The Cat Who Lived High

20

"I NEED A DRINK!" said Arch Riker after the police and their prisoner had cleared out.

"First tell me what the hell you're doing here!" Qwilleran demanded of his friend.

"I came to feed the cats! And claim your remains at the morgue!" "I don't get it." Riker explained slowly and clearly. "The police here called Brodie in Pickax early this morning.

They told him someone shot at you on the freeway. They said your car crashed and burned. They said you were incinerated along with all identification. They traced the car to you through the license plates." "Someone stole my car! That's what happened." "Whatever. I picked up your dental records from Dr. Zoller and caught the first plane out of Pickax. The whole of Moose County is in mourning." Qwilleran started for the telephone. "I'd better call Polly." "Don't! She'll have a stroke. She thinks you're dead. I'll call Brodie and he can break the good news to her. Also, I should call my news desk and the radio station. If you're feeling generous, you can pour me a double scotch." When the two men settled down in the library with their drinks, Qwilleran posed a question: "Was the episode on the freeway a random shooting? Or did they think they were taking a shot at me?" "Why would anyone want to shoot you?" "It's a long story." Koko walked into the room with feline insouciance as if nothing had happened all evening. He jumped to the library table and sat on the Van Gogh.

"Where's Yum Yum?" Riker asked. "In the bedroom, sleeping her life away. I've got to get the cats back to Pickax.

Something here disagrees with them." "If people are taking shots at you and threatening you with knives, you'd better get your own tail back to Pickax, friend. What have you been doing? Meddling again? Snooping where you have no business?" "Do you want to hear the whole story, Arch? Or do you want to preach a sermon?" Qwilleran asked.

He related the murder-suicide myth as reported in the newspaper and described Koko's several discoveries.

"Here's the bracelet," he said, drawing it from a desk drawer.

"What's the significance of the numbers?" "It's obviously a private code between lovers. I think the numbers refer to the value of letters in a Scrabble set.

The 1-1-4-1, for example, could stand for L-O-V-E. It could also stand for T-O-F-U, although I doubt that - " "How do you know so much about Scrabble all of a sudden?" "I've found out it's not a bad game, Arch. I also tried entertaining Koko with a kind of scratch-Scrabble because he was bored, and I kept spelling words that started a train of thought. HOAX, for example. I began to wonder if Ross had been framed. At first I suspected Dianne's ex-husband." "Pity us ex-husbands," said Riker. "We're always the first suspects. I live in mortal fear that someone will murder Rosie." "The guy had a habit of pinching his nose, and I attributed it to guilt, but later I decided he was sensitive to cat dander." "I'm glad the ex-husband got off the hook." "There's more to the story, Arch. Do you want me to go on?" "Please do. This is better than television." "Okay. Then I realized that the developers who wanted to tear down the Casablanca had a strong motive for eliminating Dianne, and I began to suspect one of them - a guy by the name of F-I-e- u-d-d, pronounced Flood. Koko put the idea in my head - I won't tell you how, because you won't believe it. Anyhow, I checked it out with a guy at the Fluxion and learned that Fleudd has a past history of dirty tricks - nothing felonious, so far, just unscrupulous. So I thought, Suppose Fleudd had an agent in residence at the Casablanca who committed the double murder and tipped him off to my purpose here! The word AGENT turned up on the Scrabble board, and tonight I came up with JOVE-which is another name for Jupiter, right?" Riker said, "You spelled HOAX and AGENT and JOVE because the ideas were already lurking in your subconscious." "Be that as it may, when Jupiter came up here for a jazz session, I caught him in a couple of lies that suggested he had something to hide, so I tried a little prevarication of my own. After he'd had a few drinks and was losing control, I told him that someone on the roof had witnessed Dianne's murder through the skylight. That brought him out in the open, and if Koko hadn't whipped his tail at the crucial moment, I probably wouldn't be here talking to you." "Yow," said Koko, who liked to hear his name mentioned.

"Speaking of tails, Koko is beginning to convey information by means of tail language, just as humans express emotions with body language. In the last few days he's been twisting his taillike a corkscrew." "Are you trying to tell me that Koko knew the murderer was a bartender? If so, his tail's not the only thing that's screwy around here! What does a cat know about bar accessories?" "Cats are gifted with senses that transcend human intelligence - a fact that's hard for us to accept - and Koko's senses are becoming more acute every year." "You're really wound up tonight!" Riker held out his glass. "How about another touch? And then I'll turn in. This whole day has been an unnerving experience, and I've got to catch an early plane tomorrow. How about you? What have you decided about the Casablanca?" "I'm giving it up. I'll hang around long enough to turn my evidence over to Lieutenant Hames, and then I'll rent a car and drive the cats back to Pickax... See you in the morning, Arch. The: guestroom is down the hall, first door on the right; Just throw the cats' cushion off the bed." Qwilleran, having made his decision to forget the Casablanca and go home, slept well that night. He slept well until about three o'clock in the morning, at which time he dreamed someone was pounding him on the stomach. When he opened his eyes, he was sitting and Koko was having a catfit - jumping on and off the bed, pouncing on his body, yowling and growling. When the cat ran from the room like a crazed animal, Qwilleran followed him down the bedroom hall, past the guestroom where Riker was snoring quietly, and into the foyer. There Koko clawed at the parquet floor, his tail tense and twisted. Next he was racing madly about, knocking things over, crashing into furniture.

Qwilleran listened. He could hear what was alarming the cat! It was a rustling, crackling, creaking under the floor!

Bolting back to the guestroom he yelled, "Arch! Arch! Get up! Get up! Quick! We're getting out of here!" Then he ran to the house phone and rang the night number. "Ring the fire bell!" he shouted. "Get everyone out! Get the Countess out! Fire between Twelve and Fourteen!" Riker appeared in the foyer, groggy with sleep. "What?... What?... " "No questions! Throw on some clothes!" Qwilleran pushed Yum Yum into the carrier, and Koko followed her without bidding. "Don't pack! No time to lose!" He pulled on pants and a sweater over his pajamas and pointed Riker to the door. "Down the stairs! Take the cats and start down! Hurry!" He delayed long enough to hammer at the door of 14-B.

"Who is it?" a voice screamed.

"Building's on fire! Get out fast!" he yelled, then dashed for the stairs. The fire bell had started its urgent clamor, and at the tenth floor tenants began stumbling into the stairwell, grumbling and questioning.

Qwilleran caught up with Riker and said, "Give me the cats and you go ahead. Try to get a cab out in front." "What... ?" "Don't ask. Just do it!" On the main floor the tenants, clutching cats and other treasures, were in an uproar.

Qwilleran shouted to Mrs. Tuttle over the heads of the milling crowd, "Can you get Miss Plumb out?" "We phoned and Rupert went up there!" The emergency door was open, and sirens could be heard, converging from all directions. Not stopping to recognize faces in the lobby, Qwilleran pushed through to the front door and found Riker flagging a cab. He put the carrier in the front with the driver and shouted, "Penniman Plaza!" before climbing into the backseat.

Angrily Riker said, "Will you tell me what this is all about?" "I don't know." Qwilleran pounded his moustache with his fist... "Oh, my God!" A deafening explosion rocked the cab. A flash of light illuminated Zwinger Boulevard. Looking out the rear window they saw the Casablanca crowned with fire.

"Jeez!" yelled the driver. "Cracked my windshield!" He started to pull over.

"Don't stop! There'll be fallout." Moments later, the roof of the cab was showered with debris. Sirens screamed. Red and blue flashing lights filled the street. At the hotel the security guards were out on the sidewalk, looking toward the west.

While the cab waited, Qwilleran ran in to the registration desk and came out with the word that the Airport Motel was the nearest facility that would accept pets. The driver headed for the freeway, and his passengers rode in silence, sickened by the enormity of the disaster and stunned by the thought of their near-extinction. All was quiet in the cat carrier.

Finally Qwilleran said, "The noise I heard... the noise Koko detected... under the floor... It sounded like someone in the crawl space, setting a fire... I didn't have time to think... Now I realize they were planting a time bomb." His thoughts went to those whose lives had touched his briefly: The Countess... Had they been able to dislodge her from her palace? Rupert with his handgun and Ferdinand with his muscle could overpower her, if not convince her, but they had only minutes to act. It was questionable that all three could escape.

Isabelle... She lived on one of the upper floors. Was she sober enough to recognize the danger? If not, her troubles were over.

Winnie Wingfoot... She also lived on Ten, but she had probably stayed out all night.

Keestra Hedrog... No cause for concern. She would fly to safety on her broomstick.

Amberina Kowbel... Poor, disorganized Amber! At least she would never have to unpack the eighty-four shopping bags and the mountain of cartons.

Courtney... He would get out all right, lugging his Hudson River painting.

But what about the nameless old ladies in quilted robes? And all the others with canes and crutches?

He said, "It would have been wrong, Arch, to evict all those people and revert the Casablanca to a ritzy enclave for the superrich." "They're evicted now, that's for sure," said Riker.

The driver tuned in the round-the-clock news station on his radio. After a few words about a woman arrested for selling her children, and about the discovery of three bodies buried in Penniman Park, the announcer said: "Bulletin! An explosion rocked the near West Side at 3:18 this morning, destroying the top floors of the Casablanca apartment house.

The cause has not been determined. Firefighters and rescue crew are on the scene, and survivors are being evacuated.

The blast broke windows in Junktown, and debris fell on an area of several blocks. There is no report on the number of casualties at this time. Stay tuned." The cause has not been determined, Qwilleran thought. He remembered Amber saying, "The city would love it if something terrible happened to the Casablanca." He remembered that Raymond Dunwoody worked for the city and had lost an ear in a dynamite explosion. Had he planted dynamite in the crawl space between Twelve and Fourteen? If so, at whose behest? Qwilleran felt a tingling sensation in the roots of his moustache - the old familiar feeling that meant he was on the right trail. It was the man with an ear patch, he recalled, who had been the dinner guest of an affluent businessman at the Japanese restaurant; the generous host, Qwilleran now knew, was Fleudd. He had joined Penniman & Greystone in the spring, and Dunwoody had been living with Charlotte Roop for the last four months, no doubt relaying information about SOCK when she innocently discussed conversations she had overheard at Roberto's. Furthermore, it was Memorial Day weekend when Jupiter moved into the Casablanca. They were both undercover agents for Fleudd!

Riker broke the silence as they approached the motel. "I had enough sense to grab my credit cards, but I don't have my socks or my razor or my partial!" "I'm in the same boat," Qwilleran said. "I have my wallet but I've lost everything else, including the cats' turkey roaster." The clerk at the motel said, "We have a few rooms with waterbeds." "Not for me," said Riker.

"I'll take one," said Qwilleran. "And do you have a disposable litterbox for the cats?" Once situated in the room, he opened the door of the carrier and threw himself on the bed, while the Siamese inspected the room like veteran travelers.

In a matter of minutes someone kicked the door, and Riker was standing there with two paper cups. "Turn on the TV! There's live coverage on 'All-night News' right after the commercials. And here's some free coffee." An announcer in a parka - filmed against a background of fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars - was saying, "Firemen are still fighting the blaze at the Casablanca apartments following an explosion at 3:18 this morning. The blast, of unknown origin, destroyed three floors of the building, which is almost a hundred years old." The camera zoomed to the top of the blackened, smoldering structure, while the voice-over continued: "Forty-two residents have been hospitalized with injuries, and many are missing. No bodies have been recovered. Jessica Tuttle, manager of the Casablanca, says it is impossible to tell how many persons were in the building at the time of the explosion." The face of Mrs. Tuttle, grim and managerial, flashed on the screen with a microphone thrust in front of her. "We have about two hundred tenants," she said, "but we don't know who was in the building when it happened and who wasn't. We're grateful for the prompt rescue attempts. Everything's been handled very efficiently... No, I don't know what could have caused it. Perhaps the Lord is trying to tell us something." A cracked voice off-camera shouted, "He's tellin' ya to tear the place down!" The video cut to a Red Cross van and then a bus being loaded with refugees in nightclothes, some huddled in blankets. Voice-over: "Survivors are being bused to temporary shelters. Residents who were not on the premises at the time of the explosion are urged to telephone the following number to assist in the search for the missing..." Qwilleran said, "There's Mrs. Jasper with Napoleon, boarding the bus!" She raised the cat's paw to wave at the camera. "And there's Yazbro, the skunk who let the air out of my tires!" A man in a red golf hat was helping elderly tenants into the bus. Then, as the camera panned the windows of the loaded vehicle, showing strained and frightened faces, Qwilleran caught a glimpse of plucked eyebrows, marcelled hair, and a head tilted prettily to one side. His sigh of relief was more like a groan.

He said, "I wonder if poor Charlotte got out safely. I wonder if her 'gentleman friend' got out in time. If not, he's lost more than an ear on this job." "Yow!" said Koko. He was sitting tall on the TV and washing up - just as he had sat tall on the volume of Van Gogh, licking his right paw and washing his mask, his whiskers, and particularly his right ear.

"Remarkable cat!" Qwilleran murmured with- out elucidating to his skeptical friend.

"I've had all I can take," said Riker. "I'm going to bed." As soon as he was out of the room the Siamese engaged in a sudden expression of joy, chasing each other wildly under and over the furniture; they knew they were going home. Qwilleran propped himself against the headboard and watched the steeplechase.

Eventually Yum Yum snuggled down on his lap. She had lost her apathy and moody aloofness. Had she been affected by the "opalescence" that hung over the city like a stifling blanket? Did she find it unsettling to live on the fourteenth floor (which was really the thirteenth)? Or was she simply using feline strategy to get her own way? Qwilleran stroked her soft silky fur and called her his little sweetheart, and she responded by raising a velvet paw to touch his moustache, all the while squeezing her eyes and purring deliriously.

As for Koko, he jumped on the bed and flopped down in an attitude of exhaustion. It had been a strenuous night.

He had saved an estimated two hundred persons.

The End