Cat To The Dogs

8

THE GERANIUM thicket was dense and tall enough to conceal a dozen tomcats, but the long stretch of tiled paving beyond it, between Joe Grey and his quarry, offered no cover. Away across the open patio, Cara Ray and the man behind the newspaper were speaking quietly. Cara Ray, stretched out on her chaise on her stomach, had untied her bikini bra to avoid strap marks, her well-oiled body highlighting a golden tan. Joe, watching her lips moving, tried to tell what she was saying, but he wasn't any good at lipreading. He supposed, like most things in life, that skill took some effort to master. Near him under the geranium leaves, a sparrow was hopping, picking up seeds, forcing Joe to exercise every ounce of self-control not to snatch the dumb little morsel and chomp him.

The flowers were so pungent and spicy that his fur would smell like geraniums for the next week. Beneath his paws, the earth was damp; as he sauntered out onto the patio he left a trail across the tiles of dark, wet pawprints.

Cara Ray had her eyes closed. Joe lay down beneath her chaise, behind her visitor, stretching out on the warm tile paving. His view up through the webbing was of Cara Ray's cheek and a lot of her anatomy. She smelled like coconut oil. He couldn't see her companion's face, only the breadth of his shoulders, and his legs and feet, which were indecently hairy, for a human. Dark, curly hair, though the hair on his head was light. His body had the kind of tan that, once it has peaked, begins to look dull and flaking. Compared with Cara Ray's blond radiance, he looked like a dust-covered mannequin that someone had dragged from an attic and posed on the chaise with an open newspaper.

"Are you sure you didn't find anything, Cara Ray? Where were you looking?''

"Sam, you'd know if I did. It's only been three days. Sitting in that old woman's stuffy parlor drinking tea until I think I'll throw up-and at night, listening to their boring stories. Grown men and women, telling fairy tales." She raised her head to look at him. "You made yourself scarce enough." Glancing down, she saw Joe under her chaise, and caught her breath. Snatching up her towel, she flapped it at him. "Shoo. Shoo."

Joe rose and moved away, out of her line of sight.

"Wha'd you want me to do, Cara Ray, jump up and throw my arms around you? Anyway, who'd have the chance, with Cousin Dirken all over you?"

Cara Ray laughed. "Farting around repairing that house. What a joke." She glared under the chaise, didn't see Joe.

Sam sniggered. "Pulling off the siding, chopping holes in that old cement and filling 'em up again." He fished a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, carefully selected one from the center, where it presumably wasn't crushed, and lit up. "Dirken tags me around every minute I'm at the house, won't let me out of his sight. Nearly has palsy if I head out into the yard."

She half rose, holding the bra. "If he watches you so close, then how do you think I can do any better? He tags me, too-as bad as Newlon."

"When Dirken watches you, Cara Ray, his mind isn't on what you're looking for. More likely on what he's wanting to look for."

She bellowed out a laugh, an alarming bray for such a sleek, petite lady.

"And the old woman?" he said. "She suspect anything?"

"Not a clue. Dim as a blind deacon passing the collection plate." She rolled over on her back, clutching her untied bra to herself, revealing more white skin than tan. "What about Torres?"

He lowered the paper and raised up, looking around at the other sunbathers. "Torres died in an accident, Cara Ray. His brakes failed." He half turned, his face in profile behind the raised newspaper. "It's time you got some results out of that old woman."

She sat up, straddling the chaise, tying on her bra. "I'm working on it. You think I can just waltz in there and make nice to his widow, right away we're bosom buddies? You think that dry old biddy is going to trust me? Share all her girlie secrets, right down to what Shamas was like in bed-if she can remember that far back. You think she's going to cozy up to me the way she does to Pedric? And we don't need that buddy-buddy stuff, either, between those two. I think…"

"Well, I have to be careful, Cara Ray. You know my old parole officer lives in this burg."

"Not likely you'll run into him. Why would you? If you stay out of jail."

"It's a her. And I damn sure might run into her. She and Lucinda are thicker than cats in a bowl of cream. All I need is for that bitch to get on my case. She sent me back twice, always hassling me. Sent me right damn back to federal prison."

"So? You're clean now. You told me you were clean."

He glanced back at her and smiled.

She laughed. "If you…" She stopped speaking, rolled over suddenly onto her belly, hiding her face.

Joe, stretching up to see what had startled her, backed deeper under the chaise as the uniformed captain swung out of the motel office. Harper didn't seem to notice Cara Ray, not a blink as he headed across the patio toward the street. Joe kept his head down, hiding the white strip on his face and his white paws, muttering a little cat prayer that Harper, watching Cara Ray out of the corner of his eye, wouldn't notice one small, gray, immobile hunk of cat fur crouching in the shadow under the chaise.

Leaving the patio, Harper walked right on past his king cab, never glancing at it. Probably he'd leave the truck parked between the buildings under the jasmine vine until Cara Ray and her friend had left the pool area. It was just after Harper left that the conversation turned even more murky. Sam, turning the newspaper page as if he were reading, said, "I need to move on, Cara Ray. Before the funeral. I've details to tend to."

"You leave before the funeral," she snapped, "don't you think someone will wonder? The funeral's what you came for. And as to the machine sales, that little adventure was your idea, not mine."

"One road leads to the other, Cara Ray." "What about the boat? The cops been back on it?" "Why would they? They got no reason. And what would they find? There's nothing to find." He snapped the newspaper irritably. "It was an accident, Cara Ray." "One road leads to the other, Sam, only if you make a track between them." Cara Ray rose; her look was as brittle as broken glass. Heading for the stairs, her blue eyes and delicate features shone as cold as an arctic ice field.