Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons

by Blaize Clement

  I said, “Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?”

  He shook his head, and I left quickly. We both pretended he didn’t have tears in his eyes.

  9

  In the kitchen, Ruby stood holding Opal and turning side to side. New parents always seem to think babies want to be jiggled or rocked or swayed. I’ll bet if they asked the babies, most of them would vote to stay still.

  She said, “Opal’s teething, I think. She was awake most of the night.”

  I went to the refrigerator and pushed the lever to release an ice cube into my hand, then folded the ice into a corner of a clean dish towel and smashed it with a cutting board.

  I held out my arms and Ruby handed Opal to me as if she’d been waiting for me to work some kind of magic. With Opal cuddled close against my chest, I offered her the cold towel and her swollen gums seized on it like a baby bird grabbing a fat worm from its mother’s beak.

  I brushed the downy blond sprouts on Opal’s head and breathed in the irresistible scent of clean baby skin. “When my little girl was teething, she liked to chew on cold things like this. A damp washcloth left in the freezer will work too.”

  Ruby grinned at the way Opal was gnawing on the towel. “How old is your little girl?”

  I felt the familiar reluctance to answer, coupled with an unwillingness to deny my child’s truth. “She was killed when she was three.”

  “Oh, God. How did you stand it?”

  “For a long time, I didn’t. I went crazy for a while. My husband was killed at the same time. It was almost four years ago. An old man hit the accelerator instead of the brake and crashed into them. It happened in a Publix parking lot, and for two years I couldn’t buy groceries at that store.”

  Ruby’s eyes glistened. “I don’t think I could go on living if anything happened to Opal. I never knew how much you can love until I had her. It’s not like any other kind of love, not like loving a man or loving your parents or your friends. It’s like this little demanding person is your breath, and you’d die without it.”

  Every time I talked to Ruby, I liked her more.

  As if she understood that her mother was talking about her, Opal gave me a shy, gummy smile. There’s nothing in the world like a baby’s smile to make you feel better about the human race. Babies don’t smile to manipulate or ingratiate, they just smile because they come with a reservoir of smiles inside them and they pass them out with bounteous generosity. Opal’s smile made my heart expand. She truly was an adorable baby, and I wanted to hold her in my arms forever.

  I said, “She has beautiful eyes.”

  “She has Zack’s eyes. That dark blue that’s almost purple, and those long thick eyelashes.”

  She reached for Opal, and Opal’s arms immediately turned toward the person she trusted most in all the world. I felt a momentary pain that I would never again see that look of absolute trust in my own child’s eyes.

  Ruby said, “Granddad thinks Zack is low-life, but he doesn’t understand drag racing. Of course, Granddad thinks I’m low-life, too.”

  “Actions speak louder than words. Your granddad left Opal’s crib set up in your old bedroom. That cancels out a lot of what he says.”

  She half smiled. “I guess it does. I can’t remember Granddad ever telling me he loved me. I doubt he ever told my mother or grandmother he loved them, either, but I know he did. I think he just never learned how to show love, you know? That’s why I got Cheddar for him.”

  “I thought Cheddar was your cat.”

  She shook her head. “I told Granddad he was, but I got Cheddar at the Cat Depot so he could love something he couldn’t boss around.”

  I grinned. “From what I’ve seen, Cheddar has trained him very well.”

  “I lived with him and Granna after my mom died, and it was awful. If I was ten minutes late coming home, he acted like I’d been out whoring or shooting up heroin. If I didn’t get all As on my report card, he carried on like I was destined to live in a Dumpster. After Granna died, it got worse. If it hadn’t been for the woman next door, I would have gone crazy. Myra was the only person who believed in me, the only one who offered me a hand. Granddad never has forgiven her for it.”

  Carefully, I said, “I saw a woman looking out the window next door when I was here this morning. Mr. Stern and I were in the courtyard and she was watching us.”

  Ruby’s face tightened. “That’s Myra Kreigle. I’m sure you know who she is. I worked for Myra, and I’m a witness in her trial. I don’t want her to know I’m here.”

  “But she’s the woman who was good to you?”

  “She was good to me then. People can be good and bad, you know? Nobody’s all bad.”

  I remembered the venomous hatred on Myra’s face as she looked down at me, and wasn’t sure I could believe Myra had a good side.

  I said, “There were two women, actually. A young one and an older one. Does Myra have a daughter?”

  She shook her head. “I was the closest thing she’s ever had to a daughter, and I didn’t last.”

  Opal whimpered, and I handed over the towel with the cold, wet corner. But it had lost its appeal, so Ruby put her bent forefinger in Opal’s mouth to gum.

  Ruby said, “When I was a senior in high school, Myra started paying me to solicit rich men. Not solicit like a hooker, but circulate at her investment parties, talk to them, make them feel like they were big important hotshots, like I was really blown away by a man with so much money. I would put my hand on their arm, you know, lean in to show some cleavage, tell them how Myra was making a lot of money for other men, make it sound like I was more impressed with those other men because they were making so much more money. And then I’d ask them why they weren’t letting Myra make them richer too, and offer to get them into her hottest investments. Most of them fell all over themselves getting in. It was funny, really, to see them scramble to impress me. Like they thought they were buying me when they gave Myra money.”

  “Did you know how she made her money?”

  She looked away. “Not at first. I still don’t know exactly how she did it, but over time she got careless about talking in front of me and I picked up little clues that her investment deal wasn’t what she claimed.”

  She took a deep breath. “A lot of investors got money back, more than they’d put in. Every time a new person put money in, there was more money to pay out to the ones who wanted to collect their profits.”

  “And the more you hustled them, the more new people invested.”

  “Something like that.”

  Opal whimpered and moved from Ruby’s finger to gnaw on her collarbone.

  She said, “Until a few months ago, I’d never even heard the term Ponzi scheme. All I knew was that Myra paid me good money to go to her seminars and flirt with old rich men. I never slept with any of them, I never went out with any of them. Well, I did go out with some of them, but not anybody serious except Zack. I would have gone out with him even if he hadn’t put money in Myra’s investment trust.”

  Okay, now I was beginning to get the picture. Zack was one of the pigeons Ruby had enticed into Myra’s trap.

  “Did you ever tell Zack that Myra’s investment was a scam?”

  “Myra promised me he would get all his money back. She guaranteed it.”

  Feeling as if a boulder was balanced on my shoulders, I said, “Ruby, it isn’t any of my business, but does the DA who’s prosecuting Myra Kreigle know where you are?”

  Sounding proud, she said, “I’ve been meeting with him for several weeks, telling him what I heard, what I saw. He came to see me before he filed charges against Myra, and then he found me a place to stay so she couldn’t get at me. We worked out a plea bargain deal. I’ll tell what I know about Myra’s business, especially where she put the money, and I won’t be charged with helping her.”

  The look in her eyes was as trusting and naïve as Opal’s.

  I already knew the answer, but I had to ask the question. “Does Z
ack know you’ve been cooperating with the DA?”

  “Zack thinks I was part of Myra’s deal. He thinks I lied to him, that I only married him for his money.” With a firming of her jaw, she said, “I guess he’ll sing a different tune after he hears me testify.”

  I had a bad taste in my mouth. Ruby was half streetwise sucker-bait and half babe in the woods. And her woods were filled with cruel traps. Myra had used her to entice men to invest in her phony scheme, the DA had used her to build a case against Myra, and she believed with all her twenty-year-old heart that Zack would know she truly loved him when he heard her turn state’s witness against Myra. I could almost see the vision she had of Zack swooping her up in his arms and striding out of the courtroom like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman while the audience cheered and Myra was hauled off to jail.

  I said, “Do you know somebody named Vern? Or a man named Kantor Tucker?”

  For a moment, I could see a family resemblance to Mr. Stern in the cool wariness on her face. “Why did you ask me that?”

  “This morning when I left here, three men in a limo followed me to my next stop and grabbed me. They bound my ankles and wrists, put tape on my mouth and a hood over my head, and took me to a man named Kantor Tucker. The driver of the limo was a man named Vern. He told Tucker he’d seen me leaving here. I believe he thought I was you.”

  Ruby had gone pale. She closed her eyes and lowered her forehead on the top of Opal’s head as if seeking strength.

  She said, “Vern is Tuck’s muscle. Sometimes he works for Myra.”

  “I’m older than you, but we look a lot alike. Same height, same size, same coloring. When Myra saw me in the courtyard with your grandfather, she must have thought you had returned. She probably called Vern and told him to grab you and take you to Tucker.”

  For an instant, Ruby tilted slightly to the side like a blighted tree. Fear or guilt or shame made her speech slurred. “How did you get away from him?”

  “When Tucker got a look at me, he said, ‘That’s not her!’ and sent Vern away. Vern didn’t hurt me, and he gave me cab fare when he let me out. But they must be watching for you.”

  The french doors opened and Mr. Stern came inside carrying Cheddar. He stopped when he saw Ruby and me in the kitchen. He must have been able to read our faces and know something had just passed between us, but we turned to him with false smiles, and the moment passed.

  Mr. Stern seemed more relaxed, perhaps because Cheddar was sending him love purrs. Or perhaps because he had unloaded some of his pain in the courtyard. Whatever the reason, he let me leave without directing me out of the driveway.

  At least he and Cheddar had benefited from my visit. But Opal’s gums were still sore and swollen, and I’d given Ruby reason to be frightened.

  As for me, I was also frightened. Not for myself, but for Ruby. Now I was sure that Vern had thought I was Ruby when he grabbed me. And I was afraid I knew the answer to the question of what would have happened to Ruby if he’d got her instead of me.

  The only bright spot I could find in the dark cloud that seemed to be hovering over Ruby and Opal was that the people who had sent Vern to kidnap Ruby would surely know by now that I’d told her they’d got me instead. They would expect her to be on guard now, which should discourage them from trying anything again.

  That’s what I tried to make myself believe. Every now and then I succeeded.

  10

  On the way home, I shared the street with bikers in skin-hugging Lycra shorts and shiny skull-protecting helmets. On the sidewalks, Rollerblading parents maneuvered baby strollers between kids trying to ollie on skateboards. In front of me, a tourist couple in a too-clean red Jeep surveyed the world with self-conscious smiles. His shorts were crisp khaki, his knit shirt was white, and his pale legs wore telltale black socks with sneakers. Her shorts were iron-creased yellow linen, her shirt was floral, and she wore a new straw boater with a rhinestone band.

  At the firehouse where Beach Road intersects with Midnight Pass, two firefighters were in the driveway polishing a fire truck’s chrome, while another firefighter was on the lawn tossing a Frisbee to a Doberman. The fireman tossing the Frisbee was my brother, Michael. The Doberman was Reggie, a courageous dog whose humans had been brutally murdered the year before. Reggie and I had saved each other from similar fates, and when Michael and his fellow firefighters learned that Reggie had been left homeless, they’d taken him in as the official firehouse dog. Reggie had settled into the firehouse routine as if he’d been training all his life to live with a bunch of big burly guys who played with him and fed him and occasionally jumped into long pants and boots and drove off in a screaming red truck.

  When I pulled into the drive behind the fire truck, men and dog all turned their heads with identical expressions—a mixture of hopeful anticipation of pleasant diversion and annoyance at having their fun interrupted. When they saw it was me, they all smiled, and Reggie wagged his stump of a tail. Maybe some of the men did too, I couldn’t tell.

  I slid out of the Bronco and Reggie ran to kiss my knees while Michael strolled to meet me with his face creased in a big grin. Like Paco, Michael is the kind of man who causes otherwise intelligent women to go weak-kneed with basic lust. He’s blond and blue-eyed and his solid muscle is so bulky that he automatically swivels sideways going through doors. He’s a firefighter the way our father was, a guy other firemen know they can depend on no matter how bad the situation is. He’s also the kindest, most gentle man in the universe, and my best friend.

  He glanced at my swollen lips, blushed, and looked away, obviously jumping to Tom Hale’s conclusion that I’d been kissing too hard.

  I said, “I thought I’d drop off a new tug-toy for Reggie.”

  One of the guys polishing the truck said, “Good! Reggie goes through those things fast.”

  I went around to the back of the Bronco and pulled two of the toys from a box of pet toys I keep back there. Mostly the toys aren’t purchased, but mundane things dogs or cats like to play with. Dogs especially like braided tug-toys that are dirt cheap and dead easy to make from strips of flannel. I buy red plaid flannel blankets from Walmart—pets seem to like bright colors best—and cut them into strips about five inches wide and a yard long. Then I tie three strips together at their ends and tightly braid them. When the braided end is knotted, it makes a perfect toy for a dog to carry around or for a game of tug-of-war with a human. Since it’s flannel, the tug-toy doesn’t fray and leave strings lying around, and when the dog destroys it, you can make another one in no time from the same blanket.

  I tossed a fresh tug-toy to Reggie, who immediately trotted off like a conquering hero with it gripped in his jaws.

  As if they’d had the same thought at the same time, the other two firemen zipped to the truck’s cab and pulled out a metal box.

  Michael said, “We have something cool to show you.”

  The three men surrounded me while Michael opened the box. “It’s an oxygen mask for animals. Somebody donated one for every fire truck in Sarasota County. It’ll fit over an animal snout as small as a kitten’s or as big as a Great Dane’s. Uses the same oxygen tanks that EMTs use for humans.”

  Reverently, as if it were something holy, I touched the mask with a fingertip. When a house is burning, pets may die of smoke inhalation because they crawl into small spaces in an attempt to escape the heat. The new oxygen masks would undoubtedly save pets’ lives.

  I said, “Wow.”

  The men nodded solemnly, and replaced the box in the truck. They carried it as if it were the ark of the covenant.

  I said, “Somebody donated masks to every fire truck?”

  With one voice, the men said the woman’s name. They spoke it with the same reverence they’d shown the mask. For a moment we were all still with the knowledge that any fool can cause deaths, but only the very special cause life.

  Reggie ran up to Michael with the tug-toy dangling from his mouth and whuffed, a clear announcement that he�
��d been patient with human conversation long enough, and that it was time to get on with the important things in life, like playing. I gave the top of his head a quick smooch, and did the same to Michael’s cheek.

  I said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I may fill in tomorrow for one of the other guys. His kids want to go to Disney World before school starts, and it’s the only weekend his wife can get off. We’re taking turns, so tomorrow may be my day.”

  That’s part of a fireman’s life, doing double shifts occasionally for a buddy. Sometimes it means more sleepless hours fighting fires and sometimes it’s merely another twenty-four hours of boredom. For Michael, it means cooking three more meals at work instead of at home. For Paco and me, it means the firefighters get the good stuff and we have to fend for ourselves.

  Michael is the cook in our family. Since he was four and I was two and our mother went off on a bender while our dad was on duty at the firehouse, Michael has assumed that it was his duty to feed me. He’s also the cook at the firehouse. No matter where Michael is, he’s the cook. He cooks the way poets write, with passion and tender ruthlessness. Paco and I eat the way poetry lovers read, savoring every nuance down to our very souls.

  I got home just as the setting sun stained the sky crimson. Paco was on the deck with Ella in his arms, both of them watching the sun hover below a low wisp of cloud cover. Paco is tall, slim in the places a man should be slim, and broad in the places a man should be broad, like a triangle. He’s Greek-American, but with his dark hair and eyes and olive skin he can pass for Caribbean, Middle Eastern, or Hispanic. Since he works undercover for SIB—Sarasota County’s Special Investigative Bureau—the ability to look like a lot of different races and nationalities comes in handy. But Paco isn’t just a pretty face who can infiltrate criminal organizations in disguise, he’s also smarter than about ninety-nine percent of the people in the world. Sometimes he’s so smart he’s scary. But most important of all is that he loves my brother, and by extension, me. Paco and I are family.