Catopolis. Part 15

s.h.i.+mmy.

Merda.

I was stuck.

I sucked in my breath and pushed, let out my breath and wriggled.

Tony's Fall still held by the ribbon between my teeth, dangled sideways in front of me.

Stuck.

Stuck.

"I see him! It's a cat!"

"Cat burglar more like." I knew this came from the other guard, though I could see neither of them.

"He's wedged in there pretty good and tight. He's a pudgy one, this cat. Don't know if I can get him out."

Merda. Merda. Merda.

He dug his hands into my side and squeezed, tugging and tugging and finally pulling me out, and then held me in front of him, where my claws couldn't reach, too tight for me to wriggle free. The other guard plucked Tony's Fall from my jaws and retreated with it.

Merda. Merda. Merda.

One too many plates of petto di polla alla senape. In my younger years-before I'd found that Italian restaurant-I was lean and would have been able to fit through that duct with no effort.

Merda. Merda. Merda.

"Wonder why a cat would want some stupid old music," my captor mused as he carried me from the bathroom and through the hall, where his fellow was replacing Tony's precious Fall and attempting to smooth it out and brush away the broken gla.s.s. I didn't see the cleaning crew, and thankfully someone had shut off that hurtful alarm.

I fought with the guard all the way to the bottom of the stairs, but it had taken most of my energy just to reach the museum and snare my prize. He tossed me in the janitor's closet and shut the door, told me through the crack that he'd call the Humane Society for me first thing in the morning.

No vent in here. No chance of escape. Even if there was a vent, I doubt I could have fit through it. Too many raviolis. Too many plates of spaghetti and rigatoni. It was blackest-black, the air dead still, and not even my keen eyes could pick through it. I could smell all the astringent cleaning supplies, and my paws brushed against the ropy tendrils of a mop. My nose touched a tool furry with rust.

I wasn't paying attention to the pa.s.sing of time. My mind whirred with a mix of hopeful and horrid possibilities.

Maybe I could slip by the guards in the morning, when they opened the door to present me to the Humane Society. Maybe I could dart out between their legs and out the back and return to the safety of Little Italy.

Then I could hear the boss play Tony's Spring and Summer and Winter again, and promise to go after Tony's Fall once more. Just a few less tortellini helpings, and I'd be able to fit through that duct.

The G.o.dawful c.r.a.p-rap music started up again, Forty-Cent wailing about a woman who dumped him. I closed my eyes and shook my head and tried my best to imagine the boss's talons and tail tip tickling the ivories.

The music came louder, and I paced, b.u.mping into this and that. Suddenly the door opened, and one of the wainscot dusters flipped on the light switch and stared at me, the dim light of the hall haloing a head of bushy hair. I took only a heartbeat to register his kind face and thin lips, and then I was through his legs.

"I need to find some turpen... cat!" He said something else, but I couldn't hear it over the cacophony of rap, which was loudest in the main hall, where the other three were now working.

The cleaning men didn't notice me this time, so intent on bobbing their heads in time with the c.r.a.p-rap and polis.h.i.+ng the cases and the floor.

I shot up the stairs.

A great part of me thought I should instead look for an exit... right this very moment. Forget Tony's Fall, as I'd already taken a fall for trying to nab it. Get out and tell Luigi it couldn't be had, not this time and not at this museum. There was too much security. I wouldn't tell him about the too-narrow ducts, which were no doubt in violation of some building code. I should turn around and hover at the back door, wait for the cleaning men to finish and open it and head toward their van.

I'd pad back to Little Italy.

But I was, above all else, loyal to the boss. No one tells the Don they'll do something and then doesn't do it. And I'd told him I'd go after Tony's Fall.

And so that's just what I was doing.

I don't know where my energy came from, maybe birthed from mind-numbing panic. I didn't want to be caught again; in my heart I knew a trip to the Humane Society wouldn't be humane, not for an aging overweight cat like me. It'd be the needle.

Thoughts of the needle spurred my paws faster.

A moment more and I was at the top of the stairs and slipping to the side of the closest Red Priest display case. The security man who'd nabbed me earlier was there, along with another short fellow in a similar uniform. They were picking up the shards of gla.s.s. The short one stopped and talked into a little radio he pulled from his pocket. I didn't pay attention to the conversation; my heart was hammering so loudly I could barely hear Forty-Cent shouting the lyrics from the boombox below.

The gla.s.s shards they collected glimmered in the pale lighting of the hall.

So much gla.s.s.

A pity I was responsible for the mess. I glanced around. Only the two guards; it wasn't a terribly large museum, and so probably this pair const.i.tuted the entire night force. There would be many more people working here come morning. Through a trio of narrow windows on the east wall I saw that it was late, the sky black and moonless and filled with a scattering of stars.

I waited.

And after several minutes I slunk around behind the display case. The guards were moving; one of them picking up a bucket filled with the broken gla.s.s. They'd made no attempt to secure Tony's Fall, but I was certain that would be taken care of before the doors opened in the morning.

"d.a.m.n music." This came from the one who'd caught me. "Wish they would play something else. Boz Scaggs, Elton John."

"Country," the short one said. "I like Gretchen Wilson, and that blond from Sugarland, and a little Faith Hill thrown in for good measure. Now that's music."

Did none of them have any taste? What the boss played was music. Real music. He produced notes so sweet and Italian that they didn't need someone singing along to dilute them.

"Got someone from Consolidated Gla.s.s coming in a few hours." Again, my once-captor spoke. "We've gotta get this case fixed and hooked to the alarm system before breakfast. Gotta get the cleaners up here one more time for another pa.s.s with the sweeper."

"Martina McBride has got pipes, I tell you. Heard her once at the county fair grounds. Dolly, she's okay, too."

"Nah, Bruce Springsteen."

The security guards continued their discussion of modern music as they finished their tidy of the room. Each took a different hall away from the gallery, and I took the shortest path back to the broken display case. With no alarm to worry about, I leaped onto the top counter, my leg muscles still fueled by fear of the Humane Society's needle. I had to roll the sheet music up again, and this time I secured it with two ribbons. Then I was down the stairs again, and quick to hide behind a suit of plate mail.

I tried to catch my breath-a difficult thing to do considering my chest felt tight and on fire, my mind remembering the security's guard hands squeezing my well-padded ribs. Someone was running a vacuum cleaner. I couldn't see it, but I saw a long, red cord plugged into the wall that meandered like an old snake down a corridor. There was wainscoting along that hall, and a man was polis.h.i.+ng it. That left two unaccounted for. But they had to be nearby, that jarring hip-hop refrain was echoing off a wall, a woman's voice this time. Her rhythmic wail felt like pins against my sensitive ears.

Once more I thought of that lethal needle.

I flexed my claws nervously, unsure of what course I should take. Then indecision was ripped from me; the security guards were coming down the stairs.

I summoned all the strength remaining in my fatigued muscles and sprinted across the floor, slipping and sliding over the fresh wax and nearly caroming into a suit of samurai dragon armor. One of the guards must have spotted me, my original captor, I'll wager. I barely heard his shout above the woman rapper.

"That cat!"

My chest and legs burned, my heart hammered even faster, and my paws somehow found just enough purchase so I could speed down the hall and past the hated janitor's closet... and then through the back door that one of the cleaning men was opening. I thought he smiled at me as I galumphed past.

I didn't wait to see if anyone else spotted me, though I knew I should have. I took a risk heading straight back to Little Italy with my hard-won prize. What if one of the security guards had followed me? What if I had led someone straight to the Italian restaurant and to the wooden stairs at the back that led up to Luigi's s.p.a.cious apartment? What if they'd discovered the rest of Tony's Seasons hidden there and confiscated all of them?

But that didn't happen. I was "free and clear," as they say.

Sitting outside the door, I closed my eyes and thanked G.o.d and Bast that this fat cat burglar had escaped unscathed. I must have dozed or dropped off from sheer exhaustion, as when I opened my eyes the sky was lightening and full of birds. I heard a car horn, and then another.

I scratched at the door, still holding the ribbons in my teeth. After a moment, the boss let me in. I deposited the sheet music at his feet in much the same manner as one might drop a treasure at the toes of a human.

He grinned.

"Come, Vinnie," he said. "Let me order you something fine to eat. I will play this for you while you decide what you want."

He reverently carried the music to the piano and unrolled it, settled himself on the bench, and looked at me.

"An Italian tomato salad," I said, having already made up my mind. "With a few diced peppers, lots of celery, and a little basil. A small salad, Boss, and have them hold the anchovies."

Don Luigi was into his fourth playing of Tony's Fall before my scant meal arrived. The sweet notes were worth everything I'd been through.

I climbed the stairs to the attic and gacked up a hairball, curled on my cus.h.i.+on, and listened.

The boss was just starting in on Tony's Spring.

I told you earlier that it's like Heaven opening up when the boss plays, the melody swirling around his apartment and rising into my attic, consuming me and bringing tears to my eyes. No other sounds are so enchanting.

I live to hear the boss play.

INK AND NEWSPRINT.

by Marc Ta.s.sin.

Sophocles paced in front of the rack of newspapers, his fluffy gray tail swis.h.i.+ng back and forth with the precision of a drum major's baton. Ears back, he padded across the shop's asphalt tile floor, turned at the comic book circular, and headed back the other way. Pa.s.sing the counter, he glared at the big round clock on the newsstand's wall, its plexiglas casing coated with dust.

Ten after nine.

Ten after nine and still no sign of Coffee Man. For three years, Coffee Man had arrived at 8:50 AM every day. Coffee Man always carried a fresh cup of coffee from the diner next door, always of the exact same variety, some sort of cheap Colombian blend Sophocles deduced from the aroma, and always black. He purchased a New York Times, and he always paid for it in coins. But for the past two months, no sign of him, and Sophocles found this pointedly disturbing.

It wasn't the man's absence alone that bothered the old gray British Shorthair. Customers came and went at the little newsstand. It was all part of life. In his fifteen years, he'd learned that much at least. Rather, it was Coffee Man's absence combined with the absence of Too-Much-Perfume Woman, Guy-Who-Doesn't-Bathe, Muddy-Boot-Man, and countless others. (Although to be honest, Sophocles didn't miss Muddy-Boot-Man, who made a terrible mess every time he came in to the store.) The disappearances were all part of a growing trend, one that slowly materialized over the past five years. Where once the shop was a bustle of activity in the morning, now the little bell over the door had fallen almost silent, ringing just a few times each hour.

Sophocles twitched his nose and narrowed his eyes. With the exception of Herbert, the old man who worked the store's counter, Sophocles didn't trust humans. They were notorious for their inability to maintain a regular schedule. Things always "came up," as they liked to put it, and interrupted proper and respectable routines.

He stopped his pacing to survey the newspaper rack. Publications from around the country and the far corners of the world shared s.p.a.ce.

The London Times, the Detroit Free Press, the San Francisco Chronicle-Ehgleman's Newsstand had it all. At Ehgleman's, customers weren't limited to the one-sided, local point of view. The expatriate wasn't reduced to getting irregular, and certainly inaccurate, information by phone or letter from friends across the sea. Certainly not.

No, at Ehgleman's the customer could find the facts, plain and simple, printed in a sharp 7.5 point Nimrod Cyrillic font, on sensible yellow-white newsprint. That was, after all, what the news was all about. The facts, clearly stated, in a form you can sink your claws into.

And yet, Sophocles thought, the people no longer came.

Checking the clock, he saw that it was quarter-past nine. Sophocles sighed and plodded over to the big plategla.s.s windows at the front of the store. With a bit of effort, he hopped onto the wide sill. The east facing windows made for excellent morning sunning, something Sophocles did daily at 9:15 AM sharp. He stepped onto the little cus.h.i.+on Herbert had placed there for him, turned a few circles to loosen the stuffing, and then settled in.

Sophocles watched the crowds pa.s.sing by, rus.h.i.+ng off to their jobs, towing children to daycare, balancing steaming cups of coffee while negotiating the sea of people moving along the sidewalk. No one even glanced at the wooden bench in front of the shop, the paint on its slats faded and chipping. Herbert had placed it there years ago, back when people actually sat and read their papers right after buying them. On most days, the bench remained empty. People just pushed past, using the bench, at most, as place to set a briefcase while negotiating the removal of a phone from a pocket.

As Sophocles sat gazing out the window, mulling over his troubles, a strange thing happened. Someone did sit on the bench, a young man wearing jeans and a t-s.h.i.+rt. No more than thirty, Sophocles estimated, although he was never very good at guessing their ages. Like the others, he had a coffee, a rather large one at that, but he didn't carry a briefcase.

Sitting there on the bench, the man reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a hand-sized device. A phone, Sophocles thought at first. He'd seen these little devices proliferate like fleas on an alley cat over the past few years. He could appreciate the desire to remain in contact with others, but voice communication was seldom as efficient as the printed word. It all seemed rather silly.

But as Sophocles watched, it became clear that this was no ordinary phone. The man tapped a b.u.t.ton on the front, and the s.h.i.+ny black face of the thing sprang to life. Colorful icons appeared on the screen, some of them animated, all of them begging to be touched. The man made a few deft motions, tapping here and there on the screen, the image flickering as it switched from one view to the next.

And when the man stopped, what Sophocles saw sent s.h.i.+vers through his body. The world spun, and Sophocles struggled to his feet, stepping over to press his face closer to the window.

There, on the screen of the strange and terrible device, was a newspaper.

The London Times.

That night, the moment Herbert stepped out the door, Sophocles raced to the phone. He batted the receiver from the cradle so hard that it went flying off the desktop and clattered to the floor. Sophocles had to fish it back up by the cord before he could make his call.

He pawed the numbers, let the phone ring a single time, and then smacked the contact back down to hang up. It was a signal he and a friend of his had developed for calling one another during human waking hours. They'd picked it up from other cats they'd talked to at the vet. He'd heard humans talking about the strange calls they get that ring once and no one is there, but fortunately the humans attributed them to telemarketers or trouble with the lines.

A moment later the phone rang and Sophocles answered.

"h.e.l.lo," he mewed.

"Hey, Sophocles. I had to sneak the cordless phone under the bed to call you back. What's the big emergency?"

"Mr. Snuggles! We have a serious problem over here. I need the advice of someone who knows about those crazy phone things the humans are all carrying."

Sophocles had hissed the word "crazy." He despised the trappings of modern society, seeing its many technological marvels as little more than showy glitz designed to sap the time and money of the working cat. Probably true for humans as well, but he hadn't given it that much thought. Of course, after today's incident he realized he might need to reconsider.

"Why don't we get together tomorrow and..." Mr. Snuggles began.

"No. Tonight. We need to talk right away," said Sophocles.

"Okay, okay, don't choke on a hairball. Look, the boy is going out with his friends in a few minutes. When he leaves, I'll slip out and come right over. Will that work?"

"Yes, fine. Don't delay. This is of the utmost importance."

"No problem. Just try to calm down, and stay away from the catnip. I'll be over as soon as I can."

Mr. Snuggles lived in an apartment a block from the newsstand. He and Sophocles had met at the vet's a couple of years back. Although their personalities differed dramatically, for some reason they hit it off. Where Sophocles was old, almost fifteen by his own count, and loved all things traditional, Mr. Snuggles was young, a mere kitten in Sophocles' eyes at three years, and he loved everything new and exciting.

Sophocles propped open the bathroom window for Mr. Snuggles, then busied himself counting copies on the magazine rack. If anything was low, he had to make sure to sit near the copy and mew tomorrow, so Herbert would remember to restock. The man was frustratingly un.o.bservant at times.