The Cat Who Saw Red (9 page)

When they arrived at Maus Haus, the attorney took his attaché case to the kitchen and Qwilleran climbed the grand staircase, but at the landing he turned right instead of left. A sudden impulse led him to Hixie’s apartment.

Just as he raised his hand to knock on the door, he heard a man’s voice, and he hesitated. Through the thick oak panel he could hear only the rumble of the masculine voice without distinguishing the words, but the inflections indicated that the man was coaxing and gently arguing. At first it sounded like a television drama, but then Qwilleran recognized the second voice in the dialogue.

Hixie was saying, “No! That’s final!… Thanks a lot but no thanks!” The high pitch of her voice made the words distinguishable.

There was a wheedling reply from the man.

“That doesn’t make any difference. You know my terms.” She lowered her voice in answer to a question. “Of course I do, but you shouldn’t have come here. We agreed you’d never come here… All right, just one drink, and then you’ve got to leave.”

Qwilleran knocked on the door.

There was an abrupt silence and a long wait before Hixie’s heels could be heard clicking on the floor and approaching the door. “Who is it?” She opened the door cautiously. “Oh, it’s you!” she said with a nervous smile. “I was on the telephone. Sorry to keep you waiting.” She did not invite him in.

“I just wondered if you’d like to go to a cheese-tasting tomorrow afternoon. It’s a press party.”

“Yes, I’d love it. Where shall I meet you?”

“How about the lobby of the Stilton Hotel?”

“That’s fine. You know me! I love to eat.”

“There’ll be drinks, of course.”

“Love to drink, too.” She battered her long false eyelashes.

Qwilleran tried to glance over her shoulder, but the door was only partially open, and the room was in shadow. He saw only a flutter of movement — a bird hopping about in a cage. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

Qwilleran preferred to date women with figures more svelte and clothes more tasteful, but he wanted to ask questions, and he was sure that Hixie liked to babble answers. As he walked around the balcony to Number Six, he was determined to keep an ear tuned for activity across the hall. After “just one drink,” who would slip out of Hixie’s apartment and where would he go? Why, he asked himself, am I such a nosy bastard? But when he unlocked his own door and stepped into the apartment, he forgot his curiosity. The place was a scene of havoc.

All the pictures on the wall over the bookcase were hanging askew. Several books were on the floor with covers spread and pages rumpled. The wastebasket had been overturned, and its contents were strewn about the tile floor. Cushions had been thrown on the floor, and the desktop was swept clean of all but the typewriter. Burglary? Vandalism? Qwilleran glanced swiftly about him before he took a further step into the room. His foot came down on a small object that crunched and pulverized. He stepped quickly aside. Crunch! There were scores of small brown balls scattered about the floor, and the bearskin rug was missing… No, it was huddled under the desk.

“You devils!” Qwilleran bellowed. Those brown balls were Fishy Fritters! The open carton lay on the kitchen floor, empty, and beside it was the plate on which the untouched Pussy Pâté had dried to a nauseating crust. Now it was clear: The devastation was a protest demonstration staged by two militant cats.

The culprits themselves were asleep on the bunk, Yum Yum curled up in a tight ball and Koko stretched full length in a posture of complete exhaustion. When Qwilleran unfolded the linen napkin, however, noses were twitching and ears were alerted, and the two reprobates reported to the kitchen to claim — in a bedlam of baritone and soprano yowls — their escalopes de veau sautées ŕ l’estragon.

“Only a complete sucker would give you a feast after a performance like that,” Qwilleran told them.

After straightening the pictures and shoveling up the Fishy Fritters from the four corners of the room, he put on his slippers, lit a pipeful of tobacco, and sat down at his typewriter to list his impressions of the Toledo Tombs and the food foibles of the meritorious gastronome.

Not without apprehension he glanced at the sheet of paper that he regularly left in the machine, and there he saw one word, neatly typed. He adjusted his glasses and leaned closer. It was in lower case this time… a single word: dog!

In astonishment Qwilleran turned to look at the cat who was industriously licking his paw and washing his face. “Koko!” he said. “This is too much!”

Qwilleran intended to set the alarm clock Wednesday night, but he forgot, and on Thursday morning he was awakened instead by a rasping noise at the window. Koko and Yum Yum were sitting on the sill, chattering like squirrels at the pigeons outside the glass, while the birds had the effrontery to strut up and down the outer ledge within inches of the two quivering black noses.

Qwilleran awoke with a sense of loss. Did it mean that Joy had gone for good? Or was it merely coincidence that Koko had typed “30,” the old newspaper symbol for the end of a story?”

Suddenly he recalled the latest message in the typewriter. Coincidence or not, it was fantastic!

“D-O-G,” he said aloud, and he leaped out of bed with an urgent question on his mind.

He intended to ask Robert Maus at the breakfast table but missed him. He asked Mrs. Marron; she was of no help. He asked Hixie when she reported for ham and eggs and country fries with cinnamon toast, but she had not the faintest idea. Dan Graham failed to appear for breakfast, and when Qwilleran telephoned the pottery later, there was no answer. Finally he called Robert Maus at his office.

“I regret to say that… it escapes my memory,” the attorney said, “but allow me to consult a copy of the contract.”

Qwilleran mumbled an excuse about writing something and needing the information in a hurry.

“No,” said Maus after consulting the files. “I see no evidence of a middle name or initial.”

Qwilleran phoned Arch Riker at the office and told him about the three-letter word in the typewriter. He said, “I was sure Dan Graham was the type who’d have a middle name like Otho or Oglebert, and I thought Koko might have been trying to tell me something. He’s come up with some clues in the past that were no less fantastic.”

“I’m glad he’s learning to spell,” Riker said. “In another six months he should be able to take over your column. How was your dinner last night?”

“Fine, but I didn’t learn much. Maus gave me an unlikely story about how he got his black eye.”

“Coming downtown for lunch?”

“No, I want to stay home and write my review of the Toledo Tombs. This gourmet racket is full of absurdities, and it’s going to be hard to strike the right note — halfway between adulation and a horse laugh.”

“Don’t offend any restaurant owners,” Arch warned him, “or the advertising department will be on my neck… Any news about Joy?”

“No. Nothing.”

Qwilleran had another reason for wanting to stay home: to be near the phone in case she called. He knew it was too soon to expect a message in the mail; she had been gone hardly more than twenty-four hours. And yet he rushed downstairs when the mail delivery came at eleven o’clock and was disappointed to find nothing in his slot in the foyer. Then he convinced himself that any communication from Joy would be addressed to his office; she would be smart enough for that! A letter in her handwriting would be too easily recognized at Maus Haus. He wondered if the post office was equipped to cope with a letter addressed to “Juu Qwwww” at the “Duuy Fwxwu.”

He spent the next hour at his typewriter, trying to write a slyly objective report on the Toledo Tombs. After several fruitless starts, he abandoned his subject and began a profile of Robert Maus — with his pride (sharp knives, lots of butter) and his numerous prejudices. Maus abhorred tea bags, pressure cookers, canned fruit cocktail, bottled mayonnaise, instant coffee, iceberg lettuce, monosodium glutamate, eggs poached in geometric shapes, New England boiled dinners, and anything resembling a smorgasbord, salad bar, or all-you-can-eat buffet.

Once or twice Qwilleran stopped and listened. He thought he could hear someone singing. It was rare to hear live song — not radio and not television. Somewhere a man was singing a Scottish air, and the newsman’s Mackintosh blood responded.

Qwilleran was poking at the keys, quoting Maus on the horror of potatoes baked in foil, when there came a knock on the apartment door. Standing in the hall was his elderly neighbor with her white hair and floury face powder, her crossword puzzle and abundance of costume jewelry.

“Forgive me for intruding,” Miss Roop said, fingering her three strands of beads, “but this puzzle has me stumped, and I thought you might have a good dictionary, being a writer and all. I need an eleven-letter word for a kind of orchid. The first letter is c, and it ends in m.”

“Cypripedium,” said Qwilleran. He spelled it for her.

Miss Roop gasped, and a look of adoration crept into her small blue wrinkle-framed eyes. “Why — why — why, you are remarkable, Mr. Qwilleran!”

He accepted the compliment without revealing the truth. He had learned the word while playing a dictionary game with Koko a few months before. “Will you come in?” he asked.

She started to back away. “Oh, you’re probably busy writing one of your wonderful columns.” But her eyes seemed eager.

“It’s about time I took a breather. Come on in.”

“You’re sure it’s all right?” She glanced down the hall in both directions before stepping quickly into the apartment with a guilty little shrug.

Qwilleran closed the door behind her, and when she looked apprehensive he explained that he must keep the cats from running into the hall. Koko and Yum Yum were sunning themselves on the blue cushion atop the dining table. Miss Roop glanced at them and stiffened perceptibly.

Koko was stretched full lengrh, and Yum Yum was playing with his tail. He tantalized her by slapping it this way and that, and she grabbed it whenever it came within reach. Airborne cat hairs could be seen glistening in the shaft of sunlight that slanted through the studio window.

The relentless daylight also emphasized the two sets of wrinkles on Miss Roop’s forehead, caused by the habit of raising her eyebrows.

Koko caught her disapproving stare and stopped playing games. He rolled over, lifted one hind leg and proceeded to lick the base of his tail. The visitor quickly turned away.

“Will you have a chair?” Qwilleran offered her one of the dining chairs, guessing that she liked to sit up straight. He also offered to make a cup of instant coffee, but she declined hastily as if he had made an indecent suggestion.

Mischievously he asked, “Something stronger?”

“Mr. Qwilleran,” she said firmly, “I might as well tell you right now that I disapprove of drinking.”

“I don’t drink either,” he admitted in his best chummy tone, without adding the grim reason why.

Again she beamed at him with so much warmth that she embarrassed herself and began to talk self-consciously — too much, too loud, and too fast. “I love my work. Mr. Hashman was a brilliant man, rest his soul. He taught me everything I know about restaurant management. He sold out a long time ago, and now the Heavenly Hash Houses are a very big fast-food chain; you probably know that. They’re owned by three brilliant businessmen —”

“Perhaps I should write a column on the history of the Hash Houses, since they originated in this city.” Qwilleran told himself it would be a neat way of sidestepping the quality of the food. “Would you be willing to be interviewed?”

“Oh, dear, no! Don’t mention me! I’d rather you would write about the three brilliant men who expanded the chain from three restaurants to eighty-nine.”

All uniformly mediocre, thought Qwilleran. He reached for his pipe and then changed his mind, convinced that his visitor would disapprove. With circumspection he attempted to pump her for information.

“I’m hoping to write several stories on the gourmets who live at Maus Haus. Do you have any suggestions as to where I should start?”

“Oh, they’re all interesting individuals, take my word for it,” she said enthusiastically.

“Certainly a varied group. Do they all get along well?”

“Oh, yes, they’re lovely people, all very agreeable.”

“How about Max Sorrel? Is he a success as a restaurateur?”

“Oh, he’s an excellent businessman. I admire Mr. Sorrel greatly.”

“Seems to have an eye for the ladies.”

“He’s a handsome man, with a charming personality, and very fastidious.”

Qwilleran felt he was holding a conversation with a computer. He cleared his throat and tried another approach. “You weren’t at dinner Tuesday night, but there was a flare-up at the table. William was scolded for incompetence.”

“We should all make allowances for youth,” Miss Roop said firmly. “He’s a nice boy — very friendly. I’m an old lady with white hair, but he talks to me as if we were the same age.”

Qwilleran had always had a faculty for inducing people to talk frankly. The look of concern in his eyes and the downward curve of his heavy mustache combined to make him appear sympathetic and sincere, even when he was purely inquisitive, but his technique failed to work with Charlotte Roop. He merely learned that Rosemary was attractive, Hixie amusing, and Robert Maus brilliant — absolutely brilliant.

“I suppose you know,” he said, attacking the subject with less delicacy, “that we’ve lost one of our dinner companions. Mrs. Graham has left her husband — rather suddenly and mysteriously.”

Miss Roop raised her chin primly. “I never listen to gossip, Mr. Qwilleran.”

“I hope nothing unfortunate has happened to her,” he persisted. “I heard a scream the night she disappeared, and it worries me.”

“Mrs. Graham is perfectly all right, I’m sure,” said I Miss Roop. “We must always maintain an optimistic attitude and think constructive thoughts.”

“Do you know her well?”

“We’ve had many friendly conversations, and she has taught me a great deal about her art. I admire her tremendously. A clever woman! And her husband is such a sweet man. They’re a lovely couple.”