Cat On The Edge Part 7

Their research formed a disturbing fabric. Wilma was fascinated, as if their discoveries answered some urgent question of her own. He didn't realize the library was closing until the overhead lights began to go off, throwing the corners into darkness. "I thought they stayed open until nine."

"It is nine." She gave him an exhausted and satisfied smile, and began to collect their scattered copies. "I need a beer, I feela"shaky."

"I need three beers and a hamburger."

She brushed a fleck of computer paper from her sweats.h.i.+rt. "Let's run by my place first. Justa"to see if Dulcie's come home."

They retrieved Clyde's car from the library parking lot and swung by both houses. Neither Joe nor Dulcie had come home. Clyde fed his animals, and let them out for a few minutes, then they headed for Marlin's Grill. Driving slowly along the lit village streets past the few shops and galleries still open, past planters of flowers blooming beneath the reaching oaks, they watched for the two cats. Through the open car windows, the sea wind was damp and cool. They were quiet as they parked in front of Marlin's.

The grill's plain wood storefront made a stark contrast to the glittering gla.s.s and chrome high-tech gallery on its right, and to the used-brick building on the left, with its deep, flowered entry patio and exclusive decorator studio.

Marlin's Grill had no potted plants framing its door. No fresh, modern persona. It was dismally dated. Just a plain pine, 1950s exterior. And the interior was equally uninspired.

Marlin's was the product of a time when knotty pine paneling, inside and out, was big. The present management had seen no reason to change what had once been popular. Marlin's was possibly the only business establishment in Molena Point that was not regularly refurbished to a bright, exciting new interior. But who needed to redecorate, when the hamburgers were the best in town and the seven varieties of draft the best you could get anywhere on the coast.

Over the years, Marlin's yellow wood walls had darkened to the color of dead oak leaves. The leather upholstered booths were worn and cracked, but were deep, comfortable, and private. Clyde and Wilma sat at the back, away from the few other customers. They ordered an English dark draft, and rare burgers with onions and Roquefort.

When the Latin waiter had brought their beer and gone away, Wilma said, "Just before we left the library, when I went back to my office, Nina Lockhart told me that someone else has been interested in the material on cats."

"Oh? But not the kind of material we dug out."

"Exactly the same material. The same references."

Clyde watched her uneasily.

She said, "I remember the man, he came in late last week. I remember Nina helping him." She sipped her beer. "Nina pulled up the same entries we used. She brought him the same books." She set down her gla.s.s. "She plugged into the Internet, helped him copy the same pages we copied. I was working in a carrel across the room. I remember him because he seemed uncomfortable and hurried."

The soft overhead light brightened her steel-colored hair and the silver clip that held it. "He didn't notice me until around midmorning. But then, when he looked up and saw me, he looked shocked. Looked as if he knew me. He stared at me hard, then s.n.a.t.c.hed up his copies and left."

Wilma sipped her beer. "He didn't finish copying the references Nina had set out, he just left."

"Who was he? Do you know him?"

"I've seen him around the village. I don't know who he is."

"He couldn't be an old parolee?"

"No." She laughed. "That man was never on my caseload."

"Did he check out books? His name would ..."

"He didn't check out anything, just made copies. He didn't tell Nina his name, and he's not a regular patron. A thin man, tall and quite stooped. Light brown, straight hair down to his shoulders, muddy-looking eyes. Some kind of scars on his face and hands, covered over with flesh-colored makeup. Nina said it looked disgusting. He wore a tan windbreaker, tan cotton sport s.h.i.+rt, dirty white running shoes. Nina said he had a British accent. I could hear a little of it from where I sat. Lyricala"I'd say maybe Welsha"a poetic lilt. Charming, but amusing in such a dour man."

Clyde had set down his beer. "That was Lee Wark."

She waited.

"He's Welsh, been over here about ten years. A freelance used car agent. He deals with us, picks up special models for us across the country. Are you sure it was cats he was researching?"

"Of course it was cats. I told you, the same references we were using. What else do you know about him?"

"Not much. I think he grew up in a small fis.h.i.+ng village on the Welsh coast. I get the impression his family didn't have much, that they were dirt-poor."

"Welsh," she said, making circles with her beer gla.s.s on the table. "The Welsh are raised on the old folktales, on Selkies, Bogey Beasts, the shapes.h.i.+fting hounds."

The waiter brought their hamburgers. His English wasn't too good, he had trouble understanding that Clyde wanted mustard. He returned with catsup, Tabasco, steak sauce, and mustard, and seemed pleased with himself that he had covered all possibilities.

Clyde spread a thin layer of hot mustard on his French hamburger roll. "This is weird. Why the h.e.l.l does Wark want to know about cats?"

Wilma shrugged, "I don't like coincidences. If Wark's connected with the agency, maybe I can learn something about him, some reason for him to be interested in cats, from Bernine Sage."

"I didn't know you and Bernine were friendly."

"We're not close friends, but she's useful. You've forgotten, we worked together in San Francisco."

He remembered then. Bernine had been a secretary in the U.S. Probation Office the five years Wilma was there. He wasn't fond of Bernine. She had been Beckwhite's secretary, and was the agency's head bookkeeper, a striking redhead who always dressed to the teeth, smart orange outfits, pale pink blazers. She was a woman who used the truth as it suited her, bending it for maximum advantage. At one time, Bernine had had a thing with Lee Wark. They had lived together during his swings through Molena Point.

Wilma finished her fries, drained her beer, and handed the briefcase across the table. They paid the bill and headed for her place, Clyde driving slowly, watching the streets. When he dropped her off, even before he pulled out of the drive he heard her calling Dulcie. His last view as he drove away was Wilma's thin figure in jeans and sweats.h.i.+rt, standing alone in her yard calling her lost cat.

At home he dropped the briefcase on the couch and yelled for Joe. No response. He hadn't really expected any. He petted the dogs and the three cats, talked to them and gave them a snack. While the animals ate their treats he straightened their beds in the laundry room.

He had removed the door between the laundry and the kitchen, and had installed a narrow, two-bunk bed against the wall between where the washer and dryer stood and the corner. The dogs had the bottom mattress. The cats had the top; they could jump up onto the dryer, then onto their bunk, enjoying a private aerie that the dogs couldn't reach.

Both beds were covered with fitted sheets which could be easily laundered, and each bed had several cotton quilts that could be pawed into any required configuration. Finished with bed making, he popped a beer and went out to the backyard.

He called Joe, certain that the tomcat wasn't anywhere near. The stars looked very low, very large. The sea wind was soft; the distant surf pounded and hushed. The sound was steady, rea.s.suring. He sat down on the back steps and thought about Joe Cat. He thought about the old Welsh tales, about cats which were more than cats.

He sat for a while staring at nothing, then drained his beer and went back in the house.

The three cats lay upon their bunk, the white cat's paw and muzzle draped over the side, looking down at him and purring. Rube and Barney were in their lower bed lying on their backs, all legs up, in a tangle of quilt. He rubbed their stomachs and said good-night, then poured a brandy and took Wilma's briefcase to bed.

Half-reluctantly, half-fascinated, he sat in bed sipping brandy and reading again the results of their search. Reading about hillside doors into unknown caverns, about strangers appearing suddenly in a small, isolated village. About the sudden appearance of dozens of cats in a little Italian town, as if from nowhere. He read about hidden doors into Egyptian tombs built for the exclusive use of cats. Doors to where? Why would a live cat need a door in a tomb?

Twice he got up, pulled on a robe he seldom wore, and stood in the open front door calling Joe. Three times he picked up the phone and listened for the dial tone to be sure it was working. When he fell asleep, with the light on, he slept badly.

12.

Kate gave a final lick to her paws and rolled over on the lawn in front of her house, letting her clean feet flop in the air above her, the fur bright now, and soft, a pale creamy shade.

The rest of her was still filthy. She couldn't bear to lick off all that dirt. She had clawed the worst of the caked mud from her tail but it still looked like a dirty rope. She rolled back and forth, trying to rub dirt off on the gra.s.s, then rose and checked the street for any sign of Lee Wark.

There was no one on the shady street. Beneath the oaks, only two cars were parked, both belonging to neighbors. When she was sure Wark hadn't followed her, she got up, stretched, and trotted around the side of the house and down the little walk between her flower beds. How strange that the yellow and orange flowers of her gazanias reached to her chin, and her irises towered above her.

Leaping to the back porch, she jumped up the screen door, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the latch. She pulled and kicked until she had forced the screen open, and slid in between the screen and the solid door; the screen hit her hard on the backside.

Trapped between screen and door, she leaped again, gripping the k.n.o.b between her paws, swinging boldly until it turned.

She was in, dropping down to the cool floor of her own bright kitchen.

The room seemed huge. The skylight rose incredibly high. Far above her, through its curved plastic, the late afternoon sun sent slanting shadows down her pale oak cabinets and yellow walls. Time to start dinner.

The thought hit her with a knee jerk reaction.

She lashed her tail, amused. From now on, Jimmie was fixing his own dinner.

But she guessed he had been fixing his mealsa"the kitchen stank of dirty dishes. She wondered how long she'd been gone.

Didn't he know how to rinse a dish, how to open the dishwasher? The floor tiles needed scrubbing, too. They were incredibly sticky. She sniffed at a spot of catsup near the refrigerator, and at a smear of jam. Every stain was magnified, both in smell and by her close proximity. People who owned cats ought to think how a dirty house looks to someone ten inches tall.

She had an unbroken view of the undersides of cabinets, and of the dust under the refrigerator. Far back beneath the stove lay the handle of a broken cup; she remembered throwing that cup in a fit of temper.

She had been alone. She hadn't thrown it at Jimmie, though he had been the cause of her rage. She seldom let him see her anger, seldom let him know how he hurt her.

But that was past. Now, he could go torment some other woman.

When she leaped to the counter, her paws stuck in something he had spilled. It smelled like pickle juice. The sink was piled with dirty dishes. She stepped over egg-caked plates and pawed at the faucet handle until it released a drip of cold water. Hadn't he cooked anything but eggs? Maybe his cholesterol would do him in, and good riddance. She was thinking not at all like Kate Osborne.

Being a cat was more than liberating, it was salvation, a lovely reprieve.

She licked at the thin stream of running water until her thirst was slaked, then sniffed at her canning kettle, which Jimmie had dumped in the sink with dried applesauce clinging. There was no sign of the golden jars of applesauce that should be standing on the counter. She wondered if she'd already put them away. Or if Jimmie, in a fit of rage because she was gone, had thrown them out.

Well if he had, there was nothing she could do about it. Besides, cats didn't eat applesauce. Or, she supposed they didn't.

Though at the moment, it didn't sound bad. She was very hungrya"she didn't know when she'd last eaten, but it felt like weeks. She wondered what she might have devoured beneath the wharf.

She pawed the bread box open but it was empty. She eyed the refrigerator, but gave that up. She certainly wasn't going to lick up dried egg from Jimmie's abandoned plates.

She leaped down, crossed the kitchen, and went to inspect the living room, amused by the wobbly feel of the thick Timmerman rugs under her paws. Their softness made her want to claw, but she didn't claw those lovely pieces. She scratched deep into the little Peruvian throw rug she kept before the front door to catch dirt. Raking long, sensual pulls at its center, she luxuriated in the delicious stretch of muscles down her legs and shoulders, the delightful stretch along her back.

She wandered the rooms aimlessly, looking up at the undersides of the furniture, and jumping up onto tables and onto the desk. She slid on her belly into the s.p.a.ce beneath the couch, rolled over, and clawed a length of black dust cloth from the springs, then wondered why she'd done that.

In the center of the living room, on the slick oak floor, she chased her tail, spinning in circles, cras.h.i.+ng into the rugs, giddy and laughing. She longed to race into the bedroom and stare into the mirror.

And she was terrified to look.

The idea of facing her own mirror and seeing it nearly blank, of looking into the gla.s.s where she combed her hair and put on lipstick, and seeing only a small cat looking back at her, was more than she could handle.

She delayed as long as she could, dawdling through the rooms, pawing at a loose fringe on the guest room rug, playing with a wadded-up sc.r.a.p of paper Jimmie had dropped in the hall. But at last she padded into the bedroom and gathered herself, both in body and in mind, and leaped up onto the dresser facing her silver-framed mirror.

An incredibly ugly alley cat stared back at her.

Her color was the dirty gray of filthy scrub rags. Her fur was caked with dirt, her tail, that poor thin appendage looked, despite her efforts, like something that should be dropped in the trash. She was just a grimy cat skin stretched over thin, pitiful bones.

Standing on her dresser between her pretty, cut gla.s.s perfume bottle and her enameled powder box, a wailing mewl of rage escaped her. Sickened by the sight of herself, she began vehemently to wash, gagging at the taste of her dirty fur. She had to get the grime off, even if it made her throw up.

Licking, she could taste ancient fish on herself, and mud, and who knew what else. This was terrible, how did cats stand this?

But soon under her enraged was.h.i.+ng her fur began to brighten, to grow lighter. A pretty creaminess began to appear, like the fur on her paws. And as her freshly washed fur began to dry, it began to fluff.

And she started to like the feel of licking, the feel of sucking away all the dirt. A surprising saliva came into her mouth, an aromatic spit that flowed sweet and cleansing, slicking into her fur and wiping away the filth, fluffing and brightening. Soon she was was.h.i.+ng with a vengeance; she got so energetic about it that she nearly shoved her nice perfume bottle off the dresser.

As she removed the dirt she discovered little wounds, some quite sore, hidden beneath her fur, as if she had been fighting. Vaguely she remembered cat fights, brawling tangles, a lot of screaming and yowling. And for what? A rotten fish head or a patch of wet earth on which to curl up s.h.i.+vering.

Licking and salivating, drawing her tongue in long satisfying strokes, she was growing whiter. She had established a nice rhythm, pulling her barbed tongue down her sides and along her legs. Carefully and lovingly she groomed, attending to her pale, creamy chest, to her little, pink-skinned tummy, spitting on a paw to wash her face. It took a long time to get all her face and ears and the back of her head clean. The mirror was a great help, allowing her to check for missed spots. How could a cat wash properly without a mirror?

When she was satisfied with her face she reluctantly tended to her tail and to her hind parts, though she avoided certain areas. To lick herself there would take some getting used to.

It took a long time to clean herself up, but at last every inch shone creamy and fluffed. Staring into the gla.s.s at herself, she purred and posed. She turned around, gazing over her shoulder, vamping. She was the color of rich cream, her fur dense and short, as thick and soft as ermine. And her creamy coat was marbled all through with fascinating orange streaks, she had never seen a cat like herself. She looked as delicious as an exotic desert, like a rich vanilla mousse with orange marmalade folded in.

She was a big cat, rounded and voluptuous. The tip of her nose was sh.e.l.l pink, matching the translucent insides of her pink ears. Her eyes were huge and golden. When she opened them wide they were like twin moons.

Her creamy tail was fluffy now, and was delightfully ringed with orange, as if she wore wide golden tail bracelets. And when she smiled at herself, thinking giddily of the Ches.h.i.+re cat, her teeth were very sharp, very white, as businesslike as her long, curving claws. How nice to flex her claws, to admire their sharp, curving blades. To think about them cutting deep into Lee Wark's soft flesh.

She grew nearly drunk with admiring herself and with considering the possibilities of this new body. What stopped this delightful adulation was that she stared at the bedside clock and realized it was after six, that Jimmie would be home. She was standing on the dresser twitching the end of her tail, wondering what to do, when she heard his car in the drive.

As she listened to the back door open and heard him cross the kitchen, she wondered what would happen if he found a cat in the house.

What would he do if he found himself alone in the house with a cat? If he were stalked through his own house by a snarling, predatory cat? She licked a whisker, playing over a variety of scenes.

But she had seen him throw rocks at dogs in the yard and smile when he hurt them. And once he had hit a cat on the highway but hadn't stoppeda"she had been unable to make him stop. She had come home weeping, had driven back there alone; she had searched for hours, until it grew dark, but she couldn't find it.

He was coming down the hall. His approaching footsteps sent a sudden terror through her. Chilled, she leaped off the dresser and dived under the bed.

Crouching deep under, in the faintly dusty dark, she watched his black oxfords move past the bed, heard him drop his keys on the dresser. In a moment he would dump his clothes on the chair, then get into the shower. She startled when he called her name. "Kate? Kate, are you here?"

Shocked, alarmed, she backed deeper under. Her backside hit the wall with a thump. Oh, G.o.d, had he heard her?

But it was only a soft thud. She stiffened when again he shouted.

"Kate! Are you home?"

But he was only calling the Kate he knew, as he called her every night. When he received no answer, he grunted with annoyance.

He hadn't taken off his clothes, hadn't gone into the shower. He sat down on the bed, creaking the springs, and she heard him pick up the phone. She listened with interest as he called the Blakes to see if they had any news of her. His effort made her feel better, as if maybe he did care.

He called the Harmons, the Owens, the Hanovers asking if they'd seen her yet. She didn't know whether to feel ashamed at the concern she was causing him, or to enjoy his distress. She listened with interest as he called Clyde.

He told Clyde she still hadn't come home, and then he sympathized thinly with Clyde's own plight, which seemed to be that Clyde's cat was missing. Jimmie said that after all it was a tomcat, what did Clyde expect? The cat would come home when it couldn't screw anymore. He reminded Clyde that he, Jimmie, was missing his wife, not a cat. Clyde must have said something rude, because Jimmie snapped, "Maybe, but I doubt that!" and he hung up, banging the phone.

He made one more call.

Why would he call Sheril Beckwhite? She sat up straighter, hitting her head on the bedsprings.