Cat Pay the Devil (20 page)

F
rom atop a crumbling wall, the five cats watched
dark-clad cops scour the ruins, shining their lights into caves and crevices, talking to one another in those low, machine voices. They saw, farther up the hill, Max Harper kiss Charlie, and then Charlie mounted the big buckskin—the horses were nervous from the shooting, sidestepping, and fussing. Charlie rode away into the woods with the other woman to calm the frightened mounts, the cats thought. Willow and Cotton and Coyote understood that; they needed comforting, too. The three sat close together, gently grooming one another.

They had done things tonight that were not natural to them, had participated in frightening events foreign to their world, and now they needed one another. But they were warm with satisfaction, too. Cage Jones had gotten what he deserved, and that made them purr. But beside the three ferals, Dulcie and Kit were tense with excitement, watching the action as if eager to leap into the fray, convinced that,
with cops all over, Eddie Sears would soon be caught, too.

“Like a mouse in a tin can,” Kit said. And Willow and Cotton smiled. In the ferals' wild and threatened lives, retribution was highly valued—and suddenly Eddie Sears appeared from out of nowhere running straight at them, racing for their wall, dodging, searching for a place to hide, and the cops were nearly on him. The three ferals slunk down, ready to vanish. But Dulcie and Kit crouched, with blazing eyes, their ears back, their tails lashing as Eddie veered along the wall looking for a way through—and the two cats flew at him: twin trajectories hitting him hard, raking him harder. Emboldened, the other three followed. Eddie Sears, covered with enraged and clawing cats, ran screaming, batting futilely at the slashing beasts.

“Don't shoot,” Wilma shouted, swinging out of the squad car and running up the road. Maybe no one heard her; there were officers all over, converging on Sears. “Don't shoot,” she cried, “he's not alone!”

“What is that?”
McFarland hissed, throwing his light on something wild and screaming that rode Sears's shoulder, raking his face. McFarland dove at Sears's legs, hit him low and hard and dropped him. As Sears went down, the beast that covered him seemed to break into separate parts and vanish, exploding away in the dark.

McFarland knelt, cuffing Sears's hands behind him.
What the hell
was
that?
He shone his light into Sears's face. It was clawed and bloodied. McFarland shivered and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, stiff.

He was securing Sears's legs when he glanced up and saw Wilma standing over them. She looked at him, looked at Sears. She said nothing, just turned and headed away, back toward the squad car. McFarland knelt atop Sears, watching her, amused by the shadow of a grin that she couldn't hide.
Then Brennan joined him, and they got Sears to his feet. “What was that?” Brennan said. Around them in the night, officers were gathering, their lights coming down out of the ruins. “What the hell was that?”

No one knew, or maybe didn't want to say what they thought they had seen. Until rookie Eleanor Sand arrived. “I think,” she said, “it was cats.”

“Cats?” the men looked at her, and laughed. “
Cats
, Sandy? What kind of cats? Sandy, girl, you've lost it.”

“I think there are feral cats up here,” she said. “I've been up here, seen them. Domestic cats gone wild.”

“Sandy, no cat would do what we just saw.”

“What kind of cats would…?”

“They'd have to be rabid to do that.”

Eleanor laughed. “No. Those cats act all right, usually. But they stay away from people. Maybe tonight, with all the confusion, they felt threatened.”

It was then that Charlie rode up on the buckskin. “I think Eleanor's right,” she said softly. “Maybe tonight, with all the excitement, everyone running, the lights…” She looked around at the circle of unbelieving cops. “If those feral females were protecting kittens, as wild as they are, they'd attack anything.”

The men stared at her and shook their heads.

“Wild cats with kittens…I've read that cats in wild colonies birth their kittens all at one time. And that they will band together to protect them.” Charlie shrugged. “Maybe Sears, running like that, got too near their lair.” Turning Bucky, she headed back up toward the woods, her joy in retribution equally as fierce as that of the five little cats.

Her only disappointment was that, entering the woods where Ryan sat astride Redwing, she could tell her nothing of what had really happened, she could share none of the
wonder with Ryan. Nor could she, she thought sadly, share this with Max.

 

Dulcie and Kit listened to the ambulance come screaming, they watched as the rescue vehicle slowed and made its way through the estate, watched the medics get to work on Cage Jones.

Ought to let him die,
Dulcie thought as she fled for the squad car and Wilma. She glanced behind her once, to the broken wall where Kit sat with the three ferals, all of them smiling. Then heading down the road, Dulcie leaped in through the passenger-side window, into Wilma's arms, snuggling with her and purring so loudly that Wilma smiled.

But after a while, Dulcie said, “You're hurting, aren't you? I can tell, the way you sit. I bet you're all bruises.” Dulcie quit purring and laid her ears back. “Hurting, and all alone, while Cage Jones is being patched up and pampered and covered with a warm blanket and given a sedative for pain.”

Wilma laughed. “I'm not alone, I have you. I could use something for my headache. A whiskey and a rare steak would fix that.”

“Makes my fur bristle to think of all the tax money the state of California is going to spend, making that man comfortable.”

“That, Dulcie, is the way it works.”

“Money that could be used to clean up our house, which he trashed. Why spend money on that scum?”

“Only in a dictatorship,” Wilma said, “would Jones be left to die unattended.”

“Maybe so, but that's all he deserves. Well, I'm only a cat.
I don't have to think like a human. Maybe cats cut a sharper line between good and evil.”

“Maybe,” Wilma said, stroking Dulcie's ear. “Maybe cats should rule the world.”

 

The traffic was light considering what this freeway usually handled. By nine forty-five the late work traffic had dispersed. Beyond Clyde's open window the worst heat had abated, and the night was warm and soft; the heavy Lexus SUV provided a ride so smooth and silent that a guy could go to sleep, Clyde thought. Not like the vintage cars he restored, that let you know their engines were running. The way he babied them, his engines always purred—but louder and with more character. Tonight, he could have used a bit of engine growl to keep him alert. He didn't even have Joe's acerbic conversation. In the open-top carrier on the seat beside him, the tomcat slept deeply, his soft snoring rivaling the smooth rhythm of the Lexus. It had been a long day for the tomcat.

From Dulcie's frantic phone call to the station saying that Wilma was gone, from the moment Joe raced to her house, and then their hasty trip to Gilroy; from Joe's sleuthing in the discount shops, to playing dumb for Detective Davis, all that on top of the village murders that the gray cat had fussed over for days, Joe was done in. In the car after supper, looking out from the carrier, his last words had been that he'd catch a few winks, a small restorative nap to recharge the batteries, then be rarin' to go again.

The calm evening drive would be peacefully restorative for Clyde, too, if he hadn't been strung tight with concern for Wilma and for Charlie. Not in the mood for local radio or a CD, his mind was filled with a succession of scenes that
ran by him like clips from old movies. Wilma the first time he ever saw her, when he was eight and Wilma in her twenties, the day her family moved in next door to him, Wilma in jeans and an old T-shirt, her long blond hair tied back, working alongside the two men her folks had hired to unload the rented truck. The tall blonde carrying in big cardboard boxes marked “kitchen,” “bathroom,” “Wilma's room,” all the rooms of the house. Clyde's mother had said they were probably paying the moving men by the hour, so everyone helped. Times were hard then for many families, certainly for his own folks.

A memory of Wilma playing baseball with the little kids, in the street, Wilma hitting a home run over the neighbor's garage; they never did find the ball. Wilma making Christmas cookies in the shape of cowboy hats and horses for him; she was always so beautiful, her blond hair so clean and bright. Long years later, when it turned gray, she didn't dye it like other women, she enjoyed that silver mane. Wilma taking him to San Francisco for the weekend when he was twelve, to the zoo, to Fisherman's Wharf for cracked crab and sourdough. And the trip through the San Francisco PD because she knew the chief.

And then when Charlie had first come to stay with Wilma after she'd quit her job in the city, packed up her belongings in cardboard boxes, driven down to start a new life in the village. First time he ever saw Charlie she was lying on her back underneath the van, changing the oil in her old blue van, swearing when oil dripped in her eye.

For a long time he'd thought he was in love with Charlie. Maybe he had been. It had hurt bad when suddenly Charlie and Max were a pair, no hints, no working up to it that he'd noticed. They'd been training Clyde's unmanageable Great Dane puppies for him, up at Max's ranch, working the two
on obedience where there was room for them to run.

It was a situation that neither Charlie nor Max had planned, Clyde was sure of that. It just happened. After Charlie told him, he'd never let either of them know how much it hurt.

But he'd gotten over the hurt, had seen how good they were together, had realized that in some strange way they belonged together, and he'd been glad for that, glad they'd found each other—and now Charlie was missing. Clyde felt his stomach twitch and churn, hurting for Max, felt tears of rage burn.

This wasn't coincidence. Did Cage Jones have both women? He understood how Jones's twisted mind might decide there were issues that warranted kidnapping Wilma, that was sick enough. But why Charlie? A hostage, additional pressure on Wilma? But for what? Both Max and Davis thought the hostage theory was valid, and that Wilma's kidnapping wasn't for retribution alone. Clyde slowed at the Prunedale cutoff, but then gave it the gas, deciding to keep straight on through Salinas, which was a safer route. In this light traffic, the trip should be less than an hour. Not until he'd slowed going through Salinas did he hit the phone's button for Molena Point PD.

When the tomcat heard the ringing on the speaker, he jerked awake and pushed up out of the carrier, stretching tall and yawning. Stretching again as he listened to Mabel Farthy's brief answer.

“It's Clyde; I'm just coming through Salinas, headed home.”

Mabel's voice was bright with excitement. When she said, “Wilma's safe! Charlie's safe!” Clyde almost wrecked the car.

“They…Hold a minute,” Mabel said, as she switched to
another line. She was gone maybe twenty seconds, then cut back in. “The captain's there with them, Dallas on his way. Jones is in custody, headed for emergency, gunshot in the face. Hold…”

Another short delay, then she came back on. “Sears is in custody, too.”

“Where?
” Clyde snapped.
“Where are they?”

“Don't go up there, Clyde. Half the force is up there on a narrow road, can hardly turn a car around, you'd only be in the way.”

“Up
where
?”

“Hold again…” Over a minute this time. As Clyde sped up, west of Salinas, a truck passed him, cutting close. He let off the gas until there was again ample space between them. Mabel came back on. “Gotta go, three lines flashing…”

“If you don't tell me where, I'll keep calling, jam your lines.”

Mabel sighed. “Pamillon ruins. Come on into the station, Clyde. They should be down here by the time you get back. They…Gotta go,” she said, and cut off.

He turned the speaker off, grumbling. Beside him Joe sat erect in the carrier, staring at Clyde, then staring out the window, then back at Clyde, his look saying clearly,
Step on it. Get this heap moving.

“I'm not wrecking us to get there faster. The excitement's over. They're safe. Thank your cat god or whatever, and keep your fur on.”

“But they…Dulcie and Kit…She couldn't tell us what's happened to them. Where they are, Clyde? What if…?”

“I'm not driving any faster. We'll be there in twenty minutes.”

The tomcat began to wash his paws. “There was a time, you'd have floor-boarded this buggy.”

“There was a time I'd kill a quart of whiskey, get up the next morning and hunker down on the back of the meanest bull in the string. I'm older now and smarter.”

Silence.

“Does it occur to you that my more sensible driving keeps your worthless neck safe? Or does that not mean anything?”

Joe Grey sighed, curled up in his carrier, lifted a disdainful paw, and pulled the top over. He remained thus secluded until Clyde bypassed Molena Point and, at around ten forty, turned up the hills, toward the Pamillon estate. Then Joe came alive, staring high above them at the scattered car lights, pricking up his ears at the wail of an ambulance that came zigzagging down, forcing them onto the shoulder. The minute they stopped, he crouched, to leap out.

T
he house was silent around Greeley, no sound from
the dark upstairs rooms. Probably Lilly was asleep, but he waited a while longer to make sure—he'd waited long enough for her to stop knitting and go to bed, he guessed a few minutes more wouldn't matter. He'd conned her into letting him stay overnight, but she hadn't shown no hospitality; hadn't offered one of the upstairs rooms, which were likely bigger.

Well, this downstairs cubbyhole suited him better, farther away from her room. Having spotted the safe earlier as those two cats prowled the basement, he meant to start there. Finesse open the safe, and that was likely where he'd hit pay dirt. If that turned up empty, he'd have to plow through that whole damn basement full of junk, and maybe the rest of the house, too. He wondered if she was one of them early risers, up before daylight. He hoped to hell not. The time now was just after one.

He wondered if Lilly knew where the stash was. Not likely. He'd never known Cage to tell her nothing.

Well, he'd find them trinkets before she was out of bed, he had to. Find them, and be out of there before first light. And the old man's face brightened in an evil smile. Maybe he'd leave her a note, thank her all proper for her hospitality.

He had one more little drink, from the bottle he'd brought in his coat pocket, waited a few minutes more, listening to the silence of the house, then, swinging off the bed, he opened the door without a sound, and slipped out.

 

It was eleven thirty when Clyde pulled off the narrow dirt road onto the soft shoulder below the Pamillon estate, to make room for a police car coming down. Above them in the blackness, flashlight beams glanced across broken walls and twisted trees in a surreal tangle; they could see cops moving about, and half a dozen people gathered where the lights were concentrated and still. They passed the Greenlaws' car parked off to the side, just after the ambulance went by, and they stopped, Clyde grabbing Joe before he could drop out the window.

Lucinda looked out the driver's window at Clyde. “Wilma's up there somewhere. She's safe. And the cats—we brought Kit and Dulcie, they would have taken off up the hills by themselves…I never could have locked them inside, any more than I could lock a person in. You know how hardheaded they are…”

“But so much has gone on,” Pedric said. “We don't dare go up there and be in the way. All we can do is sit and worry. It's been mighty hard to hear gunshots, when the cats are up there…”
Joe Grey stood up again with his paws on the window. “They'll be among the rocks somewhere, hiding,” he said softly. He hoped to hell they were.

Lucinda reached across and touched Joe's cheek, then Clyde pulled away, heading on up, studying the turmoil of flashing torches, trying to make sense of what was happening. Joe rode with his paws on the door, ready to leap out.

Clyde gave him a look, and restrained the tomcat by the nape of the neck as he parked behind a row of squad cars. “Let's take a little time here.” Killing the engine, his hand tightening on Joe, he sat scanning the blackness as Joe hissed, and pawed to get free. “Just stay still a minute and look,” Clyde said. “There, on that nearest wall.” Above them, surrounded by twisted oaks and picked out by the flashing lights, five cats prowled along the wall, were lost, and then silhouetted again against the night sky.

“Dulcie and Kit?” Clyde said.

Joe nodded, twitching his ears with relief.

“And the other three? The ferals?” Clyde said with amazement. “What other cats could it be? But they…those wild creatures wouldn't stay there, with all that's going on!”

“Let me loose, Clyde, before I hurt you. The excitement's over, someone's coming down with a prisoner. Let me go!” They watched a squad car approach. “Look, there in the back…”

The squad car passed them, two officers in front, a thin man in the back, behind the security screen, sitting rigidly, as if shackled.

“Eddie Sears?” Clyde said, smiling. “But where—”

“Let me out now.” Joe twisted around, lifting an armored paw.

Clyde freed him and Joe was gone, leaping down, racing through the night to Dulcie.

Clyde looked after him, sighing. He remained in the car
until three more police units passed, heading for the village. He watched two riders come out of the woods, breathing with relief when he saw Charlie. But where was Wilma?
Was
she safe? A cold hand touched his heart. Snatching the keys out of the ignition, leaving the windows down for Joe to get in, he hurried up the dark little road trying to look everywhere at once, watching for any eruption of violence. He was passing the last squad car when Wilma's voice spun him around. “Clyde?”

She opened the door and stepped out, and the next minutes were a tangle of hugs and both of them talking at once; but then suddenly Wilma was shivering and had to sit down again. Sliding into the backseat she moved over to make room for him. “I guess it's catching up with me.” Her hands in his were cold.

“I'd guess it
would
catch up with you. What did Cage…?”

Wilma looked at him. “It'll take a while to tell. Charlie shot him. She shot Cage. She's shaky, too. Pretty upset.”

Clyde held her hands. “I guess this will take a lot of telling. Have you had anything to eat?”

“Coffee, and a sweet roll Brennan gave me. Before that…Breakfast in Gilroy around eight this morning.”

“You need a rare steak and a drink.”

“I'd kill for exactly that. But where's Joe! You went to Gilroy…Where's Joe Grey?”

Clyde pointed up to the wall, where six silhouettes lingered, two of them sitting close together, Joe's white markings bright in the flashing lights.

Wilma laughed, and relaxed. “Those other cats are the ferals. That, too, will take a bit of telling. You won't believe what they did. I hardly believe it.”

“You need to eat. Tell me over dinner. You don't need to hang around? Let me go up and see Charlie, then we'll get you a steak.”

 

From atop the broken wall the six cats watched Clyde step out of the squad car and head up to where Charlie stood, safe in Max's arms. Cotton was worn out; the white tom had never pursued the kind of madness he had tonight. Approaching the village, he'd been scared out of his skin, and he still wasn't sure why he'd done it. But now that it was over, he was proud he'd found the courage. Now, he wanted only to sleep.

Willow looked at Cotton stretched out limply along the stone wall, and wanted to snuggle down with him. Until tonight she hadn't known which of the two tomcats she favored; she thought she loved them both. But now she knew. Cotton was brave and staunch, Cotton made her heart race.

Coyote might be more dashing and handsome; certainly he would have no trouble finding his own lady. Maybe among their own ten, or maybe he'd slip back to their old clowder and lure away one of the discontented young queens. Coyote was her friend, they would always be close, but Cotton was her chosen.

Coyote watched her, and knew. He felt sad and a little lonely. Felt shy beside them now—but he was often shy. He looked away to the high boulders where the others of their small group were hidden, then lifted his nose to look south. Some miles away, their old clowder might still be ranging. He thought about the young queens there, and he wondered, and his green eyes lit up with speculation.

Joe Grey and Dulcie and Kit glanced sideways, watching the little scene, and they smiled. Dulcie and Kit felt sad for Coyote, but Joe knew the challenge that gripped the striped, long-eared tom. The hunt was everything, the hunt for game, the hunt for a mate. And, in Joe's life, the keen and wily search for human prey, the hunt that drove him
ever more powerfully. He glanced at Dulcie and twitched a whisker. The hunt that absorbed them both, a hunt no other cat in the world but the three of them would understand or care about.

Looking up the hill, they watched Clyde hug Ryan and hold her for a moment as they talked, then Clyde sat down on a fragment of broken wall beside Charlie, who was wolfing down coffee and a sandwich. There was some laughter, a few tears, and a lot of hugging. But then at last Clyde rose and headed back for his car.

Wilma stepped out of the squad car and stood with Clyde beside the Lexus, looking up at the cats. At once, Dulcie tensed to leap down. With a lick at the ferals' ears and a nudge of noses, a special nuzzle for Cotton by way of a thank-you, Dulcie dropped from the wall and streaked for the road where Clyde and Wilma stood waiting. Joe followed close on her heels. Behind them Kit made her own farewells, then raced for Lucinda and Pedric.

Parting from the wild band was hard for Kit—but she'd already made her choice many months ago about how she wanted to live her life. In her deepest heart, she'd already left their wild ways—she did not want to change her own life, she wished only to see them sometimes, here among the ruins. If they remained here. With a wild band, who knew where they would go? She could only wish them well, wish them happiness. Nuzzling each cat, she spun around and raced away following Dulcie and Joe, her little cat heart hurting, but not regretting.

 

From the top floor of the Pamillon mansion, from the old nursery, Violet Sears had stood for some time watching the scene below. She felt sick when Charlie shot Cage.
She knew he deserved it, but he was still her brother. She watched Eddie run, and saw those cats leap on him. That had shocked and deeply frightened her.

She had watched the police clean up Eddie's wounds and force him into a squad car, and she didn't know how she felt about his arrest. Maybe she felt nothing.

Eddie would be in jail now. For a little while, she was free of him. She shivered at the thought that she was on her own; she didn't know what to do about that. How would she live? Where would she live? There had always been someone else to decide about her life. Their parents. Lilly and Cage. And then Eddie. She thought that woman, Wilma, wouldn't really help her. She stood watching the dark scene before her, shivering and afraid.

 

Watching Clyde step out of the squad car and head up in her direction, Charlie had suddenly and inexplicably found herself crying. Pressing her face into Max's shoulder, when he turned back to her after briefing Brennan and a handful of other officers, she felt weak and shaky—but she was safe now, safe in Max's arms. He held her away from him and wiped her tears. She looked up at him, ashamed of her weakness, embarrassed at crying in front of his men. He handed her a paper bag.

“Hunger'll take all the starch out. Here's Brennan's lunch. Roast beef and coffee and you'll be yourself again.”

“I can't take his lunch, he…” Knowing how Brennan loved his meals made her tear up all over again.

Max laughed. “He kept one sandwich of the three, and a slice of cherry pie. He gave his coffee roll to Wilma.”

Charlie glanced across at Brennan and blew him a kiss. The portly officer looked embarrassed, grinned at her, and
turned away. She had sat down on the remnants of a tumbled stone wall and was wolfing down the second of the sandwiches and slurping hot coffee, nearly scalding her mouth, when Clyde sat down beside her.

“Glad you got out of that.”

She nodded, her mouth full.

Clyde laughed. “Wilma's pretty hungry, too. I'm taking her for a steak. Want to come?”

She swallowed. “Going to ride back with Max, take the horses back. I think Ryan's going with Dallas, her truck is at our place.”

He nodded. “How did the snitch know where you were?” he said softly. “She called Max, but how did she know?”

“The white cat, Clyde. That feral cat. He…Against all odds, that wild little animal went down into the village. Went to Kit for help. Dulcie was there at the Greenlaws' with Kit, and it was Dulcie who called.”

Clyde shook his head. “Seems impossible.”

“But then,” she said, “the other two ferals…all three of them and Dulcie and Kit chewed my ropes. They had me almost loose when Wilma found me.” She swallowed the last of the sandwich, washed it down with more coffee. “And there's a lot that we don't know yet, that Dulcie and Kit will tell us. But you…You and Joe…”

“Same thing,” Clyde said, grinning. “A lot to tell. Too much for now, Wilma's starving.” He hugged her and rose, stood a moment with his hand on her shoulder. “She's pretty upset that Jones dragged you into whatever he wanted from her.”

“She doesn't know what he wanted?”

“Not a clue.” He leaned down to hug her again. “Have a good ride home.”

She watched him stop to talk with Ryan and make a date
with her for the next night, then head down to fetch Wilma.

“Where'd the sandwiches go?” Max said, coming to join her, looking at the wadded-up paper bag. “I was gone no more than three minutes.”

Charlie laughed.

“That hold you until we get home? Take about an hour. You've had a long day, you feel up to the ride?”

“Oh
yes
. Can you do that, can you leave, with…?”

“Dallas is here. Prisoners are secured. Wilma's safe, with Clyde. We'll take her statement in the morning. Right now, I think it's time for me to take your statement.”

Flushing, she moved away to the horses. Leaving Max to wrap up a few details, she stood with Ryan, leaning against her mare. “You found me gone, and you called Max.”

Ryan nodded and put her arm around her.

Charlie said, “Guess I owe you supper.”

“Guess you do,” Ryan said. “If you two take the horses back, I'll never see that potato salad and roast beef you had laid out.”

“Guess I can make more potato salad,” Charlie said, hugging her back, and as Max turned to join them, she tightened Redwing's cinch and mounted up.