Cat Under Fire

24

Shorebird Lockers was a complex of twelve concrete buildings, each a hundred feet long, with wide aisles between. The roofs were of corrugated metal, and a six-foot chain-link fence enclosed the compound, its posts and bottom edge set securely into cement. The facility had all the charm of a concentration camp as seen in some old World War II movie, barren, chill to the spirit, hard to escape.

But there were no prisoners here, this camp was empty of humanity. The only life visible was the two cats trotting quickly up a wide concrete alley beneath the yellow glow cast by security lamps rising at regular intervals from the corners of the buildings. The cats avoided the center of the alley, where metal grids covered a six-inch gutter littered with refuse, scraps of paper, muddy leaves, bobby pins, an occasional lost key. The corrugated metal doors above them reflected their swift shadows flashing through shafts of harsh light. Some of the doors were narrow, some as wide as a double garage. Locker K20 was halfway up the last alley. The time was eight-fifteen. The complex had been closed for fifteen minutes.

Earlier, slipping inside the open gate, they had hidden behind a Dumpster, watching for the caretaker to come out of the office, lock up, and go home. The office occupied the far end of the building nearest the gate, and the lights were still on. They presumed the caretaker's car was parked beyond the fence on the street, one of several at the curb in front of the adjoining hardware and tool rental stores. Both those shops were closed.

Soon the man appeared, heading for the gate, a small, silver-haired old fellow. They watched him pull the chain-link gate closed from inside, snap the padlock, and turn back into the complex. He made no move to leave. Entering the little office, soon those lights went out and lights at the back came on, in the room behind, accompanied by the sound of a television, the unmistakable canned laughter of a sitcom.

"He's in for the night," Dulcie said. "I hadn't thought he might live here. But maybe the TV will hide whatever noise we make."

"I'm not planning to make any noise." He trotted away toward the back, following the numbers.

But when they had located locker K20, in the building nearest the back fence, they found there would be two locks to open.

One communal door led to a group of inner rooms, apparently small lockers sharing an inner hall. The outer door to lockers K17 through K28 was secured with a combination lock. This might be the lock Mahl's combination opened, or it might not. There was bound to be another lock inside at his individual door. Maybe a keyed lock, maybe another combination. There was also the question of the keyed padlock on the front gate. Mahl, at three in the morning, had to have a key for that. And he would have had to be very quiet loading and unloading the paintings, with the old man asleep so nearby.

They looked up at the communal padlock, its tiny silver numbers etched into a black circle. Crouching, Dulcie leaped at the heavy lock, clawing at the dial, grasping at it ineffectually with her paws.

She jumped six times and fell back. It would take both paws to turn the dial and would take a steady stance-she couldn't do it, jumping. She tried balancing on Joe's back but still she needed both paws and couldn't stay steady without bracing herself against the door. "Stop shifting around. Can't you stand still? Can't you hold your back flatter?"

"My back is not flat. I can't balance you unless I move around. This isn't going to work."

This was totally frustrating. Cats were masters at the art of balancing; any scruffy stray could trot casually along the thinnest fence. But trying to stand on Joe's back she felt as clumsy as a two-legged dog.

Irritated, she began to pace. Joe hardly noticed her as he stared high above, toward the roof.

"There's a vent up there." He crouched. "Maybe I can get through the screen."

Before she could comment he gave a powerful spring, hit the top of the metal door, clawing, digging into the wood frame. Hanging from the frame, fighting, reaching up, he was just able to hook his claws into the screen of the small, high vent. The screen ripped under his weight, and with one powerful heave he pulled himself in. Hanging in the rectangular hole, half in and half out, his belly over the sill, he kicked again and disappeared inside.

She crouched, wiggled her butt, and sprang after him up the side of the wall-and fell back, her claws screeching down the steel door so loudly she was sure the watchman would hear.

She tried again. And again. At the third leap she caught the bottom of the vent, clawing, scrabbling to hang on. Kicking hard, she pulled herself up through the screen, felt its torn, ragged edges tearing out hanks of fur.

Inside she stood in darkness, perched above the lockers just beneath the metal roof. It was warm against her back, the day's accumulation of heat still radiating from the metal. The tops of the locker walls formed an open grid stretching away. The only light was from the vent opening behind her and a matching vent maybe forty feet away, at the back. In the locker directly below her, she could make out stacked furniture, tables, chairs, bedsprings, suitcases. Peering along above the walls, she could not see Joe. She didn't call to him, she mewled softly.

"Come over the walls." His voice sounded hollow. "The fourth locker."

She crept along the top of the wall, brushing under cobwebs. The second locker smelled of mildewed clothes and was piled with cardboard boxes. Two bicycles hung on its wall beside several car parts: bumpers, fenders, a hood. The third locker was empty, emitting a chill breath that smelled of concrete. She found it mildly amusing that humans accumulated so many possessions they had to rent lockers to store them-or clutter the house to distraction, like Mama.

But why should she be amused? Was she any different, with her box of stolen sweaters and silk stockings and lacy teddies? Who knew, maybe if she was a human person she might have every closet and dresser crammed full, a compulsive shopper mindlessly dragging home everything that took her fancy.

But then, peering down into the fourth locker, she forgot human foibles, forgot her own acquisitive weakness. Looking, crouching forward, she caught her breath.

The locker was filled with paintings. Not a foot below her marched a row of big canvases, standing upright in a wooden rack.

Oh, the lovely smell of canvas and dried oil paints. Shivering, her heart pounding, she reached down her paw to pat their rough edges.

And the canvas was stapled. She could not feel any thumbtacks.

Then she saw, on the floor beyond the painting rack, Joe's white face, white chest and paws, the rest of him lost in darkness. "Be careful," he said, as she bunched to leap down, "there's some…"

Too late. She landed on something hard that flew from under her, crashing to the floor loud as an explosion.

"Some wooden crates," Joe finished. "Are you okay?"

"Damn. I'll bet the guard heard that."

"Maybe not, with the TV on. His room is clear across the complex. Maybe the crates contain Janet's sculpture; that one rattled like metal when it fell." The six wooden crates had no markings, but they were heavy and solid, securely nailed.

She reared up to look at the paintings, then hopped up into the rack between them, looked closely at a big landscape.

Yes, it was Janet's, a splashy study of the Baytowne wharves, stormy sky, crashing sea. She pushed the painting back, to reveal the next, looked up at blowing white cumulus and red rooftops. She wanted to shout, turn flips. Pushing several more canvases to lean against their mates, she feasted on blowing trees, reflective shop windows, a view uphill of dark roofs against seething cloud, the rich colors dulled in the darkness, but the movement and bold shapes were unmistakably Janet's.

They counted forty-six paintings.

"Then Stamps and Varnie didn't take any, they're all here." She frowned. "But the way they talked, they must know where the canvases are hidden."

"Maybe they plan to come back when things die down, maybe with bolt cutters."

"Why would they think the paintings would still be here? That Mahl-if he wasn't caught-wouldn't move them?"

"I don't know, Dulcie. I guess that's why Stamps said, 'Get ours while we can, and get out.' Mahl had nerve," he said, "stashing them nearly on top of the murder scene."

"Maybe he thought this was the last place anyone would look, maybe…"

"Shhh. Listen." He backed away from the door.

Footsteps approached down the wide alley beyond the communal door.

Metal rattled as the outer door rolled up. They leaped to the top of the crates, to the top of the standing paintings balancing on their edges. They were poised to spring up to the top of the wall when lights blazed on, the bare bulb on the wall of their unit nearly blinding them. And the yellow glare above, washing across the ceiling, told them the lights in all the units had come on, ignited by a master switch.

Footsteps entered the inner corridor, sending them flying to the top of the wall and away toward the back, through light as bright as day.

Below them from the hall the old man shouted, "Come out of there. You're in the complex illegally." His voice was raspy, very loud for such a small man. "Come out now, or I call the cops." He began to pound on doors. "You won't be arrested if you come out now."

"How can he think anyone's here?" Dulcie whispered. "The doors are locked from outside."

"The empty ones wouldn't be locked."

"But…"

They heard him open one of the lockers, then another, heard him rattling padlocks; and warily they moved away again, along the top of the wall. "Let's get out," Dulcie said softly.

"Be still. He'll be gone in a minute. If we go out the vent now…"

"What if he has keys?"

"He can't see us; he'd have to climb to see us. And what if he did?"

She shivered.

"We're cats, Dulcie. He'd just chase us out. I've never seen you so jumpy."

She leaned against him. "I've never been afraid quite like this. I don't know why."

"Nerves," he said unhelpfully. But then, as they crouched atop the wall, the lights went out and the footsteps headed away again. The outer door rattled as it was pulled down and they heard the padlock snap closed.

Alone again in the warm dark they relaxed, basking in the heat from the roof, feeling their thudding hearts slow, breathing more easily.

"He didn't waste any time getting out," Joe said. Stretching, he trotted away around the top of the wall, heading toward the vent. There he waited, listening. Dulcie followed. They heard a light scuffing along the alley as if the old man was shuffling away, but then silence, as if he had stopped.

"He's up to something," Joe said.

She moved to look out through the vent, but he pulled her back.

"Now who's acting nervous?"

"Keep your voice down. He didn't walk away- unless he took his shoes off."

"We could go out the back vent." But suddenly from below came the hush of tires on concrete, the soft rolling sound of a car pulling down between the buildings.

The engine stopped. They heard a second car, then the static of a police radio.

"He called the cops," Joe said incredulously. "Before he ever came out here, he called the cops."

"That crash, when I knocked the crate off. He called them then. Who knows how long he was standing out there-who knows what he heard."

They listened to car doors opening, men's voices mixed with the harsh radio voices. Again the outer door rattled up, and the overhead lights flared on like a gigantic third degree. Quickly they slipped away along the top of the wall toward the back. They heard the cops enter the little hall, hard shoes on concrete.

"Police. Come out now."

Doors were flung open as officers checked the empty lockers. Locks rattled. But then at last, silence. A softer voice. "There's no one in here, sir. The locks and hasps are all in place, nothing looks tampered with. You must have…"

"I heard someone talking. Not my imagination. Maybe they got locked in from outside. Maybe someone's sleeping in here, got locked in… "

"If there's anyone trapped here, they're mighty quiet about it."

The footfalls receded, the men's voices became fainter. But the lights remained on, and the officers left the outer door open. The cats listened to a long silence broken only by the rasping crackle of the police radio.

Joe said, "They're waiting for something. Or planning something."

Dulcie had started on toward the back when a new sound froze them. The scrape of wood on concrete. Then a little click. They crept up to the front, to look.

Below them in the hall the watchman had set up a wooden stepladder, and an officer was climbing. They backed away and ran, heading for the back vent.

They were crouched by the vent when the officer rose above the wall of the first locker. Tilting his head sideways, pressing his forehead against a rafter, he managed to look over into the first little room, peering down through the six-inch gap.

"This one's empty, some furniture but nothing to hide under."

The minute he vanished again, presumably to move the ladder, they clawed a hole in the screen and pressed through. Poised on the sill, they stared down at the concrete walk nine feet below. They leaped together, landed hard, jolting every bone. And they ran, skirting along beside the fence. They were crouched to swarm up the six feet of chain link when Joe stopped and turned back.

"What?" She remained poised to leap.

"Idea," he said, briefly trotting away around the far end of the building. She followed him, puzzled and excited, toward the alley where the patrol cars were parked. When Joe was silent, some wild plan was unfolding.

He crouched at the corner, listening to the police radio. Carefully he peered around, down the alley toward the patrol cars.

"They're still inside. Come on."

She sped beside him toward the two squad cars. The drivers' doors stood open, maybe to give quick access to the radios. They slipped beneath the first car.

"Keep watch," he said, and slid up into the driver's seat, sleek and quick, a vanishing shadow.

She pictured him inside, stepping delicately among the cops' field books and gloves and radio equipment, then she heard him talking, his voice soft.

But when he pressed the button to talk, the voices and static were silent. Those cops would hear him, they'd come charging out. She crouched shivering beneath the car's open door, ready to hiss at Joe, ready to run like hell.

But the caretaker's raspy voice filled the air, steady and loud, as he told the three officers some long involved story. No one glanced toward the squad car.

Joe went silent, slid out and from the patrol car, a swift shadow, and they streaked away up the alley. Around the corner they sat down and made themselves comfortable beside the wall, to wait.

The third patrol car parked beside Mahl's locker. Not ten minutes had passed. They watched Captain Harper emerge. He was not in uniform but dressed in jeans and a Western shirt. Detective Marritt was with him, fully in uniform, his expression sour. As the two men moved inside, the cats approached, slipping down the alley close to the wall, crouching just outside the big open door, to listen.

Harper was puzzled, then angry. He went up the ladder for a look. Which officer had called in? No one had. Well why hadn't they? Didn't anyone wonder about those paintings? Didn't anyone look at them? What was the ladder for, if you didn't look at what was there? You could see two of the paintings clearly. Didn't anyone wonder about those big splashy landscapes? Didn't anyone recognize them?

When Harper sent the watchman to get a pole, the cats crouched under a squad car out of sight. The small, wiry man trotted by, looking half-afraid. He returned quickly, carrying a six-foot length of door molding.

They watched Harper climb the ladder and reach his pole to move the leaning paintings; he would be gently flipping them back one at a time, looking. Soon his voice, always dry, took on a quality of both excitement and rage.

"Didn't any of you connect this locker to Janet? Did you forget there's a case in court involving her death? Didn't you think it strange that so many of her paintings are here?

"Don't tell me that not one of you three recognized her work, after all the damned fuss and publicity. Didn't any of you remember the Aronson testimony, that there are only a few of her paintings left?"

Dulcie and Joe glanced at each other. Harper was really steamed.

"Didn't you think when you saw this stuff that it was worth checking out? What were you doing in here?

"And who called into the station, which one of you?"

None of the three had called.

Harper centered on the caretaker. "Did you use the police radio? Did you call in when you went to get the ladder?"

The old man swore he hadn't. Harper said if none of them had called, then who did? Why did he have to rely on some anonymous informant, and how the hell did an informant get hold of a police radio? The cats could tell he was itching to get back to the station and get to the bottom of the puzzle.

When Harper began on the watchman, boring in, the cats felt sorry for the old fellow. Little Mr. Lent said the man who had rented the locker was a Leonard Brill, Brill had given a San Francisco address. Mr. Brill was, Lent said, extremely nice and helpful. When the compound had been broken into a few weeks ago and the outer gate padlock cut off, it was Mr. Brill who saved the day, he had happened by shortly after the occurrence.

One of the officers remembered the incident. Lent had put in a call when he had found the lock cut off, but nothing had seemed disturbed inside the complex. They thought the break-in had been an aborted attempt, that perhaps the burglar had run off when the watchman showed up, had never actually gotten inside.

"And then Mr. Brill happened along," Mr. Lent said. "Just after the officers left. He'd seen the police cars, and wondered if there was trouble.

"Well it was dark, and most of the stores were closed. I didn't know where I was going to get a lock for the night, and I didn't want to leave the place open. Mr. Brill had a lock in his car, a brand-new heavy-duty padlock. He said I could use it. I told him I'd return it, soon as I got a new one, but he said, no need. Said he'd bought it for his garage down in Santa Barbara but then he'd changed his mind, had decided to put in a remote door opener. More secure, he said. Said he was always losing keys." Lent laughed. "I know about losing keys. If I didn't keep 'em chained to my belt, I wouldn't have a key to my name.

"I had to argue with him before he'd let me pay him. But after all, the lock had never been used, it was still sealed in its plastic bubble, still in the hardware store bag with the receipt. So of course I paid him. Management reimbursed me later. Nice man, Mr. Brill, a real gentleman."

Lent's description of Brill was large, hunched, and rather owl-like in appearance but handsomely dressed, a fine camel hair sport coat, and a nice car, a red sports coupe of some kind.

"Maybe a rental," Joe said. This explained the bolt cutters in Mahl's closet. Explained nicely how, at three in the morning, Mahl was able to get into the complex. No problem, before ever he gave Lent the "new" lock, to carefully open the sealed package, have the key copied, then seal it up again with its keys.

The men stopped talking, the ladder rattled. The cats nipped back up the alley, they were crouched below the chain-link fence when they heard car doors slam, heard the first car start. One big leap and they were up, clinging to the wire. Scrambling over, within seconds they were headed home, Dulcie purring so loud she sounded like a sports car slipping down the street.

"I'm glad her paintings are safe. I told you we'd find them."

He brushed against her, licked her ear. "Without you, Mahl would have gotten away with it.

"And," he said, "Rob Lake might have burned for Janet's murder." And trotting along through the night, Joe grinned.

So Clyde thinks we don't have any business messing around with a murder case. So we ought to be chasing little mousies or playing with catnip toys. He could hardly wait to say a few words to Clyde.