Bernine had greeted him, when he and Joe arrived, with a raised eyebrow and a shake of her elegant head. "You brought your cat? You brought your cat to breakfast? You actually walked over here, through the village, with a cat tagging along?"
Clyde had stared at her.
"Well," she said, "it's foggy. Maybe no one saw you."
"What difference if someone saw us? We-I do this all the time, take the cat for a walk."
"I'm surprised that a cat would follow you. What do you do, carry little treats to urge it along? Don't people laugh-a grown man walking a cat?"
"Why should anyone laugh? Why should I care? Everyone knows Joe. Most people speak to him. And the tourists love it; they all want to pet him." Clyde smiled. "Some rather interesting tourists, as a matter of fact." And he turned away, snatching up the Sunday paper, looking for the sports page.
Now the cat in question lay patiently awaiting the breakfast casserole. Stretched across the couch beside Dulcie, the two of them occupied as much of the blue velvet expanse as they could manage, comfortably watching the fire and dozing. Their occasional glances up at Wilma communicated clearly their pleasure in this lazy Sunday morning before the blazing fire, with their friends around them-and with the front page of the Molena Point Gazette lying on the floor where she had casually dropped it so that they could read the lead article. As they read, their little cat faces keen with interest, she had busied herself at the coffee table rearranging the magazines, effectively blocking Bernine's view. But then the cats, finishing the half-page account of the liquor store burglary, had put on dull, sleepy faces again, diligently practicing their best fuzzy-minded expressions.
The two cats looked beautiful this morning, Wilma thought, sleek and healthy, their coats set off by the blue velvet cushions, Dulcie's curving, chocolate stripes as dark as mink, her pale, peach tinted ears and paws freshly washed. And Joe always looked as if he had groomed himself for a formal event, his charcoal-gray coat shining, his white paws, white chest, and white nose as pristine as new snow.
Wilma didn't speak to them in front of Bernine, even to prattle baby talk as one would to ordinary pets; their responsive glances were sometimes more intelligent than they intended, and Bernine was far too watchful. The history that Bernine had picked up from a previous boyfriend, the Welsh mythology of unnatural and remarkable cats that had peopled the ancient world, was better not stirred even in the smallest way. Better not to set Bernine off with the faintest hint of immediate feline strangeness.
In fact, having Bernine in the house with Dulcie was not at all comfortable. She just hoped Bernine would find a place soon. And certainly Bernine's intrusion into the guest room was not a happy situation for Charlie who, half an hour ago, had disappeared in the direction of the garage, silent and uncommunicative. Wilma knew she would be out there sulking as she unloaded her possessions from the van. Already cross at the eviction from her apartment- though she hadn't let her anger spoil last night's gallery opening- her sullenness was multiplied by Bernine's unexpected presence. Bernine was not Charlie's favorite person.
Earlier this morning when the two young women had coffee in the kitchen, Charlie had made no effort to be civil, had hardly spoken to Bernine. Wilma hoped that when Mavity arrived, her old friend would ease the atmosphere, that her earthy temperament would soften their various moods. Mavity might be ascerbic, without subtlety or guile, but her very honesty made her comfortable to be near.
As she picked up the coffeepot from the desk and moved across the room to fill Clyde's cup, she watched the cats sniffing the good smells from the kitchen and licking their whiskers. She could just imagine Bernine's sarcasm when the cats were fed from the same menu as the guests.
Clyde lowered the sports page and held out his cup. "Charlie going to stay out in the garage all morning? What's she doing?"
"Unloading her tools and equipment-she'll be in shortly. You could go out and help her."
Clyde sipped his coffee, shook his head, and dug out the editorial section, burying himself again. Bernine watched him, amused. Very likely, Wilma thought, Bernine understood Charlie's temper-and the reason for it-far better than did Clyde.
Dulcie watched Clyde, too, and she wanted to whop him, wished she could chase him out to the garage with Charlie. Didn't he know Charlie was jealous? That she was out there sulking not over the eviction, or simply over Bernine's presence, but over Bernine's proximity to Clyde himself? Males could be so dense.
But you didn't need female perception, or feline perception, to see that Bernine's sophistication and elegant clothes and carefully groomed good looks, coupled with her superior and amused attitude, made big-boned Charlie Getz feel totally inadequate. You didn't need female-cat intelligence to see that Charlie didn't want Bernine anywhere near Clyde Damen.
Scowling at Clyde, she realized that Bernine was watching her, and she turned away, closing her eyes and tucking her nose beneath her paw, praying for patience. Must the woman stare? It was hard enough to avoid Bernine at the library, without being shut in, at home, with that cat hater.
Why were anti-cat people so one-sided? So rigid? So coldly judgmental?
And how strange that the very things Bernine claimed to value in her own life, her independence and self-sufficiency, she couldn't abide in a sweet little cat.
Beside her on the couch, Joe was avoiding Bernine's gaze by restlessly washing, his yellow eyes angrily slitted, his ears flat to his head. He'd been cross and edgy anyway, since last night when they followed the old man and Azrael and lost them. And then the front page of the Gazette this morning hadn't helped, had turned him as bad-tempered as a cornered possum.
The Molena Point Gazette didn't concern itself with news beyond the village. Problems in the world at large could be reported by the San Francisco Chronicle or the Examiner. The Gazette was interested only in local matters, and last night's breakin occupied half the front page, above the fold.
SECOND BURGLARY HITS VILLAGE
A break-in last night at Jewel's Liquors netted the burglars over two thousand dollars from a locked cash register. This is the second such burglary in a week. Police have, at this time, no clue to the identity of the robber.
Police Captain Max Harper told reporters that though the department performed a thorough investigation, they found no mark of forced entry on the doors or on the window casings and no fingerprints. The crime was discovered by the store's owner, Leo Jewel, when he went in early this morning to restock the shelves and prepare a bank deposit. When Jewel opened the register he found only loose change, and loose change had been spilled on the floor.
Captain Harper said the burglar's mode of operation matched that of the Medder's Antiques burglary earlier this week. "It is possible," Harper said, "that the burglar obtained duplicate keys to both stores, and that he picked the cash register's lock."
Leo Jewel told reporters he was certain he had locked both the front and the alley doors. He said that no one else had a key to the store. He had closed up at ten as usual. Captain Harper encourages all store owners to check their door and window locks, to bank their deposits before they close for the night, and to consider installing an alarm system. Harper assured reporters that street patrols had been increased, and that any information supplied by a witness will be held in confidence, that no witness would be identified to the public.
Dulcie wondered if the police had collected any black cat hairs. She wondered what good the stolen money was, to Azrael. So the old man buys him a few cans of tuna. So big deal. But she didn't imagine for a minute that any monetary gain drove Azrael. The black torn, in her opinion, was twisted with power-hunger, took a keen and sadistic pleasure in seeing a human's hard-won earnings stolen-was the kind of creature who got his kicks by making others miserable. For surely a chill meanness emanated from the cat who liked to call himself the Death Angel; he reeked of rank cruelty as distinctive as his tomcat smell.
When the doorbell blared, she jumped nearly out of her skin. As Wilma opene
d the door, Mavity Flowers emerged from the mist, her kinky gray hair covered by a shabby wool scarf beaded with fog. Beneath her old, damp coat, her attire this morning was the same that she wore for work, an ancient rayon pants uniform, which, Dulcie would guess, she had purchased at the Salvage Shop and which had, before Mavity ever saw it, already endured a lifetime of laundering and bleaching. Mavity varied her three pants uniforms with four uniform dresses, all old and tired but serviceable. She hugged Wilma, her voice typically scratchy.
"Smells like heaven in here. Am I late? What are you cooking?" She pulled off the ragged scarf, shook herself as if to shake away remnants of the fog. "Morning, Clyde. Bernine.
"Had to clear the mops and brooms out of my Bug. Dora and Ralph's plane gets in at eleven. My niece," she told Bernine, "from Georgia. They bring everything but the roof of the house. My poor little car will be loaded. I only hope we make it home, all that luggage and those two big people. I should've rented a trailer."
Dulcie imagined Mavity hauling her portly niece and nephew-in-law in a trailer like steers in a cattle truck, rattling down the freeway. Bernine looked at Mavity and didn't answer. Mavity's minimal attention to social skills and her rigid honesty were not high on Bernine's list. Yet it was those very qualities that had deeply endeared her to Wilma. Mavity's raspy voice echoed precisely her strained temper this morning; she had been volatile ever since her brother arrived two weeks ago.
Greeley Urzey visited his sister every few years, and he liked to have his daughter and her husband fly out from the east to be with him; but it took Mavity only a few days with a houseful of company before she grew short-tempered.
"That house isn't hardly big enough for Greeley and me, and with Dora and Ralph we'll be like sardines. They always have the bedroom, neither one can abide the couch, and they bring enough stuff for a year, suitcases all over. Greeley and me in the sitting room, him on the couch, me on that rickety cot, and Greeley snoring to shake the whole house."
Dulcie and Joe glanced at each other, suppressing a laugh.
"It is a small house," Wilma said kindly, sitting down on the couch beside Dulcie and patting a space for Mavity.
Mavity sat stroking Dulcie, then reached to pet Joe. "You're a nice cat, Joe Grey. I wish all tomcats were as clean and polite."
She looked at Wilma, shaking her head. "Can you believe that Greeley brought a cat with him! A great big, ugly cat. Carried it right on the plane with him. He found it on the streets of Panama; it probably has every disease. My whole house smells of tomcat. I can't believe Greeley would do such a thing-a cat, all that way from Panama. Took it on board, in a cage. Three thousand miles. I didn't think even Greeley could be so stupid.
"He could have left it home, could have paid some neighbor to feed it. They have maids down there-everyone has a maid, even Greeley, to clean up and take care of things. The maid could have fed an animal. Greeley never did have any sense. Who in their right mind would travel all that way carting a stray cat? It's sure to get lost up here, wander off, and then Greeley will have a fit."
Bernine had put aside the financial page. "Can't you board it somewhere?" she asked coldly. "Surely there are kennels for cats."
"First thing I told Greeley, but he wouldn't hear of it."
Bernine shrugged and returned to the newspaper. Dulcie, fascinated, sniffed at Mavity's uniform searching for the cat's scent.
But she could smell only the nose-itching jolt of Mavity's gardenia-scented bath powder. Leaping to the floor, she sniffed of Mavity's shoes.
No hint of cat there. Mavity's white leather oxfords smelled of shoe polish and of a marigold Mavity must have stepped on coming up the walk; the flower's golden color was streaked up the white leather. Frustrated with her inability to scent the strange tomcat, she curled up again on the couch, quietly regarding Mavity.
"I told Greeley that cat could do its business outdoors. Why ever not, when I live right there on the edge of a whole marsh full of sand? But no, even if the cat goes outside, it still has to have a fresh sandbox, right there in the kitchen. Talk about spoiled-talk about stink.
"I told Greeley it's his job to change the sand, go down to the marsh and get fresh sand, but I have to keep telling and telling him. And to top it off, the cat has sprayed all over my furniture- the whole house reeks of it. Oh, my, what a mess. I'll never get it clean. Why do tomcats do that?"
Dulcie almost choked with suppressed laughter. She daren't look at Joe for fear she'd lose control.
"Well, in spite of that beast, it's good to have Greeley. It's been four years since he was here. After all, Greeley and Dora and Ralph-they're all the family I have."
Mavity grinned. "I guess my little car will hold the two of them and the luggage; it always has before." She glanced at Bernine and reached to stroke Dulcie. "It's not every day your only family comes for a visit."
Swallowing back her amusement, Dulcie rolled over, her paws waving in the air. Mavity was so dear-she could complain one minute, then turn around and do something thoughtful. She had cooked all week, making cakes and casseroles for Greeley and his daughter and son-in-law so they would enjoy their stay.
Dulcie didn't realize she was smiling until Wilma scowled a sharp warning and rose hastily, pulling Mavity up.
"The frittata's done," Wilma said. "It will burn. Let's take up breakfast." She headed for the kitchen, urging Mavity along, shooting Dulcie such a stern look of warning that Dulcie flipped over, flew off the couch, bolted through the house to the bedroom and under Wilma's bed.
Crouched in the dark she swallowed back a mewing laugh-at Mavity, and at Wilma's look of anger because she'd been smiling- trying not to laugh out loud. It was terrible to have to stifle her amusement. Didn't Wilma understand how hard that was? Sometimes, Dulcie thought, she might as well plaster a Band-Aid over her whiskers.
Lying on her back on the thick bedroom rug, staring up at the underside of the box springs, she considered Greeley and his tomcat.
Were these two the burglars?
But that was not possible. It would never happen, the solution to a crime fall into their furry laps as easy as mice dumped from a cage.
Last night she and Joe had followed the old man and Azrael clear across the village before they lost them. Keeping to the darkest shadows, they had tailed them to the busy edge of Highway One, had drawn back warily from the cars whizzing by-had watched the cat leap to the old man's shoulder and the man run across between the fast vehicles where no sensible animal would venture.
Pausing on the curb, their noses practically in the line of fast cars and breathing enough carbon monoxide to put down an ox, they had argued hotly about whether to follow the two across that death trap-argued while Azrael and the old man hurried away down the block.
"You can go out there and get squashed if you want," she'd told him, "but I'm not. It's dark as pitch, those drivers can't see you, and no stupid burglar is worth being squashed into sandwich meat."
And for once she had been able to bully Joe-or for once he had shown some common sense.
But then, watching the pair hurry two blocks south and double back and cross the highway again, toward the village, their tempers blazed.
"They duped us!" Joe hissed. "Led us like two stupid kittens following a string-hoping we'd be smashed on the highway." And he crouched to race after them.
But she wasn't having any more. "We could tail them all night. As long as they know we're following, they're not about to go home."
"They have to go home sometime-have to sleep sometime."
"They'll sleep on a bench. Just see if they don't."
But Joe had shadowed them for over an hour, and she tagged along-until Joe realized that Azrael knew they were still following, knew exactly where they were on the black street, that the cat had senses like a laser.
But now-what if Mavity's brother and his cat were the burglars?
Certainly everything fit. Greeley had been here for two weeks. Both burglaries had occurred within that
time. The old man looked the right age to be Mavity's brother, and, more to the point, he was small like Mavity, with the same wiry frame.
There was, Dulcie thought, a family resemblance, the deeply cleft upper lip, the same kind of dry wrinkles, the same coloring. Though Mavity's hair was gray, and the burglar's was ordinary brown, with gray coming in around his ears.
If the burglar was Greeley, then, as sure as mice had tails, he had stashed the money somewhere in Mavity's cottage. Where else would he hide it? He didn't live in Molena Point; it wasn't as if he had access to unlimited hiding places. Greeley was practically a stranger in the village.
As she flipped over, clawing with excitement into the carpet, wondering when would be the best time to slip into Mavity's cottage and search for the stolen cash, beside her the bedspread moved and Joe peered under, his yellow eyes dark and his expression smug.
"So," he whispered. "This one dropped right into our paws. Did you smell Azrael on her?"
"No, I didn't. We can't be sure…"
"Of course we're sure. There's no such thing as coincidence." He looked at her intently. "New man in town, brings his cat all the way from Panama. Why would he bring a cat all that way, unless he had some use for it? And that old burglar," Joe said, "even looks like Mavity."
Twitching a whisker, he rolled over, grinning, as pleased as any human cop who'd run the prints and come up with a positive ID.
7
CHARLIE HAULED the last duffle from her van and dumped it in Wilma's garage, enjoying the chill fog that pressed around the open garage and lay dense across the garden-but not enjoying, so much, shifting all her gear once again.
As a child she had loved to play "movers," filling cardboardbox "moving vans" with toys and sliding them along a route carefully planned to bring all her family and friends together into a tight little compound. At six years old, moving had satisfied a yearning need in her. At twenty-eight, hauling her worldly goods around in pasteboard boxes was right up there with having a double bypass.
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