Cat Breaking Free

22

But while Joe and Dulcie hurried home, each thinking of a midnight nap, Kit was not in her bed at all, but out in the night on her own mission. Having left the rooftop apartment after Lucinda and Pedric slept, much too wide-awake to stay in, Kit lay on a copper awning above a little cigar shop, watching Chichi Barbi across the street in the Patio Cafe.

Chichi sat at an outdoor table, observing the shops that flanked the cigar store just below Kit. I'm a spy spying on a spy, Kit thought. That's what Dulcie would say. The curvy blonde, pretending to read the newspaper by the soft patio lights, glanced up every few seconds then wrote something down in the small spiral notebook half hidden beneath the sports section. Kit stretched out to see, but felt too impatient to remain still.

Dropping from the awning to the low-hanging cigar sign then to a raised planter, she landed among a tangle of bright cyclamens. Choosing a pair of late shoppers, she padded across the street behind them: a bare-legged woman in flat sandals and a man who smelled of the leather jacket he wore. Once across, she sprang atop the two-foot brick wall that defined the patio and approached Chichi from the rear.

She could not see the pages of the notebook until she was up on the next table, behind Chichi. Most of the other diners had left, their tables stacked with dirty plates waiting to be cleared. She had time only to glimpse Chichi's odd notations when a dark-haired waiter double-timed across the patio, his black, hard-soled shoes ringing on the bricks, and waved to shoo her away.

"Scat! Get down! Cats on the bricks, that's allowed! Cat on the table, bad, bad! You village cats know better!" Swiping at her with a dish towel, he picked up a plate that contained several scraps of leftover shrimp, set it under a chair, picked her up and set her down beside it, then began to gather up dishes. Laughing to herself, Kit scoffed up the shrimp.

Chichi glanced down, frowning at her, but then returned to her notebook. When the waiter left, Kit returned to the cleared table, to peer around Chichi's shoulder.

She got a good look at the page before Chichi turned and saw her. But Kit was gone, racing away up a trellis to the roofs, where she disappeared from view.

Hidden among the chimneys she closed her eyes, concentrating until she saw Chichi's scribbles again, clearly in the blackness; and she held them there, committing them to a strange kind of memory that even Joe Grey and Dulcie couldn't match.

As a kitten, her one joy and wonder in life was to hide in the cold shadows where the wild band had gathered for the night, and listen to the old Celtic tales they told, the stories of their beginnings. To listen, and to remember so she could tell the stories later to herself when she was alone and frightened.

Now she saw sharply in memory Chichi's mysterious notes, as strange as the hieroglyphs from some ancient Celtic tomb.

She needed Lucinda, Lucinda could write them down. Whatever this was, it was important. Holding that clear picture in her head, Kit bolted desperately for home.

Racing across her own terrace and into the bedroom, leaping onto the bed, she mewled at Lucinda and lashed her tail and patted at Lucinda's face. "Wake up! Wake up, Lucinda. Now! Wake up now!" Dropping down again, she raced to the living room and onto the desk to snatch a pad of paper and a pen in her mouth. Carrying them clumsily, she flew back to the bedroom.

Lucinda had flipped on the bedside lamp. She sat muzzily against the tumbled pillows. Beside her, Pedric still snored; he had heard nothing. "What, Kit!" Lucinda demanded. "What happened?"

Dropping the pad and pen in Lucinda's lap, Kit said, "Write. Write what I tell you… try to tell you… Oh, please."

Obediently, Lucinda wrote as Kit spelled out the senseless words.

"Dn lv, dot."

"Period?"

Kit nodded. "Then eight double dot forty, period. Next line, 2 cust. Then Bev dn shds lts off, period." Kit had to spell it all, it was very difficult. Had to talk with her eyes closed to see it all clearly.

"Next line, nine oh four period out lock, period, then, wlk wst period. Then, Dn period. Eight double dot forty, period.

"2 cust. Bev dwn shds lts off, one sec in.

"Nine double dot oh four out lock wlk wst.

"That's all," Kit said at last, collapsing among the covers.

"What kind of code is this? Where were you, Kit? Where did you get this?"

Kit told her where she'd been and how she'd watched Chichi making notes.

Lucinda frowned, then slowly began to translate. "Don. That would be Don Blake-Blake's Watch Shop? Don leaves the shop at eight-forty? Then…" Lucinda scanned the page, "then two more customers. Then fifteen minutes later, Beverly Blake pulls the shades and turns off the lights?"

Kit licked her whiskers, thinking. "Yes, that happened. I saw from the awning, I saw the lights go off, I saw the woman leave. I didn't see the man. I guess he'd already gone?"

"Bev leaves one security light on inside?" Lucinda said, frowning. "She leaves the shop at four after nine, locks the door, and walks west?"

"Yes, she did that!" the kit whispered, pleased that Lucinda was quick at these matters. To her, the little squiggles were maddening. She hoped she'd gotten them right.

But Lucinda looked at Kit and stroked her. "You are quite amazing. Do you know that you are amazing?"

Kit rubbed her head against Lucinda's hand and purred and purred. She looked up at Lucinda. "Why is all that so important that she has to write it down?"

"I'm not sure. But, Kit, maybe we're both thinking the same." Lucinda frowned. "When Beverly leaves a little later like that, she often meets Don at the grocery. They like pastrami hoagies for supper. He sometimes leaves earlier to order and pick them up. My goodness, Kit." Lucinda touched Kit's shoulder. "Chichi? Is this from Chichi Barbi?"

Kit nodded.

Lucinda's eyes widened. "Blake's Watch Shop is known for its Rolex watches and valuable antique clocks." She reached for her robe. "Maybe it isn't urgent enough to call, at night, but I…"

But Kit was already streaking for the living room. Leaping to the desk, she hit the phone's speaker button and punched in the station. In seconds she had Dallas Garza on the line and was describing what she had seen and what Chichi Barbi had written in her little notebook. She did not want Lucinda to call, Lucinda could never explain how she knew Chichi's secret.

The old stucco house stood jammed into the steep hillside as if it had been pressed into the earth by giant hands. It was two-storied in front, on the downhill side, one story at the rear where it pushed into the earth. This early in the spring the rising sun still hung in the south, casting a rich amber glow across the front of the worn stucco box, bringing to life patches of faded tan paint that had worn away to reveal the ancient gray plaster. The asphalt roof shingles were curled and mossy; the low picket fence beside the steep drive had perhaps never seen paint. But the rosebushes along the fence were lovingly tended, heavy with huge pink and red blooms.

The basement appeared to be a bedroom, the blinds drawn down halfway to reveal the crooked hems of limp lace curtains. The windows of the upper-floor living room were dressed with lace, too, giving the house an appearance of having not changed in decades, as if its residents had been settled within its dated rooms for a lifetime. The kind of house occupied by aging folks trying to exist on an ever-shrinking income that was eaten away by inflation and rising medical costs. The kind of house where an elderly widow might be too settled in emotionally to sell for a nice profit and move on. Such a widow might have few options, when all California real estate was out of reach for a person on a fixed income.

Joe and Dulcie had already circled the dwelling, leaping from tree to tree, peering in past lace tiebacks above the shorter lace curtains that covered the lower panes. They could see an oversized velour couch and chairs, their backs draped with Mexican weavings. And a dining table of the old-fashioned waterfall style, same as the end tables, the bedroom dressers and a round-topped radio. They saw no TV They saw no human occupant until they reached the back bedroom.

There by the window sat a lean, wrinkled old woman with graying black hair tied back severely. Her gnarled hands were folded together in her lap. A Bible lay closed on the table beside her, next to another round-topped old-fashioned radio. This room did have a TV, an ancient box set on a little table in the far corner, facing two narrow beds. Dulcie imagined the old woman holding a rosary; though at the moment her wrinkled hands clutched only a fold of her faded apron. She sat facing the dulled glass and the backyard rose garden, but apparently was asleep in her chair. At least, she had her eyes shut. If she had spied the cats in the pepper tree, she gave no indication. Facing the bedroom door stood a cage set up on a table.

All along Dulcie had hoped it wasn't true, that there were no trapped cats. They peered in past the frilly pepper leaves and lace tiebacks at the three captives, feeling scared and sick.

The cage was made not of wire but of thin, strong bars, impenetrable as a jail cell, and was closed with a heavy padlock. The three cats slept inside huddled together, filling the small space. The white cat's tail lay across the dirty sandbox. The dark tabby with the long ears had his hind feet pressed against a dish of stale food. The bleached calico huddled miserably between them, her eyes squeezed shut.

Swallowing back a growl, Joe studied the window.

It was an old, double-hung casement. Joe's eyes widened when he saw it wasn't locked, that the round metal lock, in plain sight, was disengaged. He tried to determine if the old woman was indeed asleep. If they dropped to the sill and slipped through, would she wake and shout for Luis? She seemed, dozing in her rocker, totally unaware of them.