Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (28 page)

"Why?"

"Keeps him from being able to pick at his
stitches with his teeth."

"How can he get to the stitches through the
casts?"

"Man, there aren't any casts on him. Cats are
tough. He'll be fine once the anesthesia wears off."

"I thought it already wore off."

Donny was turned and halfway through the door again.

"Probably has."

I hefted the box by the handle, and Renfield cried a
little more. To Julie I said, "Do I need to give him anything?"

"No. Just keep an eye on him. He acts funny,
give the vet a call at the number on top of the bill."

As I carried the container
toward the main entrance, Renfield began crying steadily.

* * *

I parked in front of Nancy's house in South Boston.
Renfield's box in one hand and my raincoat over the other arm, I used
Nancy's key on the front door. I also let the Lynches know I'd be up
there for a while.

In Nancy's kitchen, I tossed my raincoat on a chair.
I set the Munchkins box down on the linoleum and opened the handles
carefully. The cat cried and flinched when the light hit his eyes,
but that wasn't the worst of it.

"Jesus, Renfield. What did they do to you, boy?"

His fur was all shaved from roughly his belly button
down both rear legs and then halfway up his tail. He looked like a
cross between a madly groomed poodle and a plucked chicken,
especially through the legs, which were incredibly scrawny with just
his skin covering them.

I lifted him out carefully, Renfield growling and
trying to bite my hands, but only weakly. I laid him gently on the
lineoleum. His legs were bent funny, like he was doing a deep knee
bend on his side, each leg showing a line of stitches five inches
long. He tried to stand up on the linoleum, flopping back down and
crying. I went into Nancy's bathroom, rifling her linen closet for
the oldest towel I could find. I brought a blue one back into the
kitchen, doubling it over and spreading it out. I lifted Renfield
onto the towel, figuring he'd have a better chance with better
friction. The cat was almost able to get to his feet, then let out a
terrible yowl and flopped over again. He tried to crick his neck
enough to get at the stitches, just reaching the ones closest to his
hip. I tried to keep him from them, which only frustrated him more.

I realized I'd left the lampshade thing in the
Prelude. I went down to the street, retrieved it and the gauze, and
came back upstairs. By that time, the cat had managed to flop over to
his other side, scrunching up the towel every which way. I
straightened out the cloth, then tried to put the lampshade over his
head.

Renfield gave me a major argument, so I took the
thing off and ran the gauze through the slits in the plastic first,
like a man putting on his belt before pulling on his pants. Trying it
again, I got worse noise, his cottonball front paws windmilling at my
hands like a first-grader in a playground fight.

I finally got the contraption over his head and
secured, Renfield looking like a fantasy painting of an alien flower
beast. As soon as I let go, however, he started growling and moaning,
thrashing at the lampshade with paws that just skated across the hard
plastic. I began to worry that he'd hurt himself, even strangle if he
got it halfway off, but I couldn't see tugging the gauze belt any
tighter.

That's when I got out the bill and on the phone to
the vet. I drew Julie behind the counter, who told me to hold on.
Drumming my fingers through the Muzak, I finally heard a male voice
with a singsong East Indian accent.

"Hello, can I help you, please?"

"My name's John Cuddy, doctor. I just picked up
a friend's cat at your hospital, and he's not doing too well."

"
What is the name, please?"

"Renfield."

"Renfield . . . Renfield — ah, yes. The gray
tiger, bilateral knee — "

"That's him."

"What is the problem, please?"

"He's in a lot of discomfort, and he can't seem
to stand up."

"That is normal, sir. Partly the anesthesia,
partly the weakness in the legs, yes?"

"I also tried to put the lampshade thing on his
head, but it's driving him nuts."

"Ah, the Elizabethan collar. They do not like
that much, do they?"

"
I couldn't say. This is my first."

"Well, I would not worry about it. The important
thing is not to let him have at his stitches."

"
But that's what he wants to do."

"Yes, well, there are really two sets of
stitches in each leg, some inside the skin, and the ones you can see
outside. If he gets only to the outside ones a little bit, you will
see just a drop or two of blood which will scab over nicely. Nothing
to worry about, yes?"

"Doctor, he's thrashing around so much with the
lampshade on, I'm afraid he'll bust through his stitches or even hurt
his neck."

"Oh, well, we cannot have that, can we? Perhaps
it would be best to take the collar off his head and simply monitor
him."

"Monitor him."

"Yes. Throughout the night, if possible."

"Great."

"He may imprint on you a bit, as though you are
the parent and he the child. But eventually the stitches will not
bother him so much."

"
Is there anything I can do for him now? He
really seems to be suffering"

"Unfortunately that is natural with cats. But as
they are poor patients they are good convalescents. They have much
better attitudes about rehabilitation than dogs, yes?"

"Am I supposed to be feeding him or what?"

"Oh, I doubt he will take any food for a while.
But do offer him some, the simpler the better. Dry food over canned.
And do make water available. He probably will not be able to walk
very well to his dish — "

"Doctor, I'm telling you, he can't even stand
up."

" — nor to his litter box, I am afraid."

Better and better. "Anything else I should watch
for?"

"No. Cats have a remarkable ability to heal
themselves, you will see, sir. Just be a little patient with him. And
now, I really must go."

As I hung up the phone,
Renfield let out a miserable yowl. Then he copiously wet himself and
the towel.

* * *

About eight o'clock, I put a commercial lasagna dish
from Nancy's freezer in her microwave and nuked it for seven minutes
per side on low, then another five on high. Only the one towel was
sacrificed to Renfield's incontinence, him seeming a lot calmer, or
at least resigned, after I took the lampshade off. I cleaned his
hindquarters with some paper napkins dabbed in warm water, blotting
the moisture off with dry ones to keep him from getting too cold. I
still decided to leave him on the washable linoleum, though, a
different towel underneath him and flipped lightly over his rear
legs.

When the microwave trilled at me, I zapped some
frozen garlic bread and opened a bottle of red wine. I had half the
wine and all the lasagna and bread, the cat turning down both food
and water whenever I edged his two-sectioned dish toward him.

I tried to watch TV in the living room, but every
time I left the kitchen, or more accurately, left Renfield's line of
sight, he cried. Continuously. Nancy is a real fan of private
investigator fiction, so I picked a Loren Estleman paperback off a
shelf and settled into one of the kitchen chairs.

When the book mentioned jazz, I remembered Primo
Zuppone's tape in the pocket of my raincoat. I left the kitchen long
enough to put it into the stereo, then listened to both sides of Wim
Mertens several times, the equivalent of two albums alternating.
Thoughtful, mournful, it seemed to suit my "wet nurse"
mood.

The music playing, I drank wine and read about the
mean streets of Detroit until almost eleven, when I started yawning.
Renfield had dropped off at some point, and stepped over him as
quietly as possible. He didn't wake up. I was asleep for a while in
Nancy's bed when I was roused by a terrible sound. Renfield. Yowling.

He'd managed to drag himself across the threshold of
the kitchen, getting tangled in the towel. He cried until I
disengaged him and got him back onto the kitchen floor the way I'd
left him. When I turned to go to the bedroom, he started crying
again.

I shook my head and went into the living room. I
stacked the seat cushions from Nancy's couch like poker chips and
carried them into the bedroom. I took a pillow and the blanket from
her bed and stacked them on top of the cushions. Then I carried
everything to the threshold of the kitchen. Renfield stopped his
crying when he saw me coming. I laid out the cushions on the floor
the way they were on the couch. I put the pillow at the head of the
string, nearest Renfield and just into the kitchen. Then I lay down,
pulling the blanket over me. He false-started toward my face with his
front paw a couple of times, like a high-spirited horse scratching
the ground with a forehoof.

I extended my index finger to him. He grabbed it with
the clawless paw, squeezing it reflexively. The way an infant does. I
said, "Renfield, if you ever breathe a word of this . . .At
which point he purred once, then again, and slid back into the peace
of sleep.
 
 

-22-

WHEN I WOKE UP SATURDAY MORNING, My BACK FELT AS BAD
AS Renfield's legs looked. Hunched up on his front ones, he did take
a little water by dipping a forepaw into the dish and then licking
the pads.

The phone rang as I was munching on some Frosted
Flakes. When I put the receiver to my ear, the line was full of
static.

"Hello?"

"John, it's Nancy."

"Thought I might get a call last night."

"I tried, but there was something wrong with the
circuits here. I nearly went crazy until I gave up around one A.M."

"How did your talk go?"

"Fine. How's my kitty?"

"Kind of rocky."

"Oh, John, don't torture me long-distance,
okay?"

"Okay. He's having trouble getting to his feet.
Shaky would be a good description. He cried a lot when I got him
here, but he's evened out a bit since then."

"You stayed with him all night?"

"As promised?

"Oh, John, thank you."

"I do consider it above and beyond."

"
The call of duty, you mean?"

"That's right."

"I'll plan something special for when I get
back."

"Still tomorrow noon?"

"Uh-huh. Can you stay with Renfield till I get
there?"

"Yes, but I didn't bring a change of clothes."

"Don't worry. For
what I have planned, you won't need any clothes."

* * *

I spent most of Saturday morning in the living room,
carrying Reniield in with me and laying a plastic trash bag as an
exterior diaper under his towel. He seemed content to stay on the
floor, sleeping.

After I finished the Estleman book, I started a Linda
Barnes one that was set in Boston with a female private investigator.
Halfway through that, the Game of the Week came on the tube, Jack
Buck and Tim McCarver almost making me forget Vin Scully. Almost.

The phone rang three times, a couple of hours apart.
I let Nancy's machine do its thing. The first time was just a hangup.
The second and third stopped ringing before the tape could cut into
the call.

As the day progressed, so did Renfield. He took more
water and even a little dry food, purring whenever I came near him.
By nightfall, he was actually up and walking. Rickety, but on all
fours.

Nancy had some thin pork chops in a back corner of
the freezer. Shake 'n Baked, they went down with a bottle of
no-vintage chardonnay, Renfield even getting enthusiastic enough to
take some rice-sized scraps from the chops.

That evening I finished
the Barnes book and started to get cabin fever. I turned the
television back on, picking up a Best of Nature courtesy of Channel
2. Cheetah, shoulder muscles bristling, stalked baby antelope through
high grass. Chameleons with independently roving eyes and sticky
tongues slurped butterflies from twigs. Arctic foxes in a lush valley
waited with infinite patience as young barnacle geese rappeled
without ropes down jagged cliffs. After a week with the Danucci
family, I felt for the antelopes, butterflies, and geese of the
world. Following the PBS show, I watched some network show that was
so inane I at first thought Saturday Night Live had started two hours
early. I went to bed, again on my couch cushions next to Renfield,
thinking I had to stay around pets less or drink more.

* * *

"Oh, my God, John, he looks absurd!"

It was Sunday, just past noontime. After replacing
the cushions on the couch, I'd snuck out for five minutes to get the
Sunday papers. I'd just finished a photo ad in Parade magazine for
Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute. Finally understanding what Johnny
Carson was always railing about, I heard a key turn in the lock.