The Cat Who Went Bananas

Chapter 12

Sunday, noon. The Siamese had enjoyed their midday snack and were washing when Qwilleran sat down at the desk to find a number in the phone directory. Immediately, Yum Yum sprang to the desktop and assumed a hostile pose. How did she know he was about to call Fran Brodie? The two females had been feuding since Day One.

Fran was the most glamorous woman in town, a talented member of the theatre club, the police chief's daughter, and second in command at Amanda's Studio of Interior Design.

She answered the phone in a sulky, morning-after voice.

With forced enthusiasm he said, 'Fran, let me extend belated compliments on your performance as Gwendolen!'

`Thank you. Too bad they had to cancel the show . . . I hear you're starting an amazing new project!'

`Where did you hear it?'

`Never mind where. Say it isn't so. That ancient monstrosity!'

In a tone of authority he said, 'Elsewhere they have George Washington's oak tree and Benjamin Franklin's printing press. We have the Hibbard House! Yours not to criticize. It rose from the sawdust of a million trees a century and a half ago, in spite of fire, flood, hurricane, and decorating snobs.' He knew that it irritated her to hear interior design called 'decorating'.

'All right. What's on your mind, if anything,' she said in a huff of her own.

'I understand the rooms are large, dark, and over-furnished. Do you have any advice for John Bushland, who will have to photograph them?'

'Amanda helped them with their furnishings when Jesmore was alive. I've done a few things for Violet. I don't know where to start.'

He said in a more agreeable voice, 'Just give me a few tips for photographing, and I'll make notes for Bushy. Otherwise, I won't bother you except to ask you what you think of Alden Wade.'

'That guy,' she replied with unbridled admiration, 'is not only a ball of fire but talented, handsome, and sexy!'

'I'm glad he has your approval, Fran.'

Qwilleran wondered what had happened to Dr Prelligate, president of the community college and number one on Fran's list. What had happened to all the others? What would Chief Brodie have to say about his fickle daughter?

The MacDiarmids, mother and daughter, were expected at one o'clock, and Qwilleran walked to the bookstore in advance. Dundee was in the show window, sunning on his cushion, and nonchalantly accepting the plaudits of passers-by.

When the MacDiarmids arrived and the door was unlocked, the feline celebrity came running.

'He knows me!' Kathie cried, blubbering tears of joy on his marmalade fur. She was tall like her father and had marmalade hair like her mother. She carried Dundee around as they looked at the real pirate's chest, the special doormat in the vestibule, and t he show window where Dundee had charmed the mob the day before. Downstairs the ESP room was locked, but they could look through the glass panel and see the jelly cupboard with its fortune in rare books.

Moira said, 'We must watch the time. Kathie has to catch a plane.'

'Would you have time to walk around the corner to Granny's Sweet Shop? She's famous for her banana splits,' Qwilleran told them.

Granny was a real grandmother whose grandchildren all worked in the store and seemed to be a happy crew. Chairs and tables were the old soda-fountain style, with twisted wire legs and backrests.

Kathie ordered a banana split, and while her elders ate their sundaes, she kept looking across the room; then she whispered to her mother. Moira looked in the same direction and shook her head. Kathie persisted. 'I know it's Wesley. He's grown a beard.'

Qwilleran looked across the room casually and said, 'His name is Kenneth. He's a copyboy at the Something.' By the time the visitors left for the airport, Kenneth had gone.

Qwilleran asked Granny about Saturday's business.

'Never saw anything like it!' she cried, slapping her forehead. 'They were lined up waiting to get in all day! We ran out of ice cream at three o'clock and had to close the doors.'

Then he asked, 'Do you get much business, ordinarily, from the Winston Park apartments?'

'Oh, yes! They're nice young people! Always over here drinking ice-cream sodas and malts. Better than a lot of other things they could drink.'

'The two young people who went out a few moments ago looked familiar to me,' Qwilleran said.

'Peggy's her name. They call him Whiskers. Nice kids.'

Qwilleran had noticed that Peggy picked up the check; Kenneth turned away with his hands in his pockets while she was paying.

Qwilleran walked home, and when he reached the barnyard he could see a cat in the kitchen window, standing on his hind legs in a state of frenzy. The man was well acquainted with feline telepathy. One frantic cat in the window signified a voice on the answering machine. Two frantic cats meant 'Feed us! We're famished!'

The phone call was from Alden Wade: 'Qwill, let me know if you need anything special for your talk next Thursday. Lectern? Easel? Projector and screen? Dancing girls?'

Qwilleran groaned and muttered a thank-you. He had forgotten entirely about the first meeting of the literary club! He thought fast.

There was much he could say about the colourful old bookseller, but he needed visuals to rivet audience attention: large-size photos projected on the wall behind the platform.

He phoned Kenneth. 'Do me a favour tomorrow when you get to the paper. Look in the photo file for glossies of the late Eddington Smith, his bookstore, and his cat. Winston was on the front page after the fire . . . also any pix there might be of the burning building.'

'I can handle that! Want them delivered somewhere?'

'Just leave them in my name on Junior Goodwinter's desk. Tell him I'll pick them up when I file my Tuesday copy.'

'I can handle that.'

'I saw you at Granny's, Ken. Did you have one of her famous banana splits?'

'Yeah. Peggy was buying. I made some deliveries for her.'

'Good-looking woman! Is she the one who's Dundee's valet?'

'Yeah. She loves it! She'd pay for the fun of doing it . . . Did you like how she cut my hair, Mr Q?'

'Couldn't have done better myself.' Qwilleran wondered who cut Peggy's hair. Her bangs came too low over her eyebrows.

Next he phoned Thornton Haggis, county historian replacing Homer Tibbitt, historian emeritus.

'Thorn, does the historical collection at the library have any decent old shots of Edd Smith and/or his property? Just give me an idea; I'll pick them up.'

'I'm pretty sure, but I'll take a look. Is that for your lit club speech? My wife and I are going. She behaves like a groupie at your speeches. I tell her she only goes to see your Mark Twain moustache.'

'Good! I won't work so hard on my script,' Qwilleran said. 'And I'll tell the barber not to trim my major attraction.'

He said to the cats, 'Your uncle Bushy is coming over this afternoon, but there's no need to go and hide; he's not bringing his camera.'

The commercial photographer, John Bushland, lived on nearby Pleasant Street with his new wife, Janice, and their four Amazon parrots. They were getting together to discuss the Hibbard House.

It was a calm, pleasant afternoon, so they took a tray of refreshments out to the octagonal gazebo, screened on all eight sides. The cats went along in their canvas tote bag.

Janice said, 'It's luscious out here! . . . Bushy, could we have something like this next summer?'

Her husband, whose hair was steadily receding, liked his irreverent nickname.

Qwilleran asked, 'How are the parrots adapting to a new ménage?'

`They're fascinated by my shiny head,' the photographer said.

`And we have two kittens from the brood next door!' his wife said with excitement. 'One brownish and one calico.'

`Have you been able to point the camera at them?'

`Any time we feel like it,' Bushy said. 'They're not fussy, as long as they get their two squares a day . . . Now tell me about the slides you mentioned on the phone.'

Qwilleran asked, 'How long will it take to make slides from black-and-white photos?'

'I can get them whenever I want them. I can pull strings, and I have a projector you can use. In fact, I'll operate it for you. What's it for?'

Qwilleran explained the forthcoming programme for the literary club, and Bushy thought he might have shots of Edd Smith in his file. He remembered one of the old man on the top step of a high stepladder, and another of him feeding pigeons on the sidewalk.

Then they tackled the question of photographing the Hibbard House.

Bushy said, 'When I phoned Miss Hibbard to make an appointment for the shoot, she invited me to see the interior in advance. The rooms are huge, dark, and cluttered! Believe me, this is not going to be an easy assignment!'

Qwilleran told Janice, 'I've never heard a photographer admit that anything would be easy. They're a smart breed. When the pictures turn out to be super, they're heroes.'

She squealed with amusement, then said, 'He took me along tier the ride when he went to check the quality of light on the exterior. It's very strange architecture! What style is it supposed to he? I thought I'd seen everything when I lived in California.'

`Well, according to Fran Brodie, it has a colonial entrance, a Gothic roof, and a Venetian tower. The Victorian verandas were added later. The interiors, Fran says, are basically Jacobean.'

Bushy said, 'I've told Violet - she told me to call her that - to have a lot of fresh white flowers in the place and put a white tablecloth on the big dining table. I also told her we won't be using people in the pix.'

Janice said, 'I'm going along as his assistant.'

'Yeah, she's been training, and she's very good! There are two things to be learned on this job: the use of close-ups when long shots are impractical . . . and the use of indirect lighting. In my van I have large white reflecting boards, and we'll bounce the light off them.'

Then the two men entertained Janice with tales of their early acquaintance when Bushy lived in Lockmaster.

'I'm glad I moved to Pickax,' he said.

'All the best people come here from Lockmaster,' Qwilleran told him. The latest is Alden Wade. He's really taking the town by storm . . . Do you know Alden, Bushy?'

'Only by reputation!' It was said in a snide manner that alerted Qwilleran's curiosity.

Janice said, 'We saw him in the play, and he was wonderful! He's going to teach a class in acting, I've heard. I'd love to enrol!'

'Incidentally, he lives at Hibbard House,' Qwilleran said.

'Yow-ow!' came an emphatic announcement from Koko, who had been watching crows through the screens.

Janice jumped up. 'He wants his dinner, and it's time for us to go home and feed Bonnie and Clyde. Bushy named the kittens that because they're embarking on a life of crime.'

She excused herself and ran indoors, and Qwilleran walked with the photographer to the barnyard. 'I've been hearing scuttlebutt about Alden, Bushy. It concerns me because Polly has hired him to handle special events for the bookstore. He's the one who asked me to speak to the new literary club.'

'Yeah . . . well . . . I guess he knows his stuff, but he's got a reputation as a home breaker.'

'The good-looking guys are always suspect, aren't they?'

'I dunno. I was never a good-looking guy.' He passed his hand over his bald head. 'But Alden has a track record.'