Red Cat

12

The sky was freighted with heavy clouds on Tuesday morning, and the local news was freighted with snowstorms, churning up the East Coast, driving down from Canada, and colliding all over New York. The timing was uncertain- maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day- but the predictions were dire.

“Bullshit,” Clare muttered, and tore a piece of toast in half. “They get all hysterical but they never get this stuff right.” She smeared some strawberry jam on the bread and went back to the Times.

She’d arrived early this morning, as I was getting back from my run, and we’d been sitting in amiable silence since, she leafing through the paper and I writing a report for David. I drank some orange juice and read it over.

The facts were straightforward, albeit strange: Holly was making another video and, unbeknownst to him, my brother was her costar. She’d shot most of it already, and now she was gearing up for the grand finale. For that she needed David to make a return appearance.

What to do with these facts was the problem. Ignoring Holly’s demands was one option, though a risky one. She had proven relentless in pursuit of her quarries, and the hours of video documentation she presumably had of her sessions with David would give her a lot of leverage. But leverage ran two ways. Orlando Krug had said that Cassandra was jealous of her privacy, and the kind of art she was making required anonymity- so the threat of revealing her secret identity might actually pull some weight. But Holly was also demonstrably nuts, which made her motives hard to read and her reactions impossible to predict. I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. The speculation was pointless, I knew- a little game I was playing to keep from dwelling on the videos themselves.

Twelve hours or so had given me perspective enough to see them as unique and beautifully made works. And I knew also that Holly’s former colleagues Moira Neal and Terry Greer had understated her talents as an actress. She was remarkable, and her ability and willingness to abandon herself to a role was frightening. But the queasy, sticky feeling the videos evoked still lingered. The desperation they depicted left me bleak, and their contempt and studied cruelty made me angry.

And it was impossible, of course, not to cast David as one of those faceless, mechanical men- impossible not to think about what had brought him to Holly, and what she’d captured of him with her hidden cameras. Impossible not to wonder what reserves of rage and brutality she’d tapped, and how much encouragement he’d needed. The more I thought about him the less I knew; the more he was a silhouette, receding down a darkened hallway.

Maybe it was the smell of toast that brought the memory back. Maybe it was the threatening light in the sky.

It was a bleak February Wednesday and I was home from boarding school, not for vacation but because I’d been caught, for the third time, smoking a joint in the woods behind my dorm. The dean of students said a month’s suspension might teach me a thing or two, and he’d been right. I’d learned that I could buy decent weed at decent prices from our building’s late-shift doorman, and that the weeknight bartenders at Barrytown, over on First Avenue, wouldn’t card you if you tipped well enough. I’d slept until three that day, and would’ve slept later if not for the noise. It was my parents.

My mother had delayed her midwinter pilgrimage to Boca that year, and my father was making a rare foray from his study, and they’d decided to have it out right outside my bedroom door. As was often the case in those days, I was the convenient excuse. It was nothing new and I tried to tune it out, but they were uncharacteristically loud.

“What’s he doing with himself?” my mother said.

My father chuckled. “He’s finding his way. He’s only fifteen, after all.”

“He’s sixteen, and as far as I can tell he’s not finding a goddamn thing.”

“Must everyone in this family grow up to be a banker?”

Peter Spiegelman

JM03 — Red Cat

Then there were footsteps in the hallway, and David’s voice. He was at Columbia by then, but kept turning up at home, looking for a meal or clean laundry or something. He was going on about the dean’s list and about sitting in on someone’s graduate seminar, and the sound was bright and penetrating. There was a silence when he finished, though not a long one; then my parents took up just where they’d left off.

“Apparently, not everyone must be a banker,” my mother said. “But must they be undisciplined and immature? Must they be so goddamn self-indulgent?”

My father’s laugh was grim. “And who, exactly, are we talking about now?” His words hung there for what seemed a long time. Then I heard more footsteps and figured everyone had retreated to their corners, but I was wrong. There was a shuddering sigh in the hall, muttered words, and a single curse.

“Asshole,” David said.

I’d stared at the ceiling for a while, and when it was clear there’d be no more sleep, I’d wandered into the kitchen. I was reading the paper and eating burnt toast when David came in. He wore a coat and tie and his hair was freshly cut, and he looked like a poster boy for some Bible-belt college- the debate captain, maybe. He made a show of checking his watch.

“Up early, I see,” he said. “Busy day, I guess. Plenty of TV to watch, lots of dope to smoke?” I ignored him, and he smirked. “What, no smart remark today? Maybe you’re a little fuzzy still- still buzzed from last night.”

“If I was, you just killed it.”

David’s laugh was chilly. “There it is, that winning attitude that’s done so much for you. Keep it up, Johnny, it’ll take you right to the top.” I shot him the bird and he laughed. “Keep that up, tooit’ll help when you’re interviewing for those burger-flipping jobs.” I ignored him some more, but David kept at it.

“How long do you think before they bounce you out of this school? Another semester? Less? And that’ll make how many? I keep telling Mom she’s throwing good tuition money after bad, but-”

“But she doesn’t listen to a fucking word you say, David- neither one of them does. Yet you keep on talking. And here I thought you were such a smart guy.”

David’s face darkened, and he tugged at the skin on his neck. “Smart enough not to get caught three times.”

I laughed. “Caught doing what? With all that ass-kissing and back-stabbing, you’ve got no time for anything else.”

“You’d be surprised,” he whispered, and he balled his fists and stepped toward me. I stood up. He had half an inch on me then, and twenty pounds, but I didn’t care. “Faggot,” he hissed, and brought up his hands. He dropped them when our father came in.

His hair was rumpled and his smile vague. He was still in his pajamas. “Am I interrupting?” he asked. David’s face tightened, and he turned on his heel and walked down the hall.

Where had it come from, whatever drove David to these assignations- grown from what kernel, planted where? We’d slept under the same roof- David and I, Ned, Liz, and Lauren- and eaten at the same table. Had this weed been growing in secret even then? Were we so self-absorbed, so intent on keeping low in the crossfire between our parents, that we’d somehow failed to notice it taking hold of David? Or were we necessarily blind to it, because the same dark vine had wrapped itself around us all?

“You want coffee?” Clare asked, and brought me back with a start from thoughts of body snatchers and damaged goods. “Or maybe you’re jumpy enough.” She smiled but there was concern in her eyes.

“I’ll have some.”

“You find that girl you were looking for?” she asked.

“More or less.”

“She all right?”

“I wouldn’t describe her quite that way,” I said after a while.

“No?” Clare gave me a questioning look and for an instant I was tempted to tell her about it- about Holly, and David, and the videos: all of it- and to ask what she thought. To ask her to make sense of it for me. The impulse took me by surprise, but I kept my mouth shut, and Clare scowled when I didn’t answer. She went back to her newspaper and left at noon, with barely a goodbye.

By one o’clock a lethargy had settled on me, along with a headache. I ate some aspirin and lay on the sofa and waited in vain for the edge to come off. The afternoon passed in a dozen books whose first chapters I couldn’t finish, and a dozen albums I changed before the second track. It was a familiar listlessness, a sort of post-case hangover that had grown worse as my cases had grown less frequent. Investigation over, at least for now. Reports written, i’s dotted, t’s crossed, nothing left but to meet with the client. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Nowhere but my own head. No, thanks. At some point I drifted into useless sleep.

My phone stayed quiet until after ten, and I was in bed when it rang. It was David, headed home from JFK. He was hoarse and weary but he brightened when I told him I’d found what he was looking for.

“Morning’s booked solid,” he said, “but I’ll try to make it after lunch.” As it happened, it was sooner than that.

It was just past dawn when the intercom buzzed, and at first I thought I’d dreamed it. A rain of ice was falling against the window glass, and the sound of it made a fine case for pulling the covers over my head. I had just closed my eyes when the intercom erupted again. My brother was gray and hunched on the little video screen. His head was bare and the collar of his overcoat was up, and he was clutching a newspaper to his chest.

“Let me in,” he said, before I could speak. I pushed the button and opened my apartment door and in a moment I heard footsteps in the stairwell. He came in with head bent, and cold air clinging to his clothes.

“What happened, David?”

“I was on my way to the office,” he said. His voice was choked and his skin had a drowned look to it. So did his eyes. “I almost never buy the News, but today I bought one. I don’t know why.” He put the newspaper on my kitchen counter.

“What happened?”

He opened the paper three pages in, and I followed his shaking finger down the columns. It was alongside an article that bore the headline “Woman’s Body Pulled from River,” and it was murky: a photograph- an extreme close-up- of a red cartoon cat standing on its hind legs and grinning insouciantly. Enlargement made the image grainy and washed the color out, but still you could tell that the cat was a tattoo, inked upon a patch of gray, dead-looking flesh.