"Looks like the expected number of patrols are cruising. Hardly moving, in the crush. Half a dozen uniforms on foot, mixing with the crowd. Four CHP units up along the highway. I think we're… Wait…"
Slayter was quiet as two men emerged from the back door of the station and quickly crossed the police parking lot. When they hit the side street they moved off in different directions. Slayter described them; dressed as civilians, they wore faded shirts, worn jeans, the kind of clothes favored by many locals, comfortable and innocuous.
"Not sure," Slayter said, in answer to a question. As the men moved into the center of the village where the music was loudest, Slayter relayed their positions. "You have someone on them?" Dulcie glanced across at Joe. Had Roman Slayter figured out Harper's carefully planned sting? If there was another snitch working, she'd hate to think it was someone in the department.
Or was Slayter simply covering all bases? Whatever the case, from this vantage he could see every officer who left the station, uniformed or wearing street clothes. He could track every cop Harper assigned, see where they went, which mark they observed, and pass it on to Luis. She looked frantically across at Joe; the tomcat looked furious, his eyes blazing with a challenge so predatory that Dulcie felt her fur stand up. They had to stop Slayter before he ruined the carefully laid sting, before cops were attacked, civilians caught in possible gunfire.
Crouching, every muscle at ready, she took her cue from Joe, praying they didn't kill themselves. A blaze of fire in Joe's yellow eyes, and a twitch of his ear, and she raced across the roof beside him…
"… brown leather jacket," Slayter was saying, "tan Chinos, long blond hair and…"
Together they leaped, hitting Slayter's back with all the power they had and all claws digging.
The force of their assault sent him to his knees, scrambling at the edge of the roof, gurgling a scream. The phone went flying. Like a streak Joe snatched it and was gone again, the phone sticking out both sides of his mouth like a dog bone; he vanished behind a chimney.
Before Slayter could get to his knees, shaking his head and twisting unsteadily around to see what had hit him, Dulcie landed on his back and struck him in the face. He screamed, twisting away, pulling loose the frail metal gutter as he tried to steady himself. He lost his grip and went over, snatching at air. Dulcie raked him again and leaped free; with a twisting grab she snagged the edge of the roof with her claws. She was swinging helplessly, trying to pull herself up, when Joe grabbed the side of her neck in his teeth and jerked her back to the roof. They heard Slayter hit the balcony below with a dull thud. They ran, stopping only for Joe to snatch up the phone again.
Scorching away across the rooftop and among some heating equipment, they paused at last, panting; and Joe punched in Harper's number.
Dulcie watched the roof behind them, but there was no sign of Slayter trying to climb up. She was a bundle of nerves at how close she'd come to falling maybe the whole three stories; she'd counted on Slayter cushioning her fall, and she guessed Joe had thought that, too. Beside her, he had Harper on the line.
He told the chief what they'd seen. "Slayter made three of your men." Joe described the three. "Gave directions to where the first two were headed. And then, I don't know exactly what happened, but he fell. It was pretty confused, I guess he might be hurt, though he only fell to the second-floor balcony."
"Where the hell are you?" Harper's voice was ragged. "If you saw him fall, you know what happened."
Harper didn't ask who this was; he knew the snitch's voice. "How did he fall?"
"His cell phone's lying on the roof where he fell." Joe hit end call and flipped the phone closed. Quickly carrying it back where he'd snatched it, he laid it in the gutter. Cautiously peering over, he smiled.
He returned to Dulcie, still smiling. "He's down there curled up and groaning, holding himself like he hurts bad." He glanced back with longing at the abandoned phone. He'd always wanted his own cell phone; but sensibly he turned away. "Let's get out of here." They headed away fast, before the cops arrived. Maybe the department could trace the numbers Slayter had called; most likely it was Luis's cell number.
"What will happen," Dulcie said, "when the cops see those scratches on his back and face? What will they think? What will Harper and the detectives think?"
"What can they think? Come on, Dulcie, it's getting late." The sun, in its low southerly journey, reflected a last path of flame over the western sea. It would be gone in a minute, and the winter sky would darken fast. And as evening fell, so would Luis's marks fall.
And so will Luis's men, Joe thought, smiling. If our luck holds. But behind him, Dulcie hadn't moved. He turned to look at her. "Come on!"
She stood staring down at the street, her tail lashing. "Chichi! It's Chichi. She's headed for the Gardenview, fast. She…" The tabby's eyes widened. "She knows something happened to Slayter!" She looked up at Joe, wide-eyed. "Was it Chichi he was talking to? Or was she with Luis when Slayter cut out, did Luis send her to find out what happened?"
Paws in the gutter, Joe watched Chichi, torn between following her and hurrying on toward the blasting music and crowded streets where the action would be coming down.
"Go on," Dulcie said. "You know those officers better than I do, you can spot them easier. I'll follow Chichi."
"Too dangerous. You…"
"I'm not a kitten, I'll stay out of the way. Go on." And before he could argue she spun away, heading back for the Gardenview-but when she passed the place where Slayter fell, and looked over, he was gone.
She watched Chichi hurrying in through the front door, and heard the distant whirring of the elevator. Before Chichi could reach the third floor, Dulcie slipped into the rooftop stairwell and flew down-she hadn't reached the bottom when she heard from below a soft banging as someone knocked on a door. Again, harder, a fist pounding. Dulcie paused in the small utility room. Insistent banging, just outside. And Dallas Garza's voice.
"Police. Open up. We need to talk with you, Slayter."
With a shaking paw she pulled the door open a crack. Three uniformed cops stood in the hall with Garza, to either side of Slayter's door. With them was a pale, lean man in a suit, maybe the hotel manager. There was no sign of Chichi. She must have fled the minute she saw the law enter the building. Maybe she doubled back to tell Luis?
Would Luis call off the operation? Oh, that would be too bad, after all Harper's planning, after bringing men in from other districts. If Luis and his men left town and no arrests were made…
Dallas pounded again and shouted. When there was only silence, the hotel man handed him a passkey. Standing against the wall, Dallas unlocked the door and kicked it open.
Crouched between the ice dispenser and a soft drink machine, Dulcie watched the detective and one uniform enter, leaving the other two standing guard. From down the hall, she heard the elevator descend. Someone else would be coming…
The elevator did not return. But suddenly Chichi came hurrying around the corner from the stairs-maybe she rang for it, then ran up, too impatient to wait. She paused at the open door, watching Dallas and the uniforms.
Frightened that she might be armed, Dulcie was about to shout a warning and then run, when she heard Captain Harper's voice coming up the stairs behind Chichi. Dulcie caught her breath, shocked, as the two came along the hall together, talking softly like a couple of old friends.
They entered Slayter's room, pushing the door nearly closed. Now, with the beat of jazz filling the street outside, she could barely hear them. Dallas was saying "… found him lying on the bed, curled up on his side like that, moaning like a stuck pig. He may have broken ribs. The shoulder looks dislocated."
Dulcie crept nearer, peering through the crack into Slayter's room. "Those scratches on his face and back," Dallas said. "Exactly like Hernando." The detective looked at Chichi. But when he said, "You have any idea what could have made them?" Dulcie lost her nerve and fled again, back up the stairs to the roof.
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On the rooftops, Joe was awash in Tiger Rag and then Tailgate Ramble; if Dulcie were there, her paws would be twitching. He was edgy with worry about her. As he approached the leather shop, he spotted one of Harper's stakeouts, and drew back. But when he saw no action he moved on to the first jewelry store on Harper's list. Molena Point had as many jewelry stores as art galleries, both important elements in the village economy. Tourists loved going home with a painting or a bracelet or necklace to remind them of their bright vacation.
Lingering near the jewelry store was a pair of cops dressed as carefree tourists, mingling with the crowd. No one would notice their sidearms beneath those loose shirts. Most of the officers on loan from other towns had been paired with Harper's men, who knew the streets. He saw Officer Cameron, just up the street, dressed in ragged jeans and a long, loose sweater, her straight blond hair kinked into a curly mop. She limped only slightly from her gunshot wound. Beside her, Officer Crowley tried to ease Cameron's way through the crowd, his big bony hands and the thrust of his muscled shoulders slow and deliberate. His loose denim jacket might hide any sort of weapon, and very likely his camera. The two officers wandered among the crowd, brandishing big paper cups, half dancing to the jazz beat; they paused near two of the selected shops. Above them Joe Grey paced the roof.
He was edgy for the action to begin-and for Dulcie to catch up with him. He missed Kit, too, even though she would be sure to complicate matters. Lucinda was trying to keep her in, said she wanted Kit tucked up safe tonight. Who knew how long that would last? Though in truth, the little cat had seemed worn out, hardly objecting to Lucinda's bullying-grieving over the departure of her clowder. He was thinking hard of the kit, hoping she was all right, when something nudged his shoulder and a dark shape emerged from the shadows, her eyes wide.
"What are you doing, Joe? No one told me! Where's Dulcie? It's happening! Why didn't you tell me! It's coming down," she whispered boldly. "The st…"
Hushing her, Joe shouldered her away from the roof's edge. "Don't even say the word. Come on." He led her into a crevice between two peaks where they could talk. It took him some time to fill her in, twice that to appease her.
"But why didn't you tell me? I could help, I can…"
"That's just it. There's nothing more to do. You've already done more than your share. Without your information, Kit, this would never have happened. If it wasn't for you, the cops wouldn't have a clue! You're already a hero."
"But…"
"We thought you'd like to rest."
She looked at him as if he was crazy; she wasn't buying this. He licked her ear, explaining how worried they'd been about her, how glad that she was safe, that she'd escaped Stone Eye. It took a long time of coddling before she smiled again and made up, and followed him silently across the roofs. They were approaching another of the targeted jewelry stores when they spotted Officer Brennan wandering through the crowd, eating an ice-cream cone.
How different a man could look with a simple change of clothes. Instead of his dark uniform, Brennan wore a flowered shirt and a slouch hat. He looked thinner in the bright, loose shirt, but more florid. Half a block behind Brennan, rookie Jimmie McFarland wandered and gawked; he was dressed in a bright plaid sport coat and carrying a clarinet case, a big grin on his face. The two officers paused half a block apart, Brennan looking in the window of a golf shop, McFarland idly striking up a conversation with a pretty young tourist.
All over the village Harper's men were in place among the crush of civilians and with strict instructions not to fire their weapons, to use only a taser if such force was absolutely needed. That had to be stressful. And surely they'd got the word that three of their group had been spotted.
As the two cats crouched on the veranda of a penthouse above a leather shop, they saw tall, beanpole Officer Blake come around the corner, carrying a trombone case and a clarinet case. He'd have camera stuff in the trombone case; but Blake did play a mean clarinet. Joe watched three women in short skirts with amazement. Officer Davis was hardly recognizable out of her dark, severe uniform. In a miniskirt over those pale, stocky legs, Davis was not an appealing sight. All three women wore boots that could hide a weapon. He glanced at Kit. "What are you grinning about. You're not laughing at Davis."
She shook her head. "I wouldn't. It just seems so strange. Disguised cops, disguised crooks, and civilians mingling all together in the bars and restaurants. Like a story…"
"Luis won't think it's a story," Joe said darkly. They heard, in the distance, a Count Basie number echoing out from the Molena Point little theater where there was a Basie concert, his music copied by a new generation of jazzmen. It was perhaps six-thirty when, quietly among the crowds, the crooks began to move.
Slayter lay uncomfortably on a stretcher, staring up at Garza as the detective read him his rights. Captain Harper and Chichi Barbi stood near the door. From across the hall, Dulcie watched, drawing back behind the ice machine only as Garza finished and the two paramedics carried the stretcher out, accompanied by two armed officers. Harper and Chichi stepped out behind them and stood in the hall, talking. Behind them in the room, Garza was collecting evidence. Dulcie still hadn't figured it all out, except that Chichi didn't seem to be under suspicion for anything. That, while she was passing her snoop lists to Luis, Chichi had given copies to Harper.
Dulcie had watched Garza drop Slayter's cell phone into an evidence bag, and then Slayter's gun. She had watched the two officers search the hole in the corner, removing the plywood, shining their flashlights down into it and feeling back underneath the wiring, then dusting the plywood and wiring for prints. As happened so many times, she could only pray there were no paw prints or cat hairs.
Dallas had already printed the room before Chichi entered, and had bagged Slayter's clothing and personal items. He had photographed the scratch wounds on Slayter's face and back, and that was stressful for Dulcie. What did he think? What did he wonder? Now, in the hall, he asked Chichi, "You said you know nothing about how he fell? And about how he got those scratches?"
Chichi shook her head. "I didn't see it, I was in the village with Luis. He was talking with Slayter, on his cell. Slayter was describing one of your men. He… then he screamed, then a bang as if he'd dropped the phone, and Luis couldn't rouse him. The line was dead, Luis dialed him back and got the message recording. That's when he sent me to see what happened. How did he fall?"
"You heard him." Harper shook his head. "Says he was pushed from behind, that he didn't see anything. That someone hit him hard between the shoulders and when he fell, they hit him again-some kind of weapon with sharp prongs." The captain frowned. "Crazy. Said it felt like he was raked with metal spikes, like an old-style golf shoe-he glimpsed something dark, the size of a golf shoe."
"Attacked with a golf shoe?" Chichi giggled.
Harper gave her a lopsided grin. "Weird kind of weapon. Why would someone… Well, maybe it was handy… You hit a guy with one of those old, metal-spiked golf shoes you could do that kind of damage."
"I'm glad it's over," she said, smiling up at him. "Or nearly so. If that turns out to be the gun that killed Frank, I'll be forever indebted to you, Captain."
"Thank you for your help, Chichi. We should know about the gun tomorrow, if the DA has Frank Cozzino's records in order."
"I hope he does. It's been a hard time." She started to turn away. "I'll call you in the morning then?"
Harper took her hand. "Call me, or Garza or Davis. We'll see what we get."
As Chichi headed down the hall and Harper returned to Slayter's room, behind the ice machine Dulcie sat putting the pieces together.
If Frank Cozzino ran with Luis's gang, but somewhere along the line he began feeding information to LAPD, then Luis might well want him dead. Slayter was part of the gang- Luis could have assigned Slayter to do the deed. Slayter had told Ryan he'd come up here to find out who killed Cozzino; but maybe Slayter had done it.
So who, Dulcie thought, kille
d Dufio? And why? She watched Dallas seal the door to 307 with evidence tape, watched the detective and captain head for the elevator. Then she fled up the stairs and through the heavy door, leaving it ajar, and away across the rooftops to find Joe. She longed to see Luis and his men arrested, see every last one of them jailed.
She spotted Joe and Kit on the roof of Molena Point Inn-you might know Kit would have slipped out and found him. The two cats, crouched at the edge of the shingles, peered over into the inn's secluded patio; when Dulcie pushed in between them, she saw that the crowds hadn't yet discovered the small hidden garden. Only one tourist couple was there, strolling hand in hand, smiling as if glad to have found some privacy: a plainly dressed, thirtyish man and woman with simple, neat haircuts, out-of-style starched shirts that branded them as being from a small midwestern town, and loving expressions.
The patio was enclosed on one side by the hotel, on the other three by rows of exclusive shops. There were no alleys between the shops. The couple seemed to have no interest in the fine china and silver and designer gowns, seemed aware only of each other. They sat down close together on a bench facing Emerson's Jewelry, their backs to the small pepper tree and lush flowers. The woman, fishing around in her large handbag, handed her partner a small, high-powered gas torch.
Moving quickly into a narrow walkway between the hotel and the jewelry store, he lit the torch and turned to face the wall where a locked, foot-square metal door closed off the electric meter. Burning quickly through the padlock, he opened the little door and turned off the power for that building.
With nothing to activate the security alarm, he stepped around into the patio again and used the torch to destroy the deadbolt lock on the jewelry store's glass door. Silently swinging the door open, he and his lady friend entered. Within two minutes they had breached seven jewelry cases, dropping the contents-diamonds, emeralds, heavy gold and pearl chokers- into her handbag and into his pockets. Leaving the shop, they closed the door quietly behind them.
Cat Breaking Free Page 28