tree overhanging the garage. He could see a tree house up among the branches, as if maybe these people had grandkids. He sat looking and listening. There was no sound, no lights, no window open with curtains blowing, all was dead still.

He looked for a button on the car's overhead that would open the garage door. How much noise would that make, to alert the neighbors? Some of them doors were as loud as a stump grinder. At last he decided to risk it. If there was no other car in there, that was one more good indication he was alone.