The Cat Who Saw Red

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  The Cat Who Saw Red

  Lilian Jackson Braun

  Lilian Jackson Braun

  The Cat Who Saw Red

  1

  Jim Qwilleran slumped in a chair in the Press Club dining room, his six-feet-two telescoped into a picture of dejection and his morose expression intensified by the droop of his oversized mustache.

  His depression had nothing to do with the price of mixed drinks, which had gone up ten cents. It had nothing to do with the dismal lightning, or the gloomy wood paneling, or the Monday mustiness that blended Friday's fish and Saturday's beer with the body odor of an old building that had once been the county jail. Qwilleran had been stunned by bad news of a more vital nature.

  The prize-winning feature writer of the Daily Fluxion and the newspaper's foremost connoisseur of sixteen-ounce steaks and apple pie a la mode was reading — with horror and dismay — a list printed on a bilious shade of green paper.

  Across the table Arch Riker, the Fluxion's feature editor, said: "What's everybody going to eat today? I see they've got potato pancakes on the menu."

  Qwilleran continued to stare at the sheet of green paper, adjusting his new reading glasses on his nose as if he couldn't believe they were telling him the truth.

  Odd Bunsen, Fluxion photographer, lit a cigar. "I'm having pea soup and short ribs and an order of hash browns. But first I want a double martini."

  In silence Qwilleran finished reading his incredible document and stared again at the top of the list:

  NO POTATOES

  NO BREAD

  NO CREAM SOUPS

  NO FRIED FOODS

  Riker, who had the comfortably upholstered contours of a newspaper deskman, said: "I want something light. Chicken and dumplings, I guess, and coleslaw with sour cream. What are you having, Qwill?"

  NO GRAVY

  NO SOUR CREAM

  NO DESSERTS

  Qwilleran squirmed in his chair and gave his fellow staffers a vinegary smirk. "I'm having cottage cheese and half a radish."

  "You must be sick," Bunsen said.

  "Doc Beane told me to lose thirty pounds."

  "Well, you're reaching that flaky age," the photographer said cheerfully. He was younger and thinner and could afford to be philosophical.

  In a defensive gesture Qwilleran stroked his large black mustache, now noticeably flecked with gray. He folded his glasses and put them in his breast pocket, handling them gingerly.

  Riker, buttering a roll, looked concerned. "How come you went to the doctor, Qwill?"

  "I was referred by a veterinarian." Qwilleran fumbled for his tobacco pouch and started to fill his voluptuously curved pipe. "You see, I took Koko and Yum Yum to the vet to have their teeth cleaned. Did you ever try to pry open the mouth of a Siamese cat? They think it's an outrageous invasion of privacy."

  "Wish I'd been there with a movie camera," Bunsen said.

  "When Koko realized what we had in mind, he turned into something like a fur tornado. The vet got him around the neck, an assistant grabbed his legs, and I hung on to his tail, but Koko turned inside out. Next thing we knew, he was off the table and headed for the kennel room, with two vets and a kennel boy chasing him around the cages. Dogs barking — cats having fits — people yelling! Koko landed on top of the air conditioner, eight feet off the floor, and looked down and gave us apiece of his mind. And if you've never been cursed out by a Siamese, you don't know what profanity is all about!"

  "I know!" said Bunsen. "That cat's got a voice like an ambulance siren."

  "After that episode I was bushed, and the vet said I needed a physical checkup more than the cats needed a dental prophylaxis. I've been short of breath lately, so I took his advice and went to Doc Beane."

  "How'd you get the cat down?"

  "We walked away and left him there, and soon he came sauntering into the examination room, hopped on the table, and yawned."

  "Score another one for Koko," said Riker. "What was the female doing all this time?"

  "Yum Yum was sitting in the traveling box waiting her turn."

  "And probably laughing like hell," said Bunsen.

  "So that's the story," Qwilleran summed up. "And that's why I'm on this miserable diet."

  "You'll never stick with it."

  "Oh, yes I will! I even bought a bathroom scale with some of my prize money — an antique from a country doctor's office in Ohio ."

  Qwilleran had won $1,000 in a Daily Fluxion writing contest, and the entire staff was waiting to see how the frugal bachelor would spend it.

  "What did you do with the rest of the dough?" Riker asked with gentle sarcasm. "Send it to your ex-wife?"

  "I sent Miriam a couple of hundred, that's all."

  "You chump!"

  "She's sick."

  "And your in-laws are rich," Arch reminded him. "You should be buying a car for yourself — or some furniture so you can get a decent place to live."

  "There's nothing wrong with my apartment in Junktown."

  "I mean you should get married again — start buying a house in the suburbs — settle down."

  Qwilleran cringed at the suggestion. After lunch, when the three men walked back to the office, he continued to cringe inwardly — for several reasons. In the first place, he loathed cottage cheese. Also, Riker had been goading him gently throughout the lunch hour, and Qwilleran had let him get away with it because they were old friends. The third reason for his discomfort was a summons from the managing editor to attend an afternoon meeting. An invitation from the boss was usually bad news, and the man himself riled Qwilleran; he had a synthetic camaraderie that he turned on and off to suit his purpose at the moment.

  Qwilleran reported to the front office at the appointed time, accompanied by Riker, his immediate superior.

  "Come in, Arch. Come in, Qwill," said the editor — in the syrupy voice he reserved for certain occasions. "Did you fellows have a good lunch? I saw you at the club living it up."

  Qwilleran grunted.

  The boss motioned them to seats and settled into his high-backed executive chair, beaming with magnanimity. "Qwill, we've got a new assignment for you," he said, "and I think you're going to like it."

  Qwilleran's face remained impassive. He would believe it when he heard the details.

  "Qwill, everyone seems to think you're the champion trencherman on the staff, and that fact per se qualifies you for a job we're creating. In addition, we know you can give us the meaty writing we're constantly striving for on this paper. We're assigning you, my friend, to the new gourmet beat."

  "What's that all about?" The question came out gruffly.

  "We want you to write a regular column on the enjoyment of good food and wine. We want you to dine at all the outstanding restaurants — on an expense account, of course. The fluxion will pay expenses for two. You can take a guest." The editor paused and waited for some expression of joy.

  Qwilleran merely swallowed and stared at him.

  "Well, how does it sound, Qwill?"

  "I don't know," Qwilleran replied slowly. "You know I've been on the wagon for two years . . . and today I started a low-calorie diet. Doc Beane wants me to lose thirty pounds."

  The boss was nonplussed for only the fraction of a second. "Naturally there's no need to eat everything," he said. "Just sample this and that, and use your imagination. You know the tricks of the trade. Our cooking editor can't boil and egg, but she puts out the best recipe page in the country."

  "Well . . . ."

  "I see no reason why you can't handle it." The managing editor's brief show of goodwill was fading into his usual expression of preoccupation. "We plan to start next Monday and give the column a send-off in Sunday's paper — with your photograph and a biography. A
rch tells me you've eaten all overEurope."

  Qwilleran turned to his friend. "Did you know about this, Arch?"

  The feature editor nodded guiltily. He said, "Better get that mustache trimmed and have a new picture taken. In your old photo you look as if you have bleeding ulcers."

  The boss rose and consulted his watch. "Well, that's the story. Congratulations, Qwill!"

  On the way back to the feature department Riker said, "Can't you defer that diet a few weeks? This bright idea of Percy's will blow over like all the rest of them. We're only doing it because we found out the Morning Rampage is starting a gourmet column in two weeks. Meanwhile, you can live like a king — entertain a different date every night — and it won't cost you a cent. That should appeal to your thrifty nature. You're Scotch, aren't you?"

  "Scottish," Qwilleran grumbled. "Scotch comes in bottles."

  He went first to the barber and then to the photo lab to have his picture taken and to complain to Odd Bunsen about the new assignment.

  "If you need company, I'm available," the photographer volunteered, "I'll eat, and you can take notes." He seated Qwilleran on a stool in a backbreaking position and tilted his head at an unnatural angle.

  "Riker says you should make me look like a bon vivant," Qwilleran said with a frown.

  Bunsen squinted through the viewfinder of the portrait camera. "With that upside-down mustache you'll never look like anything but a hound dog with a bellyache. Let's have a little smile."

  Qwilleran twitched a muscle in one cheek.

  "Why don't you start by eating at the Toledo Tombs? That's the most expensive joint. Then you can do all the roadhouses." Bunsen stopped to twist Qwilleran's shoulders to the left and his chin to the right. "And you ought to write a column on the Heavenly Hash Houses and tell people how rotten they are."

  "Who's running the gourmet column? You or me?"

  "Okay, now. A little smile."

  The muscle twitched again.

  "You moved! We'll have to try another . . . Say, wait till your crazy cats hear about the new assignment! Think about all the doggie bags you can take home to those brats."

  "I never thought of that," Qwilleran murmured. His face brightened, and Bunsen snapped the picture.

  The Fluxion's new gourmet reporter had every intention of starting his tour of duty at the exclusive Toledo Tombs — although not with Odd Bunsen. He telephoned Mary Duckworth, the most glamorous name in his address book.

  "I'm so sorry," she said. "I'm leaving for theCaribbean, and I've already declined an invitation to attend a Gourmet Club dinner tonight. Would you like to go in my place? You could write a column on it."

  "Where's the dinner?"

  "At Maus Haus. Do you know the place?"

  "Mouse House?" Qwilleran repeated. "Not a very appetizing name for a restaurant."

  "It's not a restaurant," Mary Duckworth explained. "It's the home of Robert Maus, the attorney M-a-u-s, but he uses the German pronunciation. He's a superb cook — the kind who locks up his French knives every night, and whips up a sauce with thirty-seven ingredients from memory, and grows his own parsley. They say he can tell the right wing from the left wing of the chicken by its taste."

  "Where is . . . Maus Haus?"

  "OnRiver Road. It's a weird building that's connected with a famous suicide mystery. Maybe you can solve it. Wouldn't that be a scoop for the Daily Fluxion?"

  "When did the incident happen?"

  "Oh, before I was born."

  Qwilleran huffed into his mustache. "Not exactly hot news."

  "Don't discuss it at the dinner table," Mary warned. "Robert is thoroughly weary of the subject. I'll phone and tell him you'll be there."

  Qwilleran went home early that afternoon to change into his good suit and to feed the cats, first stopping at the grocery to buy them some fresh meat. With their catly perception they knew he was coming even before he climbed the stairs. Waiting for him, they looked like two loaves of homemade bread. They sat facing the door — two bundles of pale toasty fur with brown legs tucked out of sight. But the brown ears were alert, and two pairs of blue eyes questioned the man who walked into the apartment.

  "Greetings," he said. "I'm early tonight. And wait till you kids see what I've brought you!"

  The two cats rose as one. "Yow!" said Koko in a chesty baritone. "Mmmm!" said Yum Yum in a soprano squeal of rapture.

  She leaped on the unabridged dictionary and started scratching its tattered cover for joy, while Koko sailed onto the desk in a demonstration of effortless levitation and stepped on the tabulator key of the typewriter, making the carriage jump.

  Qwilleran stroked each cat in turn, massaging Koko's silky back with a heavy hand and caressing Yum Yum's paler fur with tenderness. "How's the little sweetheart?" He spoke to Yum Yum with an unabashed gentleness that his cronies at the Press Club would not have believed and that no woman in his life had ever heard.

  "Chicken livers tonight," he told the cats, and Koko expressed his approval by resetting the left-hand margin on the typewriter. His mechanical ability was a newfound talent. He could operate wall switches and open doors, but most of all he was fascinated by the typewriter with its abundance of levers, knobs, and keys.

  Qwilleran had mentioned this development to the veterinarian, who had said, "Animals go through phases of interest, like children. How old are the cats?"

  "I have no idea. They were both full-grown when I adopted them."

  "Koko is probably three or four. Very healthy. And he seems highly intelligent."

  At this comment Qwilleran had smoothed his mustache discreetly and refrained from mentioning Koko's outstanding faculty. The truth was that the precocious Siamese seemed to possess uncanny skills of detection. Qwilleran had recently uncovered a crime that baffled the police, and only his close friends knew that Koko was largely responsible for solving the case.

  Qwilleran chopped chicken livers for the cats, warmed them in a little broth, and arranged the delicacy on a plate the way they liked it, with juices puddling in the center and bite-size morsels of meat around the rim.

  "Lucky beggars!" he said. They could eat all they wanted without gaining an oUnce. Under their sleek fawn-colored fur they were lean and muscular. Al- though they moved with grace and feather-light tread, there was strength in their hind legs that carried them to the top of the refrigerator in a single effortless leap.

  Qwilleran watched them for a while and then turned his attention to his new assignment, sitting down at the typewriter to make a list of restaurants. He always left a fresh sheet of paper in position around the platen, ready for action — a writer's trick that made it easier to get started — and as he glanced at this paper, his fingers halted over the keys. He put on his new glasses and had a closer look. There was a single letter typed at the top of the page.

  "By golly, I knew you'd learn to operate this machine sooner or later," he said over his shoulder, and there was a gargled response from the kitchen, as Koko simultaneously swallowed a bit of liver and made an offhand comment.

  It was a capital T. The keyboard was locked in upper case. Koko had apparently stepped on the shift lock with his left paw and on the letter key with his right.

  Qwilleran added, "oledo Tombs" to Koko's T and then listed the Golden Lamb Chop, the Medium Rare Room at the Stilton Hotel, and several roadhouses, ethnic restaurants, and underground bistros.

  Then he dressed for dinner, shedding the tweed sports coat, the red plaid tie, the gray button-down shirt, and the dust-colored slacks that constituted his uniform at the Daily Fluxion. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror, and what he saw he did not like. His face was fleshed out; his upper arms were flabby; where he should have been concave, he was convex.

  Hopefully but not confidently he stepped on the antique scale in the bathroom. It was a rusty contraption with weights and a balance arm, and the arm went up with a sharp clunk. He held his breath and moved the weight along the arm, hesitantly adding a q
uarter-pound, a half-pound, then one, two, three pounds before the scale was in balance. Three pounds! He had eaten nothing but grapefruit for breakfast and cottage cheese for lunch and he was three pounds heavier than he had been that morning.

  Qwilleran was appalled — then discouraged — then angry. "Dammit!" he said aloud. "I'm not going to turn into a fat slob for the sake of a lousy assignment!"

  "Yow!" said Koko by way of encouragement.

  Qwilleran stepped off the scale to take another critical look in the mirror, and the sight sent a wave of determination surging through his flabby flesh. He expanded his chest, sucked in his waistline, and felt .a new strength of character.

  "I'll write that damn column," he announced to the cats, "and I'll stay on that dumb diet if it kills me!"

  "Yow-wow!" said Koko.

  "Three pounds heavier! I can't believe it!"

  While weighing himself, Qwilleran had failed to notice Koko standing behind him with front paws planted solidly on the platform of the scale.

  2

  As Jim Qwilleran dressed for dinner Monday evening, he was feeling his age. He now needed reading glasses for the first time in his life; his mustache and good head of hair had now reached the pepper-and-salt stage; and his beefy waistline was another reminder of his forty-six years. But before the evening was over, he was a young man again.

  He took a taxi to the River Road residence of Robert Maus — out beyond a sprawling shopping center, beyond Joe Pike's Seafood Hut with its acres of parking, beyond a roller rink and lumberyard. Between a marina and a tennis club stood a monstrous pile of stone. Qwilleran had seen it before and guessed it to be the lodge hall of some eccentric cult. It stood back from the highway, aloof and mysterious behind its iron fence and two acres of neglected lawn, resembling an Egyptian temple that had been damaged in transit and ineptly repaired.

  Pylons framed a massive door that might have been excavated on the Nile, but other architectural features were absurdly out of character: Georgian chimneys, large factory windows in the upper story, an attached garage on one side and a modern carport on the other, and numerous fire escapes, ledges, and eaves troughs in all the wrong places.