Cat Fear No Evil

3

It took the rest of the waning night for Clyde to clean and doctor Joe's wounds and tend to his own lacerations. He just hoped the black tomcat didn't have rabies or some exotic tropical disease. When he was finished with the disinfectants and salves, he sported seven oversize adhesive bandages on his hands and arms and shoulder. Joe Grey's injuries hardly showed, hidden beneath his short, dense fur. One could see only a few greasy smears where his silver coat parted, plus the bloody bare patch on his nose that was already beginning to scab over.

Joe's vet would have shaved the torn areas and maybe stitched them. Joe didn't want to see Dr. Firetti, preferring to appear in public as undamaged as possible. He was not through with Azrael, and he had no desire to be observed around the village looking like the walking wounded. He hoped his nose would heal fast.

Watching Clyde set up a ladder and climb from the upstairs deck to the roof, Joe wondered what had brought Azrael back to the village. He knew for a fact that Greeley was still in Central America, as Wilma had had a letter just last week from his wife, who owned the Latin American shop in the village.

The tomcat had returned to the village just once since he and Greeley sneaked away after robbing the village shops; traveling with them was Greeley's new wife-to-be. Sue flew often to Latin America on buying trips, so it was no problem for her to leave her shop in the hands of a manager. The couple were married in Panama and settled down in a Panama City apartment; but their conjugal bliss had, apparently, not appealed to Azrael.

Dumping Greeley and Sue, he had taken up with a little blonde he found in a tourist bar, and soon Azrael and Gail Gantry headed back to the States. Ending up in Molena Point, they had pulled some slick burglaries until Gail was arrested for the murder of a human accomplice. Immediately Azrael had slipped away and disappeared, had not been seen in the village again until last night.

Now, licking a scratch on his shoulder, Joe peered up into the tower. Above him, on the roof, Clyde had set down his bucket of hot water and cleaning rags and opened the tower windows. Joe watched him remove the shredded, ruined pillows and drop them in a plastic garbage bag. Joe had liked those pillows. Clyde removed Joe's water bowl and scrubbed it, then washed the inside of the tower, the walls, the floor, the ceiling and windows. The place would smell like Clorox for a week. Better that than tomcat spray. Clyde left the windows open so the tower could dry and air. Neither Joe nor Clyde had any idea what would prevent Azrael from a second foray, other than the smell of Clorox. Joe wondered if one black ear hanging from the peak of the tower's hexagonal roof would serve to keep the beast away.

He wished that he had obtained such a trophy.

Clyde finished cleaning the tower as the first blush of morning embraced the rooftops. Coming down the ladder and returning to the master suite, Clyde showered and dressed. Joe, waiting for him, prowled the two big rooms. The suite, with its pale plastered walls and cedar ceiling, with its dark hardwood floors and rich Turkish rugs, was really more than a bachelor needed. Joe wondered, not for the first time, if Clyde would ever, finally, settle down with a wife.

There had been plenty of women, for a night, a week, not pickups but good friends, lovers who, having ceased to be lovers, were still the best of friends. That said something positive about Clyde, something Joe liked. But he did wonder if Clyde would ever take a wife. If, in building this comfortable upper floor, Clyde was preparing for just such a move.

If he was, Clyde hadn't confided in him, in his steadfast feline housemate.

Joe had thought for a while that Clyde and Charlie Getz would marry, but then Charlie had fallen head over heels for Clyde's best friend, police chief Max Harper. An old story, Joe guessed, the guy's friend gets the girl. The stuff of fiction. But it had worked out all right, all were still best friends, and Charlie and Max's love was powerful and real.

Maybe he'd marry Ryan Flannery, Joe thought. Maybe Ryan, unknowing-or maybe hoping?-had built this upstairs addition as if destined to live here with Clyde herself?

So far, Joe could only wonder. Clyde had been as close-mouthed as a fox with a squirrel in its teeth. But the two got along very well, had fun together, and had the same sense of humor; they were comfortable together, and that meant a lot. And of course Joe never pried-not to the point where Clyde swore at him and threw things.

They went downstairs together, Joe padding quietly beside Clyde's jogging shoes, feeling Azrael's bites and scratches across every inch of his sleek gray body.

In the big remodeled kitchen Clyde started a pot of coffee and gave old Rube and the three household cats their breakfast. All four animals were nervous, the cats skittery and quick to startle, the old black Lab growling and staring up at the ceiling as if afraid whatever riot had occurred might yet come plunging down into the kitchen.

Sucking on his first cup of caffeine, Clyde fetched the morning paper from the front porch, spreading it out on the table so they could both read it-an act so magnanimous that Joe did a double take. "Why so generous? As you've said in the past, it's your paper, you pay for it."

Clyde glared at him. "You don't need to be sarcastic. This morning scared me. He's a big bruiser, Joe. I hope you can stay away from that cat. Next time, he might not back off so easy."

Joe shrugged, pacing the plaid oilcloth. What a downer, to find that beast prowling the village just before Christmas.

"What do you want for breakfast?" Clyde said diffidently.

"Any salmon left?"

"You ate it all last night. Settle for a cheese omelet?"

Joe yawned.

"With sour cream and kippers?"

Joe thought about that.

Clyde rose and began to make breakfast. "You look terrible. You're all frowns and droopy whiskers."

"You don't look so great yourself with adhesive tape stuck all over."

"Maybe the cat is just passing through," Clyde said. "Anyway, you don't need to be worrying about some mangy alley cat. You should be feeling like the proverbial fat feline, with the church bomber and Rupert Flannery's killer both set to go to trial."

Clyde was being so kind and complimentary that Joe found himself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Though he had to admit, their work on the church bomber and on the murder in Ryan Flannery's garage had been satisfying. No human cop could have done what they did, could have slipped in through Ryan's narrow bathroom window to spy on a prowler. Or could have trotted into the scene of the crime on the heels of a prime suspect, listened to his phone conversations, and passed on the information to the detective division. With those cases wrapped up, Joe knew he should be feeling as smug as if his whiskers were smeared with caviar.

But he didn't feel smug; he felt edgy.

Turning from the stove, Clyde looked deeply at him. "It's not just that tomcat that's eating you. It's those high-powered burglaries."

Clyde gave him a lopsided grin, shaking his head. "You think Azrael was involved in those thefts? No way, Joe. That wasn't Azrael. No cat, not even a beast of his caliber, with his thieving talents, could have pulled off those robberies."

Joe said nothing. He wasn't so sure. Joe was thinking about Azrael and what the unscrupulous black tomcat might be up to, wondering what had brought him back to Molena Point, and his stomach was full of nervous flip-flops.

Well, but maybe he was just hungry. Maybe he'd feel better when he'd stoked up some fuel, when his killer genes were appeased with a nice helping of fat and cholesterol.

Turning back to the skillet, Clyde said, "If you're going to count worries, what about my missing Packard? That car's worth a bundle; I spent almost a year restoring it. For that matter, if you want to worry, what about Kate? This search for her family is upsetting her big time."

Kate was another of Clyde's good friends whom, at one time, Joe had hoped Clyde would marry. Joe himself had a lot in common with Kate; for one thing, she knew his secret, she knew that he could speak, that he was more than an ordinary cat. And Joe, in turn, knew the equally bizarre secret of Kate's own nature.

Kate had, nearly three years ago, moved from the village up to San Francisco, and there had begun searching for some clue to her parents, whom she had never known. The adoption agency and foster homes had supplied just enough facts to frighten her. Personally, Joe thought she was more than foolish to be prying into a history that was best left alone.

But curiosity was just as much a part of Kate's nature as it was of Joe's own feline spirit.

Skillfully Clyde folded the omelet. "Since she started this search for her history she won't talk to you, she won't talk to me. She's so damn stubborn. When she called last night sounding scared, wouldn't say why she was scared…" He turned to stare at Joe. "She calls, then will hardly talk."

Clyde dished up the omelet. "You were listening, you know how she sounded. You were all over me, stuffing your ear in the phone."

"Maybe you should go up there. Two hours to San Francisco…"

"She'll be down for Charlie's gallery opening on Sunday. Maybe I can find out then what's going on." He set their plates on the table. He had added kippers only to Joe's part of the omelet.

Crouching on the table, Joe waited for his breakfast to cool; he didn't like burning his nose. "I still don't see why Sicily has her openings on Sunday. You'd think that earlier in the weekend…" Cautiously he licked at the edge of his omelet.

Clyde shrugged. "Those parties spill out the door. Since she's changed to Sunday, the crowd has nearly doubled."

Joe didn't reply. He was too busy tucking into breakfast-a good fight made him hungry as a starving cougar. But after several bites he looked up at Clyde. "Kate's situation is the same as Dillon's."

Clyde looked at him. "I don't see the two situations as even remotely the same. Dillon's mother has broken up their family. Kate has no family, she… Oh well," Clyde said, shrugging, "both are family problems."

Joe twitched an ear. "Both shattered families. Only in different ways."

Because he'd been an abandoned kitten, Joe had done a lot of thinking about family. Had wondered how life would have been with that kind of security, a mother to take care of him, other kittens to play with…

Maybe his mother had been run over in the San Francisco streets. He always told himself that was what happened, that she hadn't simply abandoned him. He didn't remember if he'd had brothers or sisters. Whatever, with no mother to fetch him up past the first couple months of life he'd had nothing to depend on but his wits. Catch a meal or a one-night stand wherever he could con some apartment dweller, then off again searching for something better. Not until he was lying fevered in the gutter nearly dead from a broken and infected tail, and Clyde discovered him, did he see the world as more than the pit of hell.

And not until he was grown and learned suddenly, after a rude shock, that he could speak and could understand human language-not until he began to think like a human and to understand human civility, did he realize what a family was all about.

He was getting so philosophical and sentimental he made himself retch-but the fact remained, he could now understand why Kate wanted to know her heritage, why she wanted her past to be a part of her no matter how bizarre-just as he understood why Dillon was so shattered by the destruction of her family, by her mother all but abandoning her.

That was the trouble with thinking like a human. You started empathizing. Suffering the pain of others. Compromising your autonomy as a cat. You were no longer satisfied to slaughter rats, get your three squares, and party with the ladies. Even his previous promiscuity he now found juvenile and boring. Now his partnership with Dulcie was deep and abiding.

When Kate called last night, Clyde had been sprawled in bed reading the latest thriller. Joe, lounging on the pillow next to him reading over his shoulder, had reluctantly left the aura of the story and pressed his ear to the phone.

"You sound way stressed," Clyde said. "What's the matter?"

"Just need to talk, I guess." Kate's voice sounded tight and small. "Maybe need a change, maybe I'll move out of the city for a while, come back to the village." She had sounded so deeply upset and off center, that Joe went rigid listening.

"Is it your job? Has work gone sour?"

Joe had rolled his eyes. Clyde could be so imperceptive.

"No, the studio's wonderful."

"It's the search for her grandfather, "Joe had whispered, nudging Clyde.

"Is it the search for your family?"

"Maybe. I guess. I don't want to talk about it. I just want to get away, to be with-with friends."

"Kate…"

"Well I'm coming down," she'd said putting more spunk into her voice. "Even if just for a few days. I want to see Charlie's show-her first one-man exhibit. At the Aronson. I'm coming to the opening; I can't wait. While… while I'm there, maybe I'll look at apartments."

"You can stay here while you look. In the new guest room. Strictly platonic."

Well, Joe thought, it had always been platonic, their friendship had never gone any further. One thing about Clyde, when Kate was married and living in the village, and she and Jimmie saw a lot of Clyde, it was just friends and nothing more. Clyde would never have gotten involved-but there had always been that spark between them, Joe had seen it even then.

"Thanks for the invitation." Her voice started to sound weepy again. "I've already called Wilma, already arranged to stay with her. But can we have dinner?"

"I'd like that. You…"

"I know you're dating Hanni's sister. Could we make it a threesome? Or why not everyone? Ryan, Hanni, their uncle Dallas, Charlie and Max and Wilma…"

Clyde stared at Joe. Joe stared back at him. Now she was gushing. She didn't sound at all like herself.

"Royally scared," Joe had said when Clyde hung up. "Maybe she'll talk to me, maybe I can get a line on what's bugging her."

"Maybe you can meddle."

"Maybe I can help."

"In your case, helping is meddling. Leave it alone, Joe. She doesn't want to talk, she just wants company. Kate's a big girl. If she wants to keep this private, she can handle her own problems."

"Well, aren't you out of joint. And she doesn't seem to be handling them, she's scared out of her pretty blond head."

"Just give her some space. Don't overreact." Clyde's nose, in other words, had been royally put out of joint. Joe had tramped across the bed to his own pillow, kneaded it with a vengeance that threatened to send feathers flying, and curled up for sleep with his back to Clyde.

Kate was his friend, too. Thinking about her problems left him as irritable as a trapped possum.

But now, finishing breakfast in a withdrawn silence, neither Joe Grey nor Clyde imagined that soon the lives that touched them would fall into a deeper tangle. That at Charlie's gallery opening they would be treated to a glimpse of future events as dark as the leer of the black tomcat.