Cat Fear No Evil

26

The time was 9:30, the morning sun burning off the last of the valley fog as Clyde and Joe Grey approached San Francisco. They had left the house at 7:30. The Cadillac still smelled new though it was a year old, a trade-in that Clyde had borrowed from the dealership with which his automotive shop shared space. A car more reliable on the freeway at high speed than Clyde's dozen vintage antiques, most of which were tucked away in the back garage awaiting Clyde's further attention in therapeutic engine mechanics, body smoothing, and, ultimately, cosmetic detailing and bright new paint. The sun, rising ahead of them, drenched the San Francisco skyline, offering, to Joe Grey, a far more inviting view of the city than the dim, garbage-strewn alleys of his kittenhood.

Peering out, Joe thought about the Greenlaws turning up alive, about Kate's trashed apartment, and about Marlin Dorriss's various enterprises. If these matters were connected, the thread that bound them was tangled enough to give anyone a headache. Quietly he glanced at Clyde-his housemate was in a better mood since he'd downed some caffeine; in San Jose they'd made a pit stop, picking up a cup of coffee, a cinnamon bun, and, for Joe, a quarter-pounder, hold the pickles and lettuce. Joe had taken care of his own pit stop under a tree behind the fast food emporium while Clyde kept an eye out for dogs, and they were on the road again. Their argument this early morning over whether Joe should accompany him had been stressful for them both.

Clyde said the San Francisco streets were dangerous for a cat. Had pointed out that Joe hadn't survived those streets very well as a young cat, that Clyde had rescued him from the gutter, half dead. Joe said he'd gotten along just fine until his tail got broken, and that on this present junket he did not expect to be running the city's back streets and alleys.

"You damn near died in that gutter."

"I'm not going back to the gutter."

Clyde had maintained there was nothing Joe could do in San Francisco to help Kate. Joe reminded him that Azrael was there harassing Kate and that Clyde, despite his many talents, was not skilled at getting up the sides of buildings or slipping through cat-size openings to chase a surly tomcat. But the fact remained that Clyde was deeply concerned about Kate. Joe watched his housemate with interest. His sense was that, no matter how much Clyde was put off by Kate's unusual feline talents, no matter how she had distanced herself from him romantically, they needed each other very much as friends.

The two went back a long way. They had been good friends while Kate and Jimmie were married. The three were often together, though even then Clyde and Kate seemed close, laughing and having fun together and enjoying Clyde's various pets, while Jimmie hated cats and had always seemed the odd man out. Jimmie had often been sarcastic and patronizing to Kate, and that hadn't gone down well with Clyde.

It seemed to Joe that, when the beginning romance between Clyde and Kate went so quickly awry, the feelings that remained had slowly mellowed into a deep and needful friendship. And that was nice. Friendship between two of opposite sexes, without the need to crawl into bed, was one of the values of human civility and intelligence that Joe Grey had come to admire.

Joe did not reveal to Clyde his real reason for demanding to accompany him to the city, and that had deepened their early morning conflict. And of course Clyde had said, "What about Dulcie and the kit? Don't you think they'll be mad as hell when they find out we ran off to San Francisco without them? With all Dulcie's dreams of spending a weekend at the St. Francis? Of shopping at Saks and I. Magnin? As Dulcie would put it, like a grand human lady?"

"So I'll buy them a present from Magnin," Joe had said irritably, and that had been the end of the matter. Clyde had only glared at him, so annoyed himself that he'd refused to call Kate to tell her he was on the way. He said she'd only fuss at him.

But now, as they pulled into the city and Clyde headed for Kate's apartment-with no other destination intended-Joe's thoughts were racing. He watched Clyde narrowly.

"I guess San Francisco PD should have a search warrant by now," Joe said. "I guess they'll be searching Dorriss's condo- Harper said he'd call the judge early." He watched Clyde appraisingly. "Maybe they've already found the Packard."

Clyde turned to look at Joe. "We didn't come up here to look for the Packard. That is so unrealistic, to think it's in the city. We came to help Kate, to give Kate moral support. What makes you think my car would be hidden in San Francisco?"

Joe shrugged. A subtle twist of his gray shoulders, a flick of his ears. "Call it cat sense."

"What?"

"That sixth sense the authorities talk about."

"What authorities?"

"Cat authorities. People who study cats, who write about our ability to sense an earthquake before it happens, or a storm or hurricane. Same thing."

Clyde glared at him, almost missing a red light, slamming on the brakes. "What's so great about that? A weatherman can predict storms and hurricanes."

"He can't predict an earthquake. He can't feel a storm in his paws like I can."

"A weatherman doesn't have paws," Clyde shouted.

"Same with the Packard," Joe said. "I have this really strong sense that it's here in the city. And I'm not the only one. Max Harper thinks it could be at the Dorriss condo. And Captain Harper is not given to what you call foolish notions." Joe looked hard at Clyde. "It wouldn't hurt to look. We could just-"

"We can't just anything. We're here for Kate, not on some pointless chase. Not to get involved in some police investigation that is absolutely none of our business and where we'd be in the way. If there's anything the cops hate, it's civilians messing around a search, not to mention some nosy tomcat."

"Dorriss's condo has to have a garage. If Harper's right, your precious Packard could be sitting there just waiting for you." He looked intently at Clyde. "The cops get to it first and haul it away to their lockup, no telling what kind of damage they'll inflict. What do they know about classic cars? Dent a fender, break one of those windows that you had such a hard time finding…"

"The police are trained to take care of valuable evidence."

Joe Grey smiled.

Heading up Stockton, Clyde tried to call Kate. She didn't answer her home phone or her cell phone. He hung up without leaving a message. "Maybe she's meeting Lucinda and Pedric, or they're out to breakfast." He glanced at Joe. "You think, if the Packard was there in Dorriss's garage, that some uninformed rookie might manhandle it? I'm not saying it is there, I'm…"

"The Dorriss condo isn't far, just up Marina."

Clyde tried Kate again. This time he left a message. "We're headed for your place, Kate. Going to stop up on Marina. Be along shortly." And again Joe Grey smiled.

As Clyde turned up toward Marina, his mind on his 1927 Packard roadster, just a few blocks ahead Kate and Lucinda and Pedric, in the Greenlaws' rental car, were heading for breakfast at one of the intriguing restaurants in Ghirardelli Square. The Greenlaws were far too hungry to stop by the San Francisco PD before breakfast.

Canceling their hotel reservation but paying a one-night penalty, the Greenlaws had arrived at Kate's apartment knowing that she'd had a break-in, but still shocked at the extent of the damage. Wading among the remains of what had been a handsome living room, stepping over lovely brocade cushions torn apart among broken pieces of cherry end tables, among upholstery stuffing scattered like snow, Lucinda shook her head. "Did they have to tear it up like this? What was the point?"

"Scum doesn't need a reason," Pedric said angrily. The old man seldom raised his voice. Now his words were filled with rage. Threading their way between Kate's hand-thrown lamps that stood on the floor where she had righted them, stepping carefully around heaps of designer's catalogs and fabric books tangled beneath the overturned couch and chairs, the couple made their way to the dining table, where Kate had coffee waiting.

She had cleared a space for them, had wiped off the chairs and table. Lucinda and Pedric sat down gratefully, breathing in the welcome scent of a good Colombian brew. Kate filled their mugs and passed a plate of shortbread and the cream and sugar. Lucinda considered the empty cardboard cartons heaped against the wall, and against the dining-room window, a collection of vodka, gin, tomato sauce, paper towel, and soup boxes.

"I just got back," Kate said, "snatched them from the corner market before they broke them down. Made two trips and I'm still out of breath, hauling them up the stairs. I'm going to have to start working out."

"That woman did all this?" Lucinda said. "Consuela, and that man? What kind of people are these?" She looked intently at Kate. "What do they want? Not a handful of fake jewels?"

"I don't any longer believe that those jewels are paste," Kate said. "But why would that appraiser… Emerson Bristol… He has such a good reputation. At least… I thought he did." She studied their thin, lined faces. "Even if I've been overly casual in some ways, I did use some caution. I gave him a false address. On a hunch, I guess. I don't really know why. Some little niggling feeling-not that it did any good apparently, as he had me followed anyway. Or someone did."

Kate sipped her coffee. "After being married to Jimmie, thinking it was a good marriage, I guess I lost faith in my own judgment. I sure lost faith in the apparent trustworthiness of other people."

She shook her head. "With that attitude, you'd think I'd have checked out the appraiser. But I believed fully in the knowledge of those who recommended him. Then, too, it was hard to imagine that anything of great value would be tucked away in that old safe all those years, nearly thirty years."

Lucinda nodded. Pedric looked as if he found nothing really surprising, only another interesting twist in the intricate fabric of the world. Pedric Greenlaw had seen a lot in his eighty-some years. He expected, before he died, to see a good deal more.

"I suppose," Kate said, "every few years someone in the firm asked about the box in the safe, hauled it out and read the note again, checked whatever records they kept, then shoved the box back out of the way. Without the note tucked in the box, who knows what would have happened."

Kate refilled their coffee cups. "I have the name of another appraiser. I called Detective Garza this morning. He said San Francisco PD uses this man, and so do the San Francisco courts. Garza has complete trust in him. Steve Tiernan. Too bad I don't have the pieces now to take to him. Who knows if I'll ever get them back. But I wondered if you might like to have your own jewelry appraised, since the work is so very similar."

"We would like to do that," Lucinda said.

Kate fetched her sweater, and as they headed out to breakfast in the Greenlaws' rental car, Lucinda told her about the black cat that the young woman at the hotel had had with her.

"That has to be Consuela," Kate said. "So that's where she was staying. How convenient-the cat could come right across the roofs. I wonder where they've gone now. The cat was in here last night, it's that beast from Molena Point. Azrael, the tomcat that ran with old Greeley Urzey."

Lucinda shook her head. "Not just some ordinary cat."

"The cat broke in, then let Consuela in. Long after she left to come and find me, Azrael stayed behind. When I got home, after Consuela left me, that animal was sitting right there on the overturned couch staring at me."

"And what did he want?" Pedric said.

"He wanted me to help him. It was so… I'd think it funny, except that he terrifies me. He talked about some kind of hidden world that-"

The minute she said it, she was sorry. Both Lucinda and Pedric turned to stare at her. Lucinda drove in silence for some minutes, then Kate showed her where to turn into Ghirardelli Square. When she'd parked the car, Lucinda said, "Did the beast imply that the jewelry came from some… hidden world? Did he say that, Kate?"

Before Kate could answer, Pedric said, "A world beneath the green hills." His thin, lined face was so intent. His eyes never left hers. Kate had to remind herself that this old man had grown up on the ancient Celtic tales, that those myths were an important part of his heritage.

"A world entered through a cave," Pedric said, "or through a door, or through a portal into a hill. A door that, in the old country, might be found hidden at the back of a root cellar."

Kate wanted to say, Those are only stories, Pedric. Ancient, made-up stories. But she couldn't say that to him. She glanced at Lucinda. The old woman touched her hand.

"Joe and Dulcie and Kit are real," Lucinda said. "In their amazing talents of speech and understanding, they are very real. Yet most everyone in the world would say that such a thing is impossible, that such a cat can be no more than myth."

The old lady cracked the windows so they could sit in comfort for a few minutes. Around them, the gardens and the lovely complex of shops and restaurants presented a sense of safety, a bit of the world where nothing bad could happen. The warm air was filled with the smell of chocolate mixed with the scent of flowers. All along the square, the shop windows presented wares beautifully wrought, delights meant to be enjoyed in a safe and ordered world. But within the car hung the hoary shadows of a chaotic environment, and it seemed to Kate that around her writhed dark myths, chill and threatening.

Looking at Kate, Pedric said gruffly, "The kit believes in another world than this. All her short life she has longed for that world."

But then the old man smiled and shook his head. "Joe Grey wants nothing to do with such an idea. Joe says this world is quite enough for him. Let's go have some breakfast."

But, over breakfast, Kate could not leave such thoughts behind her. The Greenlaws had stirred anew her unease, mixed with the persistent small thread of interest. She thought about the black cat, about the old house he believed opened to that other world, thought how deftly the snarling tom had guided her unwilling thoughts. Last night after his visit to her apartment she had found herself, just at the edge of sleep, imagining such a world and falling into dreams where she wandered that exotic land-and she had awakened that morning lost and frightened.

Now, sitting comfortably at the little breakfast table between Lucinda and Pedric in the pretty cafe, she took Lucinda's hand, holding fast to the old woman's steadiness, holding fast to the real and solid world.