Stray Cat Blues

by Robert Bucchianeri

  I stepped up onto the Howl’s deck, spread my arms wide, and yawned even wider. My home was bathed in a dim, kind-of-spooky light from boats nearby and the diffused starlight. I took a step, heard a sound, and stopped abruptly.

  I was not the only living creature on my floating home.

  The muffled thuds came from below in the cabin. Not a duplicate of my step but closer to the sound of something dropped or knocked over.

  I remained motionless and listened.

  Soft movements beneath me, audible above the waves slapping the hull.

  Perhaps it was the mythical Kraken stirring to life.

  I hurried quietly to the edge of the port entry and waited there for a moment, staring into the impenetrable darkness. After a few seconds, I continued around the cabin to the aft side entry, a short stairwell leading to my bedroom.

  There was a light switch at the bottom of the stairs, but I couldn’t reach it without presenting a looming target to whoever was inside. I had no weapon other than the Rubik’s cube. I took it out of my pocket, examined it, hoped it might do some damage in a pinch.

  I paused again and listened. All was quiet for a few seconds, and then the silence was broken by a lengthy, plaintive, “Meow.”

  I let go of my bated breath. It wasn’t the first time that a hungry tomcat had made its way onboard. Annoying, but better than a bat or seagull. Either of those could get gnarly.

  I descended the stairs, flicked on the light, and found an orange tabby sitting on top of my stove. His black eyes examined me. He didn’t seem to like what he saw. He let loose a pissed off meow.

  “Cat,” I said, “shut up, or I’ll turn on a burner and light a fire under your ass.”

  He meowed again, an even louder complaint.

  “Excuse me, pussy, but you’re the intruder.”

  I moved to the fridge, took out a container of almond milk, and poured it into a small bowl. The cat watched every movement, like a cat.

  I placed the bowl on the floor. The cat’s meow achieved screech level. He leaped off the stove and plunged into the bowl, his little tongue going a mile-a-minute.

  “Mr. Plank.”

  I spun, gripping the Rubik’s cube reflexively, and found her standing behind the couch.

  “Frankie,” I said, my heart retreating from the middle of my throat.

  “I’m sure glad you came back. I didn’t know what to do.” She glanced down at the tabby, whose face was still deep in the bowl, the lapping tongue rhythmic.

  “Thanks for feeding Red. I was just going to do that.”

  “Your cat?”

  “Uh-uh. He just showed up a little while ago.”

  “His name is Red?”

  “Yeah. He looks like a Red, doesn’t he?”

  I stared at her for a moment. She wore the same jean overalls, but had on a red t-shirt and stained white pants beneath.

  Her gaze fixed on my right hand. Her eyes widened. I held the Rubik’s cube out to her.

  She eagerly took it and immediately began spinning it in her hands.

  After a few seconds she stopped, the movement in her hands stilled. She looked up at me. “Where’d you get her?”

  “Her?”

  “Ruby.”

  I’d forgotten how animated the world is to kids. Inanimate objects are alive, carrying totemic importance and value. Why wouldn’t a Rubik’s cube have a name? Especially for a lonely twelve-year-old girl who probably didn’t have many or any girlfriends her own age.

  “At your apartment.”

  She held my eyes for a moment, blushed. Looked away. She looked back down at the cube in her hands and whispered, “I missed you, Ruby.”

  She sat down on the couch and started working the cube again.

  Red finished his milk and commenced rubbing his body around my ankles, slithering between my legs, expressing his temporary affection but mostly just massaging his body after a satisfying meal.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  She didn’t look up at me but nodded her head vigorously up and down.

  I placed the scrambled eggs, milk, and toast with strawberry jam down on a folding table in front of the couch. Frankie put Ruby down next to the plate and dove in. She ate like she hadn’t had a meal in days. I remembered Alexandra’s worry about how the little girl was going to be able to take care of herself.

  It only took her a couple of minutes to clean her plate. As she was downing the last of the milk, I said, “How long have you been here?”

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Since this afternoon. I didn’t stay here the whole time, though. I waited for a while to see if you’d come home. But when you didn’t, I went to see Meiying. But she wasn’t home either. So I just wandered around. There’s a skateboard park a ways down there,” she jerked her thumb towards the pier, “and I practiced there till it started getting dark. A few hours ago, I came back here.”

  Red jumped on the couch and into Frankie’s lap. She smiled and picked the cat up and hugged it, rubbing her cheek against the rust-colored fur. The cat meowed, pulled free, but allowed himself to be petted as he nestled into Frankie’s lap.

  “When was the last time you were at your house?”

  She scrunched up her face as she scratched behind the cat’s ears. “Day before yesterday.”

  “Where have you been staying?”

  She petted Red vigorously, and he moved away, but she grabbed him and held him close against her chest. “Here,” she said, giving me an awkward, half-guilty glance.

  “Good,” I said. I’d been with Alexandra. I was glad I hadn’t really locked the boat up tight like I sometimes do. “Tell me about your house.”

  She had her face in the cat’s fur again, but was being gentler and scratching behind his ears at the same time. Red purred.

  I knelt beside her, placing a hand on Red’s haunches and another on Frankie’s shoulder. “I can help you. But you have to tell me everything.”

  Her chest rose and then fell as she let out a long breath. She mumbled against Red’s body, “I’m scared.”

  I lifted her chin up until her eyes met mine. “Do you know who busted up your house?”

  “Uh uh,” she said, her eyes forlorn. She wrinkled her brow and added, “You were there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Looking for you.”

  She nodded, letting the notion settle. At first, it seemed she didn’t know what to think about that, but after a few seconds, she smiled. “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay,” I repeated.

  “You saw the mess?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I don’t...” She stopped, shook her head, looked down at Red, kept scratching his ears. “Maybe it was Vince or Scooter trying to scare me...”

  “You think so?”

  She looked up into my eyes, breathed in deeply again, and said, “Naw.”

  I nodded. “Who do you think then?”

  She shrugged, looked up again. “Why would anybody do that to us?”

  “Hard to say. I can think of three possible reasons. Either they were trying to steal something, or find something, or trying to scare you. Do any of those make any sense?”

  Red jumped off her lap and wandered back to the milk bowl, where more lapping ensued.

  Frankie grabbed the Rubik’s cube and more twisting ensued.

  “Was anything missing?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “So it probably wasn’t a robber. That leaves someone trying to find something that you might have or someone just trying to scare you. Can you think of anybody who might be involved in either of those?”

  The Rubik’s cube slowed, paused, stopped.

  I tapped her on the knee, crawling forward until I was looking up into her face. “I’ll protect you no matter what. But you need to tell me what you know or just what you think might be happening.”

  “I don’t get it though.” She was looking straight at me now, her eyes narrowe
d like she was trying to decipher a particularly vexing problem. “Why’d he have to destroy our apartment? He could have just asked me...”

  “Who could have asked you?”

  “You promise not to tell him I told you?”

  I nodded my chin.

  “Leonard,” she said, biting off the name with a sulfurous snarl.

  “Leonard was trying to scare you?” A surge of gloom rose in my chest.

  “Not scare me. But maybe looking for something.”

  Even though Leonard seemed to me a weasel, it didn’t make sense that he’d bother busting up the place, breaking his own stuff, if he was trying to find something Frankie had. “What do you think he was looking for?”

  “A list.”

  “Of what?”

  “Names of people.”

  I immediately thought I could guess what she might be talking about, but before I could say anything, Frankie added, “Maybe it’s not him. It’s crazy. ‘Course he’s crazy sometimes. So’s Maggie. But I feel sorry for her cuz he can be so mean.”

  “So what was this list and how did you get it?”

  “I did it for Johnnie—but she didn’t know!” She looked up at me with those big eyes that urged me to believe that what she was saying was the truth. “First I thought it might be on his computer, but it wasn’t cuz he was too scared to put it there. I searched that while he was gone one time. I found some yucky porn, but no list.”

  A memory flashed in my mind: finding nudie magazines in my father’s closet at home when I was ten or eleven years old. It was a shocker, and I looked at Dad differently for a while after that. It shamed me, but also gave me a weird sense of power or, more accurately, control. Dad was a no-nonsense guy with a hair-trigger temper who brooked no impertinence from his only son. I felt like, for once, I had a little something on him, some leverage that I might use some day. It was silly and ridiculous, of course, the naive fantasies of a pre-adolescent boy.

  Suddenly a revelation extinguished the memory in a flash. I almost slapped my forehead. Leonard’s computer triggered it. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Frankie had mentioned Johnnie’s online business, and Leonard had confirmed it.

  “Frankie, Johnnie had a computer, didn’t she?”

  “Course. Laptop. Aces.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “At home. Johnny usually puts it in a drawer in her desk and locks it. She takes good care of it and is always afraid somebody might break in and steal it.” Frankie nodded her head up and down. “Guess she was right to be worried.”

  “So you think the person who broke in took it?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t notice. She’s got the key to the drawer hidden, so maybe not.”

  “Do you know where the key is?”

  “Sure. It’s on top of the tall bookcase, tucked into a corner.”

  I nodded. If I could get my hands on Johnnie’s laptop, the information there might help clear up murky matters and illuminate shady characters. Another trip to Leonard and Maggie’s was in the offing, and the thought depressed me. But I shook that off and asked Frankie to continue her story.

  “So I didn’t give up. I watched Leonard when he wasn’t paying attention, looking for clues. One night I went upstairs, and he was on the phone in the kitchen, talking real angry and shaking a piece of paper in his hand. I stayed in the hall and waited till he hung up. He swore, looked at the paper, then reached up above the ‘fridgerator and put it inside the middle of a big cookbook that was full of dust cuz nobody ever uses it. I tiptoed downstairs before he could see me and waited for a while till I was sure he’d gone to bed.”

  She stopped and looked at me.

  “You went back and took it?”

  “Uh huh,” she said with a conspiratorial gleam in her eye.

  “Weren’t you afraid he’d get upset when he saw it was missing?”

  “Sure. I just wanted to show it to Johnnie, but she stayed out all night that night and didn’t come back in the morning. So I went down to the copy shop a couple of blocks away and made two copies. I went straight back home and was going to put it back in the book, but all heckola had already broken out.”

  “He found it missing?”

  “Yeah. And he was screaming and yelling at Maggie, who was acting like a mouse as usual. God, if I ever have a husband who talks to me like that, I’m going to brain him with my skateboard. I felt so sorry for her I almost ran upstairs and spilled the beans, but I was afraid he’d kick us out and then we’d have nowhere to go.” She paused, confusion and helplessness written all over her face. “After a while, he came downstairs and screamed at me too, but I just sat there and acted dumb. He looked like he was going to explode, and he was cursing everybody, including himself, for being so ‘effing stupid.”

  “When was this?”

  She crooked her mouth, rolled up her eyes, and said, “Maybe two weeks ago.”

  “How long after that did Johnnie disappear?”

  This question startled her. Her eyes widened, her skin blanched, and she swallowed. “I don’t...a few days before...” She shook her head, trying to absorb this new notion that she hadn’t previously considered as being part of the puzzle’s mix.

  “Hadn’t you thought that the list and Johnnie’s disappearance might be connected?”

  “No, cuz Johnnie was so upset about Scooter and Vince screwing her and she went after them so...I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think the list or Leonard did anything to Johnnie.”

  “You said Johnnie didn’t know you took the list?”

  She shook her head.

  “But you must have known it was something she wanted.”

  “I’d heard them talking about it. Johnnie asked him if she could see it because it would really help her with her business. But he said no way. They argued for a while, and he said a bunch of nasty things to her. Course, being Johnnie, she was nasty right back. She doesn’t put up with shit from anybody, especially men.” Frankie smiled, proud of her big sister.

  Outside somebody in a nearby boat turned on music. At least they had taste. It was Sinatra, singing in his dusky late night voice. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.

  “So after that’s when you decided to find the list to help her?”

  “Sure. It took me a while, but I did it.

  “What was on the list?”

  She shrugged. “Names, email addresses, phone numbers. Other numbers—some about money. One thousand. Five Thousand. Ten Thousand. I didn’t understand it, really. There was also these strange descriptions about women next to some of the names. Blonde. Brunette. Legs. Tits. Stuff like that. It was really weird and creeped me out, especially after I saw some of the stuff on Leonard’s computer.” Frankie blushed and wrinkled her nose.

  She wasn’t the only one creeped out. “Were most of the names on the list men?”

  “Yeah. But there were at least five or six women.”

  “How many total?”

  “Mmmm...maybe twenty or so.”

  “What did Johnnie say when you showed her the list?”

  “I didn’t. Not at first. When she got home later in the morning, she was really tired, and Leonard came roaring downstairs accusing her of taking the list, but he knew she didn’t, just by the way she was acting. He yelled at her anyway, and she yelled back, and he left after a while. He went out. Johnnie went to bed, and Maggie was hiding out in her room. I tiptoed upstairs and put the list back in the book.”

  This little girl had chutzpah to spare. I was a little in awe, and if her big sister was anything like her, she would be formidable, particularly with her looks to boot. But their guts, their ballsy savvy, had also gotten them into terrible trouble, and things might get worse yet.

  “Was Leonard happy when he found it?”

  “He didn’t say much. I was hoping he’d figure that he’d just missed it the first time, but I think he was still suspicious. He was careful about some things, and he didn’t trust anybody. I bet he still th
ought Johnnie took it and maybe that’s why he messed up our apartment, looking for a copy and going crazy when he didn’t find it, and breaking things without thinking how nuts it was. He has this crazy temper...like...” She glanced up at me for a moment before saying, “...a lot of men do.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t disagree with her. She and Johnnie probably already had to bear the brunt of too much male frustration and anger.

  “When you showed her your copy of the list, what did Johnnie say?”

  “It wasn’t until that night, after dinner. She couldn’t believe it. She got mad at me. But I could tell it made her happy. She was just worried about me, what Leonard might do if he caught me. But I didn’t care. I only cared what Johnnie thought.”

  “Did she ever tell you anything about the list?”

  “She said it was about business. She said that Leonard promised to give her the names, but he went back on his promise. Just like Scooter and Vince.” She paused, frowned, looking up at me with longing eyes. “Mr. Plank, why are so many adults liars?”

  There was no easy answer to the little girl’s question. Lying is so prevalent, so permeates everyday life that people, I think, just take it as a given or don’t notice it at all. Lies are the prime currency of business executives and politicians. A reassuring mythology that envelops us in a seldom-pierced insulation of good feeling, the very ocean that we swim in. Television lies to us thousands of times a day in order to sell us stuff we don’t need and don’t know we don’t want.

  It wasn’t just two-bit hustlers like Leonard, and maybe Frankie’s own sister, who used lies as currency. American progress, for good and bad, has always been built on lies and sustained by a general ignorance of our own history.

  Frankie looked tired, and she wasn’t the only one, so I made up a cot and left her and the cat sleeping. I went up on deck and had a tall shot of whiskey and listened to Sinatra croon across the water about lost love and loose women and lonely nights.

  Sixteen

  In the morning, I found a can of pumpkin in the cupboard and used that and some nutmeg and buttermilk to whip up pancakes, along with bacon. Coffee for me, cranberry juice for Frankie. More almond milk for the cat.