Cat In The Dark. Cat To The Dogs. Cat Spitting Mad. Cat On The Money

4. CAT IN THE DARK

1

THE CAT crouched in darkness beneath the library desk, her tabby stripes mingled with the shadows, her green eyes flashing light, her tail switching impatiently as she watched the last patrons linger around the circulation counter. Did humanshaveto dawdle, wasting their time and hers? Whatwasit about closing hour that made people so incredibly slow?

Above her the library windows were black, and out in the night the oaks’ ancient branches twisted against the glass, the moon’s rising light reflecting along their limbs and picking out the rooftops beyond. The time was nine-fifteen. Time to turn out the lights. Time to leave these hallowed rooms to her. Would people never leave? She was so irritated she almost shouted at them to get lost, that this was her turf now.

Beyond the table and chair legs, out past the open door, the library’s front garden glowed waxen in the moonlight, the spider lilies as ghostly pale as the white reaching fingers of a dead man. Three women moved out into the garden along the stone path, beneath the oak trees’ dark shelter, heading toward the street; behind them, Mavity Flowers hurried out toting her heavy book bag, her white maid’s uniform as bright as moonstruck snow, her gray, wiry hair ruffled by the sea wind. Her white polyester skirt was deeply wrinkled in the rear from sitting for nearly an hour delving through the romance novels, choosing half a dozen unlikely dreams in which to lose herself. Dulcie imagined Mavity hastening home to her tiny cottage, making herself a cup of tea, getting comfy, maybe slipping into her bathrobe and putting her feet up for an evening’s read-for a few hours’ escape and pleasure after scrubbing and vacuuming all day in other people’s houses.

Mavity was a dear friend of Dulcie’s housemate; she and Wilma had known each other since elementary school, more than fifty years. Wilma was the tall one, strong and self-sufficient, while Mavity was such a small person, so wrinkled and frail-looking that people treated her as if she should be watched over-even if she did work ashard as a woman half her age. Mavity wasn’t a cat lover, but she and Dulcie were friends. She always stroked Dulcie and talked to her when she stopped by Wilma’s; Mavity told Dulcie she was beautiful, that her chocolate-dark stripes were as lovely as mink, that Dulcie was a very special cat.

But the little lady had no idea how special. The truth would have terrified her. The notion that Dulcie had read (and found tedious) most of the stories that she, herself, was toting home tonight, would have shaken Mavity Flowers right down to her scruffy white oxfords.

Through the open front door, Dulcie watched Mavity hurry to the corner and turn beneath the yellow glow of the streetlamp to disappear down the dark side street into a tunnel of blackness beneath a double row of densely massed eucalyptus trees. But within the library, seven patrons still lingered.

And from the media room at the back, four more dawdlers appeared, their feet scuffing along inches from Dulcie’s nose-silk-clad ankles in stilted high heels, a boy’s bony bare feet in leather sandals, a child’s little white shoes and lace-ruffled white socks following Mama’s worn loafers. And all of them as slow as cockroaches in molasses, stopping to examine the shelved books and flip through the racked magazines. Dulcie, hunching against the carpet, sighed and closed her eyes. Dawdling was acat’sprerogative, humans didn’t have the talent. Only a cat could perform that slow, malingering dance, thehalf-in-half-out-the-doorroutine, with the required insolence and grace.

She was not often so rude in her assessment of human frailties. During the daytime hours, she was a model of feline amenity, endlessly obliging to the library patrons, purring for them and smiling when the old folks and children petted and fussed over her, and she truly loved them. Being official library cat was deeply rewarding. And at home with Wilma she considered herself beautifully laid-back; she and Wilma had a lovely life together. But when night fell, when the dark winds shook the oaks and pines and rattled the eucalyptus leaves, her patina of civilization gave way and the ancient wildness rose in her, primitive passions took her-and a powerful and insatiable curiosity drove her. Now, eager to get on with her own agenda, she was stifled not only by lingering humans but was put off far more by the too-watchful gaze of the head librarian.

Jingling her keys, Freda Brackett paced before the circulation desk as sour-faced as a bad-tempered possum and as impatient for people to leave as was Dulcie herself-though for far different reasons. Freda couldn’t wait to be free of the books and their related routines for a few hours, while Dulcie couldn’t wait to get at the thousands of volumes, as eager as a child waiting to be alone in the candy store.

Freda had held the position of head librarian for two months. During that time, she had wasted not an ounce of love on the library and its contents, on the patrons, or on anyone or anything connected with the job. But what could you expect of a political appointee?

The favorite niece of a city council member, Freda had been selected over several more desirable applicants among the library’s own staff. Having come to Molena Point from a large and businesslike city library, she ran this small, cozy establishment in the same way. Her only objective was to streamline operations until the Molena Point Library functioned as coldly and impersonally as the institution she had abandoned. In just two months the woman’s rigid rules had eaten away at the warm, small-village atmosphere like a rat demolishing last night’s cake.

She discouraged the villagers from using the library as a meeting place, and she tried to deter any friendliness among the staff. Certainly she disapproved of librarians being friends with the patrons-an impossibility in a small town. Her rules prevented staff from performing special favors for any patron and she even disapproved of helping with book selection and research, the two main reasons for library service.

And as for Dulcie, an official library cat was an abomination. A cat on the premises was as inappropriate and unsanitary as a dog turd on Freda’s supper plate.

But a political appointee didn’t have to care about the job, they were in it only for the money or prestige. If they loved their work they would have excelled at it and thus been hired on their own merits. Political appointees were, in Dulcie’s opinion, always bad news. Just last summer a police detective who was handed hisjob by the mayor created near disaster in the village when he botched a murder investigation.

Dulcie smiled, licking her whiskers.

Detective Marritt hadn’t lasted long, thanks to some quick paw-work. She and Joe Grey, moving fast, had uncovered evidence so incriminating that the real killer had been indicted, and Detective Marritt had been fired-out on the street. A little feline intervention had made him look like mouse dirt.

She wished they could do the same number on Freda.

Behind the circulation desk, Dulcie’s housemate, Wilma Getz, moved back and forth arranging books on the reserve shelf, her long, silver hair bound back with a turquoise clip, her white turtleneck sweater and black blazer setting off to advantage her slim, faded jeans. The two women were about the same age, but Wilma had remained lithe and fresh, while Freda looked dried-up and sharp-angled and sour-and her clothes always smelled of mothballs. Dulcie, watching the two women, did not expect what was coming.

“Get your cat, Wilma. You are to take it home with you tonight.”

“She’s all right inside-she’ll go out later through her cat door.”

“You will take it home with you. I don’t want it here at night. There’s too much possibility of damage. Animals have no place in a library. You are fortunate that, so far, I have allowed it to remain during the day.”

Wilma laid aside the books she was arranging and fixed Freda with a level look.“Dulcie is not a destructive cat. Her manners, as you should have observed, are impeccable.”

“No cat can be trusted. You have no way to know what it might do. You will take it home with you.”

Dulcie, peering from the shadows, dug her claws hard into the carpet-she’d like to tear it to shreds. Or tear Freda to shreds, flay her like a cornered rat. She imagined Freda as a hunting trophy, the woman’s head mounted over the circulation desk like the deer head over Morrie’s Bar.

Wilma picked up her purse.“Dulcie has a right to be here. Sheisthe library cat. She was appointed by the mayor and she is of great value to us. Have you forgotten that her presence has doubled the children’s book circulation?”

“That is such a ridiculous notion. The library is a center for sophisticated research tools, Ms. Getz. It is not a petting zoo.”

“This is a small village library, Freda. It is geared to patrons who want to spend a few pleasant hours.”

“Even if that were its purpose, what does that have to do with acat?”

“Our patrons like having a little cat to pet and to talk to.” Wilma gave Freda a gentle smile. “You’ve seen the statistics. Dulcie has brought in patrons who never came to the library before, and who are now regulars.”

“Ms. Getz, the city hired me to run a library, not an animal shelter. There is absolutely no precedent for?”

“You know quite well there is precedent. Do you think the libraries that keep a cat are run by idiots? There are library cats all across the country, and every one of them is credited with large increases in circulation. Do you think the librarians in El Centro and Hayward and Hood River, in Niagara Falls, Fort Worth, and in a dozen other states would bother to keep a library cat if the cat did not perform a valuable service?”

“Very likely those libraries have a mouse problem and were forced to keep a cat. You are truly paranoid about this foolishness. I would hope your reference work is of a more scholarly?”

Wilma folded her hands loosely in front of her, a gesture Dulcie knew well when Wilma longed to punch someone.“Why don’tyoudoyourresearch, Freda? Library cats date at least as far back as the eighteen-hundreds, not only here but in England and Italy. There have been nonfiction books published on the library cat, a videotape is now being produced, and at least one thesis has been written on the subject-to say nothing of the Library Cat Society, which is anationalorganization of librarians and library cat supporters.”

Beneath the reference desk, Dulcie smiled. Wilma hadn’t spent thirty years putting down pushy federal parolees for nothing.

“Since Dulcie came,” Wilma reminded Freda, “our children’s reading program has grown so popular we’ve had to start three new groups-because of Dulcie. She draws out the shy children, and when new children come in to pet her, very often they discover a brand-new love for books. And they adore having her with them during story hour, snuggling among the cushions.”

Dulcie wanted to cheer, to do a little cat-dance to thank Wilma-but as Freda turned away, the expression on the woman’s face made Dulcie back deeper under the desk, an icy shiver passing over her.

If she had been an ordinary cat, Wilma would take her away for her own safety, because who knew what Freda might do? How could an ordinary cat fathom the lengths Freda Brackett might go to, to get rid of her?

But Dulcie was not ordinary. She was quite aware of the woman’s malice and, despite Wilma’s worries, she knew how to keep out of Freda’s way.

Freda, turning her back on Wilma, motioned her assistant to put out the lights. Bernine Sage hurried out from the book stacks, heading for the electrical switches behind the circulation desk, her smoothly coiled red hair gleaming in the overhead light, her slim black suit describing exactly Bernine’s businesslike attitude. She was not a librarian but a computer expert and a bookkeeper-a perfect choice as Freda’s assistant, to bring the backward village institution into the twenty-first century. Bernine, during the exchange between Freda and Wilma, had stood in the shadows as alert as an armed guard ready to support her superior.

Bernine and Wilma had known each other for many years; Bernine was, as far as she could be, Wilma’s friend. But friendship ended where her bread was buttered.

Dulcie’s own relationship with Bernine was one of a fear far more complicated than her wariness of Freda Brackett. Bernine Sage had acquired her dislike of cats in an unusual way, and she knew too much about certain kinds of cats. If she got started on Celtic history and the ancient, speaking cats, andbegan spilling her theories to Freda and quoting mythology, she could set Ms. Brackett off in a frightening new direction. A real witch-hunt-cat hunt-focused on her; though she was neither witch nor witch’s cat, Dulcie thought demurely.

But what shewascould be no less terrifying to an unsympathetic and unimaginative human.

Now, as Bernine threw the switches for the overhead lights, the library rooms dimmed to a soft glow where a few desk lamps still burned, and the last patrons headed out. But Wilma glanced across the room to Dulcie, her message as clear as if she had spoken: She would not take Dulcie home-she would not give in to Freda. But her look implored Dulcie to go on out and let the woman cool down. Her gaze said clearly that she wouldn’t sleep unless she knew Dulcie was safe.

Within the shadows, Dulcie blinked her eyes slowly, trying to look compliant, trying to ease her friend.

But she had no intention of leaving. Crouched on the carpet, her tail switching, she waited impatiently as Freda and Bernine, and then Wilma, moved toward the door. Bernine paused to throw the last switch, and the desk lamps went dark, casting the room into blackness. For an instant Dulcie was blind, but before the dead bolt slid home her night vision kicked in and the darkness turned transparent, the tables and chairs reemerged, and across the book-lined walls, the blowing shadows of the oaks swam and shivered.

Alone. At last she was alone.

Trotting out from beneath the desk, she leaped to its top and spun, chasing her tail, then flew to the floor again and hit the carpet running, racing through the reading rooms under tables and desks, tearing through moonlight and shadow. Around her, the darkened rooms seemed larger, as if the daytime walls had melted away into wind-tossed space. Leaping to a bookshelf, she pawed down a claw-marked volume. With a soft thud it hit the carpet.

Carrying it in her teeth, she sprang to a table where the moon’s light shone brightest. Pawing the book open, she soon was wandering Africa, prowling the open grasslands, her nostrils filled with the sharp scent of wildebeest and antelope, and around her the African night reeled away to mountains so tall they vanished among the stars. Feasting on gazelle, she raced across grassy plains so vast that if Molena Point were set down there, it would seem only a child’s toy village. Roaring and chuffing, she was a leopard padding among clay huts terrifying sleeping humans, leaving gigantic pawprints in the dust for unlucky hunters to follow. And when at last she was overwhelmed by Africa’s immense spaces, she turned to the close, confining alleys of tenth-century England, to tales of narrow medieval streets.

But too soon those tales turned dark. Hecate wooed her. Evil beckoned to her. She blundered into stories of witches in cat-form and of cat familiars. Medieval humans stalked her, folk terrified by the sight of a cat and wanting only to kill it. Trapped by that era of cruelty, she was sucked down into darkness, unable to shake the bloody and horror-ridden images. These stories were nothing like the gentler, Celtic dramas that she liked to browse through when ancient peoples, taking cat-form, wandered down to a netherworld beneath the soft green hills, when the magical race that was kin to both man and cat could take the shape of either. When that ancient tribe of speaking cats to which she and Joe belonged-and of which they might be nearly the last survivors-had been understood and loved by the Celts. Unable to rid herself of the darker visions, she backed away from the open book, slashing at the offending volume, almost bereft of her reason.

Then she whirled away to crouch at the edge of the table, shocked at her own loss of control.

What am I doing? There is nothing here, only stories. Words on a page, nothing more. That evil time is gone, ages gone. Why am I crouching here trembling like a terrified hunk of cat fur? What set me off like that, to nearly lose myself?Shivering, she felt almost as if someone had fixed dark thoughts on her. Lashing her tail, disgusted by her pointless fear, by her sudden failure of spirit, she leaped to the floor and fled through Wilma’s office and out her cat door into the night, into the soft and welcoming night, into Molena Point’s safe and moonlit night.

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IN THE BEDROOM of the white Cape Cod cottage, moonlight shone through the open windows and a fitful breeze fingered across the bed, teasing the ears of the tomcat who slept curled in the blankets, his muscular body gleaming as sleek as gray velvet. Beside him on the double bed, his human housemate snored softly, clutching the pillow for warmth, unaware that Joe Grey had clawed away the covers into a comfortable and exclusive nest. Clyde, naked and chilled, was too deep in sleep to wake and retrieve the blankets, but Joe Grey stirred as the breeze quickened, his white paws flexed and his nose lifted, catching an elusive scent.

He woke fully, staring toward the open window, drawing his lips back in a grimace at the stink he detected on the cool night air.

Tomcat.

The smell that came to him on the ocean breeze was the rank odor of an unknown tom-a stranger in the village.

Joe might not encounter a village torn for months, but he knew each one, knew what routes he favored and which pals he hung out with, by the scent marks left on storefronts and tree trunks, aromas as individual as hand-lettered placards stating name and residence. He knew the smell of every cat in Molena Point, but this one was exotic and foreign.

Joe tolerated the regular village toms, because how could he not? Without some degree of civility, life would degenerate into a succession of endless and meaningless battles. One restrained oneself until the prize was greatest, until a queen in heat ruled the night-then it was war, bloody and decisive.

But no amount of civilized restraint among the village toms left room for strangers on their turf.

This could be a stray from the wharf who had decided to prowl among the shops, or maybe some tourist’s cat; whatever the case, he didn’t like the intruder’s belligerent, testosterone-heavy message. The beast’s odor reeked of insolence and of a bold and dark malaise-a hotly aggressive, sour aroma. The cat smelled like trouble.

In the moon’s glow, the cottage bedroom was lent a charm not apparent in the daytime. A plain room, it was suited to a simple bachelor’s spartan tastes, comfortable but shabby, the pine dresser and pine nightstand sturdily made and ugly, the ladder-back chair old and scarred. But now, in the moonlight, the unadorned white walls were enlivened by the shifting shadows of the oak trees that spread just outside the window, their knotted patterns softening the room’s stark lines and offering a sense of mystery and depth. And beside the bed, a thick, ruby-toned Persian rug added a single touch of luxury, gleaming like jewels in the moonlight-a tender and extravagant gift from one of Clyde’s former lovers.

Pawing free of the confining bedcovers, Joe Grey walked heavily across the bed and across Clyde’s stomach and dropped down to the thick, soft rug. Clyde, grunting, raised up and glared at him.

“Why the hell do you do that? You’re heavy as a damned moose!”

Joe smiled and dug his claws into the rug’s silky pile.

Clyde’s black hair was wild from sleep, his cheeks dark with a day’s growth of stubble. A line of black grease streaked his forehead, residue from the innards of some ailing Rolls Royce or Mercedes.

“You have the whole damned bed to walk on. Can’t you show a little consideration? I don’t walk on your stomach.”

Joe dug his claws deeper into the Persian weave, his yellow eyes sly with amusement.“You work out, you’re always bragging about your great stomach muscles-you shouldn’t even feel my featherweight. Anyway, you were snoring so loud, so deep under, that a Great Dane on your stomach shouldn’t have waked you.”

“Get the hell out of here. Go on out and hunt, let me get some sleep. Go roll in warm blood or whatever you do at night.”

“For your information, I’m going straight to the library. What more sedate and respectable destination could one possibly?”

“Can it, Joe. Of course you’re going to the library-but only to get Dulcie. Then off to murder some helpless animal, attack some innocent little mouse or cute, cuddly rabbit. Look at you-that killer expression plastered all over your furry face.”

“Rabbits are not cuddly. A rabbit can be as vicious as a bullterrier-their claws are incredibly sharp. And what gives you the slightest clue to Dulcie’s and my plans for the evening? You’re suddenly an authority on the behavior offelis domesticus?”

Clyde doubled the pillow behind his head.“I don’t have to be an authority to smell the blood on your breath when you come stomping in at dawn.”

“I don’t come in here at dawn. I go directly to the kitchen, minding my own business.”

“And trailing muddy pawprints all over the kitchen table. Can’t you wash like a normal cat? You get so much mud on the morning paper, who can read it?”

“I have no trouble reading it. Though why anyone would waste more than five minutes on that rag is hard to understand.”

Clyde picked up the clock, which he kept facedown on the night table. The luminous dial said twelve thirty-three.“It’s late, Joe. Get on out of here. Save your sarcasm for Dulcie. Some of us have to get up in the morning, go to work to support the indigent members of the household.”

“I can support myself very nicely, thank you. I let you think otherwise simply to make you feel needed, to let you think you perform some useful function in the world.”

Padding across the oak floor, Joe pawed open the bedroom door.“So go to sleep. Sleep your life away.” Giving Clyde a last, narrow glare, he left the room. Behind him, he heard Clyde groan and pound his pillow and roll over.

Trotting down the hall and through the living room, brushing past his own tattered, hair-matted easy chair, he slipped out through his cat door. He supposed he should feel sorry for Clyde. How could a mere human, with inferior human senses, appreciate the glory of the moonlit night that surrounded him as he headed across the village?

To his right, above the village roofs, the Molena Point hills rose round and silvered like the pale, humped backs of grazing beasts. All around him, the shop windows gleamed with lunar light, and as he crossed Ocean Avenue with its eucalyptus-shaded median, the trees’ narrow leaves, long and polished, reflected the moon’s glow like silver fish hung from the branches-thousands, millions of bright fish. No human, with inferior human eyesight, could appreciate such a night. No human, with dull human hearing and minimal sense of smell, could enjoy any of the glories of the natural world as vividly as did a cat. Clyde, poor pitiful biped, didn’t have a clue.

Trotting up the moon-whitened sidewalk, he caught again the scent of the vagrant torn and followed it on the shifting wind, watching for any stealthy movement in the tangled shadows. But then, hurrying past the softly lit shops and galleries, he lost that sour odor; now, passing a block of real estate offices and little cafes, sniffing at the doors and at the oversized flower pots that stood along the curb, he smelled only dog urine and the markings of the cats he knew. The torn had, somewhere behind him, taken a different route.

Approaching Dulcie’s cat door, which had been cut at the back of the library into Wilma’s office, he startled at a sound within-and the door flap exploded out and Dulcie shot through nearly on top of him, her green eyes wildly blazing.

She froze, staring at him. She said no word. She lashed her tail and spun away again, racing for the nearest tree and up it, swarming up to the roofs.

Puzzled and concerned, he followed her.

Was she simply moon-maddened, wild with the pull of the full moon? Or had something frightened her in the library’s dark rooms?

With Dulcie, who knew? His lady’s moods could explode as crazily as moths flung in a windstorm.

At least he hadn’t scented the strange torn around her door, he thought with relief as he gained the moonlit peaks.

Already she had disappeared. But her scent was there, warm and sweet, leading away into dense blackness between a tangle of vent pipes that rose from a roof as silvered and flat as a frozen pond. Slipping between the slashing shadows, he galloped past a dozen east-facing windows that reflected a dozen pale moons. Rearing up to look across the roofs for her, peering beneath overhangs and around dormers, he softly called to her. He spoke her name half a dozen times before he grew uneasy, began to worry that the torn had found her first.

Most toms wouldn’t harm a female, but there was always the nasty-tempered beast who liked to hurt a lady more than he liked to love her, the unusual, twisted male who fed on fear and pain-beasts little different from a similarly warped human. Except there were far fewer such cats than men.

Not that Dulcie couldn’t take care of herself. There wasn’t a dog in Molena Point who would tangle with his lady. But despite Dulcie’s temper and her swift claws, Joe searched with growing concern, hurrying along the peaks and watching the shadows and calling. Beneath the moon’s shifting light he could see nothing alive but the darting bats that skimmed the rooftops sucking up bugs and squeaking their shrill radar cries.

Suddenly the tom’s scent hit him strong, clinging to the wall of a little, one-room penthouse.

Sniffing at the window, Joe could smell where the cat had rubbed his cheek along the glass, arrogantly marking this territory as if it were his own.

Peering in through the dusty pane, he studied the old desk stacked with papers and catalogs and the shelves behind, crammed with books and ledgers. What had the torn seen in there of interest?

Beyond the desk a spiral staircase led down to the bookstore below. Maybe this cat, like Dulcie and like Joe himself, found a bookstore inviting; certainly bookstores had a warm coziness, and they always smelled safe.

Maybe the cat had taken up residence there; maybe the two young women who kept the shop had adopted him, picked him up on the highway or at the animal pound. How would they know that Molena Point already had enough tomcats? And why would they care? Why would a human care about the delicate balance of territory necessary to the village males?

A nudge against his flank spun him around crouched to attack.

Dulcie bounced aside laughing, her green eyes flashing. Cuffing his face, she raced to the edge of the roof and dropped off, plummeting down into the concrete canyon-he heard her claws catch on an awning.

Crouching on the rain gutter, he looked down where she clung in the swaying canvas, her eyes blazing. Lashing her tail, she leaped up past him to the roof again and sped away. He burst after her and they fled along the rooftops laughing with human voices.

“You can’t escape?”

“No scruffy torn can catch me?”

“No hoyden queen can outrunthistomcat, baby.”

“Try me.” She laughed, scorching away into the dark and twisted shadows. And who was to hear them? Below, the village slept. No one would hear them laughing and talking-no one, seeing them racing across the rooftops, would connect two cats with human voices. Wildly they fled across the peaks, leaping from shingled hip to dormer and up the winding stairs of the courthouse tower, swiftly up to its high, open lookout.

On the small circular terrace beneath the tower’s conical roof they trotted along the top of the brick rail, looking down at the world spread all below them, at a vast mosaic stained to silver and black. Nothing moved there, only the cloud shadows slipping across and the little bats jittering and darting on the fitful wind.

But then as they padded along the rail, stepping around the outside of the tower’s four pillars on a narrow row of bricks, something stirred below them.

In the sea of darkness an inky patch shifted suddenly and slunk out of the shadows.

He stood staring up at them, black and bold among the rooftops. A huge beast. Black as sin. The biggest tomcat Joe had ever seen-broad of shoulder, wide of head, solid as a panther. He moved with the grace of a panther, swaggering across the roof directly below them, belligerent and predaceous and staring up narrow-eyed, intently watching them, his slitted, amber eyes flashing fire-and his gaze was fully on Dulcie, keen with speculation.

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ON THE ROOFS below Joe and Dulcie the tomcat sauntered along a sharp peak, swaying his broad shoulders with authority and staring coldly up at them where they crouched high on the rail of the tower. Though he dismissed Joe, hardly noticing him, his gaze lingered keenly on Dulcie, making her shiver. Then he smiled and, turning away again, began to stalk between the chimneys, his gaze fixed on a skylight’s clear dome; crouched over the moonstruck bubble, he peered down intently through the curving glass.

From their high vantage, Dulcie watched him with interest.“Blue Moss Cafe,” she said softly. “What’s he looking at? What’s so fascinating? They’re closed for the night.” There would not be so much as a bread crust remaining on the small round tables, not a crumb visible in the stainless steel kitchen; she and Joe had often looked in, sniffing the good smell of beef stew, watching the happy diners. The cat seemed to study every detail of the dim, closed restaurant, remaining so for some moments before he moved on again to peer into an attic and then into a darkened penthouse. There were apartments above some of the shops, and where a room was lighted, he kept his distance, circling around to avoid any wash of light spilling upon him. Approaching an angled, tilting skylight, he hunkered over the dark, dusty panes-and froze.

Whatever he saw below him down in the dusty-dim environs of Medder’s Antiques had jerked him to full alert. Lashing his tail, he clawed at the glass, every line of his muscled body focused and intent, fixated on the little crowded antique store and its ancient, dusty furniture, perhaps studying some odd accouterment of human culture-maybe an antique rattrap or silk umbrella or silver snuffbox. A faint glow seeped up from a nightlight somewhere within, dully igniting the skylight’s grimy panes and silhouetting the black cat’s broad head and thick shoulders. Clawing at the metal frame, digging and pulling, he soon forced the skylight open.

Heaving his shoulder into the crack, he pushed the glass up, rolled underneath, and dropped out of sight as the glass thumped closed behind him; the leap would be ten or twelve feet down among dust-scented Victorian chairs and cluttered china cabinets.

“Come on!” Dulcie hissed. Leaping from the rail, she fled down the tower’s dark, winding stairs. Joe raced close, pressing against her, gripped by a nameless fear for her; he didn’t like to think what kind of cat this was, breaking and entering like a human thief.

Side by side they crouched over the skylight looking down where the cat had vanished among the jumbled furniture. Nothing moved. The reflections across a row of glass-faced china cabinets were as still as if time itself had stopped, the images of carved fretwork and tattered silk shawls lifeless and eternal, a dead montage. A heap of musical instruments, violins and trumpets and guitars, lay rumbled into the arms of a Victorian setee. An ancient bicycle wore a display of feathered hats suspended from its seat and handlebars. The cats heard no sound from the shop, only the hush of breeze around them tickling across the rooftops punctuated by the high-frequency calls of the little bats.

Clink.A metallic clunk jarred the night. Then a familiar scraping sound as the front door opened. The tinkle of its bell stifled quickly, as if someone had grabbed the clapper.

Two men spoke, their voices muted. The cats heard the scuff of shoes crossing the shop but could see no one. Soon they heard wooden drawers sliding out, then the ring of the shop’s old-fashioned cash register as its drawer sprang open-sounds they knew well from visiting widow Medder. Joe found himself listening for a police car down on the street, hoping that a silent alarm might have gone off, alerting a patrol unit.

But would Mrs. Medder have an alarm, when she didn’t even have a computer or a fax machine?

Celia Medder had opened the shop a year ago, after losing her husband and young child in a boating accident down near Santa Barbara; she had moved to Molena Point wanting to escape her painful memories, had started the little shop with her own antique furniture from the large home she no longer wanted, slowly buying more, driving once a month up into the gold-rush towns north of Sacramento looking for bargains. It had not been easy to make a go of her new business. The cats were fond of her; she always welcomed them, never chased them off the sofas or Victorian chairs. She would brush up the satin when they jumped down, but she never spoke to them harshly.

The night was so still that they needn’t look over to know the street was empty. No soft radio from a police unit, no whisper of tires, no footsteps.

“Why would a burglar break into a used furniture shop?” Dulcie whispered. “Why not a bank or jewelry store? And where did that cat come from?” She cut him a sideways look. “A trained cat? Trained to open skylights? I don’t think so.”

Below them the reflections jumped suddenly across the china cabinets. A dozen images flared and swam as a man slipped between the crowded furniture, edging between chairs and couches. A thin, small man-hunched shoulders, a slouch hat, a wrinkled leather flight jacket. The black cat joined him, circling around his ankles, rubbing and preening. Suddenly all the history of their ancient race tumbled through Dulcie’s head-Celtic kings, underground worlds, sleek shapeshifting princesses-all the old tales that the rest of the world thought of as fairy tales and that she knew were not. And the idea that this black burglar might be like themselves both excited and frightened her.

Man and cat moved through the room, out of sight. Dulcie and Joe heard cupboard doors sliding, then the clink of metal on metal, then the buzz of an electric tool.

“Drill,” Joe said. “Sounds like they’ve found the safe.”

“They must have had it spotted. It wasn’t that easy to find, hidden in the back of that old cupboard.”

Joe clawed at the skylight, digging at its frame to force the glass open, but before he could slide in, Dulcie bit the scruff of his neck, jerking him away. The skylight dropped with a thud.

He spun around, hissing at her.“Thank you very much. Now they know we’re here. Just leave me alone, Dulcie.”

“I won’t. You’d be trapped down there. They could kill you before you got out. You thinkthatwill help Mrs. Medder? You think getting dead will catch a thief? And they didn’t hear a thing. How could they, with the noise that drill’s making?”

But the drilling stopped. In the silence they heard a series of thuds and bumps. Dulcie crept closer, listening.“What did they do, drill the lock off?”

“I’m guessing they drilled a small hole-enough to stick a periscope inside.”

She gave him a narrow, amused glance.

“Not kidding. Miniature periscope, with a light on it.”

“Sure.”

He sighed impatiently.“A safe’s lock is made of flat plates. Okay? Each one turns when you spin the dial. When you get them lined up, the lock opens.”

“So?”

“So, if you can see them from the inside, you can line them up. The burglar drills a hole, puts the little periscope in-Captain Harper has one. It’s about as big as a pencil but with a flexible neck. You stick it into the safe and watch the plates while you turn the dial.”

Her green eyes widened.“You’re serious.”

“Harper showed Clyde. He took it from the evidence room after it wasn’t needed anymore.”

“No wonder you hang around home when the law comes over to play poker. It’s wonderful, the things you learn from Max Harper.”

“You needn’t be sarcastic.”

“I’m not being?” She stopped to listen. They heard the front door open and close and footsteps going away. Leaping to the roof’s edge, they crouched with their paws in the gutter, peering down.

Below them, the sidewalk was empty. No sign of man nor cat. But footsteps whispered away, around the corner. Joe crouched to drop down to the awning.“We need a phone-need to call Harper. Maybe a squad car can pick them up before they get away.”

“Not this time,” she said softly.

He turned to stare at her, his yellow eyes wide.“What’s with you?”

“You want Harper to know that one of the burglars is a cat?”

“I don’t intend to tell him about the cat.”

“So you don’t say a word about the cat. Harper picks up the burglar. You know how tough he can be. There’s no sign of forced entry, and Harper keeps at the guy about how he got in, until he caves. Tells Harper that a cat let him in, that he uses a trained cat.”

“Come on, Dulcie. The cat is his secret weapon. He’ll protect that beast like Fort Knox.”

She gave him a long look.“There’ll be cat hairs all over the store, on the guy’s clothes, and around the skylight. Even if the guy keeps his secret, Harper will be suspicious. You know how thorough he is-and how paranoid about cats. You know how nervous he gets when there’s a cat anywhere near a case.”

Over the past year, Joe and Dulcie’s telephone tips to Max Harper, in the guise of interested citizens, had led to key arrests in three Molena Point murders, resulting in six convictions. But each time, the cats themselves had been seen in embarrassing situations. This, and the fact that some of their tips had involved evidence that couldn’t possibly have been discovered by a human informant, tended to make Max Harper nervous. He had, in short, some well-founded suspicions involving the feline persuasion.

“We don’t need to add to his unease,” Dulcie said. She looked deeply at Joe. “Let’s leave this one alone. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Dulcie, sometimes you?”

Below them a shadow moved in the blackness at the edge of the awning. And the blackness exploded up at them-the black cat hit the roof inches from Joe, his fangs white in the moonlight, his claws gleaming sharp as knives, going straight for Joe’s throat.

Dulcie charged between them.

The black torn froze, staring at her.

Joe and Dulcie faced the black cat, rigid with challenge.

Not a sound, not a twitch.

Then the torn relaxed, leering at Dulcie, his tail lashing provocatively, his neck bowed like the neck of a bull; when he smiled, his eyes burned keener than the fires of hell.

“I am Azrael.”

Joe circled him, rumbling and snarling.

“Azrael,” Dulcie said, moving between Joe and the black torn. “Azrael means Death Angel.” She watched the cat intently.

The presence of another like themselves should be a cause for joy. Where had he come from? Why was he here in their village? As Joe moved again to attack, she cut him a look of warning. What good were teeth and claws, if they found out nothing about this cat?

“Azrael,” she mewed softly, recalling the dark mythology. “Azrael of the million dark veils. Azrael who can spin the world on one claw.

“Azrael whose golden throne gleams in the sixth Heaven,” she purred, glaring at Joe to be still. “Azrael of the four black wings and the four faces, and a thousand watchful eyes.”

The tom smiled and preened at her but glanced narrowly at Joe.

“Azrael who stole from that store,” Dulcie said, trying to sound amused. “Azrael who helped that man steal.”

The black torn laughed.“And what do you think we stole? That junk furniture? Did you see him carrying away old chairs and hat racks?”

“You took her money.”

“If we did, little queen, that’s none of your affair.” His purr was a ragged rumble; he towered over her, slow and insinuating; his amber eyes caressed her, devoured her-but when he reached out his nose to sniff her tail, she whirled, screaming feline curses, and Joe exploded, biting and slashing him, sinking his claws into the tom’s back and neck. The two toms spun in a clawing, yowling whirlwind across the roofs, raking fur and swearing until Dulcie again thrust herself between them, fighting them both.

They spun apart and backed off, circling and snarling, crouching to leap again for the tender parts.

Joe attacked first-blood spattered Dulcie’s face. But the torn sent him flying against a chimney. Joe shook his head and bolted into Azrael, cursing a string of human insults until Dulcie again drove them apart, battling like a wildcat; neither torn would hurt a queen.

“You want to bring the cops?” she hissed at them. “There are apartments above these shops. You make enough noise, someone will call the station.”

The black torn smiled and turned away. He began to wash, as casual and easy as if there had never been a battle. But soon he paused, and drew himself up tall and erect like an Egyptian statue carved from ebony.“You two little cats,” he said, looking them over as if they amused him. “You two little cats-I see death around you.”

He studied them haughtily.“Do you not sense death?” He licked his paw. “There will be death in this village. Human death. I sense death-three human corpses. Death before the moon is again full.

“I see you two little cats standing over the bodies. I see your foolish pain-because humans are dead.” He laughed coldly. “Humans. How very silly. Why would you care that a human dies? The world is overrun with humans.”

“What do?” Dulcie began.

But a whistle from the street jerked the tomcat up, a call as soft as the cry of a night bird. He turned, leaped down into the awning, and was gone. They heard a muffledoofof breath as he hit the street. Heard his human partner speak to him, then footsteps.

Looking over the roof’s edge, they watched the two drift away, up the street into darkness. Joe crouched to follow, but Dulcie pressed against him, urging him away from the edge.

“Don’t,” she said. “Please don’t-he frightens me.” She was demure and quiet. If she had ranted and snarled at him, he would have been off at once, after the pair.

“He scares me,” she repeated, sitting down on the shingles. Joe looked back at her crossly, knowing he’d be sorry he hadn’t followed. But he was puzzled, too. Dulcie was seldom afraid. Not this shivering, shrinking, huge-eyed kind of fear.

“Please,” she said, “leave him alone. He might be like us. There might be a wonderful mystery about him. But he terrifies me.”

Later, in the small hours when Joe and Dulcie had parted, as she snuggled down in the quilt beside Wilma, she dreamed of Azrael, and in sleep she shivered. Caught by the tom’s amber eyes, she followed him along medieval lanes, was both frightened of him and fascinated. Winding across ancient rooftops they slipped among gargoyles and mythic creatures twisted and grotesque, beasts that mirrored the black tom’s dark nature. Azrael before her, drawing her on, charmingher, leading her in dream until she began to lose all judgment.

She’d always had vivid dreams. Sometimes, prophetic dreams. But this drama woke her, clawing the blankets, hissing with fear and unwanted emotions. Her thrashing woke Wilma, who sat up in bed and gathered Dulcie close, her long gray hair falling around them, her flannel nightgown warm against Dulcie. “Nightmare? A bad nightmare?”

Dulcie said nothing. She lay shivering against Wilma, trying to purr, feeling very ashamed of the way the black torn had made her feel.

She was Joe Grey’s lady; her preoccupation with the stranger, even in dream, deeply upset her.

Wilma didn’t press her for answers. She stroked Dulcie until she slept again, and this time as Dulcie dropped into the deep well of sleep she held her thoughts on Joe Grey and on home and on Wilma, pressing into her mind everyone dear to her, shutting out dark Azrael.

It was not until the next morning that Joe, brushing past Clyde’s bare feet, leaping to the kitchen table and pawing open the morningGazette,learned more about the burglary at Medder’s Antiques. He read the article as Clyde stood at the stove frying eggs. Two over-easy for Clyde, one sunny-side up for Joe. Around Clyde’s feet the three household cats andthe elderly black Labrador crouched on the kitchen floor eating kibble, each at his or her own bowl. Only Joe was served breakfast on the table, and he certainly wasn’t having kibble.

Clyde said kibble was good for his teeth, but so were whole wheat kitty treats laced with fish oil and added vitamins from Molena Point’s Pet Gourmet. Choosing between P.G.‘s delightful confections and store-bought kibble was no contest. Two of P.G.‘s fish-shaped delicacies, at this moment, lay on his breakfast plate, which Clyde had placed just beside the newspaper. Clyde had arranged four sardines as well, and a thin sliceof Brie, a nicely planned repast awaiting only the friedegg.

It had taken a bit of doing to get Clyde trained, but the effort had been worth it.

Standing on the morning paper sniffing the delicate aroma of good, imported sardines, he read theGazette’saccount of the burglary. The police did not know how the burglar had gotten into the store. There had been no sign of forced entry. No item of merchandise seemed to be missing. Fifteen hundred dollars had been taken, three hundred from the cash register, the balance from the locked safe. The safe had been drilled, a very professional job. Joe didn’t know he was growling until Clyde turned from the stove.

“What? What are you reading?” Clyde brought the skillet to the table, dished up the eggs, then picked Joe up as if he were a bag of flour so he could see the paper.

Joe dangled impatiently as Clyde read.

Clyde set Joe down again, making no comment, and turned away, his face closed and remote.

They had been through this too many times. Clyde didn’t like him messing around with burglaries and murders and police business. And Joe was going to do as he pleased. There was no way Clyde could stop him short of locking him in a cage. And Clyde Damen, even at his worst, would never consider such a deed-never be fool enough to attempt it.

Clyde sat down at the table and dumped pepper on his eggs.“So this is why you’ve been scowling and snarling all morning, this burglary.”

“I haven’t been scowling and snarling.” Joe slurped up a sardine, dipping it ineggyolk. “Why would I bother with a simple break-and-enter? Max Harper can handle that stuff.”

“Oh? Those small crimes are beneath you? So, then, what’s with the worried scowl?”

Joe looked at him blankly and nipped off a bite of Brie.

Clyde reached across the table and nudged him.“What’s going on? What’s with you?”

“Nothing,” Joe said coldly. “Is there some law that I have to tell you all my business?”

Clyde raised an eyebrow.

“So there’s a new cat in the village. It’s nothing to worry you, nothing for you to fret over.”

Clyde was silent a moment, watching him.“I take it this is a tomcat. What did he do, come onto Dulcie?”

Joe glared.

Clyde grinned.“What else would make you so surly?” He mopped upeggwith his toast. “I imagine you can handle the beast. I don’t suppose this cat has anything to do with last night’s burglary?”

Joe widened his eyes and laughed.“In what way? What would a cat have to do with a burglary? It’s too early in the morning for dumb questions.”

Clyde looked at him deeply, then rose and fetched the coffeepot, poured a fresh cup.

“You get the Sheetrock all torn out?”

“We did, and hauled it to the dump. No more Sheetrock dust, you and Dulcie can hunt mice to your little hearts’ content without sneezing-until we start hanging new Sheetrock, of course.”

The five-apartment unit that Clyde had bought was a venture Joe considered incredibly foolhardy. No way Clyde Damen was going to turn that neglected dump into a sound rental investment. The fact that Clyde was working on the project himself turned Joe weak with amusement.

The only sensible thing Clyde had done on the venture was to hire his girlfriend, Charlie Getz, who operated Charlie’s Fix-It, Clean-It. Charlie’s business was relatively new. She had only a small crew-just two women-but she did good work. Her cleaning lady was sixty-year-old Mavity Flowers, who was a tiny, skinny creature but a surprisingly hard worker. The other employee, Pearl Ann Jamison, was a real find. Pearl Ann not only cleaned for Charlie, she was handy at light carpentry and could turn out professional Sheetrock work, from installation of the heavy wallboard to mudding and taping. The rest of the work on the building, the wiring and plumbing, Charlie and Clyde were farming out to subcontractors.

Joe finished his breakfast, nosed his plate out of the way, and began to wash, thinking about the burglary. He supposed the antique shop had been the first, as he’d seen nothing in the papers about any other similar thefts. He didn’t let himself dwell on the nature of the black torn or where he came from but kept his mind on the immediate problem, wondering what other small village businesses the man and cat planned to hit.

But maybe this had been a one-time deal. Maybe the pair was just passing through, heading up the coast-maybe they’d simply needed some walking-around money. Maybe they were already gone, had hauled out of Molena Point for parts unknown.

Sure. The village should be so lucky.

No, this burglary hadn’t been impromptu. The planning was too precise, the team’s moves too deliberate and assured, as if they had done their research. As if they knew very well that the quiet village was a sitting duck, and they knew just how to pluck it.

He hated to think that that cat might have been prowling the shops for days-maybe weeks-and he and Dulcie hadn’t known about it, hadn’t scented the beast or seen him. He imagined the cat and the old man idling in Mrs. Medder’s antique shop getting friendly with her, the old man making small talk as he cased the place looking for a safe or a burglar alarm, the black torn wandering innocently rubbing around the old woman’s ankles, purring and perhaps accepting little tidbits of her lunch while he, too, checked the layout, leaped up to stare into the drawer of the open cash register, and searched the shadows for an alarm system.

He didn’t like that scenario. It was bad enough for a human to steal from the village shops. A cat had no business doing this stuff.

Leaping from the table to the sink, pacing restlessly across the counter and glaring out the window, Joe wished he’d followed those two last night. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. Dulcie could find excuses to avoid confronting the black tomcat if she chose, but he was going to nail that little team. Licking egg from his whiskers as he watched the rising sun lift above the Molena Point hills, Joe Grey’s lust for justice flamed at least as bright as that solar orb-burned with a commitment as powerful and predatory as any human cop.

4 [????????: pic_5.jpg]

CHARLIE GETZ had no reason to suspect, when she woke early Saturday morning, that she was about to be evicted from her cozy new apartment, that by the time most of the village sat down to breakfast she’d be shoving cardboard boxes and canvas duffels into her decrepit Chevy van, dumping all her worldly possessions back into her aunt’s garage-from which she had so recently removed them. Thrown out, given the boot, on the most special day of her life, on a day that she had wanted to be perfect.

She’d already spent three months sponging off Aunt Wilma, had moved in with Wilma jobless and nearly broke and with no prospects, had lived rent-free in Wilma’s guest room after abandoning her failed career.

During that time she’d launched her new venture, put what little cash she had into running ads, buying the old van and used cleaning and carpentry equipment, hiring the best help she could find on short notice. She was twenty-eight years old. Starting Charlie’s Fix-It, Clean-It and renting her own apartment, taking responsibility for her own life after wasting six years in San Francisco had been one big strike for independence. A huge step toward joining-belatedly-the adult world.

Now here she was back to square one, homeless again.

She had loved being with Wilma, loved coming home to a cozy house, to a blazing fire and a nice hot meal, loved being pampered, but she valued, more, being her own provider.

Now, waking at dawn before she had any notion that an eviction notice was tucked beside her front door, she snuggled down into the covers, looking around her little studio with deep satisfaction. The one room pleased her immensely, though the furnishings weren’t much, just her easel, her single cot, her secondhand breakfast table, and two mismatched wooden chairs. Open cardboard boxes stacked on their sides like shelves held her neatly folded clothes. But through her open windows a cool breeze blew in, smelling pleasantly of the sea, and above the village rooftops the sunrise, this morning, was a wonder of watercolor tints, from pink to pale orange streaked among islands of dark clouds.

The coastal foothills would be brightening now as the sun rose behind them, casting its light down on the small village, onto the narrow, wandering lanes and dark, leathery oak trees and the maze of slanted, angled rooftops, and reflecting from the windows of the little restaurants and shops-the morning sun sending its light into the windows of the Aronson Gallery onto her own drawings, picking out her work with fingers of light.

What a strange sensation, to think that she belonged to a gallery, that her work was to be part of a real exhibit. She still couldn’t believe her luck, not only to be included with six well-known artists but to see her drawings occupying more than half the gallery’s front window-a real vote of confidence for a newcomer. The exhibit had been a bonus out of nowhere, unforeseen and amazing.

Four years of art school and two years trying to find her way as a commercial artist, a dozen trial-and-error, entry-level advertising jobs that she knew weren’t right for her, nor she for them, had led at last to the realization that she would never make a living in the art world. Her failure had left her feeling totally defeated-a misfit not only in her chosen field but in life. Only now, after she had abandoned all idea of supporting herself in the arts, had anyone been interested in her drawings.

Reaching to her nightstand, she switched on the travel-size coffeepot that she had prepared the night before, wondering if her flowered India skirt and sandals and the low-necked blue T-shirtwerethe right clothes for the opening or if she’d better try the black dress again, with the silver necklace her aunt had loaned her. She imagined the gallery as it would be tonight, lighted and festive, thinking about the crowd of strangers, hoping she could remember people’s names.

As the scent of coffee filled the room she sat up, pushing her pillow behind her, and poured a steaming mug, blowing on the brew to cool it. Coffee in bed was pure luxury, a little moment to spoil herself before she started the day, pulled on her jeans and boots and a work shirt, and hurried out to be on the job by eight, installing Sheetrock and trying to figure out how to do things she’d never done before. She would not, once she got moving, stop again until dark overtook her, except for a hasty sandwich with her girls, maybe with Clyde, and with whatever subcontractor might be working.

Leaning back into the pillows, she planned her day and the week ahead, laying out the work for the plumber, the sprinkler man, and the electrician, and watching, through her open windows, the sky brighten to flame, the sunrise staining the room, and laying a wash of pink over her framed drawings. Her studies of the two cats looked back at her, so alert and expectant that she had to smile. Dulcie had such a wicked little grin, such a slant-eyed, knowing look, as if she kept some wonderful secret.

The portraits of Joe Grey were more reserved. Tomcat dignity, she thought, amused. Drawing Joe was like drawing draped satin or polished pewter-the tomcat was so sleek and beautifully muscled, his charcoal-gray coat gleaming like velvet.

But his gaze was imperious. So deeply appraising that sometimes he made her uncomfortable. Sometimes she could swear that she saw, in Joe Grey’s eyes, a judgment far too perceptive, a watchfulness too aware and intense for any cat.

Charlie didn’t understand what it was about those two; both cats had a presence that set them apart from other felines.

Maybe she just knew them better. Maybe all cats had that quality of awareness, when you knew them. Her thoughts fled to last night when she had stood alone in the moonlit village looking up at the black rooftops, stood touched by that vast, wheeling space, and had glimpsed two cats leaping between the rooftops across the pale, night sky, and she felt again a wonderful delight in their freedom.

She had gone out to dinner alone, hadn’t felt like a can of soup or peanut butter and crackers, which was all her bare cupboard had offered. And she didn’t feel like calling Clyde. Their dating was casual; he probably would have been happy to run out for a quick hamburger, but she’d wanted to be by herself. Besides, she’d been with him half the day, working on the house. She’d been tired and irritable from dealing with a hired carpenter, had wanted to walk the village alone, watch the evening draw down, have a quiet dinner and then home to bed. When she had taken on the job of refurbishing Clyde’s newly purchased relic of an apartment house, she had bitten off almost more than she could chew. She’d had no intention, when she started Charlie’s Fix-It, Clean-It, of becoming a remodeling service. The business was meant to be just what it said: minor household repairs and painting-replacing a few shingles, spiffing up the yard, window washing, gutter cleaning, a good scrub down, total maintenance for the village homes and cottages. Not tearing out and replacing walls, supervising workmen, replacing ancient plumbing. She had no contractor’s license, but Clyde was, for all practical purposes, his own contractor. All they had to do was satisfy the various building inspectors.

She’d gotten home from work as the summer twilight faded into a clear, chill night, had peeled off her sweaty jeans and shirt, showered, put on clean denims and a warm sweater. Leaving her apartment, she had walked through the village down to the shore ten blocks south, moving quickly between wandering tourists. This was the beginning of the Fourth of July weekend, and along the narrow streets, NO VACANCY signs glowed discreetly among climbing nasturtiums and bougainvillea.

She had chosen a circuitous route, cutting across Ocean to the south side of the village, slowing to look in the windows of the Latin American Boutique, enjoying the brightly painted carvings and red-toned weavings, admiring and coveting the beautiful crafts and trying not to make nose prints on the glass.

She had met the shop’s owner, Sue Marble, a white-haired woman of maybe fifty who, people said, kept the store primarily so she could claim a tax write-off on her frequent Latin American trips. Not a bad deal, more power to her.

But as she had moved along beside the window, a Peruvian death mask gleamed through her own reflection, an ugly face superimposed over her face, framed by her wild red hair. The image had amused her-then frightened her. Swiftly she had turned away, hurried away toward the shore.

She hit the beach at Tenth Avenue, and had walked south a mile on the hard sand, then turned back up Ocean to The Bakery, thinking that a glass of Chablis would be nice, and perhaps crab Newburg. She thought sometimes that she led herself through life only with these little treats, like beguiling a mule with a carrot.

But why not treat herself? Tuck some bits of fun in with the hard work? Hanging Sheetrock all day was no picnic-and the heavy work had left her ravenous.

The Bakery, a rambling structure of weathered shingles, had been a summer-vacation house in the early 1900s. A deep porch ran along the front, facing a little seaside park of sand dunes and low, twisted oak trees spreading like dark, giant hands over the curves of sand and sweeps of dark ice plant. She’d been disappointed that all the terrace tables were taken, but then had spied a small corner table and soon was settled facing the darkening dunes, ordering wine and the Newburg, quietly celebrating the first gallery exhibit of her drawings.

After her father died, it was her mother’s subtle control that had eased her in the direction of art school, to develop the talent her mother thought was her strongest. Her mother would not consider that her skills at repair work and at organizing the work of others had any value. Sipping her wine, Charlie thought about her mother withregret and disappointment. Her mother had died a year before she finished art school.

Beyond The Bakery veranda, the breaking waves were tipped with phosphorescence, and above them the night sky flowed like surging water, its light seeming also to ebb and change. She’d been so physically tired from the day’s work that the Chablis had given her a nice buzz, and the conversations around her were subdued, a relaxed ambience of soft voices against the hushing surf. When her Newburg arrived she’d made herself eat slowly, not wolf the good dish but savor each bite-had to remind herself this wasn’t noon on the job, eating a sandwich with the work crew and with Mavity and Pearl Ann and Clyde, all of them starved. Had to remind herself this was not supper with Clyde. Eating with Clyde was much like eating with the carpenters; she was inclined to follow his lead, devour her meal as if it would remain on the table only briefly and must be consumed before it got away.

But Clyde was good company. And he was honest, quick to see the truth of a situation. If he was lacking in some social graces, who cared? There was nothing put-on or fake about him.

That first morning, when they went up to look at the five-apartment building after he signed the escrow papers, he’d been so excited. Leading her in through the weedy patio and through those moldering rooms, he’d been deep in the grip of euphoria, imagining what the place would look like when they’d refurbished it-imagining he could do most of the work himself, just a little help from her.Just a little paint, Charlie. A bit of patching.They’d agreed to exchange labor. She’d help with the house, presenting him with bills that he’d honor by working on her declining Chevy van.

Of course there was more needed than patching, but the five apartments had nice large rooms and high ceilings, and Clyde had envisioned the final result just as clearly as he saw the possibilities in restoring an old, vintage car.

The difference was, he knew what it took to restore a car. Beneath his skilled hands the Mercedeses and BMWs and Bentleys of Molena Point purred and gleamed, as cared for as fine jewelry. But Clyde was no carpenter. To Clyde Damen, carpentry was a foreign language.

In order to pay cash for the building, he had sold his five beautifully restored antique cars, including the classic red Packard touring car that he so loved. The sales nearly broke his heart, he had done every speck of work on those cars himself in his spare time. But he was too tight to pay interest on a mortgage, and she didn’t blame him.

As the dining terrace began to empty, she had dawdled over her dinner enjoying her own company, quietly watching the surf’s endless rolling, feeling its power-spawned by the interplay of wind, the moon’s pull, and the centrifugal whirling of the earth. The sea’s unending motion seemed to repeat the eternal power of the universe-its vast and unceasing life.

She relished her idle thoughts, her idle moments, the little pauses in which to let her mind roam.

After the Newburg she had treated herself to a flan and coffee, and it was past midnight when she paid her bill, left the veranda, and headed home through the softly lighted village. The streets were nearly empty. She imagined the tourists all tucked up in their motel rooms, with maybe a fire burning on the hearth, perhaps wrapped in their warm robes nursing a nightcap of brandy.

Walking home, she had paused to look in the window of a sporting goods shop at a beautiful leather coat that she would never buy; she’d rather have a new cement mixer. It was then, turning away, that her glance was drawn to the rooftops by swift movement: Two dark shadows had sailed between the peaks. She had caught only a glimpse. Owls? A pair of large night birds?

But they were gone, the sky was empty.

No, there they were. Two silhouettes, not flying but racing along a peaked ridge, leaping from roof to roof then dropping out of sight.

Cats! They were cats; she had seen a lashing tail against the clouds and sharply peaked ears. Two cats, playing across the rooftops.

And she had to laugh. There was no mistaking Joe Grey’s tailless posterior, and his white paws and white nose. She had stood very still, setting carefully into memory the cats’ swift flight against the pale clouds. They appeared again, and as they fled up another peak and leaped between dark ridges, scorching in and out among the tilting roofs, she had itched for a piece of charcoal, a bit of paper.

As she stood watching them, she heard a young couple laughing somewhere ahead, the woman’s voice soft. Glancing to the street she didn’t see the man and woman, but their conversation was playful, challenging and happy; she couldn’t make out their words. Then silence, as if they had turned up a side street.

And the cats were gone. She had stood alone on the sidewalk, her painter’s mind teeming with the two racing felines, with the joy of their carefree flight.

But now, lying in bed, seeing the leaping cats among the darkly angled rooftops, she felt a sudden chill.

Puzzled, sliding out of bed, she refilled her coffee cup and stood before the easel looking at the quick sketch she had done, from memory, before she went to sleep, the swift lines of charcoal on newsprint, her hasty strokes blocking in jutting roof lines against the sky, and the lithe, swift cats leaping across-and a sense of threat was there, that she had not meant to lend to the scene. Studying the drawing, she shivered.

Last night she had been so charmed by the cats’ grace and freedom, by their wild joy; she had felt only pleasure in the hasty drawing-but she saw now that the drawing did not reflect joy. Its spirit was dark, pensive. Somehow she had infused the composition with foreboding. Its shadowed angles implied a dark threat.

Threattothe cats? Or threatbecauseof the cats?

Perplexed, she turned away. Carrying her coffee, she headed for the shower.

The bathroom was tiny. Setting her coffee cup on the edge of the sink basin, she slid under the hot, steaming water of the shower, her mind fully on the sketch.

What had guided her hand last night? Those two little cats were dear to her; she had gotten to know Dulcie well while she was staying with Wilma. And if not for her drawings of Joe and Dulcie, sketching them for her own pleasure, her work would not have been seen by Sicily Aronson. She would never have been invited to join Sicily’s prestigious group. Without Joe and Dulcie, there would be no exhibit for her tonight at Sicily’s fine gallery.

Letting the hot water pound on her back, reaching out for a sip of coffee, she told herself she had better get her mind on the day’s work. She had building materials to order and three subcontractors to juggle so they didn’t get in each other’s way. Coming out of the shower to dress and make a peanut-butter sandwich, checking over her work list, she forgot the dark drawing.

But then as she opened the front door, carrying her denim work jacket and the paper bag with her lunch, a folded sheet of paper fluttered down against her boot, as if it had been stuffed between the door and the molding. Snatching it up before it blew away, unfolding it, she read the neatly typed message.

Charlie:

You’d be a good tenant, if you didn’t clutter up the yard. You’ve had a week, and two previous warnings, to get your stuff out of the backyard. The other tenants are complaining. They want to lie in the sun back there, not fall over wheelbarrows and shovels. I have no choice. You are in violation of your rental contract. This is a formal notice to vacate the apartment and all premises by tonight. Any item you leave behind, inside the apartment or in the yard-cement mixer, buckets, the entire clutter-will be mine to keep and dispose of.

She set her lunch bag on the porch, dropped her jacket on top, and read the note again. Looking down toward her landlord’s apartment, just below hers, she wanted to snatch up that neat little man and smear him all over his neat little yard.

Swinging back inside, she grabbed her stacked cardboard boxes and began shoving dishes and pots and pans in on top of her folded clothes. Jerking her few hanging garments from the closet, she rolled them into a bundle, snatched her framed drawings off the wall, and carried the first load down to her van. Halfway through her packing, she grabbed up the phone and called Clyde, told him she’d be a bit late. Didn’t tell him why. And within an hour she was out of there, chalking up another defeat.

5 [????????: pic_6.jpg]

THE BRIGHTLYlighted gallery, from the aspect of the two cats, was an obstacle course of human legs and feet. They had to move lively toward the back to avoid being stepped on by spike heels, wedge sandals, and hard, polished oxfords that looked as lethal as sledgehammers. Slinking between silken ankles and well-creased trouser cuffs, they slipped beneath Sicily Aronson’s desk into shadow where they could watch, untrampled, the champagne-fueled festivities.

In Joe’s opinion, the way to attend an art exhibit was from, say, a rooftop several blocks removed. But Dulcie had to be in the middle, listening to the tangle of conversations, sniffing expensive French perfumes and admiring dangling jewelry and elegant hair arrangements. “No one will notice us-they’re all talking at once, trying to impress each other.”

“Right. Of course Sicily won’t notice us. So why is she swooping in this direction like a hungry barn owl?” The gallery owner was pushing through the crowd with her usual exuberance. “On stage,” Joe muttered. “Always on stage.” She was dressed in silver lame evening pajamas that flapped around her ankles, a flowing silver scarf that swung around her thin thighs, and an amazing array of clinking jewelry. Kneeling and laughing, she peered under the desk at them, then scooped Dulcie into her arms. Pulling Joe out, too, she cuddled them like two teddy bears; Joe had to grit his teeth to keep from clawing her, and of course Dulcie gave him thatdon’t-you-darescowl.

“You two look beautiful, so sleek and brushed,” Sicily cooed, snuggling them against her silver bosom. “This is lovely to have you here-after all, you are the main models, you dear cats. Did Wilma bring you? Where is Wilma?”

Joe wanted to throw up. Dulcie purred extravagantly-she was such a sucker for this stuff. Whenever she visited Sicily, wandering into the gallery, Sicily had a treat for her, a little snack put aside from Molena Point’s Pet Gourmet. And Sicily kept a soft sweater for Dulcie to nap on; she had figured out quickly that to Dulcie, pretty garments, silk and velvet and cashmere, were the piece de resistance. Only once, when Dulcie trotted out of the shop dragging a handwoven vicuna scarf, did Sicily fling a cross word at her and run out to retrieve the treasure. Now, fawning and petting them and effectively blocking their escape, she reached behind the desk to fetch a blue velvet cushion and laid it on the blotter. “You two stay right here-just curl up and look pretty-and I’ll fix a plate for you.” Leaning down, she stared into Joe’s eyes, stroking him and scratching behind his ears. “Caviar, Joe Grey? Smoked turkey?”

Joe felt himself weakening.

But as Sicily left them, a big woman in a plum-colored dress descended, pushing her way out of the crowd.“Oh, the two little models. Oh, look how sweet.”

Joe growled and raised his paw. Dulcie nudged him.

“Isn’t that cute. Look at him put up his paw to shake hands. Just like a little dog.”

The lady’s male companion had sensibly stepped back from Joe. But the woman reached for him. “Oh, they look justlike their portraits. Such dear little cats. Come and pet them, Howard. Look how sweet, the way they’re posing here on the desk, so obedient.”

She patted Joe on the head like a dog, a gesture guaranteed, under most circumstances, to elicit a bloody stump. He held his temper with heroic effort, but he calmed as she chose a slice of ham from her plate and gave them each a share.

He was beginning to feel more charitable when a woman in a white dress joined them.“Oh, the darling kitties, the kitties in the drawings.” And an elderly couple headed their way, practically cooing. A regular crowd was gathering. Joe eyed them sourly. Even the good party food wasn’t enough to put up with this. As other guests circled the desk reaching to pet them, Joe lost it. Lashing out at the nearest hand, he leaped past it, hit the floor running, sped out the door and across the street and up a bougainvillea vine. Didn’t stop until he was on the roof of Mara’s Leather Shop, pacing among the vents.

Dulcie didn’t follow him. Probably she’d stay in there all night, lapping up the attention.

Stretching out beside a warm chimney, he dozed intermittently and irritably. His view from the roof was directly in through the gallery’s wide windows and open front door, where the crowd had gathered around a white-clothed table as a tuxedoed waiter served champagne. It was more than an hour before Dulcie came trotting out between a tangle of elegantly clad ankles, scanned the rooftops, and saw him looking over. Lifting her tail like a happy flag, she crossed the street and swarmed up the vine to join him.

“You didn’t have to be so surly. You knew we’d be petted. Cats in a public place always get petted.”

“Petted?Mauled is the word. You said no one would notice us.”

She settled down beside him, her belly against the warm shingles.“You missed some good party food.”

“I’ll have my share in the alley.”

“Suit yourself. I had duck liver canapes from the hand of my favorite movie star.” She sighed deeply. “He might be sixty-some, but he’s some macho hombre.”

“Big deal. So some Hollywood biggie feeds you duck liver like a zoo animal.”

“Not at all. He was very polite and cordial. And he’s not from Hollywood; you know very well that he lives in Molena Point. What a nice man. He treatedmelike a celebrity-he told me I have beautiful eyes.” And she gave him a clear green glance, bright and provocative.

Joe turned away crossly.“So where are Charlie and Clyde? Fashionably late is one thing. Charlie’s going to miss her own party.”

“They’ll show. Clyde told Wilma he’d keep Charlie away until there was a real mob, until she could make a big entrance.”

“Thisisa mob. And Charlie isn’t the kind for a big entrance.”

“She will be, tonight.”

Joe snorted.

“It’s her party. Why not a grand entrance?”

“Females. Everything for show.”

“I’ve seen you make a big entrance-stroll into the living room when Clyde has company. Wait until conversation’s in full swing, then swagger in so everyone stops talking. Starts calling to you,kitty kitty kitty,and making little lovey noises.”

“That is a totally different matter. That is done for a specific purpose.”

Dulcie cut her eyes at him, and smiled.

The game was to get the crowd’s attention and then, when they were all calling and making a fuss, to pick out the person who remained withdrawn and quiet. Who didnotwant to pet the kitty.

Immediately one made a beeline for the cat hater. A jump into their lap, a persistent rubbing and kneading and waving your tail in their face, and the result was most rewarding. If your victim had a really severe case of ailurophobia, the effect was spectacular.

When the routine worked really well, when you had picked the right mark, your victim would turn as white as skimmed milk. If you could drool and rub your face against theirs, that was even better. There was nothing half as satisfying as a nice evening of ailurophobe harassment. Such little moments were to be treasured-such fleeting pleasures in life made up for all the millions of human rebuffs, for centuries of shabby human slights and maltreatment.

“Here they come,” Dulcie said, pressing forward over the roof gutter, her ears pricked, the tip of her tail twitching with excitement.

Clyde pulled up directly in front of the gallery, his yellow‘29 Chevy convertible commanding immediate attention. This was the car’s maiden appearance. The top was down, and the machine was dazzling. He had completely overhauled the vintage model, had given it mirror-bright metal detailing, pearly, canary-toned paint, pale yellow leather upholstery, andof course the engine purred like a world-champion Siamese. The car’s creamy tones set off Charlie’s flaming hair to perfection.

Her red, curling mane hung loose across her shoulders over a dark tank top, and as Clyde handed her out, her flowered India skirt swirled around her ankles in shades of red, pink, and orange. The cats had never seen Charlie in high-heeled sandals, had never seen her in a skirt.

“Wow,” Joe said, hanging over the roof, ogling.

“Oh, my,” Dulcie said. “She’s beautiful.”

Tonight they saw none of Charlie’s usual shyness. She looked totally wired, her cheeks flaming as she took Clyde’s hand and stepped to the curb.

Clyde’s chivalry prompted them to stare, too, as he gave Charlie his arm and escorted her into the gallery. Clyde himself looked elegant, scrubbed and shaven and sharply turned out in a black sport coat over a white turtleneck and a good-looking pair of jeans. For Clyde, this was formal attire.

“There’s the mayor,” Dulcie said, “and his wife. And look-the president of the art association.”

Joe didn’t know the president of the art association from a rat’s posterior. Nor did he care. But he cared about Clyde and Charlie. He watched with almost parental pride as they pushed into the gallery and were mobbed with greetings and well-wishers. Crouched on the edge of the roof, the two cats totally enjoyed Charlie’s happy moment. They remained watching as the party spilled out onto the sidewalk among a din of conversation and laughter, and the scents of perfumes and champagne and caviar caressed them on the night breeze.

But later when two waiters headed away toward Jolly’s Deli carrying a stack of nearly empty trays that they had replaced with fresh servings, the cats left the roof, padding along behind them, their attention on those delectable scraps.

Jolly’s Deli catered most of the local affairs, the gallery openings and weddings and the nicest parties. And whatever delicacies were left over, George Jolly set out on paper plates in the alley for the enjoyment of the village cats.

Of course the old man put out deli scraps several times every day, but party fare was the best. An astute cat, if he checked theGazette’ssocial page or simply used his nose, could dine as elegantly, in Jolly’s alley, as Molena Point’s rich and famous.

And the alley provided more than a free handout. Through frequent use, it had become the city version of a feline hunting path, a communal by-way shared by all the local cats.

Some people view cats as reclusive loners, but that is not the case. Any cat could tell you that a feline is simply more discerning than a dog, that cats take a subtler view of social interaction.

When several cats happened into the alley at one time, they did not circle each other snarling like ill-mannered hounds-unless, of course, they were toms on the make. But in a simple social situation, each cat sat down to quietly study his or her peers, communicating in a civilized manner by flick of ear, by narrowing of eyes, by twitching tail, following a perceptive protocol as to who should proceed first, who merited the warmest patch of sunshine or the preferred bench on which to nap.

The village cats had established in Jolly’s alley, as well, a center for feline messages, a handy post office where, through scents left on flowerpot and doorway, one could learn which cats were with kitten or had had their kittens, which ladies were feeling amorous, or if there was a new cat in the village.

Only in the hierarchy of the supper plate did the biggest and strongest prevail-but George Jolly did not tolerate fights.

Such social commerce pleased Joe and Dulcie despite the void that separated them from normal cats. After all, every cat was unique. The lack of human language didn’t make the other cats imperceptive or unwise; each could enjoy the world in his own way. And, Joe thought, how many cats wouldwantto read the newspaper or use the phone?

But tonight they had the alley to themselves, the little brick-paved retreat was their own small corner of civilized ambiance, softly lit by the wrought-iron lamps at either end of the lane, perfumed by the jasmine vine that concealed Jolly’s garbage cans.

The two waiters had disappeared inside, but George Jolly must have been watching for visitors, because as the cats flopped down to roll on the warm bricks, the back door opened and the old man was there, his white apron extending wide over his ample stomach as he knelt to place a paper plate before them, a little snack of smoked salmon and chopped egg and Beluga caviar.

They approached the offering purring, Dulcie waving her tail, and George Jolly stood smiling and nodding. Jolly loved providing these little repasts-he took a deep delight in the cats’ pleasure.

Kneeling for a moment to stroke them, he soon rose again and turned away to his kitchen like any good chef, allowing his guests privacy in which to enjoy their meal. They were crouched over the plate nibbling at the caviar when, above them, a dark shadow leaped across the sky from roof to roof, and the black torn paced the shingles looking down at them-observing the loaded deli plate.

Dropping to an awning and then to the bricks, he swaggered toward them snarling a challenge deep in his throat, a growl of greed and dominance.

Dulcie screamed at him and crouched to slash; Joe flew at him, raking. At the same moment, the back door flew open and George Jolly ran out swinging a saucepan.

“No fighting! You cats don’t fight here! You cats behave in my alley!”

Joe and Dulcie backed away glancing at each other, but Azrael stood his ground, snarling and spitting at Jolly.

“Stop that, you black beast. Don’t you challenge me!” Jolly hefted the pan. “You eat nice or I don’t feed you. I take the plate away.” He looked hard at the three of them. “I don’t put out my best imported for you to act like street rabble-you are Molena Point cats, not alley bums.

“Except you,” Jolly said, glaring at Azrael. “I don’t know you, you black monster. Well, wherever you come from, you snarl again, you get a smack in the muzzle.”

George Jolly could never have guessed the true effect of his words. He had no idea that the three cats understood him, he knew only that his tone would frighten and perhaps shame them. He glared hard at Azrael-Azrael blazed back at him, his amber eyes sparking rage, and he began to stalk the old man, crouching as if he would spring straight into Jolly’s face.

“Don’t you threaten me,” Jolly snapped, swinging the saucepan. “You learn some manners or you’ll be snarling at the dogcatcher.” He stood glaring until Azrael backed away switching his tail, his head high, and turned and swaggered off up the alley-until the formidable Death Angel vanished into the night.

Joe and Dulcie did not see Azrael again until some hours later as they prowled the rooftops. Pale clouds had gathered across the moon, and there was no sound; the bats had gone to roost or perch or whatever bats did hanging upside down in their pokey little niches beneath the eaves. Who knew why bats would hunt one night and not the next? Presumably, Joe thought, it had to do with how bright the sky-yet why would bats care, when they hunted by radar? On the roofs around them, the shadows were marbled by moonlight. Above them they heard a barn owl call, sending shivers. Even Joe Grey respected the claws and beak of the barn owl.

When the clouds parted and the full moon brightened the rooftops, across the moon’s face the owl came winging. He swooped low and silent. The cats crouched to run. Screaming a booming cry, he dove, heading for the shadows beyond them.

They heard the boom of his wings beating against the roof, and heard screaming-the owl’s scream and a cat’s scream, then the frantic flurrying of feathers, the thud of bodies?

The owl exploded into the sky and was gone.

And in the moon’s gleam the black cat sauntered out swaggering and spitting feathers.

Unaware of them, he slipped along seeming none the worse for his encounter. Pausing as before at each window and skylight, looking in, he lingered at a thin dormer window. He reared suddenly, clawing at the frame.

A wrenching creak slashed the night as the casement banged open.

Below on the street the cats heard footsteps, and when they fled over the roofs to look, they saw Azrael’s human partner pacing, peering impatiently in through a glass door below a liquor store sign, his gray hair tangled around the collar of his wrinkled leather jacket, his boots, when he fidgeted, chuffing softly on the concrete.

The instant the door opened from inside, the old man slipped in. The cats, dropping down onto the hanging sign then to the sidewalk, crouched beneath a car where they could see through the plate glass.

Within, a faint, swinging light shone as the old man shielded his flashlight behind his hand, directing its beam along rows of bottles where Azrael paced, his tail lashing against the rich labels.

At the cash register, the old man bent over the lock and inserted a metal pick, his thin face lined and intent.

Within minutes he had the drawer open and was snatching out stacks of bills. Cleaning out the shallow tray, he lifted it, spilling loose change onto the floor as he grabbed at the larger bills that lay beneath; the night was so still they heard every coin drop.

“Why do shopkeepers do that?” Dulcie whispered. “Why do they leave money in the register?”

“Because the village has never had that much trouble. Don’t you wonder if this old boy knew that-if he knew what an easy mark Molena Point is? Yet he has to be a stranger-I’d remember that old man.”

They watched him stuff wads of bills into his pockets while, behind him, Azrael wound back and forth along the liquor shelf smiling and rubbing against the bottles.

“Cut the purring!” the old man snapped. “You sound like a spavined outboard. And don’t leave cat hair stuck to everything.”

“I never leave cat hair. Have you ever seen me shed?”

“Of course you shed. Everything I own is covered with black fur.”

Azrael leaned from the shelf, peering over his partner’s shoulder. “Get those tens-they can’t trace tens so easy.”

“Who’s going to trace anything? No one marks their money in this burg. You’re talking like some big-assed bank artist.”

“How do you know they don’t?”

“Don’t be so paranoid.”

“It’s you that’s paranoid-getting jumpy because I purr and grousing about cat hair.”

The old man smoothed his thin gloves where they had wrinkled over his fingers and closed the register, and the two slipped out the front door.

“Don’t forget to lock it,” the cat hissed.

“Don’t be so damn bossy.”

“Don’t get smart with me, old man. You’ll be running this party alone.”

The man and cat stiffened as, half a block away, a prowling police car turned into the street. As it shone its light along the storefronts in routine inspection, the two burglars slid through the shadows into the alley, were gone as completely as if they had never been there.

The patrol car didn’t slow. The moment it had passed, the two appeared again, heading up Ocean. As they moved away, Joe and Dulcie followed, slipping along beneath the parked cars. Joe was determined to stay with them tonight, to see where they went to ground. Dulcie didn’t like this, but she was unwilling to stay behind.

The two burglars proceeded up Ocean for four blocks, then turned down toward the Fish Shack. The old man paused before entering.“You want the cod or the shrimp?”

“The shrimp-what these stateside yokels pass off as shrimp. Poor substitute for what we get at home.”

“You’re not at home, so stop bitching.” The little man disappeared inside. The cat turned away to the curb where he sniffed at the messages left by passing four-legged citizens. If he scented Joe and Dulcie over the smell of other cats and dogs and fish and axle grease, he gave no indication.His partner returned dangling a white paper bag liberally splotched with grease.

“No shrimp. You’ll have to eat fish and chips.”

“Couldn’t you have gotten crab?”

“Didn’t think to ask. Let’s get on, before the law comes back.” And off they went, man and cat walking side by side bickering companionably, two swaggering lowlifes with the cocky walk of drunks leaving a cheap bar.

6 [????????: pic_7.jpg]

BEYOND WILMA’S open shutters, the neighborhood was drowned by fog, the cottages and trees hidden in the thick mist, the gnarled branches of the oak tree that ruled her front garden faded as white as if the tree had vanished and only its ghost remained. Standing at the window sipping her morning coffee, she thought that it was the coastal fog, as much as Molena Point’s balmy days, that had drawn her back to her childhood village to spend her retirement years. She had always loved the fog, loved its mystery-had wandered the foggy neighborhoods as a little girl pretending she had slipped into a secret and magical world.

At dawn this morning, she had taken a long walk along the shore listening to the breakers muffled and hidden within the white vail, then home again to a hot cup of coffee and to prepare breakfast for her company.

Behind her, the Sunday paper lay scattered comfortably across her Kirman rug, and beside the fire, Clyde sprawled on the velvet loveseat reading the sports page. On the other side of the hearth, lounging in the flowered chaise, Bernine Sage pored over the financial section. Neither had spoken in some time. Clyde’s preoccupation was normal; Bernine’s silence came across as self-centered and cold.

She would not ordinarily have invited Bernine to breakfast or for any meal, but this morning she’d had no choice. Bernine had been at her door late last night when she arrived home from the opening. Having fought with her current lover, needing a place to stay, she seemed to think that it was Wilma’s responsibility to offer her a bed; she hadn’t asked if Wilmahadcompany or if her presence would be inconvenient. “Why I ever moved in with that idiot-what a selfish clod. And not a motel room left. I’ve called and called. Damn the holidays.”

After getting Bernine settled, Wilma had left a note on the kitchen table hoping Charlie would see it.

Bernine is in the guest room with you, I’m sorry. She had a fight with her live-in.

Charlie had seen the note, all right. When Wilma came out at five this morning, the scrap of paper was in the trash, wadded into a tight ball.

Bernine had dressed for brunch this morning not in jeans like everyone else, but in a pink velvet leisure suit, gold belt, gold lizard sandals, and gold earrings, and had wound her coppery hair into a flawless French twist decorated with gold chains-just a bit much in this house, in this company, Wilma thought, hiding a smile. Her own concession to company for breakfast had been to put on a fresh white sweatshirt over her jeans. And Clyde, of course, was nattily attired in ancient, frayed cut-offs, a faded purple polo shirt with a large ragged hole in the pocket, and grease-stained sandals.

Bernine had greeted him, when he and Joe arrived, with a raised eyebrow and a shake of her elegant head.“You brought yourcat?You brought your cat to breakfast? You actually walked over here, through the village, with a cat tagging along?”

Clyde had stared at her.

“Well,” she said, “it’s foggy. Maybe no one saw you.”

“What difference if someone saw us? We-I do this all the time, take the cat for a walk.”

“I’m surprised that a cat would follow you. What do you do, carry little treats to urge it along? Don’t people laugh-a grown man walking a cat?”

“Why should anyone laugh? Why should Icare?Everyone knows Joe. Most people speak to him. And the tourists love it; they all want to pet him.” Clyde smiled. “Some rather interesting tourists, as a matter of fact.” And he turned away, snatching up the Sunday paper, looking for the sports page.

Now the cat in question lay patiently awaiting the breakfast casserole. Stretched across the couch beside Dulcie, the two of them occupied as much of the blue velvet expanse as they could manage, comfortably watching the fire and dozing. Their occasional glances up at Wilma communicated clearly their pleasure in this lazy Sunday morning before the blazing fire, with their friends around them-and with the front page of the Molena PointGazettelying on the floor where she had casually dropped it so that they could read the lead article. As they read, their little cat faces keen with interest, she had busied herself at the coffee table rearranging the magazines, effectively blocking Bernine’s view. But then the cats, finishing the half-page account of the liquor store burglary, had put on dull, sleepy faces again, diligently practicing their best fuzzy-minded expressions.

The two cats looked beautiful this morning, Wilma thought, sleek and healthy, their coats set off by the blue velvet cushions, Dulcie’s curving, chocolate stripes as dark as mink, her pale, peach tinted ears and paws freshly washed. And Joe always looked as if he had groomed himself for a formal event, his charcoal-gray coat shining, his white paws, white chest, and white nose as pristine as new snow.

Wilma didn’t speak to them in front of Bernine, even to prattle baby talk as one would to ordinary pets; their responsive glances were sometimes more intelligent than they intended, and Bernine was far too watchful. The history that Bernine had picked up from a previous boyfriend, the Welsh mythology of unnatural and remarkable cats that had peopled the ancient world, was better not stirred even in the smallest way. Better not to set Bernine off with the faintest hint of immediate feline strangeness.

In fact, having Bernine in the house with Dulcie was not at all comfortable. She just hoped Bernine would find a place soon. And certainly Bernine’s intrusion into the guest room was not a happy situation for Charlie who, half an hour ago, had disappeared in the direction of the garage, silent and uncommunicative. Wilma knew she would be out there sulking as she unloaded her possessions from the van. Already cross at the eviction from her apartment-though she hadn’t let her anger spoil last night’s gallery opening-her sullenness was multiplied by Bernine’s unexpected presence. Bernine was not Charlie’s favorite person.

Earlier this morning when the two young women had coffee in the kitchen, Charlie had made no effort to be civil, had hardly spoken to Bernine. Wilma hoped that when Mavity arrived, her old friend would ease the atmosphere, that her earthy temperament would soften their various moods. Mavity might be ascerbic, without subtlety or guile, but her very honesty made her comfortable to be near.

As she picked up the coffeepot from the desk and moved across the room to fill Clyde’s cup, she watched the cats sniffing the good smells from the kitchen and licking their whiskers. She could just imagine Bernine’s sarcasm when the cats were fed from the same menu as the guests.

Clyde lowered the sports page and held out his cup.“Charlie going to stay out in the garage all morning? What’s she doing?”

“Unloading her tools and equipment-she’ll be in shortly. You could go out and help her.”

Clyde sipped his coffee, shook his head, and dug out the editorial section, burying himself again. Bernine watched him, amused. Very likely, Wilma thought, Bernine understood Charlie’s temper-and the reason for it-far better than did Clyde.

Dulcie watched Clyde, too, and she wanted to whop him, wished she could chase him out to the garage with Charlie. Didn’t he know Charlie was jealous? That she was out there sulking not over the eviction, or simply over Bernine’s presence, but over Bernine’s proximity to Clyde himself? Males could be so dense.

But you didn’t need female perception, or feline perception, to see that Bernine’s sophistication and elegant clothes and carefully groomed good looks, coupled with her superior and amused attitude, made big-boned Charlie Getz feel totally inadequate. You didn’t need female-cat intelligence to see that Charlie didn’t want Bernine anywhere near Clyde Damen.

Scowling at Clyde, she realized that Bernine was watching her, and she turned away, closing her eyes and tucking her nose beneath her paw, praying for patience.Mustthe woman stare? It was hard enough to avoid Bernine at the library, without being shut in, at home, with that cat hater.

Why were anti-cat people so one-sided? So rigid? So coldly judgmental?

And how strange that the very things Bernine claimed to value in her own life, her independence and self-sufficiency, she couldn’t abide in a sweet little cat.

Beside her on the couch, Joe was avoiding Bernine’s gaze by restlessly washing, his yellow eyes angrily slitted, his ears flat to his head. He’d been cross and edgy anyway, since last night when they followed the old man and Azrael and lost them. And then the front page of theGazettethis morning hadn’t helped, had turned him as bad-temperedas a cornered possum.

The Molena PointGazettedidn’t concern itself with news beyond the village. Problems in the world at large could be reported by theSan Francisco Chronicleor theExaminer.TheGazettewas interested only in local matters, and last night’s breakin occupied half the front page, above the fold.

SECOND BURGLARY HITS VILLAGE

A breakin last night at Jewel’s Liquors netted the burglars over two thousand dollars from a locked cash register. This is the second such burglary in a week. Police have, at this time, no clue to the identity of the robber.

Police Captain Max Harper told reporters that though the department performed a thorough investigation, they found no mark of forced entry on the doors or on the window casings and no fingerprints. The crime was discovered by the store’s owner, Leo Jewel, when he went in early this morning to restock the shelves and prepare a bank deposit. When Jewel opened the register he found only loose change, and loose change had been spilled on the floor.

Captain Harper said the burglar’s mode of operation matched that of the Medder’s Antiques burglary earlier this week. “It is possible,” Harper said, “that the burglar obtained duplicate keys to both stores, and that he picked the cash register’s lock.”

Leo Jewel told reporters he was certain he had locked both the front and the alley doors. He said that no one else had a key to the store. He had closed up at ten as usual. Captain Harper encourages all store owners to check their door and window locks, to bank their deposits before they close for the night, and to consider installing an alarm system. Harper assured reporters that street patrols had been increased, and that any information supplied by a witness will be held in confidence, that no witness would be identified to the public.

Dulcie wondered if the police had collected any black cat hairs. She wondered what good the stolen money was, to Azrael.So the old man buys him a few cans of tuna. So big deal.But she didn’t imagine for a minute that any monetary gain drove Azrael. The black torn, in her opinion, was twisted with power-hunger, took a keen and sadistic pleasure in seeing a human’s hard-won earnings stolen-was the kind of creature who got his kicks by making others miserable. For surely a chill meanness emanated from the cat who liked to call himself the Death Angel; he reeked of rank cruelty as distinctive as his tomcat smell.

When the doorbell blared, she jumped nearly out of her skin. As Wilma opened the door, Mavity Flowers emerged from the mist, her kinky gray hair covered by a shabby wool scarf beaded with fog. Beneath her old, damp coat, her attire this morning was the same that she wore for work, an ancient rayon pants uniform, which, Dulcie would guess, she had purchased at the Salvage Shop and which had, before Mavity ever saw it, already endured a lifetime of laundering and bleaching. Mavity varied her three pants uniforms with four uniform dresses, all old and tired but serviceable. She hugged Wilma, her voice typically scratchy.

“Smells like heaven in here. Am I late? What are you cooking?” She pulled off the ragged scarf, shook herself as if to shake away remnants of the fog. “Morning, Clyde. Bernine.

“Had to clear the mops and brooms out of my Bug. Dora and Ralph’s plane gets in at eleven. My niece,” she told Bernine, “from Georgia. They bring everything but the roof of the house. My poor little car will be loaded. I only hope we make it home, all that luggage and those two big people. I should’ve rented a trailer.”

Dulcie imagined Mavity hauling her portly niece and nephew-in-law in a trailer like steers in a cattle truck, rattling down the freeway. Bernine looked at Mavity and didn’t answer. Mavity’s minimal attention to social skills and her rigid honesty were not high on Bernine’s list. Yet it was those very qualities that had deeply endeared her to Wilma. Mavity’s raspy voice echoed precisely her strained temper this morning; she had been volatile ever since her brother arrived two weeks ago.

Greeley Urzey visited his sister every few years, and he liked to have his daughter and her husband fly out from the east to be with him; but it took Mavity only a few days with a houseful of company before she grew short-tempered.

“That house isn’t hardly big enough for Greeley and me, and with Dora and Ralph we’ll be like sardines. They always have the bedroom, neither one can abide the couch, and they bring enough stuff for a year, suitcases all over. Greeley and me in the sitting room, him on the couch, me on that rickety cot, and Greeley snoring to shake the whole house.”

Dulcie and Joe glanced at each other, suppressing a laugh.

“Itisa small house,” Wilma said kindly, sitting down on the couch beside Dulcie and patting a space for Mavity.

Mavity sat stroking Dulcie, then reached to pet Joe.“You’re a nice cat, Joe Grey. I wish all tomcats were as clean and polite.”

She looked at Wilma, shaking her head.“Can you believe that Greeley brought acatwith him! A great big, ugly cat. Carried it right on the plane with him. He found it on the streets of Panama; it probably has every disease. My whole house smells of tomcat. I can’t believe Greeley would do such a thing-a cat, all that way from Panama.Took it on board, in a cage. Three thousand miles. I didn’t think even Greeley could be so stupid.

“He could have left it home, could have paid some neighbor to feed it. They have maids down there-everyone has a maid, even Greeley, to clean up and take care of things. The maid could have fed an animal. Greeley never did have any sense. Who in their right mind would travel all that way carting a stray cat? It’s sure to get lost up here, wander off, and then Greeley will have a fit.”

Bernine had put aside the financial page.“Can’t you board it somewhere?” she asked coldly. “Surely there are kennels for cats.”

“First thing I told Greeley, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

Bernine shrugged and returned to the newspaper. Dulcie, fascinated, sniffed at Mavity’s uniform searching for the cat’s scent.

But she could smell only the nose-itching jolt of Mavity’s gardenia-scented bath powder. Leaping to the floor, she sniffed of Mavity’s shoes.

No hint of cat there. Mavity’s white leather oxfords smelled of shoe polish and of a marigold Mavity must have stepped on coming up the walk; the flower’s golden color was streaked up the white leather. Frustrated with her inability to scent the strange tomcat, she curled up again on the couch, quietly regarding Mavity.

“I told Greeley that cat could do its business outdoors. Why ever not, when I live right there on the edge of a whole marsh full of sand? But no, even if the cat goes outside, it still has to have a fresh sandbox, right there in the kitchen. Talk about spoiled-talk about stink.

“I told Greeley it’s his job to change the sand, go down to the marsh and get fresh sand, but I have to keep telling and telling him. And to top it off, the cat has sprayed all over my furniture-the whole house reeks of it. Oh, my, what a mess. I’ll never get it clean. Why do tomcats do that?”

Dulcie almost choked with suppressed laughter. She daren’t look at Joe for fear she’d lose control.

“Well, in spite of that beast, it’s good to have Greeley. It’s been four years since he was here. After all, Greeley and Dora and Ralph-they’re all the family I have.”

Mavity grinned.“I guess my little car will hold the two of them and the luggage; it always has before.” She glanced at Bernine and reached to stroke Dulcie. “It’s not every day your only family comes for a visit.”

Swallowing back her amusement, Dulcie rolled over, her paws waving in the air. Mavity was so dear-she could complain one minute, then turn around and do something thoughtful. She had cooked all week, making cakes and casseroles for Greeley and his daughter and son-in-law so they would enjoy their stay.

Dulcie didn’t realize she was smiling until Wilma scowled a sharp warning and rose hastily, pulling Mavity up.

“The frittata’s done,” Wilma said. “It will burn. Let’s take up breakfast.” She headed for the kitchen, urging Mavity along, shooting Dulcie such a stern look of warning that Dulcie flipped over, flew off the couch, bolted through the house to the bedroom and under Wilma’s bed.

Crouched inthedark she swallowed back a mewing laugh-at Mavity, and at Wilma’s look of anger because she’d been smiling-trying not to laugh out loud. It was terrible to have to stifle her amusement. Didn’t Wilma understand how hard that was? Sometimes, Dulcie thought, she might as well plaster a Band-Aid over her whiskers.

Lying on her back on the thick bedroom rug, staring up at the underside of the box springs, she considered Greeley and his tomcat.

Were these two the burglars?

But that was not possible. It would never happen, the solution to a crime fall into their furry laps as easy as mice dumped from a cage.

Last night she and Joe had followed the old man and Azrael clear across the village before they lost them. Keeping to the darkest shadows, they had tailed them to the busy edge of Highway One, had drawn back warily from the cars whizzing by-had watched the cat leap to the old man’s shoulder and the man run across between the fast vehicles where no sensible animal would venture.

Pausing on the curb, their noses practically in the line of fast cars and breathing enough carbon monoxide to put down an ox, they had argued hotly about whether to follow the two across that death trap-argued while Azrael and the old man hurried away down the block.

“You can go out there and get squashed if you want,” she’d told him, “but I’m not. It’s dark as pitch, those drivers can’t see you, and no stupid burglar is worth being squashed into sandwich meat.”

And for once she had been able to bully Joe-or for once he had shown some common sense.

But then, watching the pair hurry two blocks south and double back and cross the highway again, toward the village, their tempers blazed.

“They duped us!” Joe hissed. “Led us like two stupid kittens following a string-hoping we’d be smashed on the highway.” And he crouched to race after them.

But she wasn’t having any more. “We could tail them all night. As long as they know we’re following, they’re not about to go home.”

“They have to go home sometime-have to sleep sometime.”

“They’ll sleep on a bench. Just see if they don’t.”

But Joe had shadowed them for over an hour, and she tagged along-until Joe realized that Azrael knew they were still following, knew exactly where they were on the black street, that the cat had senses like a laser.

But nowwhat if Mavity’s brother and his cat were the burglars?

Certainly everything fit. Greeley had been here for two weeks. Both burglaries had occurred within that time. The old man looked the right age to be Mavity’s brother, and, more to the point, he was small like Mavity, with the same wiry frame.

There was, Dulcie thought, a family resemblance, the deeply cleft upper lip, the same kind of dry wrinkles, the same coloring. Though Mavity’s hair was gray, and the burglar’s was ordinary brown, with gray coming in around his ears.

If the burglarwasGreeley, then, as sure as mice had tails, he had stashed the money somewhere in Mavity’s cottage. Where else would he hide it? He didn’t live in Molena Point; it wasn’t as if he had access to unlimited hiding places. Greeley was practically a stranger in the village.

As she flipped over, clawing with excitement into the carpet, wondering when would be the best time to slip into Mavity’s cottage and search for the stolen cash, beside her the bedspread moved and Joe peered under, his yellow eyes dark and his expression smug.

“So,” he whispered. “This one dropped right into our paws. Did you smell Azrael on her?”

“No, I didn’t. We can’t be sure?”

“Of course we’re sure. There’s no such thing as coincidence.” He looked at her intently. “New man in town, brings his cat all the way from Panama. Why would he bring a cat all that way, unless he had some use for it? And that old burglar,” Joe said, “even looks like Mavity.”

Twitching a whisker, he rolled over, grinning, as pleased as any human cop who’d run the prints and come up with a positive ID.

7 [????????: pic_8.jpg]

CHARLIE HAULED the last duffle from her van and dumped it in Wilma’s garage, enjoying the chill fog that pressed around the open garage and lay dense across the garden-but not enjoying, so much, shifting all her gear once again.

As a child she had loved to play“movers,” filling cardboardbox “moving vans” with toys and sliding them along a route carefully planned to bring all her family and friends together into a tight little compound. At six years old, moving had satisfied a yearning need in her. At twenty-eight, hauling her worldly goods aroundin pasteboard boxes was right up there with having a double bypass.

Stacking her cartons of jumbled kitchen utensils and clothes against the wall beside Wilma’s car, she sniffed the aroma from the kitchen, the delicious scent of ham and onions and cheese. But, hungry as she was, she didn’t relish having to sit at the table with Bernine.

She considered making an excuse and skipping breakfast, but that would hurt Wilma. It wasn’t Wilma’s fault that Bernine had moved in uninvited; she could hardly have let the woman sleep on the street-though the imagedidappeal. And not only had Bernine taken over the guest room, she was sitting in there with Clyde right now, all cozy beside the fire, and Clyde hadn’t made the slightest effort to come out and keephercompany.

Coming home last night from the opening, she’d been on such a high, had returned Clyde’s kisses with more than her usual ardor; they’d had such a good time. And now, this morning, he seemed totally distant.

Slamming the last box into place, she wheeled her cement mixer out of the van and rolled it around behind the garage, parking it next to her two wheelbarrows, throwing a tarp over the equipment to keep out some of the damp. Wilma’s backyard was as narrow as an alley, stopping abruptly at the steep, overgrown hillside. The front yard was where Wilma’s flowers bloomed in rich tangles of color between the stone walks. Wilma, having no use for a lawn, had built an English garden, had worked the soil beds with peat and manure until they were as rich as potting mixture, creating an environ where, even beneath the oak tree, her blooms thrived.

Closing the van’s side door, Charlie stood a moment gearing herself to go back inside. Last night when Clyde gave her a last lingering kiss and drove off in the yellow roadster, waving, she had headed for bed wanting to stretch out and relive every lovely moment of the evening, from the festive arrival Clyde had planned for her, and all the compliments about her work, to Clyde’s very welcome warmth. But then, coming into the guest room, there was Bernine inherbed, on the side of the room she thought of as absolutely her own, and Bernine’s clothes scattered all over as if she’d moved in forever. Bernine had been sound asleep, her creamy complexion glowing, her red hair spread across the pillow as if she was about to have her picture taken for some girlie magazine or maybe welcome a midnight lover.

A silk skirt lay across the chair, a pink cashmere sweater was tossed on the dresser, and Bernine’s handmade Italian boots were thrown on the other bed beside a suede coat that must have cost more than six cement mixers. Surveying the takeover, feeling as if she’d been twice evicted, she’d gone back into the kitchen to cool down, to make herself a cup of cocoa. It was then that she foundthe note, folded on the table and weighted down with the salt shaker.

She’d read it, said a few rude words, wadded it up, and thrown it in the trash. Had stood at the stove stirring hot milk, thinking she would sleep in the van.

But of course she hadn’t. She’d gone to bed at last, dumping Bernine’s boots and coat on the floor, creeping into the other bed deeply angry and knowing she was being childish.

This morning, coming down the hall from the shower, she’d avoided looking at Bernine sleeping so prettily-and had avoided looking in the mirror at her own unruly hair and her thousand freckles, had pulled on her jeans and her faded sweatshirt, her scuffed boots, tied back her wild mane with a shoestring, and slipped out of the room only to catch a glimpse of Bernine’s slitted eyes, watching her, before she turned over, pulling the covers up.

Then in the kitchen she’d hardly poured her coffee before Bernine came drifting in, yawning, tying a silk wrapper around her slim figure. And now the woman was in there with Clyde, all dressed up and smelling like the perfume counter at Saks. She hoped Bernine’s soured love life, or whatever had left her temporarily homeless, had been suitably painful.

An old boyfriend once told her that her temper came from insecurity, that her anger flared when she felt she was not in control of a situation, that if she would just take positive action, put herself in control, she wouldn’t get so raging mad.

Maybe he was right. She was considering what positive action she would like to take against Bernine when Mavity’s VW Bug pulled to the curb, its rusted body settling with little ticks and grunts like some ancient, tired cart horse.

Watching Mavity slide out, small and quick, and hurry to the front door, Charlie began to feel easier. Mavity always had that effect. And at last she went on in, across the roofed back porch to the kitchen.

Wilma’s kitchen was cozy and welcoming with its blue-and-white wallpaper, its patterned blue counter tile and deep blue linoleum. The big round table was set with flowered placemats, Wilma’s white ironware, and a bunch of daisies from the garden. Charlie poured herself a cup of coffee as Wilma and Mavity came in, Mavity’s short gray hair kinky from the fog, her worn white uniform freshly washed and pressed.

As Wilma took a casserole from the oven and put a loaf of sliced bread in the microwave, Charlie mixed the frozen orange juice, and Mavity got out the butter and jam. Clyde schlepped into the kitchen hitching up his cut-offs, looking endearingly seedy. His disheveled appearance cheered Charlie greatly-why would Bernine be interested in a guy who looked like he’d slept in some alley?

On the table, the frittata casserole glistened with melted cheese; the Sicilian bread came out of the oven steaming hot. The bowl of fresh oranges and kiwi, mango and papaya was aromatic and inviting. As they took their places, the two cats trooped in, licking their whiskers, and sat down intently watching the table. Charlie wished she could read their minds; though at the moment there was no need, their thoughts were obvious-two little freeloaders, waiting for their share.

When they were seated, Wilma bowed her head, preparing to say grace. Charlie liked that in her aunt. Wilma might be modern in most ways, but true to family tradition she liked a little prayer on Sunday morning, and that was, to Charlie, a comfortable way to start the week.

But the prospect of a morning prayer seemed to make Bernine uneasy; she glanced away looking embarrassed. As if the baring of any true reverence or depth of feeling was not, to Bernine, socially acceptable-or, Charlie thought, was beyond what Bernine understood.

“Thank you for this abundance,” Wilma said. “Bless the earth we live upon, bless all the animals, and bless us, each one, in our separate and creative endeavors.”

“And,” Clyde added, “bless the little cats.”

Amused, Charlie glanced down at the cats. She could swear that Dulcie was smiling, the corners of the little tabby’s mouth turned up, and that Joe Grey had narrowed his yellow eyes with pleasure. Maybe they were reacting to the gentle tone of Clyde’s and Wilma’s voices, combined with the good smell of breakfast. Now the cats’ gazes turned hungrily again to the table as Wilma cut the frittata into pie-shaped wedges and served the plates. Five plates, and a plate for Joe and Dulcie, which she set on the floor beside her chair, evoking an expression of shock and pain from Bernine.

Wilma passed Clyde’s plate last. “How’s work going on the apartments?”

“A few complications-it’ll be a while before we’re ready for you to landscape the patio. But between Charlie’s expertise and my bumbling we’ll get it done.”

“Thank goodness for Mavity,” Charlie said, patting Mavity’s hand. “We couldn’t do without you.”

“Couldn’t do without Pearl Ann,” Mavity said. “I’m the scrub team,” she explained to Bernine. “But Pearl Ann does other stuff. I don’t know nothing about taping Sheetrock. Pearl Ann’s a regular whiz-she can tape Sheetrock, grout tile, she can do anything. She says her daddy was a building contractor and she grew up on the job sites.”

Clyde passed Mavity the butter.“Pearl Ann would be just about perfect, if she’d improve her attitude.”

“I invited her to breakfast,” Wilma said, “but she planned to hike down the coast this morning.” Pearl Ann Jamison, tall and plain and quiet, was fond of solitary pursuits, seemed to prefer her own dour company to the presence of others. But, as Mavity said, she was a good worker.

Mavity glanced at her watch.“I don’t want to be late, leave Dora and Ralph sitting in the airport.”

“They don’t get in until eleven,” Wilma said, and she dished up another helping of frittata for Mavity. “Maybe they won’t stay too long,” she added sympathetically.

“One of those night flights,” Mavity told Bernine. “Catching the shuttle up from L.A. They bring enough luggage for a year.”

“Yes, you said that,” Bernine told her dryly.

“And with my brother here, too, my little place is straining at the seams. Maybe one of these days I can afford a bigger house,” Mavity rambled amiably. “Two guest rooms would be nice. I plan to start looking when my investments have grown a bit more. That Winthrop Jergen, he’s a regular genius, the way he’s earned money for me.”

Bernine gave Mavity her full attention.“You have someone helping you with your-savings?”

“Winthrop Jergen,” Mavity said. “My investment counselor. Doesn’t that sound grand? He lives right there in Clyde’s upstairs apartment, was living there when Clyde bought the place.”

“Oh,” Bernine said. “I see.” As if Mavity had told her that Jergen meted out his financial advice from the local phone booth.

“He has clients all over the village,” Mavity said. “Some of Clyde’s wealthiest customers come to Mr. Jergen. They pull up out in front there in their Lincolns and BMWs.”

Bernine raised an eyebrow.

“He moved here from Seattle,” Mavity continued. “He’s partly retired. Said his doctor wanted him to work at a slower pace, that his Seattle job was too frantic, hard on his blood pressure.”

She gave an embarrassed laugh.“He talks to me sometimes, when I’m cleaning. He’s very young-but so dedicated. That conscientious kind, you know. They’re hard on themselves.”

“And he does your-investments,” Bernine said with a little twisted smile.

“Oh, yes, the bit of savings we had before my husband died, and part of my salary, too.” Mavity launched into a lengthy description of the wonders that Winthrop Jergen had accomplished for her, the stocks he had bought and sold. “My account has almost tripled. I never thought I’d be an investor.” She described Jergen’s financial techniques as if she had memorized, word for word, the information Jergen had given her, passing this on with only partial comprehension.

Bernine had laid down her fork, listening to Mavity.“He must be quite a manager. You say he’s young?”

“Oh, yes. Maybe forty. A good-looking man. Prematurely silver hair, all blow-dried like some TV news anchor. Expensive suits. White shirt and tie every day, even if he does work at home. And that office of his, there in the big living room, it’s real fancy. Solid cherry desk, fancy computer andall.”

Bernine rewarded Mavity with a truly bright smile.“Your Mr. Jergen sounds most impressive.”

Dulcie, watching Bernine, envisioned a fox at the hen coop.

“But I do worry about him.” Mavity leaned toward Clyde, her elbows comfortably on the table. “You know that man that watches your apartment building? The one who’s there sometimes in the evening, standing across the street so quiet?”

“What about him?”

“I think sometimes that Mr. Jergen, with all the money he must have-I wonder if that man?”

“Wonder what?” Clyde said impatiently.

Mavity looked uncertain.“Would Mr. Jergen be so rich that man would rob him?”

Clyde, trying to hide a frown of annoyance, patted Mavity’s hand. “He’s just watching-you know how guys like to stand around watching builders. Have you ever seen a house under construction without a bunch of rubberneckers?”

“I suppose,” Mavity said, unconvinced. “But Mr. Jergen is such a nice man, and-I guess sort of innocent.”

Bernine’s eyes widened subtly. She folded her napkin, smiling at Clyde. “This Mr. Jergen sounds like a very exceptional person. Do you take care of his car?”

Clyde stared at her.

Dulcie and Joe glanced at one another.

“Of course Clyde takes care of his car,” Mavity said. “Mr. Jergen has a lovely black Mercedes, a fancy little sports model, brand-new. White leather seats. A CD player and a phone, of course.”

The little woman smiled.“He deserves to have nice things, the way he helps others. I expect Mr. Jergen has changed a lot of lives. Why, he even signed a petition to help Dulcie-the library cat petition, you know. I carry one everywhere.”

Wilma rose to fetch the coffeepot, wondering if Mavity had forgotten that Bernine sided totally with Freda Brackett in the matter of Dulcie’s fate.

This was the second time in a year that petitions had been circulated to keep Dulcie as official library cat, and the first round had been only a small effort compared to the present campaign. At that time, the one cat-hating librarian had quit her job in a temper saying that cats made her sneeze (no one had ever heard her sneeze). The furor had been short-lived and was all but forgotten. But now, because of the hardhanded ranting of Freda Brackett, all the librarians, except Bernine, and many of the patrons had been walking the village from door to door getting signatures in support of Dulcie. Even Wilma’s young friend, twelve-year-old Dillon Thurwell, had collected nearly a hundred signatures.

Mavity busied herself picking up her dishes, and she soon left for the airport, her decrepit VW ratting away through the thinning fog. Strange, Dulcie thought, that at breakfast no one had mentioned the two burglaries. Usually such an incident in the village was a prime topic of conversation.

She guessed Bernine had been too interested in Winthrop Jergen to think about burglaries, and certainly Clyde wouldn’t mention them in front of her and Joe; Clyde hated when they got interested in a local crime. He said their meddling complicated his life to distraction, that they were making an old man of him-but Clyde knew he couldn’t change them. Anyway, their interests gave him something to grouse about.As she and Joe slipped out into the fog through her cat door and headed up the hills, their thoughts were entirely on the burglaries and on Mavity’s brother, Greeley, and his traveling tomcat.

“If Greeley is the burglar,” she said, “we need some hard evidence for Captain Harper.”

He looked at her quizzically.“Why the change of mind? You were all for keeping this from Harper.”

“I’ve been thinking-if Harper doesn’t find the burglar and make an arrest, he’ll set up a stakeout. And what if they see Azrael break into a shop? That would really tear it. What if theGazettegot hold of that?”

“Harper isn’t going to tell the press that kind of thing.”

“But one of his men might. Maybe the uniforms on stakeout would tell someone. What if Lieutenant Brennan or Officer Wendell sees Azrael open a skylight and slip in, and then there’s a burglary and they start blabbing around the department?”

Joe sighed.“You’re not happy if we finger the old man, and you’re not happy if we don’t. I swear, Dulcie, you can worry a problem right down to a grease spot. What is it with females? Why do you make things so damned complicated?”

“We don’t make things complicated. We simply attend to details. Females are thorough-we want to see the whole picture.”

Joe said nothing. There were times when it was better to keep his mouth shut. Trotting across the grassy park above the Highway One tunnel, they headed up a winding residential street, toward the wild hills beyond.

“And,” she said, “if Brennan and Wendell did see Azrael break in, they’d start putting things together-remembering the timeswe’vebeen under their feet at a crime scene.”

“Dulcie, who would believe that stuff? If a cop talked like that, they’d laugh him out of the department. No one would believe?”

“Peoplewouldbelieve it,” she said impatiently. “The story’s so bizarre, the press would love it. The papers would have a field day. Every tabloid would run it, front page. And every nut in the country would believe it. People would flock to Molena Point wanting to see the trained burglar-cat. Or, heaven forbid, the talking cat. Ifthatgot in the news?”

“Dulcie, you’re letting your imagination go crazy.”

But he knew she was right. He cut a look at her, kneading his claws in the warm earth.“If we can find the stolen money and get it to Harper, and if the guy’s prints are on it, Harper will make the arrest without a stakeout. And the cops will never know about Azrael.”

“If thereareany prints on the money, with those gloves the old man was wearing.”

“Likely he’d count the money after he stole it,” Joe said. “Why would he wear gloves then? Harper gets the prints, arrests the old man, and you can bet your whiskers that tomcat won’t hang around. He’d be long gone. And good riddance.”

“Except,” she said, “that old man mighttellthe cops about Azrael, just to take the heat off himself. Figure he could make himself famous and create enough interest, enough sympathy for the talking cat, enough public outcry, that he’d be acquitted.”

“That’s really way out.”

“Is it? Look at the court trials just this year, where public opinion has swayed the verdict.”

He looked at her intently. She was right.“Talking cat confesses to robberies. Verbose kitty discovered in California village.”

She twitched her whiskers with amusement.“Tomcat perjures himself on witness stand.”

“Speaking cat insults presiding judge, is cited for contempt.”

Dulcie smiled.“County attorney goes for feline conviction. Judge rules that jury must include proper quota of cat lovers.”

“Or cats,” he said. “Tomcats sit on jury?”

“Cat excused because she’s nursing kittens?” She rolled over, convulsed with feline glee.

“But,” she said at last, “what about the murders? We don’t?”

“What murders?”

“The three deaths. Azrael said he saw death-three murders.”

“You don’t believe that stuff. Come on, Dulcie, that’s tomcat grandstanding.There will be murder in this village…” Joe mimicked.“I smell death, death before the moon is full?” He yowled with amusement.“I see you two little cats standing over the bodies.? Oh, boy, talk about chutzpah.”

“But?”

“So who is going to be murdered over a couple of little, two-bit burglaries? Come on, Dulcie. He was giving you a line. That tomcat’s nothing but a con artist, an overblown bag of hot air.”

But Dulcie lashed her tail and laid back her ears.“Therecouldbe truth in what Azrael said.” With all his talk of voodoo and dark magic,wasthe foreign tomcat able to see into the future?

Certainly there was a sense of otherness about Azrael-a dark aura seemed to cling around him like a grim shadow. And certainly when she read about cats like themselves, a thread of dark prophetic talents wound through the ancient myths.

Who knew, she thought, shivering, what terrifying skills the black torn might have learned in those far and exotic lands?

8 [????????: pic_9.jpg]

DORA AND RALPHSleuder’s shuttle from L.A. was due to land at 11:03, and as Mavity headed up the freeway for Peninsula Airport, her VW chugging along with the scattered Sunday traffic, the fog was lifting; the day was going to be pretty, clear and bright.

Wilma’s elegant breakfast had been a lovely way to end the week; though the pleasant company made her realize how much time she spent alone. It would be nice to have Dora and Ralph with her, despite her crowded little house. She did miss her family.

She really ought to entertain them better, ought to get Wilma’s recipe for that elegant casserole. All she ever made for breakfast was eggs and bacon or cereal. Well, of course she’d be making grits. Dora couldn’t face a morning without grits-she always brought instant grits with her from Georgia. The first time Mavity heard of instant grits, which were more common in the south than instant oatmeal, she’d doubled over laughing. But after all, it was a southern staple. And Dora worked hard at home. On the farm, breakfast was a mainstay. Dora grew up in a household where her mother rose every morning at four to fix grits and eggs and salty country ham and homemade biscuits from scratch, a real farm breakfast. Biscuits and redeye gravy became Greeley’s favorite after he married a southern girl at eighteen and moved south to her father’s farm.

Greeley and his wife had had only the one child, only Dora, and for thirty years he had lived that life, so different from how he grew up here in California. Imagine, getting out to the fields every morning before daylight. You’d drink Dora would want to get off the farm, but no, she and Ralph still planted and harvested and hauled produce to market, though they had some help now. And now they had that junk car business, too. Ralph called it a “recycled parts exchange.”

For herself, she’d rather clean other people’s houses than do that backbreaking field labor. After a day’s work, her time was her own. No sick cows to tend, no broken water lines or dried up crops to worry over. She could come home, make a nice cup of tea, put up her feet, and forget the world around her.

And maybe Greeley hadn’t liked it all that well, either, because the minute Dora’s mother died-Dora was already married-Greeley hit out for Panama, and the next thing she knew, he’d learned to be a deep-sea diver. That had shocked everyone. Who knew that all those years, Greeley Urzey had such a strange, unnaturallonging?

Well, he was happy living down there in Central America, doing his underwater repairs for the Panama Canal people, and Dora and Ralph were happy with their farm and their junk business.And I’m happy,Mavity thought,except I wish Lou was still here, that he wasn’t taken away from me so soon.She shoved aside the wordlonely,pushed it down deep where it wouldn’t nudge at her. She knew she’d soon be grousing because of too much family, longing for some loneliness-well, for some privacy.

Never happy. That’s the trouble with me. Maybe that’s the trouble with everyone, always something that doesn’t suit. I wonder what it’ll be like in the next world-I wonder if you really are happy forever?

She had given herself plenty of time heading for the airport, and in the brightening morning she took pleasure in the Molena Point hills that flanked the little freeway, the dense pine and cypress woods rising dark against the blue sky, and the small valleys still thick with mist. Ahead, down the hills, the fog was breaking apart over the wide scar of the airport that slashed between the houses and woods. Greeley had wanted to come along, and she could have swung by the house to get him if she’d had room, but he ought to have known the Bug wouldn’t handle another passenger plus a mountain of baggage. Even though Dora and Ralph traveled with all those suitcases, she’d never seen either of them wearing anything but jeans and Tshirts or sweatshirts printed in Day-Glo with some crazy message. Besides, they were not small people. Each time she saw her niece and Ralph, their girth had spread a little, expanding like warm bread dough.

But they were a sweet couple, and she’d get them tucked into the car one way or another. Maybe by their next visit she would have a bigger house, three nice bedrooms, one on the main level for herself, two upstairs for company. Not too big, though. Too much to clean. Maybe a place up in the hills. She wondered why Wilma didn’t open an account with Mr. Jergen and increase her own pension. Sometimes she didn’t understand Wilma; sometimes she thought Wilma’s career as a parole officer had left her with no trust at all. Wilma relied on her close friends, but she didn’t have much faith in other folks.

Turning off the freeway into the small airport, she drove slowly past the glass doors of the little terminal but didn’t park in front. You could never depend on that fifteen-minute parking. They’d give you a ticket one second after your time was up-as if the meter maid was lurking just around the corner, hungry to make her quota. Continuing on down the hill, she pulled into a short-term space, locked the car,and headed double-time back up the steep incline.

Pushing open the glass door, her frizzy gray hair was reflected, and her thin old body, straight as a stick in her white uniform. She might look frowsy, but she was in better shape than most women half her age. She wasn’t even breathing hard after the steep climb-and she didn’t have to pay some expensive gym to keep fit.

Shegotpaid for doing her workouts scrubbing and polishing and sweeping, right on the job.

Greeley was the same as her, as lean as a hard-running hound. Dora, being Greeley’s daughter, ought to be the same, but she took after her mother. Ample, Greeley said.

Still, Dora didn’t have Greeley’s quick temper, and that was a blessing.

Peninsula Airport was so small that most of its flights were commuter planes. The runways would take a 737 if some airline ever decided to put on a straight run, but no one had. Crossing the lobby toward the three gates, she saw that all three of the little glassed-in waiting areas were empty. To her left at the Delta desk a lone clerk stood staring into space as if sleeping on his feet.

In the larger general waiting room to her right, only three travelers occupied the long lines of worn chairs. Two men sat slumped and dozing, as if they might have traveled all night or maybe waited there all night huddled down into the cracked leather. She couldn’t see much of the man behind the pillar, just his legs. She had the impression of limpness; maybe he was asleep, too.

She thought she’d like a cup of coffee but, checking her watch by the airport clock, there really wasn’t that much time. Anyway the airport coffee was expensive and not worth hiking upstairs, throwing away a buck and a half. Wilma’s coffee was better. And where would she put another cup? She was so full of breakfast her ears bulged.

Choosing a seat in the middle of a row of attached chairs, she settled down where she would be able to see the incoming plane but away from the overflowing ashtrays and their stink of stale cigarettes. After one week with Greeley smoking in the house, she longed never to see another cigarette; her little cottage smelled not only of cat, but like a cheap bar as well.

She could have put up one of those thank you for not smoking signs in the living room. Not that Greeley would pay any attention. He’d pitch a fit if she tried to make him go outdoors to smoke.

Between the stink of cigarettes and the stink of that cat, she’d have to burn her home to the ground to get the smell out.

Mavity’s cottage, anywhere else but Molena Point, would be called a shack. It was a low-roofed, California-style clapboard, one step up from a single-wide trailer. But in the upbeat seaside village, it had value. Well, she thought, the land had value. Located right on the bay, it was real waterfront property, even if the bay, at that point, was muddy and smelly.

One would think, from looking at the Molena Point map, that her house faced a wide bathing beach. In fact, her little bit of land occupied a strip of marsh between the bay and the river-oh, it had patches of beach sand, but with heavy sea grass growing through. And the marsh was sometimes in flood. All the foundations along the shore were real high, and in bad weather one wanted to have buckets handy. The lower part of her house was stained dark with blackish slime that, as many times as she hosed and scrubbed it, just kept getting darker.

She hadn’t thought much about her property value until Winthrop Jergen pointed out just how dear that land might be and had explained to her how much she could borrow on it, if she chose to invest more heavily. But she hesitated at the thought of a mortgage. She would hate to have something happen, though of course nothing would happen.

She did love the view from her porch; she loved the marsh and the sea birds, the gulls and the pelicans and terns. The land just above her place, up the hill where the old Spanish mission rose against the sky, was pricey property. There were fine, expensive homes up there bordering the valley road; and the old mission was there. She loved to hear its bells ringing for mass on Sunday morning.

Dora said the bells brought her right up out of a sound sleep. But what was wrong with that? Being southern, they got up for church, anyway. They always trotted off tomass, even if they weren’t Catholic. Ralph said it was good for the soul to worship with a little variety.

The airport loudspeaker crackled, announcing the incoming commuter flight from L.A., and she rose and moved into waiting area number three and stood at the window. The runway was still empty, the sky empty.

It had been a long time since she’d seen Dora and Ralph, though they had talked on the phone quite a lot recently. Now that Greeley was considering moving back to California, she thought the Sleuders might decide to come out to the coast, too, maybe settle down inland where properly was cheaper. Since they had that terrible financial loss last year, she supposed they didn’t have a lot of money. Well, the only reasonshecould afford to be here was because she and Lou had bought their little place nearly forty years ago when prices along the marsh were nothing. And both of them always worked, too. Their cottage had been only a couple thousand dollars, back then, and was called a fishing shack.

She’d buried Lou in the Molena Point Cemetery thirteen years ago last April, and she had to admit, if only to herself, shewaslonely-lonely and sometimes afraid.

Well, maybe she wasn’t the only one who was lonely. Before Ralph made their plane reservations, Dora had called her four times in one week, long chatty calls, as if she, too, needed family. Then Dora surprised her by deciding to head out her way, when they didn’t even know if Greeley was coming. Usually it was Greeley who set the dates, far in advance, when he could get off work.

The small, twin-engine commuter flashed across the sky. Mavity pressed against the glass watching as it came taxiing back, its turbo engines throbbing, and slowed and turned and pulled up before the building. She watched two men push the rolling metal stair up to its door, watched the baggage cart run out to the plane, and stood looking for Dora and Ralph. There was no first class on the commuter, so they might even be first in line.

Waiting for her family, she did not see the thin-faced man behind the pillar shift in his chair for a better view of the plane-a pale, waxen-faced man with light brown hair hanging down his back in a ponytail, pale brown eyes. His brown cords and brown polo shirt were deeply wrinkled, his imitation leather loafers pulled on over bare feet.

Half hidden behind the post, Troy Hoke had observed Mavity since she arrived, and now, watching the disembarking passengers, he smiled as Dora and Ralph Sleuder came ponderously down the metal steps and headed across the tarmac toward the building. Dora’s T-shirt said GEORGIA PEACH, stenciled over the picture of a huge pink peach, and Ralph’s shirt told the world that he was a GEORGIA BULLDOGS fan. As they came into the glass-walled waiting room, Hoke lifted his newspaper again. The two big people surged inside, laughing and engulfing Mavity in hugs. He kept the newspaper raised as the three stepped to the moving baggage belt and stood talking, waiting for the luggage. He had parked at the far end of the long-term section and, coming up into the terminal forty-five minutes before Mavity arrived, he had loitered in the gift shop reading magazines until he saw Mavity’s old VW Bug pull by the glass doors heading for the parking lot. Had watched her come quickly up the hill again, in that familiar, impatient jerking way she had, and swing in through the glass doors to check the flight postings.

The luggage was being unloaded, the two baggage handlers throwing it off the cart onto the belt. It took a while for the Sleuders to retrieve their suitcases, slowly building a tilting mountain of baggage. He watched the two hefty folk and Mavity slide and drag suitcases across the lobby to the main door, where Dora and Ralph waited beside their belongings while Mavity went to get her car, pulling into the loading zone. He was amused at their efforts to stow all the bags into the interior of the VW and in the hood. They rearranged the load three times before they could close the doors. Dora sat in the front seat balancing a big duffle on her lap. Ralph, in the back, was buried under three suitcases. Not until he saw the VW drive off and turn toward the freeway did the thin-faced man leave the terminal, taking his time as he walked to his car and then headed for Molena Point.

Mavity’s little car was so loaded she thought its springs would flatten right down to the ground. Leaving the terminal, she was certain the tailpipe would drag along the concrete. Before she left home she’d removed all her cleaning stuff-brooms, mops, her two vacuum cleaners, the canister model and the old Hoover upright, and her scrub buckets and plastic carrier fitted out with bottles of cleaning solutions and window scrapers and rags-had left it all in the carport hoping Greeley’s cat wouldn’t pee on everything. Now, beside her, Dora sat pinned down by the big duffle bag and by her bed pillow, which she always carried when she traveled because without it she couldn’t sleep. Dora’s arm pooched over the gearshift, and her thigh squished against it so hard that they might have to drive the freeway in low gear.

“Where’s Greeley?” Ralph asked, looking around the VW as if he expected his father-in-law to materialize from beneath a suitcase.

“He’s really anxious to see you,” Mavity said. “Too bad there wasn’t room in the car.”

“How long is it to the house?” Dora said nervously. “I should have stopped in the ladies’ room.”

“Ten minutes,” Mavity lied, cutting the time in half. “You remember. Only a little while. You can hold it.”

“Is there a Burger King near? We could stop there for the restroom. Or a McDonald’s?”

Patiently Mavity swung down an off-ramp to McDonald’s and watched Dora make a trip inside. When Dora wedged herself back into the car she was toting a white paper bag emblazoned with the golden arches and smelling of hamburger and onions. She handed Ralph a double burger, its wrapping damp with mustard, and shoved a giant paper cup between her knees.

Mavity, pulling onto the freeway again, was glad the Sunday traffic wasn’t heavy. Already she was beginning to feel like a sardine packed too tight. She tried to keep her mind on the cool, piney sea wind blowing in through her open window. Ahead, as she turned toward Molena Point, the wide expanse of sea with the sun on it eased the tight feeling across her shoulders. But when they turned off the highway into the village, Dora said, “I’d love to see where you work, where they’re doing that remodeling. Could we stop by there?” Dora loved anything to do with houses.

“We can come back,” Mavity told her. “After we unload. Or this evening after supper we can take a run up, the four of us.” If she didn’t get out of the crammed car soon she was going to have one of those shaky attacks that left her feeling weak.

But Dora’s face crumpled with disappointment.

“Or what about tomorrow morning?” Mavity said quickly. “You and Ralph and Greeley can drop me off for work, take your time looking at the building-though it’s just a mess of lumber and Sheetrock-then you can have the car for the day, go out for a nice lunch, and pick me up at five. How would that suit you?” She seldom offered her car when they were visiting, because she needed it for work, and she knew Dora wouldn’t refuse.

Dora nodded, despite the disappointment that pulled down her soft jowels. Mavity only hoped she could show them through the apartments quickly tomorrow, without getting in everyone’s way. Dora seemed totally set on seeing the project, and when Dora got her mind on something, it was hard to distract her.

They found Greeley at home in the kitchen frying chicken. He made drinks for Dora and Ralph, and they sat in lawn chairs out on the grass, looking at the bay, talking and catching up, until Dora and Ralph got hungry.

Dora didn’t mention the apartment building again during dinner, but Monday morning she and Ralph were up early getting themselves ready, getting in Mavity’s way as she tried to wash and dress.

And up at the apartments, they insisted on poking through every room, bothering the two carpenters and chattering to Pearl Ann and Charlie, who were busy hanging Sheetrock, slowing everyone’s work until Pearl Ann opened a can of paint thinner and accidentally spilled some on Dora, and that sent Dora off with Ralph in the VW to change her clothes.

She thought it strange that Dora had seemed to avoid the patio, keeping to its roofed walkway or inside the apartments, but glancing out often-almost as if she didn’t want to be seen, though there was no one living in the apartments, only Mr. Jergen, and his office lights weren’t burning; the upstairs windows were dark as if he had gone out. Maybe Dora, looking out at the flower beds, had developed an interest in landscaping. Heaven knew, the patio could use some nice plants and bushes; it must look to Dora like last year’s dried-up farm stubble.

Well, despite Dora’s peculiarities, it was good that she had gotten her mind off her troubles; this was not an easy time for the Sleuders. Mavity guessed she ought to be a bit more tolerant of Dora’s irritating manner.

9 [????????: pic_10.jpg]

AT THREE O’CLOCK on Tuesday morning across the moonlit village nothing stirred, no hush of tires on the damp streets, no rumble of car engines beneath the cloud-veiled moon; the tangle of cottages and shops and sheltering trees was so still the village might have been cast beneath some hoary wizard’s hundred-year enchantment. The white walls of Clyde Damen’s cottage and its ragged lawn were patterned with the ancient scriptures of tree shadow as still as if frozen in time. But suddenly a shadow broke away, racing across the mottled lawn and up the steps and in through the cat door, his white pawsflashing.

Tracking mud across the carpet, Joe Grey trotted through the sleeping house accompanied by comforting and familiar sounds; the creak in the floor as he crossed the hall, Clyde’s irregular snoring from the bedroom, and beyond the kitchen door, old Rube gently snuffling his own doggy snores. Joe pictured the Labrador sprawled on the bottom bunk in the laundry, among the tangle of cats, all sleeping deeply. The four household animals had slept thus ever since Barney died, dog and cats crowding together to ease their loneliness for the elderly golden retriever.

Joe missed Barney, too. The old golden had been a clown, always into something, dragging Clyde’s Levis and gym equipment all over the house, huffing and growling in the kitchen as he goaded the white cat to knock a pack of cookies off the top of the refrigerator.

Moving swiftly down the hall, Joe’s nostrils were filled with the stench of human sleep laced with beer and garlic. Loping across the bedroom’s antique rug, he sprang onto the blankets inscribing muddy pawprints, avoiding Clyde’s stomach by leaping over his housemate. Kneading the empty pillow, he stretched out across it andbegan to wash.

Around him, the room was a montage of twisted tree shadows, as dense as if he resided in a jungle-though the thought of jungle irritated him, reminded him of the invading torn. As he washed, Clyde stirred and moaned-and woke, leaning up to stare.

“What the hell are you doing? You’re shaking the whole damned bed.”

“How could I shake the bed? I was simply washing my face. You’re so sensitive.”

Clyde snatched up the digital clock.“It’s three A.M. I was sound asleep.”

“You wouldn’t want me to go to sleep unbathed.”

“I don’t care if you never take a bath-if you call that disgusting lickingbathing.” Clyde flipped on the bedside lamp, scowling at him.

“My God. I might as well have a platoon of muddy marines marching across the sheets. Can’t you wash outside? When I go to bed, I don’t drag half the garden in. And I don’t do all that stomping and wiggling.”

“Youhave hot and cold running water and a stack of nice thick bath towels. All I have is my poor little cat tongue.”

Clyde sighed.“I presume the hunting was successful, by the amount of blood on your face. And by the fact that you are not out in the kitchen banging around clawing open the kibble box, ripping through the entire supply of cat goodies.”

“When have I ever done that after a night’s hunt? Of course the hunting was successful. Was, in fact, very fine. The full moon, even with clouds streaked across it, makes the rabbits wild.

“It’s the lunar pull,” Joe told Clyde, giving him a narrow leer. “Oh, the rabbits danced tonight. Spun and danced across the hills as if there wasn’t a cat within miles. Lovely rabbits. Such tender little rabbits.”

“Please. Spare me your feline sadism.”

“What we do is certainly not sadism. We are part of a complicated and essential balance of nature-a part, if you will, of the Godgiven food chain. An essential link in the necessary?”

Clyde snatched up his pillow and whacked Joe.“Stop talking. Stop washing. Stop shaking the bed. Shut up and lie still and get the hell to sleep.”

Joe crawled out from under the pillow, his ears back, his head ducked low, and his bared teeth gleaming sharp as knives.

Clyde drew back, staring at him.“What? What’s the matter? I hardly tapped you.”

“You didn’ttapme. Youwhackedme. In all our years together, you’ve never hit me. What’s with you? How come you’re so irritable?”

“I’mirritable? You’re the bad-tempered one-I thought you were going to take my arm off.” Clyde peered closer, looking him over. “You and Dulcie have a fight?”

“You’re so witty. No we didn’t have a fight. I simply don’t like being hit. Fun is one thing, but that was real anger. And why would Dulcie and I fight? For your information, I left Dulcie on Ocean Avenue staring in the window of that new Latin American shop, drooling over all that handmadestuff they sell. And why areyouso edgy? You and Charlie have a fight?”

“Of course not. She?” Clyde paused, frowning. “Well she was a bit cool.”

“And you’re taking it out on me. Venting your bad mood on a defenseless little cat. What did you fight about?”

“Nothing. She was just cool. She’s been cool ever since Sunday morning. Who knows what’s with women?”

“Bernine,” Joe said and resumed washing his paws.

“Berninewhat?”

Joe shrugged.

“You mean she’s in a bad temper because Bernine’s staying with Wilma? But why get angry at me?”

“You figure it out. I’m not going to draw pictures for you. I don’t suppose you would want to get up and pour me a bowl of milk. I’m incredibly thirsty.”

“You’re not saying-Charlie’s notjealous.Jealous of Bernine Sage?”

“Milk is good for the stomach after a full meal of raw game. A nice chilled drink of milk would ease my mood, and would wash down that cottontail with just the right dietetic balance.”

“Why the hell would she be jealous of Bernine? Bernine Sage is nothing-a bimbo, a gold digger. Doesn’t Charlie?? Bernine doesn’t care about anything but Bernine. What’s to be jealous of?”

“If you would keep a bowl of milk in the refrigerator where I can reach it, I wouldn’t have to ask. It’s demeaning to have to beg. I have no trouble opening the refrigerator, but without fingers and a thumb I really can’t manage the milk bottle.”

“Please, spare me the details.”

“And have a glass yourself-it will help you sleep.”

“I was asleep, until you decided to take a bath. And now you want me to get up out of a nice warm bed and freeze my feet on the linoleum, to?”

“Slippers. Put on your slippers. Put on a robe-unless you really enjoy schlepping around the kitchen naked, with the shades up, giving the neighbors a thrill.”

“I am not naked. I have on shorts. I am not going to get out of bed. I am not going to go out to the kitchen and wake up the other animals, to pour you a bowl of milk. I can’t even describe the rudeness of such a request-all so you can wash down your bloody kill. That is as barbaric as some African headhunter drinking blood and milk. The Watusi or something.”

“Masai. They are not headhunters. The Masai are a wise and ancient people. They drink milk mixed with the blood of their cattle to give them strength. It is an important Masai ritual, a meaningful and religious experience.Theyknow that milk is nourishing to the soul as well as to the body of a tired hunter. And if you want to talk disgusting, what about those Sugar Puffs or Honey Pops or whatever you eat for breakfast with all that pyridoxine hydrochloride and palmitate, to name just a few foreign substances. You think that’s not putting strange tilings in your stomach?” Joe kneaded thepillow; its springy softness gave him the same sense of security he had known in kittenhood kneading at his mother’s warm belly. “There’s a fresh half-gallon of milk in the refrigerator, whole milk.”

Clyde sighed, rose, and began to search for his slippers. Joe watched him for a moment then galloped along past him to the kitchen.

And as Joe drank milk out of his favorite bowl, which Clyde had placed on the breakfast table, and below him on the floor the other animals slurped up their own hastily supplied treats, Clyde sat at the table drinking cold coffee left over from the morning before.

“I hope you killed that rabbit quickly and didn’t tease it. I don’t like to think of you and Dulcie tormenting?” Clyde shook his head. “For two intelligent beings, you really ought to show more restraint. What good is it to be sentient, to be master of a culturally advanced language, and, supposedly, of advanced thought patterns, and still act like barbarians?”

“The rabbit died quickly. Dulcie broke its neck. Does that make you happy? It was a big buck-a huge buck, maybe the granddaddy of rabbits. It clawed her in the belly, too. For your information, a rabbit can be as vicious as a Doberman when you?”

“Wouldn’t you be vicious if someone was trying to flay you for supper?”

“We’re cats. We’re hunters. God put rabbits on the earth for cats to hunt-it’s what we do. You want we should go on food stamps?”

Finished with his milk, he dropped to the cold linoleum, Clyde turned off the light, and they trucked back to bed again. But, getting settled, clawing his side of the blanket into a satisfactory nest, Joe began to worry about Dulcie.

When he had left her in the village, not an hour before, he thought he glimpsed a shadow moving across the rooftops. Probably a raccoon or possum had climbed to the rooftops to scavenge bird’s nests. And even if it had been Azrael, Dulcie would be in control; she was quite capable of bloodying Azrael if he got fresh.

Or, he hoped she was.

The moon’s light cast the sidewalk and shops into a labyrinth of confusing shadows, but the street seemed empty, and Dulcie heard no sound, nor had noticed anything moving except, high above her, the little bats darting and squeaking. Her attention was centered on the shop window against which she stood,her paws pressed to the glass, the bright colors of weavings and carvings and clay figures softly illuminated into a rainbow of brilliance. Oh, the bright art drew her. Pushing her nose against the pane, she sniffed the exotic scents that seeped through, aromas no human would detect; the faint drift of sour foreign dyes, of rare woods and leathers, the heavy stink of sheep fat from the handmade wool rugs and blankets. Studying the bold Colombian and Peruvian patterns, she thought that their strange-looking horses and deer and cats were closer akin to mythological animals than to real beasts.

Closer akin to me,she thought.

The notion startled her, shocked her, made her shiver.

The idea must have been playing on her mind without realizing, from the myths she had read-the notion that she was strange and out of sync with the world.

It isn’t so. I am real flesh and blood, not some weird mythical beast. I am only different.

Just a little bit different.

And stubbornly she returned her attention to the bright and foreign wares.

She had, coming down the street, paused at each shop to stand on her hind paws and stare in, admiring handprinted silk blouses and cashmere sweaters and handmade silver jewelry, her hunger for those lovely embellishments making her purr and purr with longing.

Now, dropping to all fours, she slipped into the garden that ran beside the shop and trotted along to the back, staring up at the transom above the back door.

She did not intend to steal-as she had, in the past, stolen silky garments from her neighbors. She meant only to get nearer the lovely wares, to sniff and feel and enjoy.

Swarming up a purple-blooming bougainvillea vine that climbed the shop wall, forcing up between its tangle of rough, woody limbs, she clung above the back door, clawing at the narrow transom until the hinged window dropped inward. It stopped halfway, held by a chain.

Crawling through on the slanted glass, she jumped down to a stack of packing crates, then to the floor.

She was in the shop’s storeroom. It smelled of packing straw and the sour scent of the raw mahogany crates that had been shipped from South America.

Trotting into the big showroom, she was surrounded by primitive weavings and carvings and paintings, was immersed in a gallery of the exotic, every tabletop and display case filled with unusual treasures. Leaping to a counter, she nosed at straw figures and clay beasts, at painted wooden animals and medieval-looking iron wall hangings and applique pictures made from tiny bits of cloth. Lying down on a stack of wool sweaters as soft as the down of a baby bird, she rolled luxuriously, purring and humming a happy, half-cat, half-human song of delight.

It had been a long time since she’d coveted anything so fiercely as these lovely creations.

Choosing the softest sweater, a medley of rust and cream and black that complemented her own tabby coat, she forgot her good intentions. Dragging it between her front paws-like a leopard dragging an antelope-she headed across the floor to the storeroom. There she gazed up toward the high window, her head swimming with the heady pleasure of taking, all for herself, something so beautiful. She was crouched to leap when a sharp thud made her spin around, bristling.

She could smell him before she saw him. In the inky gloom, he was a whisper of black on black, his amber eyes gleaming, watching her. Sauntering out of the darkness, he smiled with smug superiority.“What have you stolen, my dear?”

She crouched, glaring.

“My, my. Would you report me and Greeley to the police, when you’re nothing but a thief yourself? Tell me, Dulcie, where are you taking that lovely vicuna sweater?”

“I’m taking it to nap on it,” she lied, “in the storeroom, away from the display lights. Is there a law against that?”

The tomcat sat down, cutting her a wicked smile.“You don’t steal, my dear? You have never stolen from, say, your neighbors? Never slipped into their houses and carried away silk underwear, never stolen a black silk stocking or a lace teddy?”

Her heart pounded; if she had been human, her face would have flamed red.

“My dear Dulcie, I know all about your little escapades. About the box that your Wilma Getz keeps on her back porch so the neighbors can retrieve their stolen clothes, about Mr. Warren’s chamois gloves that were a present from his wife, about Wilma’s own expensive watch that was ‘lost’ under the bathtub for nearly a year.”

She watched him narrowly. Where had he heard such things? All her neighbors knew, but?Mavity.It had to be Mavity-she could have heard it anywhere. She’d probably told that cute little story to Greeley, having no idea she would hurt Dulcie.

“Mavity thinks you’re charming,” Azrael told her, “dragging home the neighbor’s underwear.”

The tomcat twitched his whiskers.“And Greeley, of course, was most fascinated by your display of, shall we say, perspicacity and guile.”

He looked up to the shelves above them, drawing her gaze to a row of ugly black carvings.“Those figures up there, my dear, those ugly little feathered men-youdoknow that those are voodoo dolls?”

“So?”

“That dark voodoo magic is of great importance.” His smile was oily.

“It is that kind of darkness in you, Dulcie, that entices you to steal. Oh, yes, my dear, we are alike in that.

“You know the tales of the black cat,” he said softly, “of the witch’s familiar. Those are the tales of the dark within us-that is the darkness that invites the joy of thieving, my dear. That is the darkness speaking within your nature.”

She had backed away from him, her paw raised to slash him, but his golden eyes held her, his pupils huge and black, his purring voice drawing her, enticing her.

“You and I, Dulcie, we belong to the dark. Such magic and passion are rare, are to be treasured.

“Oh, yes, the dark ways call to you, sweet tabby. The dark, voodoo ways.” He narrowed his eyes, his purr rumbling. “Voodoo magic. Black magic. Shall I say the spells for you, the dark spells? The magic so dear to your jungle brothers? Come, my Dulcie?” and he slid close against her, making her tremble.

She spun away from him hissing and crouched to leap to the transom, but he blocked her way. She fled into the showroom. He followed.

“In the jungle, my dear, the voodoo witches make dark enchantments, such exotic and exciting spells-spells to sicken and waste your enemies-and love spells, my dear?”

She leaped away but he was there pressing against her. When she lashed out at him, his topaz eyes burned with amusement and his black tail described a measured dance.

“My dark powers fascinate you, sweet Dulcie. My cunning is human cunning, but beneath my black fur, my skin is marked by the spots of the jungle cat.

“I have teased jungle dragons as big as two men and have come away unscathed. I have hunted among constrictors twenty feet long, have dodged snakes so huge they could swallow a dozen cats.” And the tomcat’s words and his steamy gaze filled her with visions she didn’t want.

“I have hunted in the mangrove trees, dodging hairy beasts with the faces of ghosts, creatures that hang upside down among the branches, their curving claws reaching as sharp as butcher knives, their coats swarming with vermin.” The black torn purred deep in his throat. “I have witnessed human voodoo rites where an image of Christ is painted with goat’s blood and common cats are skinned alive, their innards?”

“Stop it!” She twisted away, leaping to the top of a cabinet-but again he was beside her, his eyes wild, her distress exciting him. “Come run with me, Dulcie of the laughing eyes. Come with me down the shore under the full moon. Come where the marsh birds nest, where we can suck bird’s eggsand eat the soft, sweet baby birds, where we can haze the bedraggled stray cats that cower beneath the docks, the starving common cats that crouch mute beneath the pier. Come, sweet Dulcie?”

His words, frightening and cruel, stirred a wildness in her, and the torn pressed her down, began to lick her ear.“Come with me, sweet Dulcie, before the moon is gone. Come now while the night is on us.” His voice was soft, beguiling, dizzying her.

She raked him hard across the nose and leaped away, knocking sweaters to the floor, tipping a tall wooden man that fell with a crash behind her as she fled through the storeroom and up the pile of crates and out the transom.

Dropping down the vine to the mist-damp sidewalk, she fled up the side lane and across Eighth, across Seventh and then Ocean past the darkened, empty shops, never looking back, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t have heard a dozen beasts chasing her, certainly couldn’t have heard the soft padding of Azrael’s swift pursuit.

But when, stopping in the shadow of a car, she crouched to look behind her, the sidewalk and street were empty. Above her, along the rooftops, nothing moved.

What had happened to her back there? Despite her anger, she had been nearly lost in a cocoon of dark desire.

Pheromones,she told herself.Nothing but a chemical reaction. His sooty ways have nothing to do with real life.

Shaken with repugnance at herself, she spun away again racing for home, speeding past the closed shops and at last hitting her own street, storming across Wilma’s garden, trampling the flowers, up the back steps and in through her cat door, terrified of the dark stranger and terrified of herself.

Crouching on the linoleum, she watched her door swinging back and forth, unable to shake the notion that he would come charging through.

But after a long time when the plastic door grew still and remained pale, without any looming shadow, she tried to calm herself, washing and smoothing her ruffled fur and licking at her sweating paws.

She felt bruised with shame. She had for one long moment abandoned Joe Grey-for one moment abandoned the bright clarity of life and slipped toward something dark, something rancid with evil.

Azrael’s twisted ways were not her ways.

She was not an ignorant, simple beast to whom a dalliance with Azrael would be of no importance. She was sentient; she and Joe Grey bore within themselves a rare and wonderful gift. With human intelligence came judgment. And with judgment came commitment, an eternal and steely obligation and joy from which one did not turn away.

In her gullible and foolish desire, she had nearly breeched that commitment.

There would never be another like Joe Grey, another who touched her with Joe’s sweet magic. She and Joe belonged to each other; their souls were forever linked. How could she have warmed, for the merest instant, to Azrael’s evil charms?

Pheromones,she told herself, and defiantly she stared at her cat door ready to destroy any intruder.

10 [????????: pic_11.jpg]

LATER THAT MORNING, in the patio of the Spanish-style structure, where piles of new lumber lay across the dry, neglected flower beds, from within a downstairs apartment came the sudden ragged whine of a skill-saw, jarring the two cats as they padded in through the arch past a stack of two-by-fours. The air was heavy with the scent of raw wood, sweet and sharp.

Joe couldn’t count how many mice he and Dulcie had killed in the tall grass that surrounded this building, before Clyde bought the place. Situated high above the village, the two-story derelict stood alone on the crest of the hill facing a dead-end street. The day Clyde decided to buy it was the first timeJoe had gained access or wanted to enter the musty rooms. Even the exterior smelled moldy; the place was a dump, the walls stained and badly in need of paint, the roof tiles faded and mossy, the roof gutter hanging loose.

That day, trotting close to Clyde entering the front apartment beneath festoons of cobwebs as thick as theater curtains, he was put in mind of a Charles Addams creepy cartoon; beneath the cobwebs and peeling wallpaper hung old-fashioned, imitation gas lights; under Joe’s paws, the ancient floors were deeply scarred as if generations of gigantic rats had dug and gnawed at the wood.

“You’re going to buy this heap?”

“Made an offer today,” Clyde had said proudly.

“I hope it was a low offer. What are they asking for this monstrosity?”

“Seven hundred.”

“Seven hundred dollars? Well?”

“Seven hundred thousand.”

“Seven hundredthousand?“He had stared at Clyde, unbelieving.

Over the sour smell of accumulated dirt he could smell dead spiders, dead lizards, and generations of decomposing mouse turds.“And who is going to clean and restore this nightmare?”

“I am, of course. Why else would I?”

“You?Youare going to repair this place? Clyde Damen who can’t even change a lightbulb without a major theatrical production?You’regoing to do the work here?Thisis your sound financial investment, and you’re going to protect that investment by working on it yourself?”

“May I point out that one apartmenthasbeen refurbished, that it looks great and is rented for a nice fifteen hundred a month? That most of what you’re seeing is simply dirt, Joe. The place will be totally different when it’s cleaned and painted. You take five apartments at fifteen hundred each?”

“Less taxes. Less insurance-fire insurance, liability insurance, earthquake insurance-less yard maintenance, utility bills, general upkeep?”

“After expenses,” Clyde had said patiently, “I figure ten, maybe twelve percent profit. Plus a nice depreciation write-off, to say nothing of eventual appreciation, a solid capital gain somewhere down the line.”

“Capital gain? Appreciation?“Joe had sneezed with disgust, imagining within these walls vast colonies of termites-overlooked by the building inspectors-chewing away on the studs and beams, weakening the interior structure until one day, without warning, the walls would come crashing down. He had envisioned, as well, flooded bathrooms when the decrepit plumbing gave way and faulty wiring, which at the first opportunity would short out, emit rivers of sparks, and ignite the entire building.

Which, he thought, might be the best solution.

“Itisinsured?”

“Of course it’s insured.”

“I can’t believe you made an offer on this. I can’t believe you sold those five antique cars-those cars that were worth a fortune and that you loved like your own children, those cars you spent half your life restoring-sold them to buythis.Ten years from now when you’re old and feeble and still working on this monstrosity and are so in debt you’ll never?”

“In ten years I will not be old and feeble. I am in the prime of my life. And what the hell do you know about houses? What does a cat know about the value of real estate?” Clyde had turned away really angry, hadn’t spoken to him for the rest of the day-just because he’d pointed out a few obvious truths.

And, what was worse, Dulcie had sided with Clyde. One look at the inside of the place and she was thrilled.“Don’t be such a grouch, Joe. It’s lovely. It has loads of charm. Big rooms, nice high ceilings. All it needs is?”

“The wrecking ball,” Joe had snapped. “Can you imagineClydefixing it up? Clyde, who had to beg Charlie to repair our leaky roof?”

“Maybe he’ll surprise you. I think the house will be good for him.” And she had strolled away waving her tail, padding through the dust and assessing the cavernous and musty spaces like some high-powered interior designer. Staring above her at the tall windows, trotting across the splintery floors through rooms so hollow that her smallest mew echoed, Dulcie could see only fresh paint, clean window glass, deep windowseats with puffy cushions, soft carpets to roll on. “With Charlie’s help,” she had said, “he’ll make it look wonderful.”

“They’re both crazy, repairing old junkers-Clyde fixing up this place, Charlie trying to save that heap of a VW. So he rebuilds the engine for her, does the body work, takes out the dings and rust holes, gives it new paint?”

“And fits out the interior,” Dulcie said, “with racks and cupboards for her cleaning and repair equipment-for vacuum cleaners, ladders, paint, mops, cleaning chemicals. It’ll be nice, too, Joe. You’ll see.”

Charlie had made it clear that her work on the apartments would be part-time, that her other customers came first. Her new business was less than a year old; she couldn’t afford to treat her customers badly or to turn customers away. She was lucky to have Pearl Ann on the job. Pearl Ann Jamison, besides having useful carpentry skills, was steadier, Charlie said, than most of the men she’d hired. Except for her solitary hikes up and down the coast, Pearl Ann seemed to want no other life but hard work. Pearl Ann’s only faults were a sour disposition and a dislike of cleaning any house or apartment while the occupant was at home. She said that the resident, watching over her shoulder, flustered her, made her feel self-conscious.

Now, the cats sat down in a weed-filled flower bed, listening for any mole that might be working beneath the earth. The patio was sunny and warm. The building that surrounded them on three sides contained five apartments, three up and two down, allowing space on the main level for a bank of five garages that were entered from a driveway along the far side of the building. Winthrop Jergen’s apartment was directly above the garages. Strange, Joe thought, that well-groomed, obviously well-to-do and discerning Winthrop Jergen, with his elegant suits, nice furniture, and expensive Mercedes would want to live in such a shabby place, to say nothing of putting up with the annoyance of arenovation project, with the grating whine of skill-saws and endless hammering, as he tried to concentrate on financial matters in his home office. But despite the noise, Jergen seemed content. Joe had heard him tell his clients that he liked the privacy and that he was totally enamored of the magnificent view. From Jergen’s office window he had a wide vista down the Molena Point hills to the village rooftops and the sea beyond; he said the offbeat location suited him exactly.

And Clyde was happy to have the rent, to help pay for materials while he was restoring the other four units.

Dulcie and Joe watched, through the open door of the back apartment, Charlie set up a stepladder and begin to patch the livingroom ceiling; the patching compound smelled like peppermint toothpaste. Above them, through an upstairs window, they could hear the slidingscuff, scuff of atrowel and could see Pearl Ann mudding Sheetrock. All the windows stood open except those to Jergen’s rooms; Winthrop Jergen kept his office windows tightly closed to prevent damage to his computer.

As the cats sunned in the patio, Mavity Flowers came out of the back apartment and headed upstairs, hauling her mop and bucket, her vacuum cleaner, and cleaning caddy. The cats, hoping she might stir up a last, lingering mouse, followed her as far as the stairwell, where they slipped beneath the steps.

The dusty space under the stairs still smelled of mouse, though they had wiped out most of the colony-mice as easy to catch as snatching goldfish from a glass bowl, the indolent creatures having lived too long in the vacant rooms. Winthrop Jergen’s only complaint when Clyde took over as landlord was the persistence of the apartment’s small rodents. A week after Joe and Dulcie got to work, Jergen’s complaints ceased. He had no idea that the cats hunted in his rooms; the notion would have given him fits. The man was incredibly picky-didn’t want ocean air or dust to touch his computer, so probably cat hair would be the kiss of death.

But the mice were gone, and it was while hunting the rodent colony that they had found the hidden entrance into Jergen’s rooms.

To the left of the stairs was a two-foot-wide dead space between the walls, running floor to ceiling. It could be entered from a hole beneath the third step, where the cats now crouched. Very likely Clyde would soon discover the space, which ran along beside the garages, and turn it into a storage closet or something equally useful and dull. Meantime, the vertical tunnel led directly up to Winthrop Jergen’s kitchen. There, a hinged flap opened beneath the sink, apparently some kind of cleanout access for the plumbing, so a workman could reach through to the pipes-an access plenty large enough to admit a mouse, a rat, or an interested cat into Jergen’s rooms.

Now, scrambling up inside the wall from fire block to fire block, they crouched beneath Jergen’s kitchen sink listening to Mavity’s vacuum cleaner thundering back and forth across the livingroom rug; the machine emitted a faint scent of fresh lavender, which Mavity liked to add to the empty bag. They could not, this morning, detect any scent of new mice that might have entered the premises, but all visits to Jergen’s rooms were of interest, particularly to Dulcie with her curiosity about computers-she was familiar with the library functions but spreadsheets were a whole new game.

Waiting until Mavity headed for the bedroom, they crossed the kitchen and sat down in the doorway, ready to vanish if the financier turned around. He sat with his back to them, totally occupied with the numbers on the screen.

Jergen’s office took up one end of the spacious living room. His handsome cherry-wood desk stood against the front windows, looking down the Molena Point hills-though all the cats could see from floor level was the blue sky and a few clouds, whose dark undersides hinted of rain.

The light of Jergen’s computer cast a faint blue gleam across his well-styled silver hair. His busy fingers produced a soft, constant clicking on the keys. His pale gray suit was smoothly tailored. His shoes, in the cats’ direct line of sight, were of soft, gleaming black leather. Everything about Winthrop Jergenpresented an aura of expensive good taste.

To Jergen’s right stood two cherry file cabinets, then a row of tall bookshelves filled with professional-looking volumes. The thick Kirman rug was oversized, fitting nearly to the pale walls, its colors of ivory and salmon forming a soft background to the creamy leather couch and the rose silk easy chairs. The six etchings on the left wall were delicately detailed studies of far and exotic cities, each with unusual rooftops: conical roofs, fluted roofs, straw ones topping stone huts, and a vista with sharply peaked domes. Each city flanked a seaport, as if perhaps the etchings embodied Jergen’s dreams of far and extensive travel. The vacuuming ceased, and the cats backed into shadow. As Mavity returned with a lemon-scented cloth and began to dust the end tables, Jergen stopped typing.

“Mavity, would you hand me that file? There on the credenza?”

She picked up a file from the cherry credenza, brought it across to him, her work-worn hands dry and wrinkled compared to Jergen’s smooth hands and neatly manicured nails.

“And that book-the black account book.”

Obediently she brought the book to him, complying as a kindergartner might obey a revered teacher.

“Thank you, Mavity. Your Coca-Cola stock is doing very well; you should expect a nice dividend soon. And though I can’t be certain, it appears the Home Depot stock should split this month, and that will give you a really handsome bonus.”

Mavity beamed.“I don’t know no way to thank you, Mr. Jergen, for all you’re doing for me.”

“But, Mavity, your good fortune is in my interest, too. After all, I enjoy a nice percent of your earnings.”

“Oh, and you deserve it,” she said hastily. “You earn every penny and more.”

Jergen smiled.“It’s a fair exchange. I expect your niece and her husband have arrived by now, for their visit? Didn’t you tell me they were coming this week?”

“Oh, yes, all tucked up in my little place, and enjoying the beach.” Mavity began to wind her vacuum cleaner cord, turning away to straighten it.

Jergen smiled briefly and returned to his computer; he began to work again, deep into columns of numbers. Dulcie’s eyes widened at the large amounts of money flashing on the screen and at the names of the impressive financial institutions-firms mentioned with serious respect in the library’s reference department. But soon both cats grew impatient with a world so far removed, that they could not smell or taste or deal with directly, and they slipped away, leaping down within the dark wall, crouching at the bottom.

In the musty shadows of the narrow, hidden space, Dulcie’s eyes were as black as midnight. “Mavity trusts Jergen totally. She thinks he hung the moon. Why does he make me uneasy?”

Joe looked at her and shrugged.“Don’t start, Dulcie. There’s nothing wrong with Jergen. You’re just bored-looking for trouble.”

She hissed at him but said nothing as they padded out beneath the stairs into the sunny patio. And they both forgot Winthrop Jergen when a pale blue BMW pulled up in front.

Bernine Sage swung out and came into the patio, her high heels clicking sharply across the worn bricks. Pausing, she glanced through the open doors of the two first-floor apartments.

In the back apartment Charlie had stopped work. She stood quietly on her ladder watching Bernine, but she did not call out to her. Not until Bernine headed purposefully in her direction did Charlie come down the ladder.“Looking for Clyde?” Her tone was not cordial.

“I have an appointment with Winthrop Jergen,” Bernine said cooly. “Is it upstairs? How do I??”

Charlie pointed toward the stairwell. Bernine said nothing more but headed across the patio.

Behind her, relief softened Charlie’s face. And from an upperfloor window, Pearl Ann stood at the glass watching the little scene with a dry, amused smile.

The cats listened to the clink of Bernine’s heels on the stairs, then her soft knock.

“She doesn’t waste any time, does she?” Dulcie said with a cutting little mew.

Joe shrugged.“She’ll start off talking investments, then come onto him. The woman’s a leech.” He curled up in the sunny weeds, yawning.

Dulcie curled up beside him, watching and listening. And it wasn’t half an hour later that they heard the upstairs door open and heard Bernine say softly, “Twelve-thirty, then. See you tomorrow.” And she clicked down the steps and left the patio with a smug, self-satisfied expression. Her fast work, even for Bernine, piqued Dulcie’s interest like the sound of mice scratching at a baseboard.

She watched Bernine drive away, then looked up at Jergen’s apartment. “Does he realize she’s a little gold digger? He seems smarter than that.”

“Maybehe’splaying at some game-maybe he sees right through her.”

Dulcie smiled.“I want to see this. I want to see how he looks when he leaves to pick her up, what he’s wearing?”

“That’s incredibly nosy. What difference?”

“What he’s wearing,” she said with patient female logic, “will indicate what he has in mind-what he thinks of Bernine.”

And Dulcie’s curiosity drew them back the next day to the patio, where they lay napping in the sun as Winthrop Jergen left his apartment. The sight of him made Dulcie laugh.

“Just as I thought. Trying to look like a twenty-year-old.”

He was dressed in a black turtleneck sweater that set off his sleek silver hair, tight black slacks, a tan suede sport coat, and suede boots.“Right,” Dulcie said, smirking. “Bernine made a big impression. Don’t be surprised if she takes him for a nice sum-she has a way with her lovers.”

But Joe was watching Pearl Ann gathering up her cleaning equipment as Jergen’s Mercedes pulled away. Joe rose as she headed for the stairs.

“This isn’t Jergen’s regular cleaning day,” he said, as Pearl Ann slipped quickly inside. “Come on.”

In another minute they were crouched beneath Jergen’s sink, waiting for the customary cleaning sounds, for Pearl Ann’s vacuum to start. They heard only silence, then the jingle of keys and a file drawer sliding open.

Slipping to the kitchen door, they watched Pearl Ann sitting at Winthrop Jergen’s desk examining the hanging files in an open drawer. Her keys dangled on their familiar gold chain from the drawer’s lock.

Searching through the files, she removed one occasionally and laid it on the desk, paging through. Then she turned on Jergen’s computer. She seemed quite at home with the machine, scrolling through vast columns of numbers. But every few minutes she rose to lean over the desk, looking down at the street below, her jumpsuit tight across her slim rear. The scent of her jasmine cologne was so sharp that Dulcie had to press her nose against her paw to keep from sneezing. After a long perusal of both hard copy and computer files, she removed a floppy disk from her pocket and slipped it into the machine.

“Copies,” Dulcie breathed against Joe’s ear. “She’s making copies. She’s using a code. How does she know his code?” At night in the library, after some instruction from Wilma, she found the computer a challenge, though she still preferred the feel of book pages beneath her paws. She knew about codes, Wilma had shown her that; Wilma kept a few things on her computer she didn’t want the whole library to know.

When Pearl Ann seemed finished with the financial sheets, she pulled up a file of Jergen’s business letters, quickly read through them and copied them, then dropped the disk in her pocket and turned off the machine. As she turned to put away the files, a whiff of her perfume engulfed the cats, and without warning, Dulcie sneezed.

Pearl Ann whirled and saw them.

“Cats! My God! Get out of here! What are you doing in here! He’ll have a fit. How did you get in here!”

Crouching, they backed away. Neither Joe nor Dulcie cared to run beneath the sink and reveal their secret entrance. And the front door was securely closed.

“Scat! Go on, get out!” She snatched up her mop, shaking it at them.

They didn’t move.

“You nervy little beasts! Goon,get out of here!” Her voice was hoarse with impatience.

They turned toward the front door, hoping she’d open it, but they weren’t fast enough. She shouted again and lunged at them, exhibiting a temper they hadn’t guessed at.

They’d never gotten friendly with Pearl Ann, nor she with them. She did her work, and they went about their business, all perfectly civil. But now that they were in her way, they saw a more violent side to Pearl Ann Jamison. Swinging her mop, she advanced on Dulcie, trapping her against the file cabinet. “You nasty little beast.”

Dulcie fought the mop, enraging Pearl Ann, who swooped and grabbed her, snatched her up, avoiding her claws, and shook her hard.

Joe leaped at Pearl Ann, clawing her leg to make her drop Dulcie. Gasping, she hit him and swung Dulcie up.“Damncats! Damn!” she croaked. Jerking the door open, she pitched Dulcie down the stairwell.

Joe barely skinned through as she slammed the door; below him Dulcie fell, unable to find her footing. He flew down the stairs, ramming against her, pushing her into the baseboard to stop her headlong tumble. Pressing against her, he could feel her heart pounding.

“You okay?” he asked, as they crouched shivering on the steps.

“I think so. I couldn’t get my paws under me.”

“What was she so angry about? What’s with her?” He licked her face, trying to calm her. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

“I’m all right. I guess she doesn’t like cats. I never saw that side of her before.” Her voice was shaky. She licked hard at her left shoulder.

“Whatever she was doing in there, she was nervous as a rat in a cement mixer. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They beat it out through the patio, didn’t stop until they were across the street on their own turf, hidden in the tall grass.

“So whatwasshe doing?” Joe said, nosing at Dulcie’s hurt shoulder. “Is she trying to rip him off? First Bernine came onto him, and now Pearl Ann’s nosing around.” He looked intently at Dulcie. “What, exactly, was she doing at the computer?”

“I couldn’t make much of it, all those numbers make my head reel. You’d have to have an accounting degree.”

“Maybe she’s running a scam. Hire onto a job, look for something to steal. But what would she??”

“Could she be the law?” Dulcie wondered. “Or a private detective? Maybe checking on Jergen?”

“Checking on him for what?”

“I don’t know. Or maybe investigating one of his clients?”

Joe frowned, the white mark down his nose squeezing into a scowl.“Anything’s possible.”

“Whatever she was doing, and in spite of getting sworn at and tossed downstairs, I’m as much on her side as Jergen’s. Sometimes that man makes me twitch. Always so smooth and restrained-and alwayssowell-groomed.”

Joe grinned.“Not like Clyde-earthy and honest.” But then he sat lost in thought.

“Did Bernine get Jergen away so Pearl Ann could snoop?” Dulcie asked.