Cat Breaking Free

6

Approaching home across the rooftops, Joe slipped into his private tower, into the elegant construction that rose atop the new upstairs. Hexagonal in design and glass-sided, the tower afforded him a wide view of the village roofs and the shore beyond. Yawning, his belly full of Mexican dinner, he considered the soft cushions and the joys of a short nap. Glancing down at the drive, he saw that Ryan's truck still stood beside Clyde's car.

Though Ryan had designed and built his tower, it was Clyde who had put the idea to her; and Joe himself was responsible for the overall concept. One could say that the tower was a collaboration between the three of them, though of course Ryan didn't know that. She gave the credit to Clyde, actually believing in Clyde's perceptive understanding of feline psychology and desires.

"I want to see in all directions," Joe had told Clyde. "Not just the ocean. I want to look down on the entire village. I want windows I can open and close by myself without spraining a paw. I want a fresh bowl of water every day, a soft blanket, and plenty of soft pillows."

"You want the pillows hand-embroidered? How about a refrigerator? A TV? A telephone, maybe?"

"A telephone would be nice."

"And tell me how I explain to Ryan that a tomcat needs a phone line into his private retreat."

"You're so cheap," Joe had said, rolling over. "You don't want to pay for a second line." He had looked upside down at Clyde. "I would be perfectly happy to share the existing house line with you. But I guess you don't want to share. Did you know," he said, flipping to his feet and fixing Clyde with a steady gaze, "that there is already a manufacturer making cell phones for dogs, to be attached to their collars? So why not cats? I don't see why…"

"Joe, it's lies like that that really set me off."

"Not a lie at all. The honest truth, I swear. It's a company called PetsCell. I don't know any more about it than that; Dulcie found a mention on the Web, an old newspaper article. If you would just… I'll get you a copy, you can read it for yourself. If you would just stretch your mind a little, Clyde, not let yourself become so hidebound. That really isn't…"

Clyde had only glared at him. And no phone had been forthcoming, house phone or cellular. But even so, his tower was an elegant retreat, rising as it did atop the slanted shake roof of the new second floor. His private aerie that could be entered from the rooftops or from Clyde's office below. Ryan, in her innocence, had designed the layout so that Clyde could easily step up on the moveable library ladder in his study, reach through the ceiling cat door, and open or close the tower windows. She had no notion that Joe could do that himself. Now, as he pawed at his cushions, preparing to nap, the faint sound of a TV sent him back over the roof, to peer down at the house next door.

Chichi must have hurried right home after her pushy performance at Lupe's Playa. The light of the TV danced across the living room shades, picking out her shadow sharp as a lounging cameo. Maybe she'd felt logy from her big supper, headed home to curl up before the tube. He couldn't say much for her taste, he thought, listening to the canned laughter of a sleazy sitcom, a series that he particularly hated.

It all came down to taste. Some humans had it, some didn't. Deciding against a nap, and wondering if Clyde had checked on Rube, he slipped down through his cat door onto the ceiling beam, and dropped to Clyde's desk.

Around him, the house sounded empty; and it felt empty. Maybe Clyde and Ryan were walking the beach, giving Rock a run. Galloping down the stairs, suddenly worried about the aging retriever, he found Rube in bed, lying quietly among his blankets in the laundry, on the bottom mattress of the two-tiered bunk. He could smell Clyde's scent, and Ryan's, on Rube's ears and face, as if they'd given the old dog a good petting before going out again. When Joe spoke, Rube opened a tired eye, sighed, licked Joe's nose, then went back to sleep. Above Rube, on the top bunk, the two older cats were curled together, softly snoring. But the young white cat lay curled against Rube, with her paws around his foreleg. She, in particular, loved Rube, and Joe knew she was hurting for him.

Easing onto the bunk beside the two animals, and speaking softly to the old retriever, Joe tried to reassure him. He was thus occupied, snuggled against Rube, listening to the Lab's rough breathing, when he heard Rock bark, and heard Ryan open the patio gate. Clyde and Ryan came in the back door joking and laughing; they grew quiet as they turned into the laundry, the way a person would enter the hospital room of a very sick patient. Outside the kitchen door, Rock whined and sniffed, but the big dog didn't bark now, he knew better.

Clyde started to speak, then caught himself. Joe could see on his face the clear question: How is he? Clyde blinked at his near blunder, looked embarrassed, and knelt beside Ryan, to stroke Rube. As the two talked to the old dog, the white cat looked up at them, purring. Ryan laid her ear to Rube's chest, her dark hair blending with the Lab's black coat; then she smelled Rube's breath in a very personal manner. Ryan had grown up with Dallas's gun dogs, she had helped to train the pointers, had hunted with them and had tended to more than a few ailing canines. She looked up at Clyde with the same look, Joe was sure, that Dr. Firetti would have given him. The time was coming when Clyde must make the big decision, when he could no longer let Rube suffer but must give him ease and a deserved rest.

No one that Joe knew would keep an animal suffering for their own selfish human reasons. He'd heard of people who did, but neither Ryan nor Clyde, nor any of their friends, thought that death was the end for the animals they loved, any more than it was for humans. They were sensible enough to give an animal ease when there was no other solution to its distress. Joe nosed at Rube, wishing very much that he could make the old dog better, and knowing he could do nothing. And soon he left the laundry and headed upstairs feeling incredibly sad. He wished he had as powerful a faith in the wonders that came in the next life as did Dulcie.

Leaping to Clyde's desk, disturbing a stack of auto parts orders, he sailed up into the rafters and slipped out through his cat door into the tower, where he curled forlornly among the pillows and closed his eyes.

After a long time of feeling miserable, he slept. At some point he woke smelling coffee brewing and heard the faint clink of cups from down in the kitchen; and when he slept again, his dreams were uneasy. The next time he woke, the house was silent and Ryan's truck was gone-workday tomorrow. He imagined Clyde would be giving Rube his medicine and sitting quietly with the old dog.

Rube seemed to have aged quickly after his golden retriever pal, Barney, died. Joe thought the household cats missed Barney, too. Certainly the cats felt a true tenderness for Rube, they spent a lot of time washing his rough black coat and sleeping close to him or on top of him. Two of the cats were getting old, up in the high teens. Someday there would be only the young white female, the shy, frightened little one, Joe thought sadly.

Such thoughts made him feel pretty low; he didn't like to dwell on that stuff. But, it happens, he told himself sternly. That's how life is, life doesn't last forever.

He wondered how much ordinary cats thought about death, or if they thought about it at all. He didn't remember any such thoughts before he discovered his extended talents-but he'd been pretty young. The thoughts of a young tom in his prime were not on death and the hereafter, he was too busy living life with irresponsible abandon.

Joe did not like to think about his own age. He and Dulcie hoped that, along with their humanlike digestive systems capable of handing food that would put down an ordinary cat, and with their more complicated thought processes, maybe their aging would follow a pattern closer to that of humans. This life was such a blast that neither cat wanted to toss in the towel, they were too busy fighting crime, putting down the no-goods. Who knew what came next time around, who knew if they'd like it half as much.

Scowling at this infrequent turn of mind, he dropped into sleep again, and this time he slept deeply and without dreams, floating in a restorative slumber-until sirens brought him straight up, rigid. Their screams jerked him from sleep so suddenly he thought he'd been snatched out of his own skin.

Half awake, he backed away from the ear-bursting commotion, from the ululating harbingers of disaster. The walls of his tower fairly shook with vibrations. He could feel through his paws, through his whole body, the banging ramble of the fire trucks. Then the shriller scream of a rescue unit joined in, then the whoop-whoop of Harper's police units. Sounded to Joe like every emergency vehicle in the village was streaking through the night, rumbling up the narrow streets heading toward the hills. Rearing up in his tower, all he could see was the racing red glow of their lights running along the undersides of the trees.

Slipping out of the tower and leaping up onto its hexagonal roof, he reared up like a weather vane, watching the wild race of red-lit vehicles hurtling between the cottages, heading up the hills-and he could hear, from up the hills, faint shouting, men shouting. Rearing taller, he could see an eerie red glow flickering. Fire. Fire, up around the high school. A tongue of flame licked at the sky, and another, and a twisting cloud of red burst into the night. He was poised to leap away across the roofs to follow when, below him on the dark street, three unlighted police cars slipped past him as silent as hunting sharks.

But these cats were not headed for the high school, they made straight for the center of the village, moving fast and quietly. He glimpsed them once, crossing Ocean, then lost them among the roofs and night shadows. He stood studying the silent village looking for some disturbance, but saw nothing, no one running, no swift escaping movement. He heard no shouts, no sound at all. Saw no sudden cops' spotlights reflecting against the sky. What the hell was happening? He was crouched to race across the roofs for a look when, from below in the study, Clyde began shouting. Joe stared down toward the study and bedroom, and dropped down to the shingles again and through the tower and cat door, peering down from the rafter.

Clyde's shouts came from the bottom of the stairs. "He's worse, Joe. His breathing's bad-we're off to the vet. Call him, Joe. Punch code two. Call him now, tell him you're a houseguest, that I'm on my way." And Clyde was gone, Joe heard the front door slam, then the car doors, and the roadster roared to a start and skidded out of the drive, took off burning rubber.

Leaping down to the desk, Joe hit the speaker button and the digit for Dr. Firetti; he felt dizzy and sick inside.

"Firetti." The doctor answered sleepily, on the first ring. Joe imagined him jerking awake in his little stucco cottage next to the clinic, pulling himself from sleep. "Yes? What?" Firetti said.

"This… I'm a friend of Clyde Damen, Clyde's on his way. Rube's worse, really sick. He should be…"

"Just pulled in," Firetti shouted from a distance as if he'd laid down the phone to pull on his pants. Joe heard a door click open, heard faintly Firetti shouting to Clyde; then the silence of an open line.

Seeing in his mind the familiar clinic with its cold metal tables, but with friendly pictures of cats and dogs on the walls, seeing old Rube lying prone on a metal table gasping for breath, Joe clicked off the phone. And he sat among the papers he'd scattered, thinking about Rube. Seeing Dr. Firetti's caring face peering down the way he did, leaning over you while you shivered on the table. Seeing Clyde's worried face, beside Firetti. And Joe prayed hard for Rube.

Then there was nothing else he could do. He hated idle waiting. He was crouched to leap back to the roof, when the white cat came up the stairs announcing her distress with tiny, forlorn mewls. She padded into the study and stood shakily below the desk staring up at him, crying.

Dropping to the floor, Joe licked Snowball's face, trying to ease her. She knew Rube was in trouble, this little cat knew very well what was happening. Snowball was, of all three household cats, by far the most intelligent and sensitive.

"It's all right, Snowball. He has good care. He'll be… he'll be the best he can be," Joe said gently.

Snowball looked up at him trustingly, the way she always trusted him, this innocent, delicate little cat. "It's all right," he said. "You have to trust Clyde, you have to trust the doctor."

Joe nudged her up into the big leather chair, where she obediently curled down into a little ball. He was tucking the woolen throw around her with careful paws when a muffled report, sharp as gunfire, exploded from the center of the village: a shot echoing between the shops. Distant tires chirped and squealed, racing away, then silence. But Joe, as hungry for action as any cop, couldn't bring himself to leave Snowball.

Licking her ears, he snuggled close, purring to her until at last she dropped off into sleep. The poor little cat was worn out, done in from stress and worry, from her pain over Rube. I guess, Joe thought, that ordinary cats-the kind of cat I was long ago-I guess there's a lot more understanding there than I remember having. I guess that even a regular cat is far more than he appears to be.

And that was the end of the night's philosophizing. He licked Snowball's ear again, though she was deep under, relaxed at last. "Stay here," Joe told her uselessly. "Stay right here, Clyde'll be back soon. And Rube will be… Rube will be the best he can be." As a second shot rang out, he leaped to the desk and was out of there, desk to rafter to tower and to the shingles, where he stood listening.

But all was silence now. He could see no lights moving beneath the trees. Only up at the high school was there increasing commotion as the fire licked higher across the night sky, heralded by the faint echoes of shouting men and by car lights appearing and disappearing as if moving back and forth behind the buildings.

Had kids set the fire? Students? That would be a first for this village. But he guessed every town had its troublemakers. Watching the red stain in the sky, he couldn't decide whether to take off up the hills to see what was happening, or seek out the mysterious events occurring somewhere on the dim village streets.

The decision took care of itself, quite suddenly.

The tomcat was crouched to leap away, when a figure appeared from the shadows in the neighbors' dark yard, a black-clad figure slipping swiftly through the bushes and around the far side of the house.

Sailing across to the neighbors' roof, Joe stood with his paws in the gutter peering down as the figure moved silently along the drive toward the back, heading for Chichi's door.

As much as he disliked Chichi Barbi, he didn't want to see something ugly happen to her. There she was, watching TV at the front of the house, and had likely heard nothing. Above the raucous canned laughter, what could she hear? The woman was a sitting duck in there.

Slipping along the edge of the roof to follow the intruder, the tomcat had to laugh. Black leggings, black sweatshirt, black hood pulled up, and even black gloves, a character straight out of a cheap movie.

But that didn't make him any less dangerous. Joe watched him slip up the steps into the shadows beside the door. In a moment the door opened, the figure slipped inside, the door closed softly, then all was still.

Trotting across the roof again to the front of the house, he hung out over the gutter looking down through the front window.

Chichi's sharp silhouette hadn't moved; she appeared totally entranced by the insipid sitcom. Backing up and kneading his claws on the shingles, he trotted away to the pine tree between the houses. Leaping onto its trunk, clinging, he backed down to where he could jump into the little lemon tree-slashing his paws again on its wicked thorns. Why the hell did lemon trees have thorns! No cat could avoid them.

Looking into the dark room, trying to spot the intruder, he saw nothing at first but shadows. Nothing moved until… Yes. There. Black within black, slipping stealthily along beside the dresser. For a brief moment, Joe Grey was uncertain what to do. Shout at Chichi through the window to warn her? And jeopardize his own neck? Or wait, bide his time, try to see what the burglar would take, or what he was up to?

If this was only theft, and not the precursor of an attack on Chichi herself, his instinct was to stay put, to watch, and let this come down as it would. Tonight every cop was busy, the intruder had to know that. Joe thought he'd better play it by ear, maybe go for the evidence. With every cop in the department either up at the fire or chasing unseen miscreants through the dark streets, it was, indeed, a hard call.