Cat Chase The Moon

6

But Courtney wasn’t hurt. She was quite safe, at least for the moment, though she was still mad as hell. What did he want with her? Having driven only a few blocks, with her in the bag on the floor of the front seat, he had turned into a drive and killed the engine. When he lifted the bag out of the car, that was when she nearly got away, pushing through the hole she’d torn, yowling and spitting. He’d clutched the bag closed, carried her through one door and then another; doors close together as if he’d crossed a small room, and closing each behind him. She tried to think which direction they had come, where she might be.

He opened another door and carried her up a hard stairway, his shoes scuffing on something that sounded like rubber matting. Up the flight of steps and through another door that he slammed behind him, too, and he dumped the bag on the floor. She lay shivering. She had gone through a whole range of emotions—terror, rage, and earlier when he had stuffed her in the bag holding her mouth shut, she had been so wild she’d ripped the bag nearly apart. Now, lying in the bag undisturbed, she listened. When he didn’t move or speak, she clawed her way out through the bloody hole she’d made.

She was in an upstairs apartment.

She could have run but she didn’t. She stood looking up at her captor. But this was not the prowler in the library. This man was quite different. His head and face were clean shaven, smooth and lightly tanned; his eyes were as blue as her kitten eyes had been, before they turned a deep amber. He was well groomed and clean, neatly dressed. He looked down at her with interest, and then with a smile of gentle caring—and did she see a touch of amusement? Maybe because she was scowling at him? He did not look cruel. Strange that even at first, capturing her on the street, he had carried her so gently that he hadn’t hurt her, even though she’d fought and ripped at him. Most of the blood was his. Even gripping her by the back of her neck so tightly, he had been careful not to injure her, he had endured her slashing without striking back.

But did his gentle look hold something else, too? For an instant she had the sense of a big, friendly-appearing dog peering down innocently at a smaller animal that he meant, the next moment, to tear apart.

But that was foolish. He stroked her back then patted the cushions of the brocade couch inviting her up. “Come, my dear. Make yourself comfortable. You’ll enjoy living here. Don’t be afraid. You can see that the apartment is lovely, and the antiques shop downstairs, which will be yours later, all the beautiful furniture and sculpture to rub against. Come up, my dear, and make yourself at home.” And he fluffed up the folded throw at one end.

She leaped to the couch onto the cashmere throw, but she sat tall and still, full of defiance. All this elegance had begun to make her uneasy—yet the living room was lovely: ivory satin draperies closing out the night; lovely, carved antique chairs and chests. Wilma had taught her a little about antiques but she didn’t know enough to sort these out. There were stained-glass lamps, too, and a rich Persian rug all in deep tones that had felt thick and soft under her paws.

“You’ll so love living here—until we go on to New York, of course. Until you really become famous. Then, oh, you’ll love living in such elegance.” And he smiled and knelt and stroked her back in just the right way. How could he intend any harm?

He sat down at the other end of the couch, comfortable and easy. “You will be happy with me, my dear, and with our adventures. You will know luxuries you would find nowhere else, not in this day. And you will soon be famous. Oh, very famous when our project is complete. You will be on television, in the magazines, and then we will go for the movies. What can you learn, my dear? Can you learn tricks? That would be a nice touch. Oh, you will be idolized in the city.”

His grand words began to excite her . . . but then they made her shiver. Were those words what her daddy called con talk, enticing promises that Joe Grey said meant trouble? Big trouble, the tomcat had said. You might find that out soon enough if you’re not a wary young cat.

But the visions this man painted for her glowed too bright in her imagination, galleries richer even than this beautiful apartment, richer than his grand downstairs showroom where she and Dulcie and Kit had sometimes looked in the windows at his lovely wares. She had seen him then, waiting on customers when they had thought he was just another shopper.

And now, when she looked down at the coffee table, at the small silver tray of business cards, they said: Ulrich Seaver, SEAVER’S ANTIQUES. The cards were all in gold and silver as elegant as the shop. He was saying, “First we’ll go to the San Francisco gallery, you will be the star, and that show is already scheduled. We’ll get a nice start there, I’ll have the brochures printed by then, I already have the copy ready.”

How could he “have the show already scheduled”—whatever exactly that meant—before he was sure he could catch her or even find her? When he couldn’t be sure at all that she would be his star?

She was certain, by now, that he didn’t know she could speak. She could tell by his expression that he didn’t imagine she understood him, his look didn’t change as if he expected her response. He didn’t wait to see her brighten with joy at what he told her. He was talking only so his voice would reassure her, hoping that his gentle tone would make her feel safe and loved.

Or maybe he was talking, too, to congratulate himself on the project that lay ahead. That he thinks lies ahead, she thought warily.

Maybe it was her color, her markings, that he thought would charm people, like the pictures in the library books.

Could he be connected to that shaggy library prowler? If they were both interested in the old tapestries . . . Maybe Seaver had pored over them just as the prowler had? Were they partners? But where was that man now? And how would those pictures make her famous anyway? For people to see her, then see the same cat in the old tapestries? Why would anyone care? And how strange that the two would be connected, this bald, sleek, well-dressed man, and the library prowler as shaggy as a street person?

He looked at her solemnly. “I wish you could understand me, my dear. I wish you could answer me, could tell me how excited you would be at our new adventure. What an amazement that will be, what fun we’ll have.”

Yes, Courtney thought with another shiver, and what would you do if I did speak? What would you do with me then? And the fear returned, the bright glamour fading to mist.

She stiffened as he rose, but he only turned away. “I will leave you to explore, my dear.” He opened the pale cream draperies to the foggy dawn. “You will find breakfast in the kitchen. A sand box in the laundry room. You will see the gallery later, you will see the paintings and tapestries of you that I have so far collected, and photos of those I have ordered. Those pieces will remain at the New York gallery when they arrive.” He held out his hand to see if she would be gentle or if she would try to scratch again. She swallowed her uncertainty, swallowed her resurging temper, and sniffed hesitantly at his fingers. He smiled with satisfaction, as if they had finally made friends, then he went downstairs to the shop, locking the door behind him.

Free to roam the apartment, she first checked every window but they were all locked tight. In the kitchen, on a tray on the floor, there was fresh salmon and clean water. She didn’t want to eat, her stomach was already roiling. But her fear had made her thirsty, and she drank. She wished, for the first time in her short life, that she could take human form as some speaking cats could do. If she could become a human person she could get out of there in a second, could break a window with a chair, open it, turn back into a cat and be gone across the rooftops.

But she couldn’t change. That was a rare skill indeed, belonging to only a few of her kind.

In less than a year of kittenhood, she had learned a lot, from her mama and Joe Grey, from Kit and Pan and from their human friends; had learned a lot when Wilma read to her. Her and Dulcie’s tall, gray-haired housemate was an ex–federal parole officer, she knew about the human world and, somehow, she knew how to share it in easy terms with a little cat.

Well, and she had learned from her brothers, too. She could fight as hard as Striker and Buffin. She would fight Seaver again even harder if he tried to harm her. Though he hadn’t so far. Even when she left him good and bloodied he hadn’t hit her, and she didn’t think he would.

She had learned to fight from her brothers and from her pa, and learned to swear from them, too. If he touched her with cruel intent just once, she would fight as hard as they, she would kill the bastard, she would shred Ulrich Seaver.

He said she would be happy and famous and that he had wonderful plans for her, but now those words, so softly spoken, made her feel sick again; her emotions swung back and forth until she didn’t know what she believed. The sense of luxury, of being loved by this kind-appearing, elegant stranger, slowly vanished as she prowled the apartment searching for a way out. Searching, the fear returned; she was all at sixes and sevens, she didn’t know what she believed.

She entered the bedroom last, after she’d prowled the living room and through the big open kitchen with an eating area that looked out on the street. The bedroom had a view of Ocean Avenue, and a connected small, bright bathroom. It was these rooms that held her, staring with surprise.

In the bathroom, a lady’s powder box, bottles of lady’s makeup, and a few lace-edged towels. And in the bedroom, in one of two closets, ladies’ clothes, finely tailored suits and blouses, sleek dresses; lovely shoes with low heels. A woman’s expensive purses on the top shelf, everything neat and dust-free.

A woman lived with him, but where was she? Seaver hadn’t mentioned her, not once. When he referred to “we,” she had thought he meant herself: Courtney and Seaver. But had he meant the woman? A wife? There was no picture of her on the dresser, no framed wedding pictures as there were in her own human friends’ homes. Maybe his wife had just taken a trip, leaving him to tend the shop. Or maybe she had gone herself to try to capture the calico cat for whom they had such plans.

Thinking about this, she hopped to the bedroom window to look down on the main street. It was then that she saw the cats below and her human friends, saw almost everyone she knew down on the streets among the shoppers, saw them searching for her. Saw Pan stalking the rooftops, saw Kit across the street peering in among the shadowed peaks—saw her own parents prowling a little garden between buildings; they appeared to be calling her name but she knew they were softly mewling, that was all they dared to do.

She saw Charlie Harper enter a dress shop, maybe to put up a poster. She was carrying a thick roll of heavy paper, her red hair reflecting in the windows. Courtney watched Ryan and Clyde, Joe’s housemates, tacking up posters, too, or taping them to windows. Both were wearing old jeans, faded T-shirts, and baseball caps, ordinary and unremarkable.

Each poster had a big calico drawing of her, her own face, her own right front leg with the three black bracelets, a picture as lifelike as if she were looking in a mirror. That was Charlie Harper’s drawing, sharply reproduced above the words reward: one thousand dollars.

One thousand dollars! Oh my! She backed away, shocked that anyone would lay out money like that. She might be young but she read the paper and she listened to her human friends. She didn’t know what the stock market was except it was all about trading and Clyde said even a thousand dollars was a “nice piece of money.” Was she worth a thousand dollars? And she was more confused than ever.

Until now, she’d been thinking only about herself trapped in this apartment. One minute imagining her grand new future, people crowding to see the tapestries of her past lives and to learn their ancient stories and to look at her! The next minute she’d been filled with cold fear at what such a future might really mean, the two emotions racing back and forth, muddling her head until she didn’t know what to think.

She thought about the woman nearly dead out there in the sand, beaten and almost buried alive. Was that Seaver’s wife? Was that where she was? Was there more to his plan, more to this seemingly kind man than she imagined? Why hadn’t Seaver mentioned his wife’s name as he talked about the gallery exhibits? Had she refused to help him in some ugly plot that involved more than stealing a cat, and he had beaten and tried to kill her? Maybe they had fought, maybe he thought he had killed her, he was trying to bury her when something frightened him, made him run, made him leave her there half alive? If that woman was his wife, maybe Courtney’s own kidnapping was part of some far more grisly scheme? Letting her imagination run, she tried to think how to escape. I could be alone with a killer and no one knows where I am. Everyone is out searching for me, they’re all looking, my parents, my friends all hurrying out on this cold morning while I’m thinking only of myself, of what Seaver really means to do to me.

She began to examine the windows again, trying to find one that was loose, one that she could claw open and at least cry out her meows. But this apartment, as Joe Grey might have said, was built like a steel jail cell.