Qwilleran’s retort was prompt. “We can’t help it if they find our quality of life superior.”
“Seriously,” Kip said, “Alden is a sad case. Do you remember the sniping incident last year? The victim was Alden’s wife!”
“The case was never closed. He was surrounded by the sad voices and sad faces of sympathizers. Then their son was no longer around so he sold their big house and went in search of a new scene.”
“Can’t blame him,” Qwilleran said. “I’ve never met him, but I understand he’s joined the theatre club. That’ll be therapeutic.”
The waitress arrived to take their orders and placed a bud vase with a single yellow rose in the middle of the table. “The boss wants you to enjoy this with your lunch. It’s in its fourth day.”
“Tell Miss Inglehart we’re honored,” Kip said solemnly.
They placed their orders, and then Qwilleran asked, “Kip, dare I ask the significance of the yellow rose?”
“You don’t know! Moose County is more backward than I thought. Rose-watching is the current fascination around here. Once a week everyone buys a single long-stemmed rose in the bud and watches it unfurl day by day.”
“Then Lockmaster County is loonier than I thought,” was Qwilleran’s verdict. “Who started it? The Florists’ Association? What is the purpose? Do the rose-watchers compare notes on the Internet? Is there a prize?”
“Moira knows more about it than I do. Ask her when you pick up Dundee.”
The sandwiches were served. The house specialty at lunchtime was the French dip with fries, and silence fell on the table for a while.
Then Qwill asked, “How’s your daughter doing at J school, Kip?”
“Fine! Kathie loves it! She’s got journalism in her genes. She and her boyfriend, Wesley, were supposed to enroll at State this fall, you know, but he dropped out. Too bad. They both wrote for the school paper and had part-time jobs at the Ledger. He was a good kid. Top grades, no bad habits. I envisioned him as a future son-in-law, with the two of them taking over the Ledger when I retire. It’s no Washington Post, but it’s a respected country newspaper. All it lacks is the ‘Qwill Pen’ column. We’d put it on the front page if you’d syndicate, Qwill.”
“It wouldn’t work,” Qwilleran protested. “Most of my columns are of local, topical interest in Moose County.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” the editor said. “It could be the beginning of a healthy link between our two counties—instead of the mutual snobbery that keeps us apart. Both counties could benefit. Think about it. Are you having dessert?”
The MacDiarmids lived in a planned neighborhood, circa 1940, of two-story colonials with attached garages on cozy cul-de-sacs. There was nothing like that in Moose County. On the way there, Qwilleran recalled Polly’s comment: “Be prepared for a much more vivacious Moira since she has her career as cat breeder and their daughter has gone away to college. She’s dropped the wife-and-mother role.”
When he arrived, Moira flung open the door and cried, “Come in! Come in! Dundee is ready to go—along with his impedimenta. He’s downstairs in the cattery, saying good-bye to his confreres. Go and sit in the family room, Qwill. I’ll bring him up, and the two of you can get acquainted before you take off.”
Qwilleran, meanwhile, could hear Moira’s falsetto pep talk to the marmalade brood below.
When she reappeared she was preceded by a handsome marmalade yearling. He had the leanness of youth, the greenest of green eyes, and a cocky swagger. He went directly to Qwilleran’s chair and checked out the famous moustache.
“Yours is the first moustache he’s ever seen,” Moira said. “He has a wonderful, outgoing, fearless personality.” Then to the cat she said, “This is your uncle Qwill, Dundee! He’s going to take you to a bookstore where you’ll be the official bibliocat.”
“Is there anything I should tell Polly?”
“We’ve been in touch by phone regularly. She’s as excited as we are! He’ll travel in his own carrier and take his own favorite scratching post. It’s covered in green carpet. She has a basket-bed for him, but we’re sending his own cushion for it.”
At this point, Dundee jumped on Qwilleran’s lap and presented him with a small rag doll, well chewed and still damp.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Moira said. “He’s giving you Rebecca, his favorite toy! Polly said we should send all his familiar playthings. He even has an old toothbrush that he dearly loves. He parades around importantly with it clamped crosswise in his little jaws. . . . Now let’s talk about something else and ignore him for a while.”
“For starters,” Qwilleran said, “tell me about rose-watching. Is it a joke?”
“Not at all! You should introduce it in your column, Qwill. It’s a simple, private way of calming the nerves in these days of terrorists and snipers.”
“Are you a rose-watcher, Moira?”
“Definitely. And Kip finds it an aid to problem-solving; it clears the mind.”
Hmmm, Qwilleran mused; that faker never admitted he watched roses! Casually, he asked Moira, “Do you think Alden Wade is a rose-watcher?”
“That poor man! It would help him, I know. And to make things worse, when his stepson came home for the funeral, there was a nasty scene at the funeral home, and the boy stomped out. Kathie hasn’t heard from him since. She says he never got along with his stepfather. Wesley idolized his real dad and resented it when his mom married so soon.”
Qwilleran said, “So apparently Alden married an older woman.”
“Yes, but you’d never guess it. She was a horsewoman and in excellent condition. . . . All of this is confidential, of course.”
“Of course.”
Driving back to Pickax with a contented cat in the carrier beside him, Qwilleran pulled off the road to phone Polly at the library and was told she had left early to handle an emergency at the bookstore.
He phoned the bookstore. “I’ve got him!” he reported. “We’ve just crossed the county line. We’ll be there in twenty-eight minutes.”
“Is he nervous?” she asked anxiously.
“Not as nervous as I am. He lounges in his carrier and doesn’t say a word. No yowling! No shrieking!”
“He’ll be a good bibliocat. Did Moira send some of his things?”
“Yes. His cushion . . . and his scratching post . . . and his toothbrush. See you shortly. Roll out the red carpet.”
The new bookstore occupied the site of Eddington Smith’s quaint shop, where he had sold pre-owned books, done bookbinding in the back room, and kept a bibliocat in sardines. It was a strange piece of property—a block long but squeezed between Book Alley and Walnut Street—a miscalculation on the part of the founding fathers, it was said, after too much fish-house punch.
The new bookstore had to be long and narrow, but it turned its back to Book Alley, had parking lots at both ends, and faced the park across Walnut Street. The exterior was gray stucco to harmonize with the old stone buildings of Pickax, but it had a red tile roof, and the name of the store was spelled out in block letters of aluminum mounted directly on the gray stucco:
THE PIRATE’S CHEST
The entrance doors, flanked by display windows, were in the center of the building. Inside, there were books to the right and books to the left, but straight ahead was a wide, inviting staircase leading to the lower level and—mounted on the wall above it—a real pirate’s chest of ancient wood with iron straps. It had been buried on the property for a century and a half.
Staffers in green smocks were still unpacking books and stocking the shelves when Qwilleran walked in with the cat carrier, but they swarmed around, crying, “Here he is! Here’s Dundee! . . . Isn’t he gorgeous?”
“Don’t overwhelm him!” Polly said. “Take him into the office, Qwill, and let him wander out when he feels like it.”
Half an hour later, Dundee made his formal appearance. He had inspected his quarters, had a bit to eat, tested the “facilities,” and then walked confidently into the s
elling area, with his toothbrush clamped firmly between his jaws.
Late that evening before Qwilleran could phone Polly, she called him. “I’m going to bed early and turning the phone off. I didn’t want you to worry.” Only once before had he seen her push herself too far, and she had landed in the hospital.
“But I am definitely worried about you, Polly. Make up your mind to phase out the library. They’ll never let you go if you don’t cut the cord. And one more thing. Don’t—set—your—alarm—clock!”
“I won’t, dear. Thank you, dear.”
THREE
“Your uncle George is coming,” Qwilleran said to the Siamese as he brushed their silky coats. “Be on your best behavior. Mind your manners. Don’t interrupt conversations with irrelevant remarks.”
The more one speaks to cats, the smarter they become, Qwilleran believed. What one says to them doesn’t matter; it’s the tone that counts: serious, purposeful.
Uncle George was a private joke. A new attorney from Down Below, named George Barter, had joined the prestigious Hasselrich law firm to represent Qwilleran in all matters concerning the Klingenschoen Fund. In a slip of the tongue the WPKX announcer identified the new attorney as “George Breze . . . uh, correction: George Barter.” Once more WPKX had slipped on a banana peel: George Breze was a local character of dubious integrity, a certified oddball. He was once quoted as saying, “Why should I learn to read and write? I can hire somebody to do it.”
After the WPKX faux pas, the jokers in the coffee shops guffawed for a week, and the attorney changed his business cards to “G. Allen Barter.”
He would henceforth be known to locals as Allen, although he would always be George to the IRS and Social Security.
His conferences with Qwilleran were held at the latter’s apple barn. Bart, as Qwilleran called him, maintained that a visit to the barn was always like a shot in the arm.
It was a century-old apple barn—octagonal and forty feet high. A fieldstone foundation and wood-shingled siding had a mellow old patina in contrast to the bleached wood beams of the interior.
Business started that morning with Bart’s report on financial and legal affairs of the K Fund, which Qwilleran found tiresome, although he was careful to conceal his reaction.
Then it was his turn to report: The Pirate’s Chest was beginning to look like a bookstore. It would be ready to open in another week. The bibliocat had moved in and acted as if he owned the place. Polly had hired an assistant with bookstore credentials. Part-time helpers were available when and if needed, happy to be associated with The Pirate’s Chest.
“Believe it or not,” Qwilleran said, “there are crackpots—like me—who would work for the sheer joy of working with words and ideas and adventures in hardcover bindings.”
Bart said, “You should write a column on that, Qwill.”
“I did. Before you came here. It was actually a tribute to Edd Smith. Books were his life. Although he never sat down and read one, he consulted books, collected them, sold them, talked about them, and repaired them.” Qwilleran paused, remembering the little gray man, his dusty shop, and his dingy living quarters in the rear, which he shared with bookbinding equipment, the ever-present aroma of sardines and clam chowder, the cracked mirror above a rusty sink, and the handgun on the shelf beneath.
“Anyway,” Qwilleran went on, “volunteers are falling all over each other to participate in the Edd Smith Place on the lower level. They call themselves Edd Smith’s People and wear ESP badges. It occupies half the lower level; the rest is earmarked for special events.”
“Of what nature?”
“Book reviews, a children’s storybook hour, a literary club, and so forth. There is a new man in town who has been hired to handle these on a part-time basis. His name is Alden Wade, and he’s just moved here from Lockmaster following the murder of his wife by a sniper’s bullet.”
Bart recalled the case. “Did they ever find the perpetrator?”
“No, and survivors suffer more when there is no closure. Alden came here to get away from it all. Working at the bookstore and joining the theatre club will be therapeutic. You’ll see him in the Oscar Wilde play, if you go.”
“We have tickets for Saturday night.”
“And apropos of that, Bart, I think it’s time the K Theatre had a better name.”
He was talking about the giant cube of fieldstone that had been the Klingenschoen mansion before being gutted by fire. Now it was a theatre for stage productions.
“I agree that the name lacks imagination,” the attorney said.
“It sounds like a breakfast cereal to me,” Qwilleran said, “or the index tab of an office file folder.”
“What would you suggest?”
“Something like Theatre Arts in the same type of signage used on the bookstore and the Mackintosh Inn. There could be classes in acting, voice control, and so forth.”
“Who could teach?”
“This same Alden Wade who’s playing the lead in the new play.”
“You’ve done your homework,” Bart said. “I’ll move it forward.”
Little did Uncle George know that Koko had been staring at Qwilleran during the rush of ideas. Qwilleran agreed with the eighteenth-century poet Christopher Smart, who maintained that cats have a way of placing ideas in human heads—not only reminders about food.
“Meanwhile, tell me what’s going on at Winston Park. I’ve seen the trucks, and I can’t figure out what they’re doing.”
Qwilleran explained with limited enthusiasm, “It’s an idea dreamed up by those eggheads in Chicago; it remains to be seen how it goes over with the folks in the so-called boondocks. The park is based on such practicalities as weather, maintenance, and human behavior.
“First, we’re in the deep-freeze zone, so a fountain in the middle of the park would be turned off five months of the year. Instead, they propose a piece of statuary as the focal point. Only Polly knows what it is, and she’s not talking, except to say that it’s tall and vertical.”
Bart said, “I hope it’s not an unclothed human figure. It wouldn’t be well received, I’m afraid.”
“That remains to be seen. It’ll be shrouded in tarpaulin until the unveiling at the press preview. Are you prepared for the experts’ Decision Number Two? No park benches! They attract loafers and picnickers, who leave beer cans and lunch wrappings around instead of putting them in the trash containers, which are inevitably filled to overflowing.”
“Hmmm,” the attorney murmured thoughtfully.
“Decision Number Three: Ground cover instead of grass, which needs mowing and raking seven months of the year. Also, evergreens instead of deciduous trees, which are leafless much of the year and responsible for a leaf problem every fall.”
“Is there any good news?”
“Yes, we’ll play it up in the paper as something new and different: a walking-and-learning park! Walking paths will curve around between the evergreens, which will represent many varieties—some new to local tree buffs—and all will be labeled. Speakers will be provided for garden clubs, and teachers will bring their classes and then give tests—with prizes for the highest scores, and photos of the winners in the newspaper.”
“I hope the experts know what they’re doing,” Bart said. “Good-bye, cats!”
“Yow!” Koko replied. He had a limited vocabulary but there was variety in his intonation. It could be agreeable, critical, apologetic, demanding, outraged, or alarming.
Bart gathered up his papers and left, followed by two cats interested in speeding the departing guest. Their noontime snack was overdue.
That evening after dinner, the three residents of the apple barn assembled for a reading session. Qwilleran had only to shout “Read!” and the Siamese came running: Yum Yum to take possession of his lap, Koko to select a title. He was the designated bibliocat, and seemed to take his responsibility seriously.
All available wall space was covered with bookshelves, and until recently they had been f
illed to capacity with pre-owned books purchased from the late Eddington Smith. In selecting a book, Koko would prance back and forth, then stop and look up at the shelves, make his decision, crouch, and spring! His powerful hind legs catapulted him to the right height, as much as seven feet above the floor. Never did he overshoot his goal or fall short; his spatial instinct was amazing to Qwilleran, who was a slave to a tape measure.
Then Koko would squeeze behind the books, sniffing the pages until he found a title he wanted (no need to read the printing on the spine). Bumping it with his nose, he would knock it off the shelf. Ideally, Qwilleran was there to catch it and that was the choice for the reading.
Recently there had been some empty shelf space, since a hundred books had been donated to the Edd Smith Place. A small army of volunteers had collected books from libraries around the county. Volunteers would staff the shop, and proceeds would benefit the Literacy Council and an Edd Smith scholarship.
Donated books, in order to be accepted, had to meet the requirements of the ESP. Food-spotted cookbooks and eighth-grade algebra books did not qualify.
When the Edd Smith Place opened, Qwilleran would be the first customer.
Opening night at the K Theatre was a pleasant tradition that both Polly and Qwilleran enjoyed, but her work overload had sapped her energy and enthusiasm. Regretfully, he attended without her.
Qwilleran had no objection to attending opening night alone, when he was reviewing the play. He could use the solitude to marshal his opinions and devise catchy phrases.
Purposely he arrived at the theatre late, parking in the space reserved for the press. The audience was already seated and the houselights were beginning to dim when he strode down the aisle and slipped into the critic’s traditional seat in row five.
There was a moment of silent anticipation, and then the curtain rose slowly, and during the breathless stillness Qwilleran heard two whispering voices behind him.
“That’s Mr. Q.”
“He’s gonna write it up for the paper.”
The Cat Who Went Bananas Page 2
