Cat Breaking Free

36

Half an hour after Dulcie settled among the shadows to watch Roman Slayter's door, Joe found her there asleep on the hall carpet beneath the little table. Having waited for her in the garden as he cleaned himself up, after that fool woman threw water on him, he had at last gone looking for her. If she'd gotten into Slayter's room, she'd better be well hidden. From the garden wall, he'd seen Slayter up at a third-floor window, sitting as if at a table. Then when he'd tracked Dulcie through the lobby and up the stairs, there she was asleep in the hall. He nudged her.

She woke at once. "Where have you been? He's in there." "I know, I saw him from the garden, sitting by the window with the TV on. What's to watch, in the daytime? The soaps? He made two phone calls, and answered three; I could just hear the phone ringing, and saw him pick up. Could you hear anything? But you were asleep."

"I wish you'd stayed awake. I'd give a case of caviar to know what those calls were. So many pieces that don't add up."

"They never add up until the last shoe drops, the last mouse runs out of the hole."

Joe settled down beside her. They were softly whispering, patiently watching Slayter's door, when a door just beyond them flew open and a second maid came out, wheeling her squeaky cart. She passed by three closed doors with DO NOT DISTURB signs on them, and knocked at 307.

"Housekeeping."

"Come in," Slayter called. She used her passkey, then flipped down the little doorstop to hold the door open. The cats, scrunching down beside the cleaning cart, were ready to make a dash inside when they heard the elevator humming, heard it stop at the third floor. Heard its door slide open and soft footsteps coming their way along the carpet, and they smelled the sweet, flowery scent of Chichi Barbi's perfume. Hunching smaller, they stared at each other. Joe ducked his head down to hide his white nose and chest and paws.

Chichi hesitated beside the maid's cart; then everything happened at once: They heard Slayter inside talking with the maid, heard the closet door slide open, heard him coming. Swift as a cat herself, Chichi drew back into the recess of the door to the ice machine. She watched, unseen, as Slayter left his room and went on down the hall, carrying a newspaper. The minute he stepped into the elevator and the door closed, Chichi came out and stood listening.

The maid was in Slayter's bathroom, running the water as she cleaned. Chichi slipped quickly in. Joe and Dulcie followed, strolling in behind her between the cart and the door. They stood watching as Chichi tossed the room. She checked beneath the mattress, which was on a solid platform, shook out the tangled bedding to glance underneath, then dropped it in a heap.

Stepping to the open closet she did a thorough job on his suitcase that stood inside on a stand, and on the hanging clothes. Fast and efficient, she was heading across to the windows when the maid came out of the bathroom.

"Hi!" Chichi said brightly, not missing a beat. "Roman sent me back up to find his jacket, he's waiting in the lobby. The blue one, but it isn't here. Could it be in the bathroom?"

"There's no jacket in there," the Latino maid said suspiciously, moving toward the phone. Quickly she picked it up, but before she could call security, Chichi was gone-and so were Joe and Dulcie. Chichi out the door, the cats behind the open draperies.

It was there they found the gun, in a hiding place so efficient that no maid would be apt to look. Maybe no one would discover it unless they were doing electrical repairs-or had their nose to the carpet.

Except a cop. Any cop would spot the loose carpet in the corner behind the draperies-but the cats were aware of more than that. They crouched in the corner excitedly sniffing the faint, distinctive scent, trying to close their ears against the violent roar of the maid's vacuum cleaner. They stared down at the loose carpet beneath their paws; Dulcie patted at it, her green eyes wide. Joe nosed at the crack where the carpet met the wall, where the rug did not lie snugly-where it had been lifted, then secured back in place. He clawed it back to get his teeth in, and pulled with a ripping sound.

"Double-sided tape," Dulcie whispered, and they pulled back the carpet to look at the floor beneath.

The plywood floor had been cut into a six-inch square, as if removed and then replaced. The wall at the corner was lumpy, too, as if it had also been cut, then repaired and replastered. "Old building," Dulcie said. "Older than the wing that goes along the end of the garden. Maybe when it was built, they had to make some changes here in the wiring?"

Together they clawed the plywood up. It fitted so snugly it was hard to remove without ripping out a claw. Beneath it, a black hole gaped, filled with wiring and with a plastic pipe running through. Concealed back beneath the old part of the floor, half hidden by wiring, lay a dark handgun, a plain blue semi-automatic with a dark grip. They could see that the clip was in. As their eyes adjusted, they could see the round silver S-and-W logo of Smith and Wesson on the grip. The cats looked at each other and smiled. Slayter had discovered an excellent hiding place-except for the nosiness of cats.

They had no way of knowing if the gun was loaded without removing the clip, and neither was about to try that. "I told you there was a gun," Dulcie said. "That Chichi was searching for a gun. What do we do now?"

Before Joe could answer, the loud, brassy blast of a jazz trumpet drowned even the roar of the vacuum, bursting up from the courtyard.

"It's starting," Dulcie said. "The first bands must be set up."

"The streets will be wall-to-wall traffic, the sidewalks a forest of feet."

"But it's only just past noon. Luis wouldn't hit those shops this time of day?" She stared down into the hole, at the gun. "What'll we do with it? Leave it here or…?"

"We're not handling that thing. You want to haul that over the roofs? Besides, we can't move evidence. You know that."

"Was evidence what Chichi was looking for?"

"Whatever, the cops need to find it right here." Slipping the plywood back into place, he pressed the carpet flat over it. Sudden silence beyond the drapery, then little rustles of fabric told them the maid was making the bed. They listened as she plumped the pillows and moved around as if straightening the folders on desk and table. At last they heard the welcome squeak of wheels as she moved the cart, the click as she snapped the doorstop up, then the door slammed closed. They heard her turn the handle, testing the lock, then blessed silence. They'd have the room to themselves until Slayter returned.

Slipping out from behind the drapery, Joe leaped to the nightstand, pressed the phone for an outside line, and punched in Harper's private number. Quickly he gave Harper the location and told him where the gun was hidden. He wished he understood Chichi's role in this. If she was working with Luis, and apparently with Slayter, then why was she snooping? The only answer that came to mind was far too simple, and didn't seem to fit Chichi. Sure didn't fit her past behavior, ripping Clyde off. Across the room, Dulcie reared up against the door, working at the knob.

She had turned it and was swinging on it, ready to kick it open, when the door flew violently open. Joe thought she was crushed as Slayter hurried in; but she twisted and leaped out behind him, and was gone. Joe had time only to drop into the thin space between the bed platform and the wall, a crack that had been left to allow the bedside lamps to be plugged in, a space so narrow he had to wriggle to get in at all, and then could hardly breathe. He felt trapped there, and he sure was trapped in the room with Slayter. He hoped Dulcie wouldn't linger out in the hall or try to get him out. At least he wasn't crouched in the corner on top of the gun, in case Slayter went for it.

And Slayter did just that. Joe heard him pull the drapery back, heard the ripping sound as he pulled the carpet up, a screech as he lifted the plywood. To the accompaniment of the welcome noise, Joe slid on through to the far side of the bed nearest the door, and reared up to peer up over the bed.

He watched Slayter remove the clip and check it, replace it, and jack one into the chamber. Watched him slide the gun into a body holster beneath his jacket. As he turned, Joe dropped down again, backing deeper into the space between bed and wall.

This time when Slayter left the room the man moved so swiftly, barely cracking the door open, that Joe almost didn't make it. Scorching out behind Slayter's ankles without brushing against his leg, Joe followed on his heels. He meant to streak across the hall and in through the open door of the room that was marked ICE MACHINE-but Slayter headed that way, moving directly into the soft-drink room and through it, and through a door marked MAINTENANCE. He heard Slayter's hard shoes climbing the concrete stairs that would be used by maintenance to access all floors, stairs that probably led to the roof, to the vents and heating equipment. Had Dulcie gone that way? He heard the heavy door at the top slam, a door that sounded too heavy for Dulcie to have opened.

Joe didn't like going up on the roof with Slayter, even if he could get the door open. But if Dulcie was there…

And, he had told Harper where the gun was hidden, but now it wasn't there. Slayter was wearing it, and if an officer approached him…

Had he seen a house phone on top the little table in the hall? But you couldn't call out on a house phone. Slipping back into the hall, he could see the cleaning cart down at the far end. Racing down, he paused by the open door, listening to water running and the TV tuned into a Spanish station. Before he could think better of it, he was inside the room and on the desk, punching in Harper's number. It crackled when Harper answered.

"He retrieved the gun. Wearing it in a shoulder holster, left side. He's gone up on the roof." He waited to be sure Harper wouldn't ask him to repeat, then hung up and was gone, out into the hall again, his nose filled with the stink of disinfectant-and he headed fast for the roof.