The Cat Who Saw Red

14

Koko, wearing his blue harness and leading Qwilleran on the twelve-foot leash, entered the pottery with the confidence of one who had been there before. There was no hesitation on the threshold, no cautious sniffing, and none of that usual stalking with underslung belly.

Qwilleran said, "Let's start by taking some shots of Dan at the wheel."

"To be honest with you fellows, I specialize in slab-built pots," Dan said. "But if that's what you want — " He scooped up a handful of clay from a barrel and sat down at the power wheel.

"Leave the cat out of this picture," Qwilleran instructed the photographer. "Just get a series of candids as the pot takes shape."

"It won't be too good," the potter said. "I've got a bad thumb." The clay started to spin, rising under his wet hands, then falling, building up to a core, lowering into a squat mound, gradually hollowed by the potter's left thumb, and eventually shaped into a bowl.

All the while, Bunsen was clicking the camera, bouncing around from one angle to another, and barking terse instructions: "Bend over. . . Glance up . . . Raise your chin. . . Don't look at the camera." And all the while, Koko was exploring the studio, nosing a clutter of mortars and pestles, crocks, sieves, scoops, ladles, and funnels. Fascinated by things mechanical, he was especially interested in the scales.

"The big story," Dan insisted, "is about my glazes. I've come up with something that's kind of cool, if you know what I mean."

"First, let's look at the clay room," Qwilleran insisted. "There may be some possibilities there for action shots."

Dan hung back. "There's nothing in that room but a lot of equipment we don't use anymore. It's all fifty, sixty years old."

"I'd like to have a look," Bunsen said. "You never know where you'll find a great picture, and I've got lots of film."

It was cold and damp in the dimly lighted clay room. Qwilleran asked intelligent questions about the blunger, pug mill, and filter press, meanwhile keeping an eye on Koko and a firm hand on the leash. The cat was attracted to a trapdoor in the floor.

"What's down there?" Qwilleran asked.

"Nothing. Just a ladder to the basement," the potter said.

The newsman thought otherwise. Joy had called it the slip tank. He leaned over and pulled up on the iron ring, swinging open the door and peering down into blackness.

A strange sound came from Koko, teetering on the edge of the square hole. It started as a growl and ended in a falsetto shriek.

"Careful!" the potter warned. "There are rats down there."

The newsman pulled Koko back and let the trapdoor fall into place with a crash that shook the floor.

"Smells pretty potent in here," Bunsen observed. "That's the clay ripening," Dan explained. "You get used to it. Why don't we go to the kiln room? It's more comfortable, and there's not so much stink."

The high-ceilinged kiln room with its mammoth ovens and flues was pleasantly warm and clean, having neither the mud of the clay room nor the dust of the studio. On a table in the center stood a collection of square-cut vases and pots with the radiantly colorful glazes Qwilleran had glimpsed through the peephole. From a distance he had been attracted to their brilliant blues, reds, and greens; at close hand he saw that they were much more than that. There seemed to be movement in the depths of the glaze. The surfaces looked wet — and alive. The two newsmen were silent and curious as they walked around the ceramics and studied the baffling effect.

"How do you fellows like it?" asked Dan, aglow with pride. "I call it my Living Glaze."

"Sort of makes my hair stand on end," Bunsen said. "No kidding."

"Amazing!" said Qwilleran. "How do you do it?"

"Potter's secret," Dan said smugly. "All potters have their secrets. I had to work out a formula and then experiment with the fire. Cobalt oxide makes blue. Chromium oxide makes green, except when it comes out pink. You have to know your onions, if you know what I mean."

"Crazy!" said Bunsen.

"You can change colors by adding wood ash — even tobacco ash. We have a lot of tricks. Use salt, and you get orange-peel texture. I'm just giving you some interesting facts you can use in your article, if you want to make notes."

"Did Joy know you'd come up with this Living Glaze?" Qwilleran asked.

"Oh, she knew, all right!" The potter chuckled. "And it wouldn't surprise me if the old gal's nose was out of joint. Probably why she made herself scarce. She's got a pretty good opinion of herself, and she couldn't stand to see someone steal the show." He smiled and shook his head sadly.

"I like the red pots best," Qwilleran said. "Really unusual. I'm partial to red. . . So is Koko, I guess." The cat had jumped to the tabletop with the weightlessness of a feather and was gently nosing a glowing red pot.

"Red's hardest to get. You never know how it'll turn out," Dan said. "It has to get just so much oxygen, or it fades out. That's why you don't see much red pottery — honest-to-gosh red, I mean. Would you fellows like to peek in the kiln?" Dan uncovered the spyhole in one of the kilns, and the newsmen peered into the blazing red inferno. "You get so you can tell the temperature by the color of the fire," the potter said. "Yellow-hot is hotter than red-hot."

"How long does it take to fire a mess of pots?"

"Two days on the average. One day heating up, one day cooling down. Know why a dish cracks in your kitchen oven? Because your stove heats up too fast. Betcha didn't know that."

"Well, let's shoot some pictures," Bunsen said. "Dan, we'll get you standing behind the table with the crockery in the foreground. Too bad these pictures aren't in color. . . Now, we'll put Old Nosy into one of the biggest pots. You'll have to take his harness off, Qwill . . . Where's Old Nosy?"

Koko had wandered off and found a loose-leaf notebook on one of the other tables, and he was sharpening his claws on the cover.

"Hey, don't do that!" Qwilleran shouted, and then he explained: "Koko uses a big dictionary as a scratching pad — it's one of our family jokes — and he thinks that's what all books are for."

The photographer said, "You slip him in the pot, Qwill, hind feet first. Then step back out of the way and hope he stays put. Dan, you hang on to the pot so he doesn't kick it over. Old Nosy's got a kick like a mule. If he tries to jump out shove him back down.

I'll shoot fast. And don't look at the camera." Qwilleran did his part, jamming the squirming cat down into the square vase, and then he stepped away. He missed the rest of the performance; he was curious about the notebook Koko had been scratching. The cover was labeled Glazes. With a casual finger Qwilleran flipped open the cover and glanced at a few words written in a familiar scrawl:

Wuuuuu . . . . . . .66

Quuuz . . . . . . . . 30

Cwuuuy . . . . . . . .4

He riffled the pages quickly. Even without his glasses he recognized Joy's cryptic writing from cover to cover.

"Okay," said Bunsen. "That should do it. Old Nosy's turning into a pretty good model. What do you want next, Qwill?"

"How about some pictures of Dan in his living quarters?"

"Great!" said the photographer.

Dan protested. "No, you fellows wouldn't want to take any pictures up there."

"Sure we do. Readers like to know how artists live. "

"It's a rat's nest, if you know what I mean," the potter said, still balking. "My wife isn't much of a housekeeper."

"What are you scared of?" the photographer said. "Have you got a broad up there? Or is that where you hid the body?"

Qwilleran kicked him under the table and said to Dan, "We just want to give the story a little human interest, so it won't look like a commercial plug. You know how editors are. They'll give the story more space if there's a human interest angle."

"Well, you fellows know how it's done," Dan said reluctantly. "Come on upstairs."

The Giahams' loft was one large cave, with Indian rugs on the wall, lengths of Indian fabric sagging across the ceiling, and a floor carpeted from wall to wall with old newspapers, books, magazines, half- finished sewing, and dropped articles of clothing. Crowded in that one room, without arrangement or organization, were beds, barrels, tables, kitchen sink, chairs, packing boxes covered with paisley shawls, and mop pails full of pussy willows. Two pieces of luggage were open on one of the beds.

"Taking a trip?" asked Qwilleran in his best innocent manner.

"No, just packing some of my wife's clothes to ship down south." He closed the suitcases and set them on the floor. "Sit down. Would you fellows like a beer or a shot? Us potters have to drink a lot because of the dust." He winked broadly.

"I'll take a beer," Bunsen said. "I've swallowed a little dust myself."

Qwilleran, who had carried Koko up the stairs, now placed him on the floor, and the cat hardly knew which way to turn. He stepped gingerly across a slippery stack of art magazines and sniffed a pile of clothing in odd shades of eggplant and Concord grape. They were obviously Joy's garments; they had the familiar look of old curtain remnants that had been given a homemade dye job.

The newsman plied Dan with questions: Is it true they used to glaze pottery with pulverized jewels? What's the temperature inside the kiln? Where does the clay come from? What's the hardest shape to make?

"A teapot," Dan replied. "Handles can crack in the kiln. Or the spout drips. Or the lid doesn't fit. Sometimes the whole thing looks like hell, although the ugliest ones sometimes do the best pouring."

Bunsen took a few more pictures of Dan gazing out the window at the lights across the river, Dan reading an art magazine, Dan drinking a can of beer to counteract the dust, Dan scratching his head and looking thoughtful. The photographer had never shot a series so complete, or so ridiculous.

"You've got good bones in your face," he commented. "You could be a professional model. You could do TV commercials."

"You think so?" Dan asked. He had loosened up and was relishing the attention.

By the time the shooting session was over, Qwilleran and Koko had examined every inch of the room. There was a phone number written on a pad near the telephone, which the newsman memorized. Koko found a woman's silver-backed hairbrush, which he knocked to the floor while trying to bite the bristles. The cat also showed interest in a large ceramic jardiniere containing papers and small note- books and a packet of dusty envelopes tied with faded ribbon. Qwilleran managed to transfer the envelopes to his inside jacket pocket. A familiar prickling sensation on his upper lip had convinced him it was the right thing to do.

The newsmen finally said good night to Dan, promised him some copies of the pictures, and trooped back to Qwilleran's apartment, dragging a reluctant cat on the leash.

"Okay, let's have it," Bunsen demanded. "What's this playacting all about?"

"Wish I knew," Qwilleran admitted. "As soon as I find out, I'll buy you a porterhouse on my expense account and fill you in on the sordid details."

"How are you going to explain to that poor guy when the Fluxion runs a half-column head shot and twenty words of copy?"

Qwilleran shrugged and changed the subject. "How's Janie?"

"Fine, considering everything. We're expecting another in August."

"How many have you got now?"

"Five. . . no, six."

Qwilleran poured a stiff drink for Bunsen and opened a can of crabmeat for Koko and Yum Yum. Then he dialed the number he had found on the Grahams' telephone pad. It proved to be an overseas airline.

He also thought about Joy's silver-backed hairbrush; he had given it to her for Christmas many years before. Wouldn't she have taken it if she intended to leave town? A hairbrush was as important as a toothbrush to that girl. She used to brush her long hair by the hour.

"Say," Qwilleran said to Bunsen, "do you still hang around with that scuba diver you brought to the Press Club last winter?"

"I see him once in a while. I'm doing his wedding pictures in June."

"Would you ask him to do us a favor?"

"No sweat. He loves the Fluxion after that layout we gave him in the magazine section. What did you have in mind?"

"I'd like him to go down under the wharf behind this building. Just to see what he can find. And the sooner the better."

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't know, but a large unidentified object was dumped into the river in the middle of the night, and I'd like to know what it was."

"It could be halfway to Goose Island by now."

"Not necessarily. The body of the sculptor who drowned here was found lodged against the piling under the boardwalk." Qwilleran patted his mustache smugly. "I have an idea something might be trapped down there right now."

After the photographer left, the newsman sat at the desk and opened the pack of letters he had filched from the jardiniere. They were all addressed to Helen Maude Hake and had been mailed at various times from Paris, Brussels, Sydney, and Philadelphia: I miss the thrill of you, the lure of you, you beautiful witch. . . Your warm and tender love haunts my nights. . . Home soon, beloved. . . Be true to Popsie or Popsie will spank. All the letters were signed Popsie.

Qwilleran snorted into his mustache and dropped the letters in a desk drawer. He lighted his pipe and stretched out in his lounge chair, and Yum Yum cuddled on his lap — until Koko scolded her. Then she promptly deserted the man and went to lick Koko's nose and ears.

Suddenly Qwilleran felt lonely. Koko had his Yum Yum. Bunsen had his Janie. Riker had his Rosie.

He telephoned Rosemary Whiting. "I hope it's not too late. I need some moral support. . . You know those vitamins you gave me for the cats? I've never popped a pill down a cat's gullet."

Within a few minutes she knocked on the door of Number Six, wearing a red silk tunic and harem pants, with her licorice-black hair tied back in a young-looking ponytail. Qwilleran answered her knock just as Charlotte Roop climbed the stairs with a glass of steaming milk on a little tray. Miss Roop said good evening, but her greeting was cool.

The cats were waiting, and they knew something was up. They were bracing themselves.

Qwilleran said, "Let's take Koko first. He's the more sensible of the two."

"Hello, Koko," Rosemary said. "You're a beautiful cat. Here's a candy. Open up! There!" She had merely put a hand around the back of Koko's head, forced his mouth open, and dropped a pill into the, yawning pink cavern. "It's really simple when you know how."

"I hate to think what will happen if Koko gets any healthier," Qwilleran said.

Just then Koko lowered his head, opened his mouth, and deposited the pellet at Qwilleran's feet. It was slightly damp but otherwise as good as new.

"Well! We'll try it again. It always works," said Rosemary, undismayed. "We'll just push it down a little farther. Qwill, you watch how I do it. Press his jaw open at the hinge; pull his head back until you can see clear down his throat; and then — plop! Now we stroke his throat so that he is forced to gulp."

"It looks easy," Qwilleran said, "but I think Koko is cooperating because you are a lovely lady. . . Oops!" Koko coughed, and up came the pill, shooting across the room and disappearing in the shaggy pelt of the bear rug. "Don't worry about it, Rosemary. I have a confession to make. I really lured you over here because I wanted someone to talk with."

He told her about the love letters he'd found in the jardiniere, the uncanny brilliance of Dan's exhibition pottery, and the trapdoor in the clay room. "Dan told us there were rats down there."

"Rats!" Rosemary shook her head. "Mr. Maus is very particular. He has the exterminators check the building regularly."

He told her about the visit from William's girlfriend and about the peephole in the wall, overlooking the kiln room.

"But can't it be seen from the other side?"

"It's camouflaged by the mural in the kiln room. I looked for it while we were in there taking pictures."

Rosemary asked if she could read the love letters. "Believe it or not," she said, "I've never in my life received a love letter." She moved to the bed, turned on the lamp, and curled up among the pillows. As she read, her eyes grew moist. "The letters are so lovely."

On a sudden impulse Qwilleran pitched the cats into the bathroom, threw their blue cushion in after them, and slammed the door. They howled for a while and then gave up.

It was midnight when Rosemary left and the indignant animals were released from their prison. Koko stalked about the apartment, complaining irritably.

"Live and let live," Qwilleran reminded him. He was moving around the apartment himself, aimlessly, fired with ambition but devoid of direction. He sat down at the typewriter, thinking he could write a better love letter than that ridiculous Popsie. The typewriter still bore Koko's message from the night before: pb.

"Pb!" Qwilleran said aloud. "Pb!" He remembered the crocks in the pottery, with their cryptic labels. He jumped up and went to the dictionary as his mustache sent him frantic signals.

"Pb: Latin Plumbum," he read aloud. "Chemical symbol for lead!"