Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons

by Blaize Clement

  “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

  “Not since I was real little. My daddy was a fisherman. I’m just passing through, wanted to stop here for old times’ sake.”

  “Not many fishermen come here anymore. Mostly just a bunch of scum.”

  She arched a meaningful eyebrow at a man at a table behind us, and I swiveled in my chair to get a better look at him. Caucasian, wide shoulders, big hands. He could have been one of the men who helped Vern kidnap me, but then so could most of the other men in the downrun bar.

  The waitress leaned down and lowered her voice. “If that creep bothers you, you let me know.”

  Somebody hollered for a refill, and she swished away with her back muscles rippling so the mermaid tattoo undulated.

  The creep she’d singled out had an empty pitcher of beer on his table and a half-filled mug. From his flush-faced, loose-lipped scowl, he looked as if he’d already emptied several pitchers.

  Cupcake straightened in his seat and yelled loud enough for everybody in the bar to hear. “Hey, sweetheart, my buddy over here’s running low. Bring him a fresh pitcher!”

  The waitress whirled and stared at Cupcake, then looked at me as if I’d betrayed her. I shrugged and rolled my eyes, a woman-to-woman message that said I wasn’t to be held responsible for the dumb things any man did. She did the same eye-roll, and in a minute plopped down a full pitcher of beer at the next table. The man looked up at her stupidly, too drunk to realize what was going on.

  In a nanosecond, Cupcake had scooted his chair across the grimy floor to the man’s table. “Drink’s on me, buddy! We gotta stick together.”

  A little bit of drool moistened the corners of the man’s lips when he grinned. “Schtick together!”

  Cupcake said, “Yes sir, me and my other buddy here have been where you are. We know what it’s like to be out of work, no paycheck. Man, it’s rough! Now we’re in the money, we help out our buddies.”

  The man squinted and frowned. “I ain’t out of work. Got a good job.”

  Zack stood up, dragged his chair to the man’s table, and sat down as delicately as a Sunday school teacher. “It’s okay, friend. Nothing to be ashamed about. Lots of good men out of work right now.”

  Red-faced, the man sat as upright as he could manage. “Nah, nah, I’m telling you, man, I got a good job. Big job. Hell, my boss owns this place!”

  Zack said, “This bar?”

  “No, man! This whole place! All of it!”

  His voice heavy with sarcasm, Cupcake said, “You saying you work for Jeb Bush or somebody like that?”

  “I’m saying Jeb Bush probably works for my boss.”

  Cupcake drawled, “But you can’t tell us your boss’s name, right? We just have to take your word for it.”

  “Kantor Tucker! That’s who I work for! You know who that is? He’s big, man. Got a plane bigger than the President’s, more money than God. He says jump, everybody else says, ‘How high?’ ”

  Zack and Cupcake exchanged the kind of grins adults show when a small child tells a big bragging lie.

  Cupcake said, “Friend, I was born in the morning, but not this morning. I don’t believe you work for Kantor Tucker. If you did, you’d be swilling beer at the Ritz, not emptying pitchers in this dump.”

  The man blinked as if Cupcake had made a good point in a debate. “I never said I worked directly for Kantor Tucker. Not directly directly. I work for the man that’s Tuck’s right-hand man. That’s what his friends call him, Tuck.”

  Zack sloshed beer into the man’s mug. “So you work for a bigshot who works for Tucker. We apologize for thinking you weren’t important. It must be something to work for a man smart enough to be Kantor Tucker’s right-hand man.”

  The man managed a sneering grin while he took a long pull from his mug, but not without letting beer run down his chin. “He ain’t all that smart. And he won’t be a bigshot long. To tell the truth, Vern’s too dumb to breathe on his own. If I didn’t point him in the right direction, he’d screw up everything he does. Like the other day we were supposed to pick up a woman and take her to Tuck. You know what Vern did? He got the wrong woman! Can you beat that? The wrong damn woman! Tuck was some steamed.”

  I froze in my chair for a second, then relaxed. The guy was so drunk he wouldn’t have recognized me if I’d ripped off my cap and glasses and danced on his table.

  Carefully, Zack said, “I guess old Vern shaped up after pulling that stunt.”

  “Nah, he didn’t change a bit. Dumb shit got his ass in a wringer for sure today.”

  Cupcake pulled his lips back in a fake smile. “What’d he do, grab another wrong woman?”

  The drunk leaned forward in a conspiratorial hunch. “See, Tuck sent us to get a kid for a friend of his. I don’t know the whole story but I think the friend was tired of paying child support to his ex-wife so Tuck was helping him out.”

  For a second, the inanity of what he was saying seemed to seep into some of his brain cells, and his head lifted a fraction as if he might be about to think.

  Zack intercepted the urge with a laugh. “Man, I wish I could have somebody take my kid away from my ex-wife so I wouldn’t have to pay the gold-digging bitch any more money.”

  The drunk’s chest swelled with pride. “Well, Vern couldn’t have done it without me. See, Vern has this big-ass limo he uses to drive celebrities and people like that around, so he parked it behind a vacant house next door to where the kid’s mother lived. He sneaked in the side door of the woman’s house and planted some nitrous oxide to make it look like this race car driver did it. Somebody Tuck has a grudge against, I guess. Anyway, while Vern grabbed the kid and set off a big fire in the room, I went down an alley to another house and got this Mexican woman Tuck had hired to take care of the kid. I led her to the limo, Vern came with the kid, and we took off.”

  Cupcake said, “Sounds like it went off okay. Where’s the screw-up in that?”

  The drunk looked as if he might cry at the enormity of Vern’s mistake. “We were supposed to leave them in a house, the woman and the kid, but when we got there Vern got horny and put some moves on the woman and she ran away. Just ran out the front door and disappeared in the woods.” He slumped in his chair, shaking his head at the memory.

  My hands were clenched into such hard fists that my knuckles were frozen in place.

  Cupcake poured more beer into the man’s mug. “She take the kid with her?”

  “Nah, she left it with us. Vern was all for us leaving it there in the house, but when I told him the woman was probably calling Tuck right then, he got scared. He was already in deep shit with Tuck, and Tuck ain’t the kind of man to mess around with. So Vern left the kid with me and took off in the limo to look for the woman.”

  Cupcake said, “So you and the kid were alone in the house?”

  “See, that’s what I was thinking. I’m in the house with a kid we stole, and Vern’s out driving up and down country roads, and the Mexican woman’s out there somewhere, and what if cops come looking for the kid? They’re going to think I’m the one that took it, and they ain’t gonna believe all I did was walk a babysitter to a car, you know? So I got the hell out of there. Walked down Gator Trail to the highway to Arcadia, got a bus to Bradenton, got a cab to bring me here. I don’t want to be anywhere around when they find that kid.”

  I felt a thrill of optimism. We practically had an address!

  At some unspoken accord, Zack and Cupcake stood. With Cupcake frowning and towering over him, Zack looked like a skinny kid standing up to the town bully. They tossed a handful of bills on the drunk’s table, and then some on mine.

  Cupcake said, “Good luck, old buddy.”

  The drunk grinned at them in sloppy gratitude. They had made him feel important. For a few minutes he had forgotten that he was one of the world’s losers, a piece of slag at the bottom of society’s barrel. He had enough beer in him to turn his brain to mush and enough ego-stroking from Cupcake and Zack to make
him completely ignore the fact that they’d left me alone while they talked to him.

  I waved goodbye to the waitress and we got out as fast as possible. Outside, we grinned at one another like happy hounds.

  I said, “Arcadia is forty miles from here.”

  Cupcake said, “Highway Seventy-two goes to Arcadia. Right through the alligator swamps.”

  Zack said, “We can look for Gator Trail on the map.”

  If any of us considered that Gator Trail might run for miles and have a hundred houses on it, we ignored the thought. Neither did we let ourselves think of the probable tangle of back sand roads, falling-in houses, and rusty squatter campers around Arcadia. Or the bleak image of a four-month-old baby left alone in an empty house. Or, if Vern had returned, under the care of a man known to be both a kidnapper and attempted rapist.

  If we had let ourselves think of those things, hopelessness would have swallowed us entirely. Every minute that passed lessened the probability of finding Opal, and we were elated to have any landmark to go by.

  Zack said, “Shouldn’t go in daylight where they’d see us.”

  I said, “We’ll have to be very discreet. And very careful.”

  Cupcake said, “She means don’t tell your old man what we’re doing.”

  Zack grimaced. “Don’t worry.”

  I said, “What time?”

  They both looked at their watches—big silver things with lots of little dials on their faces that probably told the time in every capital of the world, along with the humidity and temperature.

  Zack said, “The sun sets early now.”

  It was true, and my inner coward shivered at the thought of driving through alligators in the dark. It’s scary enough to be close to alligators when the sun’s shining on them. I sure as heck didn’t want to be with them at night.

  Zack and Cupcake exchanged a look. Zack said, “We have some things to line up. Phone calls to make, things like that, and it may take some time.”

  “Phone calls?”

  “Nothing about this. It’s okay.”

  I didn’t believe him. I thought he was planning something he didn’t want me to know about, and that Cupcake knew what it was and approved. But if I said anything more, he might cut me out of the trip altogether. He was, after all, Opal’s father and Ruby’s husband. I was merely a pet sitter with a personal attachment to his wife and baby.

  Zack said, “We’ll leave no later than eight.” For a skinny kid, he was surprisingly decisive.

  We agreed that I would meet them at Zack’s place, and we all got into our vehicles and went off to our respective responsibilities.

  Personally, I drove off with my blood singing. I was taking action to find Opal. Her father was taking action. A strong athlete was taking action. We weren’t passive, we weren’t letting Myra Kreigle and Kantor Tucker get away with kidnapping Opal.

  I was halfway to Tom Hale’s condo for my first afternoon pet visit before I remembered that Guidry planned to make dinner for me that night.

  That’s another glitch in having a man in your life. As soon as you’re a couple instead of a single, you have to coordinate schedules, arrange meeting times and places, get your life organized around an us instead of a me. Sometimes that’s comfortable and nice. Sometimes it’s a royal pain in the kazoo. I loved having Guidry in my life, but little pieces of myself seemed to have floated off when I wasn’t looking. I needed to pull them back in.

  24

  Morning or afternoon, I usually spend a good half hour at each pet’s house, so that seven or eight pet calls take at least four hours. Add to that travel time and the extra time some calls need because a dog needs extra cheering up or a cat requires some premium cuddling, and it can take five hours. But that afternoon I cut all the visits short.

  Tom Hale was working at his kitchen table when I arrived at his condo, and only waved hello. I was glad, because I didn’t want to take any chances of slipping up and telling him what I was going to do when I finished afternoon rounds. Billy Elliot had to be content with only one lap around the parking lot. He seemed a little puzzled, but wagged his tail in forgiveness when I told him I had to go look for a missing baby. That’s the neat thing about pets. You can trust them to keep your secrets.

  All the other clients were cats. Every cat got petted and given fresh food and water. Every litter box got cleaned. But that was it. No cuddling, no games of chase-the-ball or leap-for-the-peacock-feather. It was strictly a no-frills afternoon. I explained the reason to each cat, and I solemnly promised that I would make it up to them on the next visit. Each one listened to me with the royally benign tolerance that only a cat can bestow on a human.

  After the last pet visit, I swung by Mr. Stern’s house, where a van was parked at the curb. It looked innocuous, but I was sure it was manned by an officer monitoring phone calls. If no ransom demand was made within the first twenty-four hours of Opal’s kidnapping, the sheriff’s department would call in the FBI. I was sure nobody would call to ask for money. Opal’s kidnappers didn’t want money, they wanted silence.

  I still considered myself on the job for Cheddar, so I called the Victim’s Assistance Unit of the sheriff’s department for the name of the hotel where they’d taken Mr. Stern and Ruby. Whenever a crime or fire leaves a family homeless, Victim’s Assistance puts them up in a hotel, gives them emotional support, and makes arrangements for whatever they need. At the hotel, the desk clerk rang their suite and got permission for me to go up to see them.

  Ruby opened the door to the suite and stepped aside to let me in. Behind her, voices murmured on a TV.

  She said, “Granddad’s gone back to the animal hospital to be with Cheddar.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Granddad or Cheddar?”

  “Both.”

  “The vet says Cheddar could go home tonight if he had a home to go to. Granddad’s sad and worried.”

  On the TV, the volume rose for breaking news. “Zack Carlyle’s kidnapped baby still hasn’t been found. Police have issued an appeal to people in Florida and Alabama to be on the lookout for a woman named Doreen Antone. She is believed to be traveling north toward Alabama. Her sister in Alabama says she has not heard from her and does not believe she would kidnap a baby. Antone’s parents also say kidnapping is not something their daughter would do.”

  A quick clip of a harried-looking older couple flashed on the screen, with the woman saying, “We raised our daughters right. Doreen wouldn’t do nothing like that.”

  They were replaced by a photograph of Opal, and then a grainy snapshot of the cleaning woman when she was much younger and slimmer.

  The announcer pressed on. “Antone’s former boyfriend, Billy Clyde Ray, has told investigators that Antone had been depressed since giving birth to a stillborn infant six weeks ago. Ray says he has not seen Antone for over a month and does not know anything about the baby’s kidnapping. He is considered a person of interest in the case, but the sheriff’s office stressed that Ray is not a suspect, merely one who might have important information.”

  Ruby stared woodenly at the set. If she was offended that Opal was identified as “Zack Carlyle’s baby,” she didn’t show it. I whirled to the TV set and turned it off.

  “Ruby, are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

  For a second, she seemed to consider pretending not to know what I meant, then dropped it.

  “I was a fool to think I could go up against Myra and Tuck.”

  “But you can’t let them—”

  “I have to. I’ll have a terrible case of amnesia at Myra’s trial. I won’t be able to remember a single detail of what I saw while I worked for her. I won’t remember anything about Tuck being involved in her business. I won’t remember a name or a date or an offshore account. I won’t remember a thing.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I’ll go to prison and Opal will live. She’ll even live well. While I’m in prison, she’ll have a nice home with a kind person to take car
e of her. She’ll be well fed and healthy.”

  I had to make an effort to make my mouth work. “How can you be sure of that?”

  “I know Myra. She’s a piranha when it comes to money or business deals, but she was like a mother to me when I needed one, and it wasn’t an act. She’ll make sure Opal gets good care.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say. As much as it broke her heart, Ruby had analyzed the situation with cold logic, and she’d made the only decision that would save her baby’s life. And I knew she had the terrible and wondrous strength to follow through with it.

  I said, “Ruby, the other woman I saw in Myra’s house looked like a kind, caring woman.”

  She licked dry lips. “You think she’s the one they got to take care of Opal?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  The hope in her eyes was pitiful. “And she seemed kind?”

  “She did.”

  Stumbling backward, she sank to the edge of the hotel bed.

  Even though I knew it might not be true, I wanted to tell her that her husband and I were going with Cupcake to rescue Opal. Instead, I said, “You’re a strong woman, Ruby. You’ll get through this.”

  Ruby closed her eyes and rolled onto the bed with her back to me. I touched her ankle lightly and left her. There was nothing else for either of us to say.

  The sun was about three hours higher in the sky than usual when I got home. Paco’s truck was in the carport and Ella wasn’t in my apartment. Michael wouldn’t be home until the next morning.

  As soon as I was inside my apartment, I called Guidry.

  “Could we do supper early? I’m really beat, and I need to go to bed early.”

  He didn’t exactly jump at the idea, but he agreed. I told him I’d be at his place in an hour, and stepped into a hard-driving warm shower. I let the spray unsnarl some of the kinks in my muscles. I shampooed my hair and shaved my legs. I used a buffing thing on my heels and elbows to make my skin silky smooth. That’s another thing about having a man in your life. You make sure nothing will snag on any of your corners. Besides, I might get killed that night, and I didn’t want to leave life with stubble on my legs.