The Cat Who Saw Red (18 page)

“A teapot,” Dan replied. “Handles can crack in the kiln. Or the spout drips. Or the lid doesn’t fit. Sometimes the whole thing looks like hell, although the ugliest ones sometimes do the best pouring.”

Bunsen took a few more pictures of Dan gazing out the window at the lights across the river, Dan reading an art magazine, Dan drinking a can of beer to counteract the dust, Dan scratching his head and looking thoughtful. The photographer had never shot a series so complete, or so ridiculous.

“You’ve got good bones in your face,” he commented. “You could be a professional model. You could do TV commercials.”

“You think so?” Dan asked. He had loosened up and was relishing the attention.

By the time the shooting session was over, Qwilleran and Koko had examined every inch of the room. There was a phone number written on a pad near the telephone, which the newsman memorized. Koko found a woman’s silver-backed hairbrush, which he knocked to the floor while trying to bite the bristles. The cat also showed interest in a large ceramic jardiniere containing papers and small notebooks and a packet of dusty envelopes tied with faded ribbon. Qwilleran managed to transfer the envelopes to his inside jacket pocket. A familiar prickling sensation on his upper lip had convinced him it was the right thing to do.

The newsmen finally said good night to Dan, promised him some copies of the pictures, and trooped back to Qwilleran’s apartment, dragging a reluctant cat on the leash.

“Okay, let’s have it,” Bunsen demanded. “What’s this play-acting all about?”

“Wish I knew,” Qwilleran admitted. “As soon as I find out, I’ll buy you a porterhouse on my expense account and fill you in on the sordid details.”

“How are you going to explain to that poor guy when the Fluxion runs a half-column head shot and twenty words of copy?”

Qwilleran shrugged and changed the subject. “How’s Janie?”

“Fine, considering everything. We’re expecting another in August.”

“How many have you got now?”

“Five… no, six.”

Qwilleran poured a stiff drink for Bunsen and opened a can of crabmeat for Koko and Yum Yum. Then he dialed the number he had found on the Grahams’ telephone pad. It proved to be an overseas airline.

He also thought about Joy’s silver-backed hairbrush; he had given it to her for Christmas many years before. Wouldn’t she have taken it if she intended to leave town? A hairbrush was as important as a toothbrush to that girl. She used to brush her long hair by the hour.

“Say,” Qwilleran said to Bunsen, “do you still hang around with that scuba diver you brought to the Press Club last winter?”

“I see him once in a while. I’m doing his wedding pictures in June.”

“Would you ask him to do us a favor?”

“No sweat. He loves the Fluxion after that layout we gave him in the magazine section. What did you have in mind?”

“I’d like him to go down under the wharf behind this building. Just to see what he can find. And the sooner the better.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know, but a large unidentified object was dumped into the river in the middle of the night, and I’d like to know what it was.”

“It could be halfway to Goose Island by now.”

“Not necessarily. The body of the sculptor who drowned here was found lodged against the piling under the boardwalk.” Qwilleran patted his mustache smugly. “I have an idea something might be trapped down there right now.”

After the photographer left, the newsman sat at the desk and opened the pack of letters he had filched from the jardiniere. They were all addressed to Helen Maude Hake and had been mailed at various times from Paris, Brussels, Sydney, and Philadelphia: I miss the thrill of you, the lure of you, you beautiful witch… Your warm and tender love haunts my nights… Home soon, beloved… Be true to Popsie or Popsie will spank. All the letters were signed Popsie.

Qwilleran snorted into his mustache and dropped the letters in a desk drawer. He lighted his pipe and stretched out in his lounge chair, and Yum Yum cuddled on his lap — until Koko scolded her. Then she promptly deserted the man and went to lick Koko’s nose and ears.

Suddenly Qwilleran felt lonely. Koko had his Yum Yum. Bunsen had his Janie. Riker had his Rosie.

He telephoned Rosemary Whiting. “I hope it’s not too late. I need some moral support… You know those vitamins you gave me for the cats? I’ve never popped a pill down a cat’s gullet.”

Within a few minutes she knocked on the door of Number Six, wearing a red silk tunic and harem pants, with her licorice-black hair tied back in a young-looking ponytail. Qwilleran answered her knock just as Charlotte Roop climbed the stairs with a glass of steaming milk on a little tray. Miss Roop said good evening, but her greeting was cool.

The cats were waiting, and they knew something was up. They were bracing themselves.

Qwilleran said, “Let’s take Koko first. He’s the more sensible of the two.”

“Hello, Koko,” Rosemary said. “You’re a beautiful cat. Here’s a candy. Open up! There!” She had merely put a hand around the back of Koko’s head, forced his mouth open, and dropped a pill into the, yawning pink cavern. “It’s really simple when you know how.”

“I hate to think what will happen if Koko gets any healthier,” Qwilleran said.

Just then Koko lowered his head, opened his mouth, and deposited the pellet at Qwilleran’s feet. It was slightly damp but otherwise as good as new.

“Well! We’ll try it again. It always works,” said Rosemary, undismayed. “We’ll just push it down a little farther. Qwill, you watch how I do it. Press his jaw open at the hinge; pull his head back until you can see clear down his throat; and then — plop! Now we stroke his throat so that he is forced to gulp.”

“It looks easy,” Qwilleran said, “but I think Koko is cooperating because you are a lovely lady… Oops!” Koko coughed, and up came the pill, shooting across the room and disappearing in the shaggy pelt of the bear rug. “Don’t worry about it, Rosemary. I have a confession to make. I really lured you over here because I wanted someone to talk with.”

He told her about the love letters he’d found in the jardiniere, the uncanny brilliance of Dan’s exhibition pottery, and the trapdoor in the clay room. “Dan told us there were rats down there.”

“Rats!” Rosemary shook her head. “Mr. Maus is very particular. He has the exterminators check the building regularly.”

He told her about the visit from William’s girlfriend and about the peephole in the wall, overlooking the kiln room.

“But can’t it be seen from the other side?”

“It’s camouflaged by the mural in the kiln room. I looked for it while we were in there taking pictures.”

Rosemary asked if she could read the love letters. “Believe it or not,” she said, “I’ve never in my life received a love letter.” She moved to the bed, turned on the lamp, and curled up among the pillows. As she read, her eyes grew moist. “The letters are so lovely.”

On a sudden impulse Qwilleran pitched the cats into the bathroom, threw their blue cushion in after them, and slammed the door. They howled for a while and then gave up.

It was midnight when Rosemary left and the indignant animals were released from their prison. Koko stalked about the apartment, complaining irritably.

“Live and let live,” Qwilleran reminded him. He was moving around the apartment himself, aimlessly, fired with ambition but devoid of direction. He sat down at the typewriter, thinking he could write a better love letter than that ridiculous Popsie. The typewriter still bore Koko’s message from the night before: pb.

“Pb!” Qwilleran said aloud. “Pb!” He remembered the crocks in the pottery, with their cryptic labels. He jumped up and went to the dictionary as his mustache sent him frantic signals.

“Pb: Latin Plumbum,” he read aloud. “Chemical symbol for lead!”

The second appearance of Qwilleran’s Prandial Musings — in the Tuesday edition of the Daily Fluxion — dealt with the culinary virtuosity of Robert Maus, member of the important downtown law firm of Teahandle, Hansblow, Burris, Maus and Castle. The column was wittily written, and Qwilleran accepted congratulations from copyboys and editors alike when he went to the office to open his mail.

“How do you get these plum assignments?” he was asked at the Press Club that noon. “How much weight do you expect to gain on your new beat?…

Do you mean to say that the Flux is footing the bill? The comptroller must. have flipped.”

He spent a day at the office, writing a column on the whimsical theories of Max Sorrel: “If you want to test a guy’s sincerity,” Max had said, “serve him a bad cup of coffee. If he praises it, he’s not to be trusted.”

In the middle of every paragraph he was interrupted, however, by phone calls: from the electric company, objecting to Maus’s hotly argued preference for gas cooking; from the aluminum industry, protesting the gourmet’s antipathy to foil jackets on baked potatoes; from purveyors of ketchup, processed cheese, and frozen fish, all of which made Robert Maus shudder.

One interruption was a blustering phone call from old Teahandle, senior partner of the law firm. “Did Robert Maus authorize that article in today’s paper?” he demanded.

“He didn’t read the finished copy,” said Qwilleran, “but he allowed me to interview him.”

“Humph! Are you aware that one of our major clients is a manufacturer of electric ranges?”

“Even so, Maus is entitled to his opinion, don’t you think?”

“But you didn’t have to print it!” the partner snapped. “I shall discuss this with Mr. Maus when he returns to the city.”

Between answering complaints and accepting compliments, Qwilleran made some phone calls of his own. Koko had left the letter Z in the typewriter that morning, and it inspired the newsman to call Zoe Lambreth, a painter he had known briefly but well when he first came to the city. He read Zoe a list of artists’ names he had copied from an old newspaper account of the scandal at the pottery.

“Are any of these people still around?” he asked.

“Some of them have died,” Zoe said in the melodic voice that always captivated him. “Herb Stock has retired to California. Inga Berry is head of the pottery department at Penniman School. Bill Bacon is president of the Turp and Chisel Club.”

“Inga Berry, you say? I’d like to interview her.”

“I hope you’re not raking up that old scandal,” the painter said. “Inga refuses to talk about it. All the ‘slovenly Bohemians’ mentioned in the newspapers eventually became important members of the art community, and yet they’re still hounded by reporters. I don’t understand newspapers.”

Next, Qwilleran telephoned Inga Berry, plotting his course carefully. She answered in a hearty voice, but as soon as he identified himself as a feature writer for the Daily Fluxion, her manner stiffened. “What do you want?”

He talked fast and summoned all his vocal and verbal charm. “Is it true, Miss Berry, that pottery is considered the most enduring of the crafts?”

“Well… yes,” she said, taken by surprise. “Wood crumbles, and metal corrodes, but examples of pottery have survived for thousands of years.”

“I understand that pottery is due for a renaissance — that it might eclipse painting and sculpture as an art form within ten years.”

“Well, I don’t know… Well, perhaps yes!” the instructor said as she considered the flattering prospect. “But don’t quote me. You’ll have all the painters and sculptors yelling for my blood.”

“I’d like to discuss the subject with you, Miss Berry. I have a young friend — one of your students — who paints a glowing picture of your contribution to the art of ceramics.”

“Oh, he does, does he? Or is it a she?” Miss Berry was warming up.

“Do you know William Vitello?”

“He’s not in my classes, but I’m aware of him.” She chuckled. “He’s hard to overlook.”

“Have you seen him in the last couple of days?”

“I don’t believe so. We haven’t had any major catastrophes at the studio, so he must be absent.”

“By the way, Miss Berry, is it usual to use lead in the composition of glazes?”

“Oh, yes, it’s quite usual. Lead causes the pigment to adhere to the clay.”

“Isn’t it poisonous?”

“We take precautions, of course. Would you like to visit our studio, Mr. — Mr….”

“Qwilleran, spelled with a Q-w. That’s very kind of you, Miss Berry. I have a great curiosity about potting. Is it true that clay begins to smell bad when it ripens?”

“Yes, indeedy! The longer you keep it, the more it gains in elasticity. Actually it’s decomposing.”

During this conversation the receptionist in the feature department was signaling to Qwilleran; two incoming phone calls were waiting. He shook his head and waved them away.

He told the potter, “I’ve taken an apartment at the old pottery on River Road. It’s a fascinating place. Are you familiar with it?”

There was a chilling pause on the other end of the line. “You’re not going to bring up the subject of Mortimer Mellon, are you?”

“Who is he?” Qwilleran asked with an outrageous display of naiveté.

“Never mind. Forget I mentioned him.”

“I was going to tell you,” he said in his most engaging voice, “that my apartment has a secret window overlooking the kiln room, and my curiosity is aroused. What might its purpose be?”

There was another pause. “Which studio do you have?”

“Number Six.”

“That used to be Mr. Penniman’s.”

“I didn’t know he was an artist,” Qwilleran said. “I thought he was a newspaper publisher and financier.”

“He was a patron of the arts, and his studio served as a — as a —”

“Pied-ŕ-terre?” the newsman supplied.

“You see,” Miss Berry added cautiously, “I used to work in the Penniman pottery in the early days.”

He expressed surprise and then inquired if she planned to attend the opening of the Graham exhibition.

“I hadn’t intended to, but…”

“Why don’t you come, Miss Berry? I’ll personally keep your champagne glass filled.”

“Maybe I shall. I never waste time on social openings, but you sound like an interesting young man. Your enthusiasm is refreshing.”

“How will I recognize you, Miss Berry?”