Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

TWENTY-TWO

I slid in the booth opposite Paloma, and a sweet-faced waitress in an obviously homemade dress brought me a mug of hot coffee without being told.

Raising her voice to speak over the music, the waitress said, “Our special today is meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Would you like that, or would you like to see a menu?”

Out of consideration for Paloma’s grief, I hesitated. I remembered what it was like to be unable to swallow anything other than tears, and I didn’t want to seem crass. On the other hand, it had been a long time since breakfast, and I love the unabashed over-buttered, over-creamed, deep-fried, gooey, over-sugared excessiveness of Amish food, even if most Amish cafés consider canned green beans a vegetable.

I said, “The meat loaf, please, with a side of fried okra.”

The waitress and I both looked questioningly at Paloma.

I said, “You’ll have more energy to cope with things if you eat.” I sounded like my grandmother, but she looked so beaten and overwhelmed that I couldn’t help myself.

She managed a wan smile and nodded. “Okay. I’ll have what she has.”

The waitress swished away, her hair tidy in its prim little Amish bun cover, her butt cheeks so firm from riding a bicycle they could have cracked walnuts.

I said, “I’m very grateful that you called, Paloma.”

“I can’t stay long. Jochim would kill me if he knew I left … . There are people at my house, you know, people with food who have come to pay their respects.”

Of course there were. People always bring food to the bereaved because they don’t know what else to do and because they know grief makes people forget to eat.

I said, “It was brave of you to meet me.”

“I always knew it was wrong … I just never thought it would get my husband killed.”

Her eyes darted around the room as if she were making sure nobody recognized her, and I was glad the music was so loud. Maybe it would give Paloma the feeling that she couldn’t be heard.

She leaned over the table toward me. “They are devil worshippers in that house. That woman, that nurse, does awful things with the blood of that animal, the what-you-call-it.”

“The iguana?”

“Yes, the iguana. They use it for devil ceremonies.”

I felt like a hot-air balloon that has just been shot full of holes while hovering above a bottomless abyss. Paloma didn’t really have any information for me, she only had superstitious silliness, beliefs and fears carried over from centuries-old ignorance.

She must have seen my face sag, because her voice rose urgently. “She made Ramón carry the animal in the house for their devil rites. He told me, but he would not tell me exactly what they did, the nurse and the man and of course Ramón too, because they made him join in what they did. Evil, nasty things! He came home with whip marks on his body, scratches too. He was ashamed, I know … they had an unnatural hold on him. Jochim has told me there are people who play torture games … .”

Her voice broke and she grabbed a napkin to cover her face, hiding behind it like a child who thinks she’s invisible if she can’t see you.

The waitress came with a heaping plate in each hand and a basket of hot rolls and corn bread in the crook of one arm. When she spun away to get us fresh coffee, Paloma lowered the napkin from her face and looked suspiciously at her food.

The piped music changed to “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” but there was nobody in our booth feeling joyful and triumphant. For a couple of minutes I was so disappointed that all I could do was fork up meat loaf and mashed potatoes. A few bites of crisp fried okra revived me enough to venture one remark.

“The whip and claw marks on Ramón probably came from the iguana. If you carry an iguana wrong, it will lash you with its tail and scratch you with its claws. Unless Ramón was experienced with iguanas, he probably didn’t know the right way to carry them.”

“He once worked in a zoo. In the reptile house.”

“Did the zoo have iguanas?”

“No, only snakes.”

“Well, there you go. Not the same thing.”

With a slightly lighter expression, she took a few bites of mashed potato. “You really think it was the animal that made those marks on Ramón?”

“I’m certain of it.”

I thought of the lash mark on Ramón’s face when I’d seen him in the guardhouse, but I didn’t think it would make Paloma feel any better if she knew I’d seen her husband dead.

“It doesn’t matter. They were still performing devil ceremonies with the animal’s blood.”

I buttered a square of hot corn bread and looked bleakly at her. I suppose it will take several more millennia before some human beings stop scaring themselves with fables about a cosmic devil or believing that other human beings regularly consort with it.

Dully, I said, “What makes you think they did something with the iguana’s blood?”

“Ramón told me himself. He watched them take blood from the animal. Straight from the heart, not like when they stick your finger, but right from the heart. She did it, not the man, but the man was present every time, waiting for the blood. It was for him. Ramón said he has drunk so much of the animal’s blood that he has turned blue. Is that true? Is the man blue?”

Well, she had me there. No doubt about it, the man was decidedly blue.

I said, “Mr. Kurtz has a blue cast to his skin, but I don’t believe he has drunk iguana blood. That wouldn’t turn him blue, it would kill him.”

Paloma waved her fork at me. “He is very sick, no?”

“Not from drinking iguana blood.”

“Then why?”

She had me again.

“I don’t know why, but I know that humans can’t mix their chemistry with animals’ chemistry.”

Even as I said it, I thought of the legendary Bill Haast, a Florida serpent expert who injects himself once a week with the venom from thirty-two species of poisonous reptiles. His system has such powerful snakebite antibodies that his blood once saved a snakebite victim’s life. Perhaps Paloma was telling the truth. Even though iguanas aren’t poisonous, and even though no possible good could come of it, perhaps in some twisted way Ken Kurtz was trying to emulate Bill Haast.

I said, “Did Ramón actually watch any devil ceremonies?”

She lowered her eyes and patted at her mashed potatoes with the tines of her fork, making little railroad tracks in them.

“When I asked him what they did, he yelled at me to shut up. He didn’t want to tell me what he saw.”

“How can you be sure he saw anything?”

“He had to. He was there. He saw and he was ashamed, but he did not leave.”

I felt a surge of irritation for this pretty woman who was so angry at her dead husband.

“Paloma, was your husband paid well?”

“Sure, they paid him a lot to keep quiet about what he saw.”

“Maybe that’s why he didn’t leave. The money was for his family.”

“That is true. He always brought his pay to me.”

“What will you do now?”

She lowered her eyes again. “We will go home now. All of us, Jochim and his family too. Maybe we will start a business together.”

Something furtive and sly in her expression made me sit up straighter. “A business?”

She gave a little toss of her head. “Jochim is smart. We could do that.”

Keeping my eyes fixed on my meat loaf, I said, “Takes a lot of money to start a business.”

In a proud rush, she said, “That won’t be a problem now.”

“Ramón had insurance?”

“I shouldn’t tell you—Jochim will kill me if he knows I told—but it’s the way you said, Ramón did love me. He had to, or he wouldn’t have provided for us so well. With the insurance money, we can go home and have a good life.”

Her eyes sparkled with happy anticipation, for a moment forgetting the source of her new wealth.

I said, “I take it you’ve already contacted the insurance company.”

“No, I didn’t even know about the insurance until the man came.”

“The man?”

“The man who brought the money. He came late last night.”

“Let me get this straight. A man came late last night with a check from an insurance company.”

“Not a check, real money. That’s where Jochim is now—he’s putting it in a safe box at the bank.”

“Did the man give you his name?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so. He was a skinny Anglo in a suit. He gave me an envelope with the money and said now I could take my children and go home. He said that was what Ramón told him he wanted, for us to go home.”

The music changed to “O Holy Night,” and I looked down at my arms to see if my goose bumps were visible. “Do you mind telling me how much money he gave you?”

She leaned forward and in a proud girlish whisper said, “A hundred thousand dollars!”

The likelihood that somebody from an insurance company had hand-delivered a hundred thousand in cash to Paloma was so remote that it boggled my mind that she believed it. On the other hand, it wasn’t much of a jump from believing Gilda had performed satanic rites with Ziggy.

I swallowed the last morsel of meat loaf and said, “I suppose your brother is pleased for you.”

“And for himself too. To tell the truth, Jochim has not been himself here. He has been influenced by bad friends, I think. Now he can start over again.”

I wondered if Jochim was as naive as Paloma or if he was simply taking advantage of a chance to take his family and go home. In either case, I had a feeling that he and Paloma would be a lot safer once they were well away.

Feeling like somebody who’s already seen what’s behind Doors Number One and Two, I said, “Paloma, the man who gave you the money—did he have an Irish accent?”

She looked confused. “He sounded like any Anglo to me.”

I thought about Paco saying people always remember an accent instead of anything else. But maybe Paloma lumped all non-Spanish accents together and just heard Anglo.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Paloma. It has been a big help.”

She smiled shyly, caught in a flood of new self-importance that almost overshadowed her grief.

I couldn’t help myself. I said, “What about the kitten?”

As if she were reprimanding a child, she said, “We can’t take a kitten all that way. We will give it to somebody.”

I said, “You should leave as soon as you can. Whoever killed Ramón may think you know whatever he knew. You could be in danger too.”

She turned her head in slow motion, as if she were afraid her cells would fly away if she moved too fast.

“We are good people! Ramón was a good man! Why has this happened to us?”

I didn’t have any answers. Her questions would be with her forever. They’re the real legacy survivors are left with—the endless questions of why.

In the Bronco, I sat for a second before I pulled out of the parking place. It wasn’t true that meeting with Paloma had been a big help. All it had done was give me a bit of information about the man who had called me to take care of Ziggy. He was either rich enough to pass out envelopes containing a hundred thousand dollars in cash, or he worked for somebody who was.

As I drove away, my mind played hide-and-seek with itself. At least Paloma seemed to have dropped the plan to declaw the kitten, so I could stop worrying about that. She had been so positive about Gilda taking blood from Ziggy that I had almost believed her. At least I believed that she believed it, and that Ramón had told her he’d seen Gilda do it. But I drew the line at the idea that Ken Kurtz had drunk Ziggy’s blood. No way, José. Kurtz might be a weird duck, but he wasn’t weird enough to drink iguana blood.

A little voice in my head said, Maybe he didn’t know he drank iguana blood. Maybe Gilda slipped it to him in one of his health drinks.

“Hunh,” I said, because when my little voice makes a good point, I give it credit.

Ken Kurtz had made a big point of saying Gilda kept him on a strict diet, saying she gave him special drinks she concocted. It seemed too bizarre to credit, but maybe Ramón had actually seen Gilda mix the drinks. Maybe he and Gilda had indulged in a few good laughs at how she was turning old Ken blue with her blood cocktails.

I thought of the missing packages from the refrigerator and said, “Hunh,” again. Could those packages have been vials of blood? Ziggy’s blood? Was that why Gilda had taken them and run, because she was afraid Guidry would find them and know she was playing at being Dr. Jekyll?

Out loud, I said, “Come on, Dixie, get a grip. That’s as nutty as Paloma’s devil rites.”

When I made the rounds to my pet clients, I found that Muddy’s owners had returned early to the rank odor of cat urine and the sight of Muddy on top of their baby grand piano. He had been systematically making deep scratches on the lid.

I didn’t know whether I felt more sympathetic toward them or toward Muddy. He was far too old to be trained not to scratch, and even the most dedicated cat love can lose its hold in the presence of claw marks on the furniture.

I said, “You know, Muddy lived outside for such a long time, he may never make the adjustment to living in a house.”

Mark Cramer said, “It’s too dangerous outside.”

“Here in the city, yes. But maybe you could find a family in the country where he could sleep in a barn or on a porch.”

With her nose wrinkled against the acrid urine odor, Mrs. Cramer eyed the grooves cut into her piano. “He’d be safe from traffic in the country, wouldn’t he?”

I said, “And he could chase moles and rabbits.”

Mark said, “Do you know any farmers who’d like a cat?”

I didn’t but said I’d check with the vets I knew with an offer of a free mouser to a good country home. I left them with my blessings and a bottle of Anti-Icky-Poo spray.

It may have been my imagination, but Muddy’s yellow eyes seemed full of gratitude when I told him goodbye.

I was still in the Cramers’ driveway when my cell phone rang. Not very many people have my cell phone number, so I thought it might be Guidry. But it wasn’t Guidry, and the voice was loud and abrupt in the way of people more comfortable speaking face-to-face.

“Dixie? Antonio Molina—Tony.”

I had always called him Papa Tony, but his clipped tone made me abrupt too.

“Yes?”

“I had Joe give me your number. People are saying Ramón Gutierrez was shot by his wife’s brother. That’s what is going around, and you should know this.”

“Jochim?”

“Sí, Jochim. I have spoken to him, and I want you to hear what he has to say. Private, you understand?”

My heart fluttered, but I said, “I understand.”

“We will be at the Flores Cantina on Three-oh-one at five o’clock today.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

He rang off without saying goodbye, leaving me knowing that I had just agreed to keep anything I learned from Tony or Jochim to myself.