Cattery Row

by Clea Simon

  I could take no comfort in the knowledge I’d acted as quickly as I could once I arrived. All I could think of was that last half hour with Monica. We’d not been discussing anything of importance. I had even shut my tape recorder off by the time she pulled out her vintage vinyl.

  Nor was it any help to hear that I had done the right thing, as the cop in the dark blue uniform had said, once he took my statement and pressed a lukewarm but very sweet and milky Styrofoam cup of tea into my hand. It seemed likely that Rose had interrupted a robbery, he told me, as an EMT wrapped a blanket around my shivering shoulders. If I’d arrived earlier—if I’d gone in, even to look for a phone, I might have met the same fate.

  It was the mention of the phone that broke through my shock, though the sugar in the tea probably helped.

  “She’d gotten a call. She’d told me.” I wasn’t feeling particularly coherent. “A threat.” Now I had his attention. “She told me, but then she said not to tell anyone.”

  “Now, calm down, ma’am. Let’s just start at the beginning. When did she first mention a threatening phone call?”

  “Monday.” Was it only Monday? Two days had passed and I hadn’t thought to check up on my friend. But she’d decided finally that the call was a prank. That it had been some kind of a bad joke. Or had she just been saying that to get me to leave it alone?

  “She thought it was a prank?” I’d been thinking aloud.

  “Yeah, because of Halloween coming up and all.” To me it was perfectly clear. The young cop sighed and looked down at his own notes.

  “The deceased received a threatening phone call or calls, but she thought that the caller was making a joke?”

  “She’s used to that kind of thing.” I had his attention now. “Especially this time of year. People get weird about cats. Weird about single women who live alone with a bunch of cats. So when they threatened to kill her cats she said…”

  “Hang on a minute. The threat was to her cats ?” His previously kind, concerned face twisted up into a grimace. I got angry.

  “The cats were everything to her. She’s a professional. She was a professional.” I had to stop and breathe before continuing. “A top quality breeder and a judge. If someone wanted to get to her, they’d threaten her cats. She’d do anything to protect them.”

  “So, you’re saying she would have died for those animals?”

  I paused, caught up by the obvious next step. “Maybe she did,” I said, clutching the warm Styrofoam. The blanket did nothing to stop the shivering now. “Maybe she did.”

  ***

  To say I was a basket case would be an understatement. Somehow, once the cops let me go, I did get myself home without further incident and crawled into bed. I think I even slept a bit, Musetta snuggled under my chin, because it was dark when I woke up, and I was hungry. At least my head didn’t hurt, though I did jump three feet when the doorbell rang.

  “Bill?” I asked the intercom tentatively. Until I heard myself ask, I hadn’t realized how much I was hoping he’d come over. I knew how fast word spreads among cops, and, even with everything outstanding between us, it would be so easy to melt into his arms.

  “Bunny!” came the response. “Let me in.”

  Comfort of a different sort had arrived. Clutched to a shiny beaded top that only Bunny could get away with were two huge, stapled paper bags, and her usual vanilla-bean perfume was overwhelmed by a marvelous wave of garlic. The vision in purple who trundled up the stairs had stopped for Korean take-out on her way from the Mail. The outfit was just what she wore to work.

  “Yuk kai jang, bi bim bap. Some short ribs, and those dumplings you like,” she said, clearing the papers from my table and parceling out the fragrant foil dishes. “Bill called.” Business-like as always, she tucked her long henna’d curls into a rubber band and began to rustle through my kitchen cabinets, emerging with soup bowls, spoons, and a couple of pairs of mismatched chopsticks. “I should have just called him days ago, when you didn’t get back to me.” She examined the chopsticks, settled on four that seemed clean, and pulled up a chair facing me. “But he told me what’s been going on. And today, damn.…He sends his love, by the way. He’ll be calling you later.” She fixed me with a look, but then pushed up her spangled sleeves and began scooping dumplings into my bowl so I forgave her. “Girl, why don’t you call your friends when you’re in trouble?”

  “Oh,” was all I managed. The hot meat dumpling reminded my stomach of the meals I’d missed. “Good!”

  We ate in silence for a good ten minutes, my furious shoveling interrupted only when Musetta came in to request some lap space. The doorbell rang again. “Violet,” Bunny announced, and sure enough our diminutive friend was soon trudging up the stairs, a vision in a vintage CBGBs shirt and black jeans, and lugging what looked like three pints of ice cream. “None of that frozen yogurt crap,” she confirmed, cramming the cartons into my ice-crusted freezer and getting herself a bowl and utensils. She smelled of smoke when she hugged me, but I was in no mood to complain.

  We ate in relative silence, Bunny asking after Violet’s classes, Violet removing Musetta from the table when the latter began to paw at the marinated bean sprouts. “We’re playing Jato’s Saturday,” Violet told us. Bunny and I both raised our eyes. Jato’s was an expensive club, the kind of place best known for touring bands on the rise. “Scarcity breeds demand.” Economics was one of Violet’s fall classes. “No, it’s not the money. Not just the money,” she corrected herself. “If I kept turning down gigs I’d have a mutiny on my hands from the rest of the band. You’ll both be on the list. Bunny, I’ll try to get you a plus-one. Theda, I’ve seen Bill’s face when we play. Tell him he doesn’t have to come.” I nodded and kept eating. The Violet Haze Experience playing out. Going to hear music. Normal life continuing.

  When I finally pushed my bowl away, after seriously considering the last of the tangy barbecue, I felt I could breathe again. My belly couldn’t hold any more, but my head felt better too. This was just like the old days, before I’d begun spending so much time with Bill. Who wasn’t there. Back when Rose was alive.

  “Oh, Bunny!” Suddenly my composure gave way and I felt the tears start to come. In a moment, her considerable bulk was leaning over my chair, hugging and patting me. Violet reached to pull the bowls out of the way and Musetta ducked for cover.

  “Oh, honey.” Making the appropriate sympathetic noises, she pulled my head onto her copious breast, which would have been soft were it not for the ornate decoration on her sweater and a couple of spiky crystals on a chain. I pulled away.

  “No, you don’t.” She misunderstood my resistance. “Come on over to the sofa.”

  Better placed to avoid injury, I curled up over one of my own velvet sofa pillows. Both my friends flanked me with hugs, and I began to cry in earnest.

  “It was so horrible,” I began, between sobs. “She was lying there. Her wig…” I broke off for a while and let my friends hold me. Finally, the sobs subsided and Violet left to get a roll of toilet paper and a glass of water.

  “Blow.” I did, and then drank.

  “One side of her forehead was just gone. Smashed in.” If I closed my eyes, I could see it still: Rose’s vulnerable scalp, thin gray hair matted with blood. Her eye staring open up at nothing. Empty. The skin above it caved in. The cops hadn’t said anything to me about the cause of death or the nature of her injuries. They didn’t have to.

  “And this right after you’d been bashed in the head,” said Bunny, who began patting my back as if afraid I was going to lose it again.

  “But that was a break-in. I don’t know, we must have stopped them.”

  “No we didn’t,” Violet reminded me. “Two kittens were taken.”

  “Kittens?” While I rocked back and forth, my feet tucked beneath me, Violet filled Bunny in on the shelter invasion, including the cops’ unwillingness to count two missing kittens as stolen property. The remaining kitten, I was cheered to hear, was doing great, all trace o
f the upper respiratory infection gone.

  “Could it have been a prank? Somebody’s bad idea of a joke?” Bunny sounded as skeptical about the idea of cat stealing as I had.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Violet seemed to have considered the idea. “I was thinking that, especially so close to Halloween. But these kittens weren’t black or even dark-ish, like you’d expect to be grabbed for ‘witch cats.’” Bunny shot her a look. “You know what I mean, Bunny. Not Wiccan, but like those cartoon Halloween witches. They were more or less white, with a little brown. Real cuties, too, all roly-poly and very friendly. The littlest one seems to miss her sisters.”

  “Poor lonely kitty,” I chimed in. “I should have pushed. Should have insisted. But nobody had threatened her. You didn’t get any calls.”

  “Drink some more water, honey,” said Bunny, still holding me. “You’re not making sense. Someone threatened a kitten?” I shook my head. “Threatened Violet? This was a break-in, most likely. Bill told me.”

  “No, Bunny, this was planned. Someone had been calling Rose, saying there’d be violence if she didn’t pay up.”

  “Threatening Rose? Did you tell the cops this?”

  It was too much to go into again. Even Bill hadn’t believed me. I nodded and started to sniffle once more. When we’d gone through another round of back-patting, I finally got the whole story out, from the first terrified phone conversation to Rose’s denial. I told them, as well, about talking to the cops. They didn’t seem to understand, I said, to which Violet snorted in response. By the time I’d gotten through it, some of that great dinner must have worked into my bloodstream. I was feeling more myself again.

  “So, what was your news?” I asked, wiping a still-sore nose.

  “Nothing so big.”

  “C’mon. Is it good? You said so on your message. I could use some good news.”

  Half turned away from me, I could see the side of two big grins. Bunny and Violet exchanged glances. For some reason, this made me anxious. “C’mon Bunny, tell me.”

  My friend pivoted to take both my hands in hers, pinning me down with a smile. “We’re getting handfasted. Cal and I. We’re going to get a license and everything. Make our union permanent. Violet and Caro are going to do a reading. And we want you and Bill to stand up with us.”

  “This is so great, Bunny,” said Violet, beaming at her. “Caro’s already looking through lyrics. This is wonderful.”

  They both thought it was happiness when I started to bawl once more.

  Chapter Eight

  I had to talk to Bill. That was my first thought, when I woke on Thursday morning. My sinuses felt like concrete, but my conscience was worse. I’d been a wimp. I had to straighten out what was going on between us, figure out where I stood on what everyone besides me seemed to think was an express train to monogamous happiness. I’d ducked his call the night before by falling asleep on the couch, and had only a faint recollection of Bunny talking to my beau as Violet cleaned up. He was taking me to dinner tomorrow, if I felt up to it, she’d said. If not, he was getting take-out to make sure I ate. I wasn’t sure I needed his nutritional nursing, especially after last night’s feast. But I wouldn’t cancel. Food was always good, and I owed him an explanation for how I’d been acting. More to the point, I owed it to myself to work out what was what.

  I also had an appointment to interview Cool today, and considered calling her to postpone. It had been a hell of a week. But Violet had found out that Rose’s funeral would be Friday, and with that damned City deadline approaching I realized maybe I should just get it over with. Considering my mood and her chilliness, it wasn’t going to be a long catch-up lunch anyway. I only needed seven hundred and fifty words on her.

  Dragging myself off the sofa, my comforter still tucked around my shoulders, I lurched toward my tiny, dark kitchenette, still shrouded in shadow. Something warm and sticky welled up between my toes and I jumped and shrieked. Fur flew by me, and—fully awake now—I looked down to see an empty ice cream carton lying by the overturned garbage can, its melted remains spreading across the floor.

  “Sorry, Musetta,” I yelled down the hall, and reached for a paper towel to clean up the mess. “I’m losing it,” I added, as much to myself as to my now invisible cat. What had I thought I’d stepped in? Blood? I had to snap out of this.

  The phone rang. I hadn’t had any coffee, but my spine had to kick in sometime.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey there, stranger. You’re a hard woman to get in touch with.” The warm tones almost misled me. The last few times we’d talked, he’d been distant, gone from me long before he physically moved out of town. But I recognized the underlying voice. It was Rick.

  “Hey, yourself,” I replied wittily. “What brings you back to town?” Okay, so maybe I wasn’t at my most scintillating, but as enticing as it had been to hear his message, the actual reality of Rick set off some alarm bells in my head. It wasn’t just that he’d left town—and me. My former beau had charm, musical taste, and a wide, sexy smile that could melt away any sins. But sins there had been, at least by my accounting.

  I understood why he’d left, and a lot of the problems we’d had were in keeping with the life he’d led here. Rick had been a freelancer for most of our two-something years together, depending on how you counted the off times, when we were barely speaking. We freelancers are not known for our sense of commitment, and his on-again, off-again fidelity had bothered me a lot more than I’d let on at the time.

  Plus, there was the work. He’d focused on music, more than I had, talent and temperament making it too difficult for him to bend his wordsmithing skills to the kind of service features that until recently had paid my bills. That love of music was what had brought us together—the basic passion for loud, fast beats; solid hooks; and the communal underground that celebrated such joyful noise—but it also sometimes set us up as competitors. So when a staff job—with benefits—had opened up in Arizona, it made perfect sense that he’d grab it. And I almost understood why he’d never consulted me. The problem was more that when he left for warmer climes, he also left most of my questions about us unanswered. Were we breaking up? Had we ever been more than a couple of convenience? At least now I seemed capable of asking him a direct question. Maybe I’d grown a little. Or maybe it’s just that he was on the phone and I couldn’t feel his dark eyes, or his hands, on me. What I did feel were claws. Musetta was stretching, her white mittens reaching up and into my leg as her round green eyes stared straight at me.

  “Ow!” I detached her extended paws. She blinked once, then walked away. “Sorry, I was being used for a scratching post. So, what happened?” I asked again.

  “The cat? Oh, the job thing,” he replied, and I caught an echo of the laugh that always charmed me, no matter how infuriating he got. “Well, let’s just say that ten years of good music and no money didn’t accustom me to churning out copy for the man.”

  “You quit ?” “Man” or no man, staff jobs writing about music were few and far between. His silence clued me in that maybe the move hadn’t been voluntary. “Well, whatever, welcome back.” I laughed a little to cover my awkwardness. In our world that was a supremely uncool question. “You think this is for good?” I waited for him to mention our relationship. If we had one.

  “For now, anyway. But, hey, I really don’t want to do a post mortem on the job. I want to see you. I want to catch up. The way we left things…” His voice trailed off, but I didn’t care. This was as close as he’d ever come to an acknowledgement of our relationship.

  “Yeah, I know.” I settled onto the sofa and curled up with the receiver. The last few months faded away.

  “I realize I was sort of distant, and I’ve been thinking a lot.” My toes curled with glee. Was this the same club-cool charmer I remembered? The man who’d driven all night so we could catch Robyn Hitchcock’s last set in New York, but then left me to find my own way home? “How about dinner tonight? Maybe we could meet at the Casbah?
” He’d put on his bad Omar Sharif accent with the invitation, but my stomach fell. Dinner. I had plans with Bill. I would have to tell Rick about Bill. And tell Bill…what? I didn’t even know where Rick and I stood.

  “I may be booked.” What the hell, hadn’t Bunny always advised me not to be so readily available? “What about coffee at the Mug Shot? See you there at four?”

  “Uh, okay.” Rick’s smooth delivery almost cracked, and he joked to recover. “Will I recognize you?”

  “We’ll see.” I felt more in control than I had all morning. “Won’t we?”

  ***

  I was decidedly more conscious of my appearance than usual as I dressed for the interview with Cool. If this had just been catching up with an old friend, I doubt I’d have looked for my good jeans or worried so much about my hair. But Cool had gone beyond our local bar stars: she was a real celebrity, a Grammy winner, and I was no longer sure if she was also my old buddy from the clubs. I stopped before getting the blowdryer out, however. The Cool I remembered could barely tame her curls. But I did take the time to read up on her official web site. Much of it was the history that I knew well. Hell, I’d been there with her, during the rock and roll years. And I’d gone along as support on those first blues gigs, when she’d broken with our town’s prevailing format to try the older music at coffee houses and such. I’d even been in the audience when that first festival scout had approached her, asking if she would be interested in three dates opening for a summer shed tour. It hadn’t sounded like much at first: one of those all-day affairs that brings out a couple of veteran acts that can’t fill the stadiums anymore and builds a show around them, complete with a half dozen unknowns. But for Cool, it was the beginning of a magic carpet ride.

  Even though she’d been booked to play the second stage at the festival, Cool didn’t remain an unknown for long. It wasn’t just that Minnie Wright had noticed her, bringing the younger white woman up on stage during her own closing set. It was that the crowd did, that they loved to see a girl working her guitar up on the stage, like so many of them dreamed of doing. They got how Cool’s bluesy licks twined around Minnie’s husky voice. And when Minnie had Cool sing a verse one night somewhere outside of Milwaukee, her own deep contralto taking over from the older woman, the audience first got quiet, and then went wild. The duet became a regular part of the show, a way to bring a new generation of fans into Minnie’s act. By the time the tour ended—the original three dates had been extended into two months—Cool had a contract and an audience primed to buy her product. The move out to L.A. was natural, and in many ways she was already gone before she made the rounds of farewell parties here in Boston. Those were wild, all-night loft affairs that I never saw close.