Cat Fear No Evil

11

The only luggage the black tomcat required was a canvas tote containing a dozen assorted cans of albacore and white chicken, and a box of fish-flavored kibble. A little something to snack on, between room service. His traveling companion, by contrast, had packed three suitcases, effectively filling the entire trunk of her pale blue Corvette.

Consuela hadn't been thrilled about him coming along on this little jaunt. He had prevailed, however, having more plans than he had mentioned to her-far more than cleaning out Kate Osborne's safe deposit box.

Traveling north from Molena Point, Consuela preferred Highway 101 to the coast route, despite the heavy traffic and the preponderance of large tractor-trailers. She was a fast driver with flash-quick reactions and a competitive take on life. Azrael studied her with interest.

She no longer looked like the bawdy young woman who had hung out with those younger girls; her transformation was, as always, remarkable. She looked her true age now, of twenty-some. Without the frizzed-out hair and theatrical makeup, her sleek, fine-boned beauty was startling; and the transformation hadn't taken long. She had scrubbed her face and now wore very little makeup, just a touch of pink lipstick. He had watched her dampen her dark hair, twist it tightly around her head, and cover it with the sassy blond wig that she had styled like Kate Osborne's hair. She was wearing a tailored beige suit, much as Kate might wear. She looked serious and businesslike, and in fact far more interesting than the painted child who had run with Dillon and her friends. She had wanted to make reservations at the St. Francis, on Union Square, but Azrael had quashed that notion. The Garden House on Stockton was just a block from Kate Osborne's apartment.

He slept during much of the two-hour drive, waking in San Jose, where Consuela stopped at a Burger King. She ordered orange juice and coffee for herself, and a double cheeseburger for him, hold the pickles. That would tide him over until they hit the city and had visited Kate's bank-though as it turned out, their errand didn't take long.

The branch that Kate frequented was old, with round marble pillars in front, its floors and walls done all in marble. Azrael, not trusting Consuela, rode into the bank in her carryall. No one questioned her when she presented the safe deposit box key, read off the number, and waited to sign in.

But when the clerk gave her the signature card, a hot rage hit Azrael, and Consuela went pale.

The card had been signed just an hour earlier by Kate herself.

"Forgot something," Consuela told the clerk, smiling and shaking her head at her own pretended inefficiency. The bank clerk looked hard at her but accepted the signature card.

Playing dumb, Consuela followed the clerk into the vault.

This was apparently not the same teller who had helped Kate an hour earlier; that clerk would have remembered her, or at least remembered what Kate was wearing. Azrael watched the other clerks warily, looking for some trap; his paws began to sweat. These tellers might, for all he knew, know Kate personally. It was a small branch, and Kate did work right in the building. He'd considered that before but had thought, what were the odds? You couldn't cover every contingent.

Moving into the vault, waiting for the teller to open up the little drawer, both Azrael and Consuela were strung with nerves. Before they were alone in the locked room he'd nearly smothered in the damn bag.

Opening the metal box, Consuela stared into the empty container. Not a scrap of paper, not a paperclip or a speck of dust.

"Nothing," she said, having expected as much. "Nothing. What did you do! How did you tip her! This is your fault," she hissed, her face close to his. "You stupid beast. You drag me all the way up here for this, for nothing. Either you tipped her or… What did you hear last night, that made you think… You'd better start explaining."

"Keep your voice down! You're supposed to be alone in here! Kate said the jewels were here. Plain as day."

She just looked at him.

He raised his paw, wanting to slash her. She might look like a refined lady now, but she was still little more than a streetwalker. "Are you calling me a liar?"

"If they were here, she's cleared them out. An hour ago, you stupid beast. Did she burn rubber getting here before us? And why? Who tipped her? Is there another name on the box? Did she call someone here in the city?"

"You were looking at the card. I was inside the damn bag."

"They don't keep that information on the sign-in card. I looked." She stared hard at him. "How the hell did she know! What did you do when you took that key, leave black cat hair all over her room? Paw prints on the dresser?"

He extended his claws until she backed away. She closed the box, and held the carryall open, looking at him until he hopped in. Well, screw her, he thought hunkering down in the dark bag. And they did not speak again until they hit the Garden House and Consuela turned into the parking lot.

The place was so typically San Francisco it made him retch, all this Victorian garbage to impress the tourists. And he was hungry again. A bad gig always made him hungry. He waited in the car while she signed the register, then rode in her carryall up the elevator. They did not learn until later that the hotel allowed pets, that he would have been welcome, that catering to domestic animals was their specialty. Though one might have known from the smell of the room. It stunk like poodle poop.

When the bellman departed, Azrael hassled Consuela until she phoned for takeout of cold boiled crab legs and sushi. Before he got down to the work at hand he wanted sustenance. Even now, despite Consuela blowing it with the safe deposit box, this little trip held promise.

Their room was on the south side of the building, a location for which Consuela had paid an extra ten bucks a night, as the manager had at first said those rooms were all taken. From this vantage, Azrael would have a perfect view down the block to Kate Osborne's apartment. When the bellman left, Consuela dumped the carryall on the nearest chair, dropped his bag of food in the closet, picked up the phone, and ordered his takeout. Then, changing into jeans and a T-shirt, she turned on the TV and sprawled on the bed. She was still scowling. He got the feeling too often that the woman didn't like him.

Well, she was going along with his plan all right, the mercenary little bitch. Maybe she just didn't like cats. The times they'd worked together, he'd never bothered to ask. Now, after the bank fiasco, her mood was as dark as the murky worlds that filled his late-night longings.

Kate must have missed her key shortly after she returned to Wilma Getz's house this morning, after she'd looked at that apartment.

Why didn't she simply assume she'd misplaced it? What made her hustle on back to the city?

Right, he thought. That meddling gray tomcat.

Somehow those little cats had spied on him when he was in the Getz house or when he and Consuela were in the alley. When he finished with those three, they'd be dog meat.

Listening to the inanity of some late-afternoon sitcom, he clawed open the window and slipped out onto the fake balcony, crowding against the metal rails in the four-inch-wide space, looking across the flat roofs to Kate's apartment building. Consuela had at least had the decency to slow the car as they passed, to make sure of the number. From Kate's description to her friend Wilma, the apartment at the north front was hers. At least, that seemed to be the only one with a view of both Coit Tower and Russian Hill. The windows in that apartment were open, the white curtains blowing in and out, stirred by a rain-scented breeze. Above him, thick gray clouds were gathering.

He waited a long time jammed against the rail before he glimpsed Kate moving around inside, hurrying as if preparing to go out. He waited until she turned away, then dropped to a lower portion of the roof, and leaped to the flat roof of the next building. Fleeing across the hard black tar among air conditioner units and heat vents, he reached the wall of Kate's building.

The window above him must open to the kitchen, he could smell bananas, and lemon-scented dish soap. Crouching out of sight, hidden by the blowing curtains, he was about to rear up and peer in when he dropped again fast and flattened himself against the roof.

Kate stood above him, looking out just where he would have appeared. He lay very still, his eyes slitted, a black shadow against the black tar.