Cat in the Dark Read online

  He woke fully, staring toward the open window, drawing his lips back in a grimace at the stink he detected on the cool night air.

  Tomcat.

  The smell that came to him on the ocean breeze was the rank odor of an unknown tom-a stranger in the village.

  Joe might not encounter a village torn for months, but he knew each one, knew what routes he favored and which pals he hung out with, by the scent marks left on storefronts and tree trunks, aromas as individual as hand-lettered placards stating name and residence. He knew the smell of every cat in Molena Point, but this one was exotic and foreign.

  Joe tolerated the regular village toms, because how could he not? Without some degree of civility, life would degenerate into a succession of endless and meaningless battles. One restrained oneself until the prize was greatest, until a queen in heat ruled the night-then it was war, bloody and decisive.

  But no amount of civilized restraint among the village toms left room for strangers on their turf.

  This could be a stray from the wharf who had decided to prowl among the shops, or maybe some tourist's cat; whatever the case, he didn't like the intruder's belligerent, testosterone-heavy message. The beast's odor reeked of insolence and of a bold and dark malaise-a hotly aggressive, sour aroma. The cat smelled like trouble.

  In the moon's glow, the cottage bedroom was lent a charm not apparent in the daytime. A plain room, it was suited to a simple bachelor's spartan tastes, comfortable but shabby, the pine dresser and pine nightstand sturdily made and ugly, the ladder-back chair old and scarred. But now, in the moonlight, the unadorned white walls were enlivened by the shifting shadows of the oak trees that spread just outside the window, their knotted patterns softening the room's stark lines and offering a sense of mystery and depth. And beside the bed, a thick, ruby-toned Persian rug added a single touch of luxury, gleaming like jewels in the moonlight-a tender and extravagant gift from one of Clyde's former lovers.

  Pawing free of the confining bedcovers, Joe Grey walked heavily across the bed and across Clyde's stomach and dropped down to the thick, soft rug. Clyde, grunting, raised up and glared at him.

  "Why the hell do you do that? You're heavy as a damned moose!"

  Joe smiled and dug his claws into the rug's silky pile.

  Clyde's black hair was wild from sleep, his cheeks dark with a day's growth of stubble. A line of black grease streaked his forehead, residue from the innards of some ailing Rolls Royce or Mercedes.

  "You have the whole damned bed to walk on. Can't you show a little consideration? I don't walk on your stomach."

  Joe dug his claws deeper into the Persian weave, his yellow eyes sly with amusement. "You work out, you're always bragging about your great stomach muscles-you shouldn't even feel my featherweight. Anyway, you were snoring so loud, so deep under, that a Great Dane on your stomach shouldn't have waked you."

  "Get the hell out of here. Go on out and hunt, let me get some sleep. Go roll in warm blood or whatever you do at night."

  "For your information, I'm going straight to the library. What more sedate and respectable destination could one possibly…"

  "Can it, Joe. Of course you're going to the library-but only to get Dulcie. Then off to murder some helpless animal, attack some innocent little mouse or cute, cuddly rabbit. Look at you- that killer expression plastered all over your furry face."

  "Rabbits are not cuddly. A rabbit can be as vicious as a bullterrier-their claws are incredibly sharp. And what gives you the slightest clue to Dulcie's and my plans for the evening? You're suddenly an authority on the behavior of felis domesticus?"

  Clyde doubled the pillow behind his head. "I don't have to be an authority to smell the blood on your breath when you come stomping in at dawn."

  "I don't come in here at dawn. I go directly to the kitchen, minding my own business."

  "And trailing muddy pawprints all over the kitchen table. Can't you wash like a normal cat? You get so much mud on the morning paper, who can read it?"

  "I have no trouble reading it. Though why anyone would waste more than five minutes on that rag is hard to understand."

  Clyde picked up the clock, which he kept facedown on the night table. The luminous dial said twelve thirty-three. "It's late, Joe. Get on out of here. Save your sarcasm for Dulcie. Some of us have to get up in the morning, go to work to support the indigent members of the household."

  "I can support myself very nicely, thank you. I let you think otherwise simply to make you feel needed, to let you think you perform some useful function in the world."

  Padding across the oak floor, Joe pawed open the bedroom door. "So go to sleep. Sleep your life away." Giving Clyde a last, narrow glare, he left the room. Behind him, he heard Clyde groan and pound his pillow and roll over.

  Trotting down the hall and through the living room, brushing past his own tattered, hair-matted easy chair, he slipped out through his cat door. He supposed he should feel sorry for Clyde. How could a mere human, with inferior human senses, appreciate the glory of the moonlit night that surrounded him as he headed across the village?

  To his right, above the village roofs, the Molena Point hills rose round and silvered like the pale, humped backs of grazing beasts. All around him, the shop windows gleamed with lunar light, and as he crossed Ocean Avenue with its eucalyptus-shaded median, the trees' narrow leaves, long and polished, reflected the moon's glow like silver fish hung from the branches-thousands, millions of bright fish. No human, with inferior human eyesight, could appreciate such a night. No human, with dull human hearing and minimal sense of smell, could enjoy any of the glories of the natural world as vividly as did a cat. Clyde, poor pitiful biped, didn't have a clue.

  Trotting up the moon-whitened sidewalk, he caught again the scent of the vagrant torn and followed it on the shifting wind, watching for any stealthy movement in the tangled shadows. But then, hurrying past the softly lit shops and galleries, he lost that sour odor; now, passing a block of real estate offices and little cafes, sniffing at the doors and at the oversized flower pots that stood along the curb, he smelled only dog urine and the markings of the cats he knew. The torn had, somewhere behind him, taken a different route.

  Approaching Dulcie's cat door, which had been cut at the back of the library into Wilma's office, he startled at a sound within- and the door flap exploded out and Dulcie shot through nearly on top of him, her green eyes wildly blazing.

  She froze, staring at him. She said no word. She lashed her tail and spun away again, racing for the nearest tree and up it, swarming up to the roofs.

  Puzzled and concerned, he followed her.

  Was she simply moon-maddened, wild with the pull of the full moon? Or had something frightened her in the library's dark rooms?

  With Dulcie, who knew? His lady's moods could explode as crazily as moths flung in a windstorm.

  At least he hadn't scented the strange torn around her door, he thought with relief as he gained the moonlit peaks.

  Already she had disappeared. But her scent was there, warm and sweet, leading away into dense blackness between a tangle of vent pipes that rose from a roof as silvered and flat as a frozen pond. Slipping between the slashing shadows, he galloped past a dozen east-facing windows that reflected a dozen pale moons. Rearing up to look across the roofs for her, peering beneath overhangs and around dormers, he softly called to her. He spoke her name half a dozen times before he grew uneasy, began to worry that the torn had found her first.

  Most toms wouldn't harm a female, but there was always the nasty-tempered beast who liked to hurt a lady more than he liked to love her, the unusual, twisted male who fed on fear and pain- beasts little different from a similarly warped human. Except there were far fewer such cats than men.

  Not that Dulcie couldn't take care of herself. There wasn't a dog in Molena Point who would tangle with his lady. But despite Dulcie's temper and her swift claws, Joe searched with growing concern, hurrying along the peaks and watching the shadows and calling. B
eneath the moon's shifting light he could see nothing alive but the darting bats that skimmed the rooftops sucking up bugs and squeaking their shrill radar cries.

  Suddenly the tom's scent hit him strong, clinging to the wall of a little, one-room penthouse.

  Sniffing at the window, Joe could smell where the cat had rubbed his cheek along the glass, arrogantly marking this territory as if it were his own.

  Peering in through the dusty pane, he studied the old desk stacked with papers and catalogs and the shelves behind, crammed with books and ledgers. What had the torn seen in there of interest?

  Beyond the desk a spiral staircase led down to the bookstore below. Maybe this cat, like Dulcie and like Joe himself, found a bookstore inviting; certainly bookstores had a warm coziness, and they always smelled safe.

  Maybe the cat had taken up residence there; maybe the two young women who kept the shop had adopted him, picked him up on the highway or at the animal pound. How would they know that Molena Point already had enough tomcats? And why would they care? Why would a human care about the delicate balance of territory necessary to the village males?

  A nudge against his flank spun him around crouched to attack.

  Dulcie bounced aside laughing, her green eyes flashing. Cuffing his face, she raced to the edge of the roof and dropped off, plummeting down into the concrete canyon-he heard her claws catch on an awning.

  Crouching on the rain gutter, he looked down where she clung in the swaying canvas, her eyes blazing. Lashing her tail, she leaped up past him to the roof again and sped away. He burst after her and they fled along the rooftops laughing with human voices.

  "You can't escape…"

  "No scruffy torn can catch me…"

  "No hoyden queen can outrun this tomcat, baby."

  "Try me." She laughed, scorching away into the dark and twisted shadows. And who was to hear them? Below, the village slept. No one would hear them laughing and talking-no one, seeing them racing across the rooftops, would connect two cats with human voices. Wildly they fled across the peaks, leaping from shingled hip to dormer and up the winding stairs of the courthouse tower, swiftly up to its high, open lookout.

  On the small circular terrace beneath the tower's conical roof they trotted along the top of the brick rail, looking down at the world spread all below them, at a vast mosaic stained to silver and black. Nothing moved there, only the cloud shadows slipping across and the little bats jittering and darting on the fitful wind.

  But then as they padded along the rail, stepping around the outside of the tower's four pillars on a narrow row of bricks, something stirred below them.

  In the sea of darkness an inky patch shifted suddenly and slunk out of the shadows.

  He stood staring up at them, black and bold among the rooftops. A huge beast. Black as sin. The biggest tomcat Joe had ever seen-broad of shoulder, wide of head, solid as a panther. He moved with the grace of a panther, swaggering across the roof directly below them, belligerent and predaceous and staring up narrow-eyed, intently watching them, his slitted, amber eyes flashing fire-and his gaze was fully on Dulcie, keen with speculation.

  3

  ON THE ROOFS below Joe and Dulcie the tomcat sauntered along a sharp peak, swaying his broad shoulders with authority and staring coldly up at them where they crouched high on the rail of the tower. Though he dismissed Joe, hardly noticing him, his gaze lingered keenly on Dulcie, making her shiver. Then he smiled and, turning away again, began to stalk between the chimneys, his gaze fixed on a skylight's clear dome; crouched over the moonstruck bubble, he peered down intently through the curving glass.

  From their high vantage, Dulcie watched him with interest. "Blue Moss Cafe," she said softly. "What's he looking at? What's so fascinating? They're closed for the night." There would not be so much as a bread crust remaining on the small round tables, not a crumb visible in the stainless steel kitchen; she and Joe had often looked in, sniffing the good smell of beef stew, watching the happy diners. The cat seemed to study every detail of the dim, closed restaurant, remaining so for some moments before he moved on again to peer into an attic and then into a darkened penthouse. There were apartments above some of the shops, and where a room was lighted, he kept his distance, circling around to avoid any wash of light spilling upon him. Approaching an angled, tilting skylight, he hunkered over the dark, dusty panes- and froze.

  Whatever he saw below him down in the dusty-dim environs of Medder's Antiques had jerked him to full alert. Lashing his tail, he clawed at the glass, every line of his muscled body focused and intent, fixated on the little crowded antique store and its ancient, dusty furniture, perhaps studying some odd accouterment of human culture-maybe an antique rattrap or silk umbrella or silver snuffbox. A faint glow seeped up from a nightlight somewhere within, dully igniting the skylight's grimy panes and silhouetting the black cat's broad head and thick shoulders. Clawing at the metal frame, digging and pulling, he soon forced the skylight open.

  Heaving his shoulder into the crack, he pushed the glass up, rolled underneath, and dropped out of sight as the glass thumped closed behind him; the leap would be ten or twelve feet down among dust-scented Victorian chairs and cluttered china cabinets.

  "Come on!" Dulcie hissed. Leaping from the rail, she fled down the tower's dark, winding stairs. Joe raced close, pressing against her, gripped by a nameless fear for her; he didn't like to think what kind of cat this was, breaking and entering like a human thief.

  Side by side they crouched over the skylight looking down where the cat had vanished among the jumbled furniture. Nothing moved. The reflections across a row of glass-faced china cabinets were as still as if time itself had stopped, the images of carved fretwork and tattered silk shawls lifeless and eternal, a dead montage. A heap of musical instruments, violins and trumpets and guitars, lay rumbled into the arms of a Victorian setee. An ancient bicycle wore a display of feathered hats suspended from its seat and handlebars. The cats heard no sound from the shop, only the hush of breeze around them tickling across the rooftops punctuated by the high-frequency calls of the little bats.

  Clink. A metallic clunk jarred the night. Then a familiar scraping sound as the front door opened. The tinkle of its bell stifled quickly, as if someone had grabbed the clapper.

  Two men spoke, their voices muted. The cats heard the scuff of shoes crossing the shop but could see no one. Soon they heard wooden drawers sliding out, then the ring of the shop's old-fashioned cash register as its drawer sprang open-sounds they knew well from visiting widow Medder. Joe found himself listening for a police car down on the street, hoping that a silent alarm might have gone off, alerting a patrol unit.

  But would Mrs. Medder have an alarm, when she didn't even have a computer or a fax machine?

  Celia Medder had opened the shop a year ago, after losing her husband and young child in a boating accident down near Santa Barbara; she had moved to Molena Point wanting to escape her painful memories, had started the little shop with her own antique furniture from the large home she no longer wanted, slowly buying more, driving once a month up into the gold-rush towns north of Sacramento looking for bargains. It had not been easy to make a go of her new business. The cats were fond of her; she always welcomed them, never chased them off the sofas or Victorian chairs. She would brush up the satin when they jumped down, but she never spoke to them harshly.

  The night was so still that they needn't look over to know the street was empty. No soft radio from a police unit, no whisper of tires, no footsteps.

  "Why would a burglar break into a used furniture shop?" Dulcie whispered. "Why not a bank or jewelry store? And where did that cat come from?" She cut him a sideways look. "A trained cat? Trained to open skylights? I don't think so."

  Below them the reflections jumped suddenly across the china cabinets. A dozen images flared and swam as a man slipped between the crowded furniture, edging between chairs and couches. A thin, small man-hunched shoulders, a slouch hat, a wrinkled leather flight jacket. The
black cat joined him, circling around his ankles, rubbing and preening. Suddenly all the history of their ancient race tumbled through Dulcie's head-Celtic kings, underground worlds, sleek shape-shifting princesses-all the old tales that the rest of the world thought of as fairy tales and that she knew were not. And the idea that this black burglar might be like themselves both excited and frightened her.

  Man and cat moved through the room, out of sight. Dulcie and Joe heard cupboard doors sliding, then the clink of metal on metal, then the buzz of an electric tool.

  "Drill," Joe said. "Sounds like they've found the safe."

  "They must have had it spotted. It wasn't that easy to find, hidden in the back of that old cupboard."

  Joe clawed at the skylight, digging at its frame to force the glass open, but before he could slide in, Dulcie bit the scruff of his neck, jerking him away. The skylight dropped with a thud.

  He spun around, hissing at her. "Thank you very much. Now they know we're here. Just leave me alone, Dulcie."

  "I won't. You'd be trapped down there. They could kill you before you got out. You think that will help Mrs. Medder? You think getting dead will catch a thief? And they didn't hear a thing. How could they, with the noise that drill's making?"

  But the drilling stopped. In the silence they heard a series of thuds and bumps. Dulcie crept closer, listening. "What did they do, drill the lock off?"

  "I'm guessing they drilled a small hole-enough to stick a periscope inside."

  She gave him a narrow, amused glance.

  "Not kidding. Miniature periscope, with a light on it."

  "Sure."

  He sighed impatiently. "A safe's lock is made of flat plates. Okay? Each one turns when you spin the dial. When you get them lined up, the lock opens."

  "So?"

  "So, if you can see them from the inside, you can line them up. The burglar drills a hole, puts the little periscope in-Captain Harper has one. It's about as big as a pencil but with a flexible neck. You stick it into the safe and watch the plates while you turn the dial."