Cat on the Edge (13 page)

The cream-colored cat lay sick and confused, looking out through the wire door of a cage. Her thoughts were fuzzed, her vision blurred. She could make out rows of cages lining the small, square room, wire enclosures stacked three tiers high, marching around three walls. Nothing would stay in focus; no thought wanted to stay in focus. She lay sprawled on the metal cage floor, too weak to try to get up.

She was terribly thirsty. There was no water inside her enclosure, no small metal bowl as she could see in the other cages; she could smell the water, mixed with strong, less appealing smells. She didn't know how she had gotten into a cage; she had a sharp physical memory of Lee Wark throwing her against the concrete, a sharp replay of the pain, of terrible jolt exploding in blackness—then nothing.

She could remember waking before in this cage, waking then dropping back into sleep; her mind was filled with fragments of detached voices and with sounds that would not come together, with the rank medicine smell, and with the sounds of metal instru
ments against a metal table. She had no idea how long she had been here, no notion of time passing.

She remembered the feel of a plastic tube bound to her front leg, and of its little pin inserted with a sharp prick beneath her skin.

The stink of medicine clung to her fur. Her left foreleg was bandaged. It smelled so sharply of medicine that when she sniffed it she sneezed; the jolt of sneezing hurt her deep inside.

As her vision began to clear, she looked around intently for a way out. The walls behind the cages were made of unpainted concrete block. All but three of the cages were empty. The other tenants were a big brown dog sleeping deeply, four kittens asleep tangled together, and a black-and-white terrier pacing his enclosure dragging a stiff white leg. No, it was a white cast on his front leg.

Her eyes didn't work right, everything was fuzzy. Overhead, one soft light burned, a long fluorescent tube in a white metal fixture. Two other fixtures hung from the ceiling, one at either side, both unlit. The fourth wall of the room was blank except for a window and a metal-clad door, and a water hydrant protruding from the concrete floor.

The lone window was dark with night, but its blackness was rimed with fog, too, with a pale, blowing mist so thick that the window seemed to be underwater. The closed window was shielded from entry, or from escape, by a thick metal grid. As she looked, a flash of light ran striking across the fogged glass, as if from a car passing somewhere beyond; and she could hear the swift hush of tires
on wet pavement, then the roar of several cars, fast-moving, as they would be passing on a highway. Her mind was as muzzy as her vision; but it clung to the one distressing fact that she was in an animal cage, that she was locked up in some kind of kennel.

But no, it was a clinic. Dr. Firreti's clinic. She had a vague memory of Firreti's face, round and smooth and sunburned, leaning close to her.

Firreti did something with stray cats. She could not remember what.

Why was
she
here? She wasn't a stray.

Had Lee Wark brought her here? Had Wark brought her here after he beat her? But why? For what purpose? Or had she gotten here somehow on her own after she was hurt, had come here needing help?

She stared at the closed wire door. Shut in like this, Wark or anyone could get at her. She tried to get up but lay back; the effort left her weak.

She could remember being in another room with concrete walls, and the same medicine smell; that was the room of the metal table and the voices, and the hands on her gentle but insistent. Her thoughts kept going around; she couldn't concentrate.

She tried again to get to her feet, but it was an effort even to lift her head and shoulders, a terrible effort to roll from her side onto her belly. When she did roll to that more erect position, pain shot through her ribs.

On the next try, she made it to her feet, but the hot jab forced her down again, crouching and panting.

She listened, but heard no sound from beyond
this room. She tried again to rise, suppressing a sharp, involuntary mewl. She lurched up; and this time she remained standing and moved to the cage door, stood leaning against it.

The door was secured from outside. She thrust her paw through, ignoring the hurt, feeling around for a latch.

She found a slide bolt, and began to work at it, pulling and wiggling it.

After a long time, when the bolt didn't give, she forced both paws through. The pain as she stretched out brought another involuntary mewl. The thought of something broken in her small, tender self turned her nearly helpless with fear.

But the thought of Wark finding her in here; or of the veterinarian prodding and examining her further, filled her with a deeper terror. What would a veterinarian find if he studied her closely? Not a normal cat. She fought the bolt, clawing and poking, bruising her paws, and at last managed to work it free. The gate swung out so suddenly she nearly fell.

Catching herself, backing away, she rested. She had no strength. She was so terribly thirsty, panicked with thirst. The metal water pipe drew her with an insistence that sent her leaping down; she landed so hard on the concrete that tears spurted. She crouched and threw up bile. The terrier began to bark. His shrill cries filled the room, echoing, hurting her ears.

Beneath the water hydrant beside a round metal drain shone a small puddle of water. She lapped
thirstily. The floor smelled of Clorox and of dog urine. When the water was gone she fought to open the tap, but she couldn't budge it. Defeated, she approached the heavy door. The terrier's shrill staccato was so loud that it, too, seemed to be physical hurt.

Someone would hear him—there were houses close to the clinic. Staring up at his cage, she yowled at him. She might as well have yowled at a blank wall.

In desperation she shouted. “Stop it! Shut up and lie down!”

The human command, lashing out from a cat, threw the beast into a frenzy. Yapping he flung himself at his door, trying to get at her. As he heaved at the wire, she crouched before the tall metal door. Ignoring the furor she whispered, making the spell.

She was falling, spinning down, dizzy, whirling, then spinning up.

She was tall, she was Kate again. The terrier roared in shocked rage. She knelt by the hydrant, turned it on, and drank deeply, like a starving animal, getting soaked and not caring. Then, acompanied by the nerve-shattering barking, she turned the door's dead bolt and pulled the door open just enough to look out.

She was facing a parking lot, its black surface drowned by fog. She saw no cars—it was empty. The mist was penetrated by one dim light at the far corner. Up to her left was the highway, with its swiftly running smears of light.

Yes, this was Dr. Firreti's clinic. The front of the building would be to her left, facing Highway One.

Her pain was more tolerable now. Maybe, as a human, her sense of pain was duller, as were her other senses. But she ached all over. She longed for a nice hot bath, a hot supper, and a nice bed. She slipped out and shut the door.

There were plenty of motels nearby. She'd just check in somewhere, maybe order in a pizza. She grabbed at her pocket to see if she still had her checkbook.

Yes, it was still with her—so there were rules of some sort; but her credit cards were in her purse, on the top shelf of her closet. What would a motel clerk think if she walked in with no credit cards? Some motels wouldn't even rent a room if you didn't have a credit card. And she had no car, no luggage. She'd been so frantic to get out of the house, to get away from everything to do with Jimmie that she hadn't planned at all.

Why hadn't she had kept some of the money from Jimmie's dresser? She'd been stupid to put it all back. How would he know if she'd kept a couple of bills. She didn't even have any loose change for a phone call.

She could go home. No one would see her in the dark and fog. Unlikely that Jimmie was home, he'd still be in Sheril's bed. Go home, get her clothes and money and her car.

But she was afraid to go home, afraid of Jimmie finding her there; and she was ashamed of her fear.

She crossed the parking lot and headed down the
dim back street between fog-wreathed cottages. Only a few of the small houses had lights on behind the mist.

She had no notion what time it was. When she reached Ocean, the shops were closed, the streets were nearly empty except for a few parked cars. She turned away from the long block beside the automotive shop, and headed down into the village toward Binnie's. The little Italian restaurant stayed open late. They didn't have a pay phone, but they'd let her use the house phone. She hurried through the chill fog hoping a police car didn't come along and wonder about a woman out alone at this hour without a purse or coat. Hoping Jimmie wasn't cruising the streets looking for her. But fat chance of that, when he was playing games in Sheril Beckwhite's bed.

She couldn't leave it alone, the thought of Jimmie playing footsie in the conjugal bed of a dead man.

She could smell Binnie's garlic and spaghetti sauce before she reached the white-shingled, converted cottage. Gratefully she pushed into its warmth, in among the wooden booths and checkered tablecloths and the good smell of spices.

The café was nearly empty. There were only three customers, a young couple in the corner holding hands across the table like a couple in some fifties movie, and an elderly man in a dark suit, salt-and-pepper hair below his collar, sitting at the bar drinking espresso. He glanced at her without interest. She could see Binnie in the back, his dark, sleekly oiled hair, his long, solemn face above his white apron. He and the busboy were washing dishes.

She glanced through at them and waved, and picked up the phone; Binnie gave her a casual wave in return, nodding and smiling. Binnie's clock, behind the bar, said twelve-thirty.

She prayed Clyde would answer. Then she hoped he wouldn't. What was she going to say? Come get me because I can't go home? Take care of me because I have no home anymore and no money? Because I am a cat now, and have abandoned all human dignity?

The phone rang and rang.

Thank God he wasn't home. Oh, Clyde, please be home
.

Maybe he had company, maybe he was not alone.

She had started to hang up when he answered. She clutched the phone. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to explain. It occurred to her that she could have walked down to his place, it wasn't that far. She felt as if, any minute, she was going to start bawling.

In the mist, the village was silent except for the muffled footfalls of the two men. Jimmie Osborne's oxfords pounded up the sidewalk but Wark's pace in his jogging shoes was almost silent; his soft walk made Joe's skin crawl. Following them, the cats drew closer, though Dulcie had restrained herself from launching in a clawed leap onto Wark's back. She moved quickly beside Joe, staying close to the shops where the fog was most concealing. Their quarry moved fast, jingling car keys.

The sour smell of liquor and cigarette smoke that clung to the men, absorbed while they sat in Donnie's bar, left a heavy trail behind them. Wark's voice was so soft the cats had to strain to hear. They caught a few indecipherable words, then Wark said, “No one'll link us to that.”

“And the wrench?” Osborne said.

“It'll be found at the proper time. Don't fret.” When Wark turned to look at Jimmie, his head in profile seemed unusually narrow; his nose protruded boldly. “Quit worryin', don't always be worryin'.”
His low voice insinuated itself with an intimate penetration that made Joe shiver unpleasantly.

“You're sure Damen's prints are still on it?”

Wark's lilt sharpened with irritation. “They be on it. Quit fussin'. One phone call, the cops have the wrench and Damen's prints all over it.”

“But all that handling, swinging it around while you chased the damned cat.”

“Still had t'gloves on. Might be smearing it some, but it be full of prints, had t' be with Clyde using it every day. Back off, man. You be nervous as a cat your ownself.”

“It's the damned cats that have me on edge. I didn't count on this when we…” He turned to look at Wark. “Where did the unnatural things come from? How do you think that makes me feel, my own wife…Did you take care of that?”

“I be workin' on it.”

“You've had more than a week. You caught her once. Why didn't you…Now, who knows where she is?” He stopped to stare at Wark. “You're afraid of the damn things.”

Dulcie had stopped, startled. She pressed against Joe's ear. “What's he talking about? What does he mean, about his wife?”

Joe thought about Kate Osborne, about her golden eyes that were not exactly like human eyes. He thought about the way she sometimes seemed to slip away within herself, dreaming—perhaps as a cat dreams private and delicious imaginings. He thought about Kate's catlike grace, about her easy, agile movements.

He thought about the time, when the two couples were in the backyard barbecuing, and he had trotted into the kitchen and found Kate alone, chewing on a raw steak bone. Clyde always cut the T-bone out before he grilled, he said you could plump up the meat better.

When Kate turned and saw him, her eyes widened. She had a speck of red meat on her cheek. She laid the bone down, embarrassed; then she seemed to laugh at herself. She knelt and picked him up, and tore off a morsel of the raw meat, offering it to him. “Hey, Joe Cat. What do you care what I eat?”

She put him down, and gave him another piece of steak. She left the raw bone on the paper wrapper on the counter, picked up her drink, and went back outside where the barbecue was smoking up the neighborhood.

Now, following the two men, he was quiet for so long that Dulcie said, “What? What are you thinking? Could Kate be…But that's impossible.”

He thought about the rude way Jimmie treated cats and tried to avoid them. And about the rude, patronizing way he treated Kate.

This was incredible. Was he imagining this? Was he putting the wrong spin on the men's conversation?

Dulcie watched him with huge eyes, letting him work it out.

When he tried to imagine Kate Osborne as a cat, it wasn't hard to do. She would be a pale, voluptuous cat with golden eyes, very clean. He glanced at Dulcie and grinned. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe Kate is like us.”

“I don't understand. How could she be? What—what would that make us? What…?” She let her words trail off, her eyes huge.

“I don't know, Dulcie.” A shock of fear had gripped him. He didn't like this. He'd just gotten used to a cataclysmic change in his life. He wasn't ready for anything more, not for the implications generated by this conversation.

But they had missed something up ahead; Jimmie had grabbed Wark by the shoulders.

“What did you tell her? What does she know?”

“Why would I be telling
her
anything?” Wark shrugged Jimmie's hands away, mumbling something they couldn't hear.

“She knows, doesn't she?” Jimmie growled. “That's why she ran away, she knows I want her dead. Well, you'd better do her, Wark. And soon. I don't like her roaming around loose. I wake up at night sweating. It's a nightmare that couldn't happen. I want it to stop happening.

“I wake up thinking it can't be happening, then I remember that cat you changed and killed. I remember how that cat looked.” Jimmie shook Wark hard. “You'd better do her the same. And you'd better do those other two.”

“Get your mind off t' cats. I be taking care of the cats.”

“You haven't so far.”

“I said, don't fret. I be doing it. And soon we be out of here, lapping up rum and playing with the girls, in Boca.” Wark laughed. “But business first. We tend first to the job at hand. We've a long drive
t'night. Might be we could tow one car, but I don't like…”

“Sheril's driving. I told you. It's not my fault your man got sick. Christ, he might have changed the VIN plate before he took off on you. I don't like doing that in the shop yard.”

“We be back before daylight. T' tools all be there, only take a minute.”

The two men stopped beside Jimmie's silver Bugatti; it waited low and sleek and bright, reeking of money. Joe had listened a dozen times to Jimmie's recitation of how fast the Bugatti was, how it could do over three hundred, and how much it would have cost if he hadn't got such a deal. Sure he got a deal. Five hundred thousand bucks worth of car, and Jimmie gave Kate the story that he got it cheap in a trade. He told Kate the Bugatti was a tax write-off, good advertising for the agency. Joe wondered how much Kate swallowed of that. Clyde said a hired salesman would play hell trying to take a write-off like that.

Jimmie said, “You better ditch the key, in case of trouble tonight.”

“There won't be no trouble. Unless Sheril be messing us up. And who would know—innocent little brass key.”

As Jimmie opened the driver's door and the interior light came on, the cats drew back behind a planter, jamming their rumps against a shop wall. Jimmie's face, lit by the low interior glow, appeared transformed, and not in a pleasant way. He slid into the low, sleek car. “Let's get rolling, pick up Sheril,
or we won't be back before daylight.” He stroked the pearly leather interior, and softly shut the door. In a second the Bugatti's engine came to life, a soft and powerful purr like a giant, sleek silver cat.

Wark moved on down the street to a black BMW. When, a minute later, his headlights came on, the cats shut their eyes so they wouldn't reflect. The cars swept by them and were gone.

And Joe crouched in the fog fearing for Kate. She had left home, run away. Was that what Jimmie meant? It was about time. He hoped she was a long way from Molena Point. He wondered if she did know what these two had in mind for her.

But if she didn't know, and if she was still in the village and she went home, if Jimmie found her there, that could be ugly.

Dulcie said, “Where are they going tonight? What are they up to?”

“They could be stealing cars. A VIN plate is an automotive identification.” He slitted his eyes. “Is this why Wark killed Beckwhite? Were they stealing imported cars, and Beckwhite found out?”

“But they wouldn't kill him just over some cars.”

“Expensive cars, Dulcie, if they're foreign makes. Cars worth way up in the six figures.”

“Should we call the police? You could…”

“And tell them what? We're only guessing. If the police went up to the agency tonight, and nothing happened, then what?”

“We could go up to the shop. We could get inside and watch them.”

He smiled. “I was thinking the same.”

“But we have all night,” she said, “and I'm done for. I need to rest and eat, first. We've been going since early morning.”

“Okay. We'll try to find Kate, and warn her, then we'll grab a bite. I don't know where the Osbornes live. We need a phone book.”

Dulcie stood still, watching him, the tip of her tail twitching. “I need to eat now.” At his expression, she tightened her ears to her head. “We've had nothing to eat since early this morning, and hardly anything to drink—a few laps of gutter water. If you don't want a dead cat on your conscience, we'll eat first.”

He rose and turned back the way they had come, toward the bar. “There'll be scraps at Donnie's, plenty of scraps. And they'll have a phone book.”

She didn't move.

He stopped and looked back. “We'll just slip into Donnie's, find some leftover hamburger, and find Kate's phone number. They're so crowded no one will see us, just slip in between people's legs.”

“Sure we will. And get stepped on or kicked trying to snatch a mustard-soaked bun or a few chips and peanuts and find a phone book.” She sat down, staring at him.

“We need to find Kate, don't you understand. She's in danger, Dulcie. We need…”

She rose and started off up the street away from the bar. When he didn't follow she turned; her look seared him. “Come
on
, Joe. Wilma has a phone book. And there's food at home.” And she trotted away through the fog, her ears and whiskers back and her tail lashing.