Cat With An Emerald Eye

Chapter 9

... Need a Body Cry?

Temple was relieved to find Midnight Louie home alone when she got there, reclining regally on her zebra-striped coverlet, not a whisker out of place.

"Louie! I'm so glad to see you. Those protesters really had me worried."

She sat on the bed beside him, kicked off her shoes and stroked his sleek fur until his purr was droning louder than the buzz on her morning alarm.

"They do have a point, though," she told him meditatively. "Maybe I should close your bathroom-window escape hatch until Halloween is over. I don't know why I have this batty idea that you can take care of yourself. You're just a lit-tle kit-ty, after all."

Temple tried to bury her face in his neck fur, but Louie flattened his ears and tried to pull away, his purr on hold. She drew back to study his narrowed green eyes and air of deep affront.

Must not like too much petting. It couldn't have been something she said.

Knowing when to leave well enough alone, she changed into her fall fuzzies, a purple velour jogging suit and knitted slippers, then skated out to the kitchen on her slippery soft soles.

Time for a post supper snack. Temple hunted her cupboards, uninspired by anything she saw. Then she remembered her resolve and skated over the smooth parquet out the other side of the kitchen to her office. Papers fanned around the computer; she wrinkled her nose at the idea of tidying up tonight. After the stress of the haunted house, she just wanted to relax, but first...

She darted into the bathroom, pulled down the toilet-seat lids, climbed up on the closed seat, leaned out to reach the opposite wall, got both hands on the tiny window pulls and pushed it shut. No more Louie escapades until November!

Grunting satisfaction, she pushed herself away from the wall and clambered down from the seat. Something nagged at her, something she had forgotten to do ... a phone call? No.

Shaking her head, she sped back to the kitchen and resumed inspecting her shelves. Still nothing called to her, and she became aware that she was humming, humming something sort of familiar. Listening to herself, Temple finally found words popping into her mind ... that you do so well.

That old black magic won't work so well, she thought, when Mr. Midnight tries to make a fast escape out his favorite window. Funny she had never thought to name him Magic.

Temple stared dully at an opened box of Fruity Patooti break-fast cereal. She had forgotten something important, she knew it! Something, just now, that should have made her realize ...

some-thing due for work ... no. She yanked open the freezer compartment of her refrigerator, staring at a carton of six-week-old frozen yogurt. It would be a rubber ice sculpture by now.

Maybe if she microwaved it... What was she missing? Missing. Louie. Something about the cat.

No. Something about the cat's escape hatch ... or the pathway to it. Yes!

Temple felt the tight expression of consternation on her face stretch into horrified comprehension. Holy banana fudge!

At that very moment she heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping on the glass top of her coffee table.

She sped around the kitchen corner and took her first good look at the living room since she had come home.

Max Kinsella, dressed in cat-burglar black from neck to toe, was reclining full-length--

though not regally--on her living room sofa, browsing through a copy of Entertainment magazine.

He looked up, lifted his knuckles to the coffee table's glass top and rapped again. "I did knock, several times, but you didn't hear me.

"You were already inside!" she charged.

He shrugged and closed an article on Halloween disguises for celebrities (that he probably could have written) before sitting upright. Luckily, the reclining Max was long enough that his feet overhung the off-white sofa edge.

"You weren't home, and I make too good a target hanging around closed doors."

"You don't have a key anymore."

A duck of his head admitted the charge. "I can get in some places without keys." He smiled.

"Besides, I brought you something."

She watched him bend over and lift something from the floor. A small bag with an aluminum coating.

"You've been here a while," she suggested.

"What a detective!" He rose to hand her the bag. "I suppose you can tell just how long by checking the melting factor of the contents."

Temple hefted the bag, then rolled down the top to peek. "Oooh, caramel-pecan maple-marshmallow chocolate ripple, just the thing for a frosty October night. Too bad the manufacturer couldn't get any raspberry in there somehow."

She whisked it into the kitchen, not surprised to find that Max had followed when he lifted down a nest of glass saucers she was stretching to reach.

"So how did you figure out that I was here?" He leaned against the countertop while Temple used a serving spoon to pile colorful slabs of the low-fat frozen yogurt into two dishes. "And how did you know that I'd been here a while?"

"You won't be so smug when you find out. It's not my brilliant deducing faculties; it's one of your own unmistakable little ways."

"What? I need to know these things for future reference."

"Well, it'll only give you away to people who've lived with you. How many can that be?"

"Not many, and I'm certainly not going to give you statistics when you're holding out on me.

Stop teasing, Temple."

She handed him the filled dish and a tablespoon. Neither of them bothered eating ice cream with a teaspoon.

"You fell into that eternal masculine trap. The toilet seat lids were up, both of them. Ergo, you were here, and long enough to use the facilities. You never did get the hang of closing it."

Max made a face not produced by the tasty caramel-pecan maple-marshmallow chocolate ripple frozen low-fat yogurt he'd just sampled. "I tried, but new habits are hard to build. Why did you suddenly rush in there anyway?"

"I remembered to close Louie's exit window. He's a house cat until Halloween is over and any crazies who don't like black cats are off the streets."

He nodded. They were standing around eating in the kitchen like they used to, as easy as pie.

"What's the occasion for the treat?" Temple wondered after her third spoonful.

"I thought your throat could use something soft and cooling."

"My throat? I haven't got a sore throat, not even a sniffle."

"Maybe not inside, but outside."

Temple shut up. Her voice still sounded raspier than usual.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"What should I have told you?"

"That you'd nearly been throttled to death by that muscleman."

"It wasn't that close a thing."

"Then I dragged you out on that shoe-scouting expedition to the Goliath, and you never said a word."

"Near-throttlings can't hold a candle to hunting magic shoes, and besides, it was your show.

So how did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Vanish from the Goliath gondola while Matt and I were gawking at the shoe."

"Are you sure it wasn't at each other?"

"Get real, Kinsella. You're a pretty effective chaperon. So, why don't you tell?"

"Professional secret"

"Matt doesn't think you just swam away. Maybe he thinks you're like Louie, and don't like to get wet."

"Maybe he's right."

Temple shook her head. "Louie sacrificed himself in my service, and took a bath in the Treasure Island's moat. Yes! He was aboard the pirate ship, even tipped open the chest so I could see inside. He was the last man overboard."

"Mine was a disappearing act," Max admitted. "There's a service vent in the ceiling near the emergency stop panel for the gondolas. It wasn't hard to slither up and out without either of you noticing. Those crystal shoes make a pretty good distraction."

"But why didn't you hang around for the applause? You deserved it for figuring out where the shoes were, and did Electra tell you I was after them?"

Max shrugged, finished his frozen yogurt and rinsed the dish in the sink. Some domestic habits had sunk in during their cohabitation.

"I didn't want to steal the thunder of your triumphal detective work."

"And you left Matt and me alone in the Tunnel of Love. I thought you were jealous."

"Not jealous, realistic. I can't be a stable factor in your life, not now, maybe not ever. Why should I be a dog in the manger?"

"Because you can growl? And why come around Matt and offer to help him?"

"Know thine enemy? He's an interesting guy. I sense I'm missing the key to his character.

He's too nice for his own good, but... I see darkness." He glanced at Temple with Louie-green eyes. "You could give me a clue, if you wanted to."

"If I had any right to."

"And I don't have any right to press you." Max thrust himself away from the counter like someone pushing himself from a Thanksgiving table when he has no appetite. "Temple, you can't depend on me now for anything you depended on me for previously, not even just being there."

He was leaving again, and she felt the same unreasoning panic she had felt when he had seemed to be gone for good.

"I have matters to attend to, which may never be settled," he said. "I wouldn't bother you, or your new neighbor, except that you've involved yourselves in them. Please don't anymore. I know it's not fair for me to bounce in and out of your life like a Ping-Pong ball. I'm disturbed to discover you've been risking your life. I'm here to tell you such risks aren't worth it. I did it once when I was young, and I've never been able to stop running. So. I'll try to stay away from you and yours. I'll hope you stay safe and sane from now on."

He had already eased to the door, leaving all the unanswered questions behind.

"Max!" She followed, catching him halfway out the door.

He put his fingers to his lips and shut the door as if vanishing into one of his own trick boxes.

When she jerked it open a half second later, the hall was empty.

"Max?"

But he was gone, and his frozen-yogurt carton was dribbling on the countertop.

Temple went back inside and put the carton in the freezer. Then she washed the dishes and cried into the soapy water in the sink. Then she picked up one of the bowls and smashed it in the sink. As the water drained, leaving a rainbow foam of suds, she stared at the shards glittering under the overhead light.

Something told her she was not alone. She turned her head to find Midnight Louie sitting on the drain board, staring with polite feline horror at the broken glass.

Temple fished out the surviving saucer, rinsed away the lukewarm suds and filled it with a few dollops of caramel-pecan maple-marshmallow chocolate-ripple yogurt.

"Eat up, my lad," she told him. "I'm not letting you out until I know that it's safe out there for cats, 'cuz it sure isn't for people."