The Cat Who Talked Turkey

THREE

It was Thursday—time to write another thousand words for the “Qwill Pen” column—and Qwilleran’s head was devoid of ideas. That meant resorting to the Koko System. The man yelled “Book!” and the cat came running—leaping onto a bookshelf, sniffing bindings, and nudging a selected title off the shelf. And that became the topic for the “Qwill Pen.”

Qwilleran would be the first to admit that the system was ludicrous . . . but it was simple, and it worked. It gave Koko pleasure, and it gave Qwilleran a challenge. He boasted that he could write a thousand words about anything—or nothing.

On this occasion, the chosen book was The Tiger in the House by Carl Van Vechten, one of the last pre-owned classics that Qwilleran had purchased from the late Eddington Smith. Its cover looked rain-soaked, the spine was tattered, and the gold tooling had worn off, but its three hundred pages were intact, printed on India laid paper, in a limited edition of two thousand, dated 1920.

This copy was signed by the author.

Qwilleran described it in his column as a superb literary work, a scholarly history of the domestic cat, beginning almost forty centuries ago in Egypt. There were names of famous artists and statesmen who cherished the cat as a household pet. And there were the names of tyrants and murderers who hated or feared the very mention of the animal. Particularly interesting were the myths and superstitions that persisted throughout the centuries.

Qwilleran himself, living with a cat that seemed to be psychic, was encouraged in his belief by attitudes in the Orient, where cats were considered supernatural. In Siam they were considered to be royalty. He had long wanted to trace Koko’s ancestry. Readers of the “Qwill Pen” knew Koko to be a smart cat, but even close friends like Polly and Arch had not been told the whole story—for the simple reason that they would scoff. A detective lieutenant Down Below did not scoff; the Pickax police chief had been gradually convinced; and a retired police detective from California was ready to be converted. Qwilleran found it a curious fact that they were all members of the constabulary!

The prospect of doing another one-man show for a Moose County audience filled Qwilleran with elation. He remembered audience reaction to the first one: They were spellbound; they gasped; they cried. In college he had focused on theater training before switching to journalism, and he still relished the idea of using his voice dramatically to influence an audience.

Now, to refresh his memory, he reviewed the script of the Big Burning. The audience had been told to imagine that radio actually existed in 1869, as he announced the news of the disaster, read bulletins from other parts of the county, and interviewed eyewitnesses by telephone.

Radio was still in the future at the time of the Great Storm—1913. There were no broadcasting stations, no home receivers using cat whiskers, no commercials for tin lizzies or potbellied stoves. Then he thought, Why not add to the realism with a few commercials? There could be bargains in kerosene and ten-pound bags of oatmeal.

In 1913 Moose County had no real newspaper—only the Pickax Picayune, with social notes and classified ads. Lockmaster County, to the south, was further advanced. Qwilleran phoned his friend Kip MacDiarmid, editor of the Lockmaster Ledger.

“Kip! Do me a big favor. Meet me for lunch at Inglehart’s and bring some photocopies of the Ledger of 1913. The lunch is on me!”

“Good deal!” said the editor. “Which pages and how many?”

“Just three or four. Inside pages with display ads for groceries, clothing, hardware—whatever.”

The two newsmen met at the restaurant in a Victorian mansion on Lockmaster’s main thoroughfare and were given a table by a window hung with lace curtains. Kip had a glass of wine; Qwilleran asked for Squunk water on the rocks with a twist but settled for club soda. He knew no one south of the border had ever heard of Squunk water.

“Your groundbreaking was a great show,” Kip said. “Did you know the chest was empty?”

“No one had the foggiest idea!”

“I hope you’re going to call the bookstore The Pirate’s Chest. Is Polly excited about running it?”

“Rather!” Qwilleran said. “She looks twenty years younger. And by the way, she wants to know how you run your literary club. She wants to start one at the bookstore.”

“I’ll have Moira get in touch with her; she’s secretary of the Lit Club.”

Qwilleran asked, “Have you heard about the Bicentennial of the town of Brrr? I’m doing a show on the Great Storm of 1913. That’s why I asked for some 1913 clips of the Ledger.”

“Did you know it was called the Lockmaster Logger then?”

They chatted, stopping long enough to order lunch. Kip recommended the turkey potpie, made with bacon and turnips.

Qwilleran said he’d stick to his favorite Reuben sandwich.

“Are you going to write another book, Qwill?”

“Well, off the record, I’m writing The Private Life of the Cat Who . . . Just a series of sketches of my experiences with two Siamese. Don’t tell Polly. She’d think it too frivolous. She wants me to write a literary masterpiece that will win the Pulitzer Prize. How is Moira? We should all have dinner at the Mackintosh Inn sometime.”

“Good idea! Did you know that Moira is breeding marmalade cats? She wants to know if you’re going to have a bookstore cat. If so, she’d like to present you with a pedigreed marmalade.”

Qwilleran hesitated. He had known some scruffy, overweight orange cats in his time, and he said warily, “That’s a decision for Polly to make. It’s a good thought, though; books and cats go together.”

“I’ll tell Moira to phone Polly. I know it’s a little premature, since you’ve only just dug the hole for the building. But Moira has a handsome devil in the cattery, a few months old, and she would save him for you if Polly’s interested. She said he’s a people cat, born to win friends and influence customers. When do you expect the store to open?”

“Before snow flies.”

“Meanwhile, have you opened your log cabin yet?”

“I’ve alerted the janitorial service to get it ready for summer.”

“I hear there was a murder in the woods near your place. Are you ready with an alibi?”

They rambled on, and the banter reminded Qwilleran of lunches at the Press Club Down Below, when he was an underpaid hack working for the Daily Fluxion. “Let’s do this again, Kip,” he said when they parted.

“And let’s not wait so long next time!”

Only when Qwilleran was driving back to Pickax did he realize he had forgotten to ask about the land-fraud scandal in Lockmaster—and an orphaned daughter who had changed her name and moved to Moose County.

At the barn the Siamese were waiting expectantly, as if they knew he was bringing some tasty fragments of Reuben sandwich. Then he locked himself in his writing studio on the first balcony with a thermal coffee decanter, there to write a “Qwill Pen” column for the following week. It would be about June.

He made notes:

June is bustin’ out all over. (Show)

What is so rare as a day in June? (Poem)

A four-letter word, but a polite one.

The month of weddings, graduations, and the second income-tax estimate.

His note-taking was interrupted by a phone call from Polly, in high spirits.

“Qwill, dear! You’ll never guess what happened today.”

“How many guesses—” he began but was interrupted. He had never known Polly to be so voluble.

“Moira MacDiarmid phoned to offer the bookstore a marmalade cat for a mascot! One with a real Scottish heritage! A genuine people cat! Just what we’ll need to welcome customers and make them feel at home!”

“Male or female?” he questioned with the fact-finding instincts of a newsman.

“A little boy. Breeders call their kittens little boys and little girls, you know. He’s several months old and will be a yearling when the store is ready to open.”

“What does he look like?”

“His coat is soft and dense and huggable, Moira says. His color is a rich cream with tabby markings in soft apricot! And he has large green eyes! Can’t you imagine him, Qwill, against a background of lively green carpet—lively green, not the somber forest green used in public places, although Fran Brodie may not approve. She has her own ideas, you know.”

“The K Fund is hiring her to design the interior,” he said. “Just tell them what you want, and they’ll tell her! And that’s the way it will be!” He detected a sigh of satisfaction. There had never been a friendly rapport between the designer and Polly—or between the designer and Yum Yum, for that matter.

“Then you approve, Qwill?”

“Provided he doesn’t turn out to be one of those thirty-pound marmalades that get all the publicity.”

“No! No!” Polly assured him. “Dundee has good genes.”

“Dundee? Is that his name?”

“Isn’t that adorable?” Polly said. “Especially since his ancestors came from the city associated with orange marmalade! Well, I had to call you. The news was too good to keep.”

“I’m glad you did, Polly.”

“À bientôt,” she said in the voice that was always full of warmth and meaning.

“À bientôt.” He leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander.

A few moments passed, and then he was aware of a slight commotion beyond his door. Whenever the Siamese wanted to attract his attention, they staged a cat squabble. He opened his door and they tumbled into the room.

“You fakers!” he scolded.

They scampered down the ramp to the broom closet on the main floor. Their message was clear. They had been shut up indoors for too long.

A canvas tote bag advertising the Pickax Public Library was brought from the closet, and they jumped inside, contracting their bodies and snuggling together to fit in the bottom of the bag. They had no objection to being buried under some magazines, a bottle of Squunk water, a cordless phone, some writing materials, and a worn-out necktie. It was all part of a trip to the gazebo, a journey that lasted the better part of a minute. Then they hopped out of the conveyance and prepared for a game of Nip the Necktie.

Qwilleran moved some furniture to provide a suitable arena, then swished the tie through the air—back and forth, up and down, around in circles—while the cats leaped, grabbed, missed, fell on their backs, shook themselves off, and leaped again.

When they had had enough, they crept away to their favorite corners of the gazebo to watch anything that moved on the other side of the screen panels.

Qwilleran did some more hard thinking about the month of June. He could invite his readers to compose original jingles about the sixth month. As prizes he would offer the usual yellow lead pencils with “Qwill Pen” stamped in gold.

As he brainstormed, he became aware of a familiar chattering sound: “ik-ik-ik.” Koko reserved it for snakes, large dogs, and trespassers with hunting rifles. Both cats were staring at the shrubbery in the bird garden. Qwilleran stared, too. He had only his eyes; the cats had their sixth sense.

As he concentrated there was movement in the dense foliage, and three long-legged birds emerged. They were the strangest he had ever seen—long snakelike necks, small ugly heads, scrawny bodies, and those long, scaly legs!

They surveyed the scene calmly, as if they considered buying the property . . . until an unearthly roar and shriek from Koko’s throat sent them back into the shrubbery.

The three in the gazebo were speechless: the cats with bushed tails, and Qwilleran with exactly the same sensation in his moustache. His first thought, upon returning to rationality, was to call Thornton Haggis, who had lived in Moose County all his life and knew all the answers—or where to get them. Recently named Volunteer of the Year, Thorn could always be found pushing wheelchairs at the Senior Care Facility or manning the reception desk at the hospital. Qwilleran found him answering phones at the Art Center.

“Just holding the fort while the manager gets her hair done,” he said. “I bet I know why you’re calling, Qwill. About the research on the Great Storm! I’ve done all the legwork, and now I’m organizing the material for you. I can drop it off at the barn tomorrow. Will you be there?”

“If I’m not, you can leave it in the old sea chest.” Outside the kitchen door there was a weathered wood chest for receiving package deliveries, catered food, and—once—two abandoned kittens.

“By the way, Thorn, I had a strange experience a few minutes ago. I was in the gazebo when three ugly-looking birds walked out of the woods.” He described them. “And they were between two and three feet tall. And weird-looking. They had red pouches hanging from heads that can only be described as rapacious.”

After a moment’s silence, Thorn said facetiously, “What did you have to drink for lunch, Qwill? They sound like wild turkeys, but we don’t have wild turkeys in Moose County—not for the last thirty years. My sons are experienced game-bird hunters, and they have to go to Minnesota or Upper Michigan for wild turkeys.”

“Interesting,” Qwilleran said. “The cats saw them, too. Koko snarled like a dragon and frightened them away.”

Qwilleran had long wanted to find an explanation for Koko’s remarkable intuition. Now he expressed his thoughts in a letter to himself, in his personal journal.

Thursday, June 12—I’ve been reading

The Tiger in the House

again. Beautiful work! I’ve always wanted to write a scholarly tome requiring years of research, but I lack the temperament.

The book inspired me, however, to pursue the mystery of Koko’s heritage. Is he descended from the supernormal lines of old Siam? How many generations have passed between him and his royal ancestors? What do I know about him? Very little. Only that he lived Down Below with a man named Mountclemens, who apparently acquired him from a sister in Milwaukee.

I was writing for the

Daily Fluxion

and renting an apartment from the art critic, who owned an old Victorian mansion. He called himself George Bonifield Mountclemens the Third. He was a pompous donkey!, and no one really believed his name. But he lived upstairs among his art treasures with a Siamese cat named Kao K’o Kung. When Mountclemens was killed, the cat moved in with me and became known as Koko.

But I always thought, If I ever meet anyone from Milwaukee, I’ll ask some questions: Is there a Mountclemens family there? Is there a cat breeder specializing in Siamese in Milwaukee?

This “Lish” person may be the one to ask.