The Cat Who Saw Red

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  "It doesn't sound good . . . How about your new column? Are you going to do a story on Maus?"

  "If I can pin him down. He's gone to an MSG meeting tonight."

  "What's that?"

  "Meritorious Society of Gastronomes. A bunch of food snobs."

  "Qwill," said Riker in a serious voice, "watch your step, will you? About Joy, I mean."

  "I'm no kid, Arch."

  "Well, it's spring, you know."

  4

  When Qwilleran returned to Number Six, eh found Koko and Yum Yum locked in mortal combat with the bearskin rug, which they had chased into a corner. The poor beast, powerless against two determined Siamese, had skidded across the glossy tile floor and was cowering, with back humped and jaws gaping, under the massive carved desk.

  Qwilleran was haranguing the cats and dragging the rug back to its rightful position in front of the captain's bed when there was a knock on the door, and — despite a promise he had made to himself — his heart flipped when he saw Joy standing there. Her hair was hanging down to her waist, and she was wearing something filmy and apple green. Although her eyes looked puffed, her composure had returned.

  She smiled her funny little smile and peeked into the apartment hesitantly. "Do you have company? I thought I heard you talking to someone."

  "Just the cats," Qwilleran said. "When you live alone, it's sometimes necessary to hear the sounds of your own voice, and they're good listeners."

  "May I come in? I tried to call you, but your phone isn't connected."

  "Mrs. Marron said she'd call the phone company."

  "Better do it yourself," Joy said. "There's been a tragedy in her family, and she's still in a daze. Forgets to put potatoes in the potato pancakes. Puts detergent in the soup. She may poison us all before she gets back to normal."

  She and her gauzy gown fluttered into the apartment, accompanied by a zephyr of perfume, suggesting cinnamon.

  "Look at those beautiful cats!" She gathered Koko and in her arms, and he permitted it, much to Qwilleran's surprise and pleasure. Koko was a man's cat and not used to being cuddled. Joy scratched the sensitive zone behind his ears and massaged the top of his head with her chin, while Koko purred, crossed his eyes, and turned his ears inside out.

  "Look him! The old lecher!" Qwilleran said. "I think he likes your green dress . . . So do I!"

  "Cats can't distinguish colors," Joy said. "Did you know that? Raku's vet told me." She sighed and hugged Koko tightly, burying her face in the ruff around his neck. "Koko's fur smells like something good to eat."

  "That's the aroma of the old house we just moved out of. It always smelled like baked potatoes when the furnace was on. Cats' fur seems to pick up house odors."

  "I know. Raku's fur used to smell like wet clay." Joy squeezed her eyes shut and gulped. "He was such a wonderful little friend. It kills me not to know what's happened to him."

  "Did you advertise?"

  "In both papers. I didn't get a single call — except from one crackpot — some fellow trying to disguise his voice . . . Be sure to keep your cats indoors, won't you?"'

  "Don't worry about that. I kept hem under lock and key. They mean a lot to me."

  Joy looked out the window. The river flowed black between two lighted shorelines, and she shuddered. "I hate water. I was in a boat accident a few years ago, and I still have nightmares of drowning."

  "It used to be a beautiful river, they tell me. It's polluted now."

  "In our apartment I'm always dropping the blinds to shut out the river, and Dan's always raising them."

  Qwilleran took the hint and lowered the Roman shades.

  Still carrying Koko over her shoulder, Joy moved about the apartment as if looking for clues to Qwilleran's personal life. She touched his red plaid bathrobe draped over one of the carved Spanish dining chairs. She admired the Mackintosh coat of arms propped on top of the bookcase. She glanced at titles on the shelves. "Have you read all of these books? You're such a brain!' At the desk she examined the antique ebony book rack, the ragged dictionary, the typewriter, and the sheet of paper in the machine. "What does this mean? These initials — BW."

  "That's Koko's typing. He's ordering his breakfast, I think. Beef Wellington."

  Joy laughed — a long, musical trill. "Oh, Jim, you've got a wild imagination."

  "It's good to hear your laughter again, Joy."

  "It's good to laugh, believe me. I haven't done it for so long . . . Listen! What's the matter with the other cat?"

  Yum Yum had retreated to a far corner and was calling in a piteous voice, until Koo jumped from Joy's arms and went to comfort her.

  "Jealous," Qwilleran said.

  The cats exchanged sympathetic licks. Yum Yum squeezed her eyes shut while Koko passed a long pink tongue over her eyes, nose and whiskers, and then she returned the compliment.

  Joy stopped circling the apartment and draped herself over the arm of the big plaid chair.

  "Where's Dan tonight?" Qwilleran inquired.

  "Out. As usual! . . . Would you like a tour of the pottery?"

  "I don't want to cause trouble. If he doesn't want — "

  "He's being ridiculous! Ever since we arrived here, Dan's been mysteriously secretive about our new work. You'd think we were surrounded by spies, trying to steal our ideas!" Joy jumped off the arm of the chair impulsively. "Come on. Our exhibition pots are lock up, and Dan's got the key, but I can show you the clay room and the wheel and the kilns."

  They went downstairs to the Great Hall and along the kitchen corridor to the pottery. A heavy steel door opened into a low-ceiling room filmed with dust. Like a veil, the fine dust covered the floor, work-tables shelves, plaster molds, scrapbooks, broken pots, and rows of crocks with cryptic labels. Dust gave the room a ghostly pallor.

  "What's the old suicide mystery connected with this place?" Qwilleran asked.

  "An artist was drowned — a long time ago — and some people thought it was murder. Remind me to tell you about it later. I have an interesting new angle on it." She led the way into a large, dismal area that smelled damp and earthy. Everything seemed to be caked with mud. "This is the clay room, and the mechanical equipment is all very old and primitive. That big cylinder is the blunger that mixes the clay. Then it's stored in a tank under the floor and eventually formed into big pancakes on the filter press over there . . . after which it's chewed up by the pug mill and formed into loaves, which are stored in those big bins."

  "There must be an easier way," Qwilleran ventured.

  "Every step has its purpose. This used to be a big operation fifty years ago. Now we do a few tiles for architects and some garden sculpture for landscape designers — plus our own creative work." Joy walked into a smaller room. "This is our studio. And this is my kick-wheel." She sat on a bench at the clay-coated machine and activated a shaft with a kick-bar, spinning the wheel. "You throw a lump of clay on the wheel and shape it as it spins."

  "Looks pretty crude."

  "They had wheels of this type in ancient Egypt," Joy said. "We also have a couple of electric wheels, but the kick-wheel is more intimate, I think."

  "Did you make that square vase with the blobs of clay on it?"

  "No, that's one of Dan's glop pots that your critic didn't like. Wish I could show you my latest, but they're locked up. Maybe it's just as well. Hixie came in here one day and broke a combed pitcher I'd just finished. I could have killed her! She's such a clumsy ox!"

  The next room was dry and warm — a large, lofty space with windows just under the ceiling and an Egyptian-style mural running around the top of tall four walls. Otherwise, it looked like a bakery. Several ovens stood around the room, and tables held trays of dun-colored tiles, like cookies waiting to be baked.

  "These tiles are bone dry and ready for firing," said Joy. "the others are bisque, waiting to be glazed. They'll be used in the chapel that the Pennimans are donating to the university . . . And now you've seen the whole operation. We live in the loft over the cla
y room. I'd invite you up, only it's a mess. I'm a terrible housekeeper. You should be glad you didn't marry me, Jim." She squeezed Qwilleran's hand. "Shall we have a drink? I've got some bourbon, and we can drink in your apartment, if you don't mind. Is bourbon still your favorite?"

  "I'm not drinking. I've signed off the hard stuff," he told her. "But you go and get your bottle, and I'll have a lemon and seltzer with you."

  Qwilleran returned to Number Six and found the cats lounging on top of the bookcase. "Well, what do you think of her?" he asked them.

  "Yow!" said Koko, squeezing his eyes shut.

  When Joy arrived with her bourbon, she said, "You can make yourself very popular in this house by keeping a bottle handy. Mr. Maus doesn't approve of hard liquor — it paralyzes the taste buds — but most of us like to sneak a cocktail now and then."

  "How does anyone live here and stay thin?"

  "Mr. Maus says a true gourmet never stuffs himself."

  Qwilleran poured the drinks. "You were a great cook, Joy. I still remember your homemade raisin bread with honey and lemon frosting."

  "Potting is not far removed from baking," she said, curling up comfortably on the built-in bunk. "Wedging clay is like kneading dough. Applying a glaze is like frosting a cake."

  "How did you happen to take up potting?"

  Joy gazed wistfully into the past. "When I left Chicago so suddenly, Jim, it had nothing to do with you. I adored you — I really did. But I wasn't satisfied with my life. . . and I didn't know what I wanted."

  "If you had only explained — "

  "I didn't know how. It was easier just to . . . disappear. Besides, I was afraid you'd change my mind."

  "Where did you go?"

  "San Francisco. I worked in restaurants for a while and then supervised the kitchen on a large ranch. It was operated as a pottery school, and eventually they let me handle some clay. I learned fast, won prizes, and I've been potting ever since."

  Qwilleran, relaxing in the big plaid arm chair, took time to light his pipe. "Is that how you met Dan?"

  She nodded. "Dan said there was too much competition in California, so we moved to Florida, but I hated that state! I couldn't create. I felt a hundred years old in Florida, so we went back to the Coast until we got the offer to come here."

  "No kids?"

  Joy took a long, slow sip of her drink. "Dan didn't — that is, he wanted to be free to be poor. And I had my work, which was time-consuming and fulfilling. Did you ever marry, Jim?"

  "I gave it a try. I've been divorced for several years."

  "Tell me about her."

  "She was an advertising woman — very successful."

  "But what did she look like?"

  "You." Qwilleran allowed himself to look at Joy fondly. "Why are we talking in the past tense? She's still alive — though not well and not happy."

  "Are you happy, Jim?"

  "I have good days and bad days."

  "You look marvelous! You're the type that improves with age. And that mustache makes you look so romantic. Jim — I've never forgotten you — not for a single day." She slid off the bunk and sat on the arm of his chair, leaning toward him and letting her hair fall around them in a thick brown curtain. "You were my first," she whispered, close to his lips.

  "And you were my first," he replied softly.

  "Yow!" said an imperious voice from the top of the bookcase. A book crashed to the floor. Cats flew in all directions, and the spell was broken.

  Joy sat up and sighed deeply. "Forgive me for that silly outburst at dinner tonight. I'm not like that — really I'm not. I'm beginning to hate myself."

  "Everyone flies off the handle once in a while."

  "Jim," she said abruptly. "I'm going to get a divorce."

  "Joy, you shouldn't — I mean, you must think it through carefully. You know how impulsive you are."

  "I've been thinking about it for a long time."

  "What's the trouble between you and Dan? Or don't you want to talk about it?"

  She glanced around the room, as if searching for the words. "I don't know. It's just because. . . well, I'm me and he's himself. I won't bore you with details. It may be selfish of me, but I know I could do better on my own. He's dragging me down, Jim."

  "Is he jealous of your work?" Qwilleran was thinking of the six-hundred-piece table service.

  "I'm sure of it, although I try to keep a low profile. Dan has never been really successful. I've had better reviews and bigger sales — and without even trying very hard." Joy hesitated. "No one knows it, but I have fantastic ideas for glazes that I've been holding back. They'd be a sensation, I guarantee."

  "Why have you held them back?"

  She shrugged. "Trying to play the good wife, trying not to surpass my husband. I know that's old-fashioned. The only way I can shake loose and be honest with myself as an artist is to get out of this marriage. I tell you, Jim, I'm wasting my life! You know how old I am. I'm beginning to want comforts. I'm tired of making my own clothes out of remnants and driving an ancient Renault without a heater. . . Well, it does have a heater, but there's this big hole in the floor — "

  "You'd better get some legal advice," Qwilleran suggested. "Why don't you discuss it with Maus?"

  "I did. His firm doesn't handle divorces — only very dignified corporate stuff — but he referred me to another attorney. And now I'm stymied."

  "Why?"

  She smiled her pathetic smile. "No money."

  "The eternal problem," Qwilleran agreed.

  "I had a little money of my own before we were married, but Dan has it tied up somehow. You know I was always bored with financial matters, so I didn't question him about it. Wasn't that dumb? I was too busy making pots. It's an obsession. I can't keep my hands out of clay." She pondered awhile and then added in a low voice, "But I know where I could raise some cash. . . with a little polite blackmail."

  "Joy!" Qwilleran exploded. "I hope you're kidding."

  "I'd be discreet," she said coolly. "I've found some documents in the attic of the pottery that would embarrass a few people. . . Don't look so horrified, Jim. There's nothing sinister about it — simply a business transaction."

  "Don't you dare! You could get into serious trouble." Qwilleran stroked his mustache reflectively.

  "What, uh . . . how much money would you need?"

  "Probably — I don't know — maybe a thousand, to begin with. . . Oh, Jim, I've got to get out of this suffocating situation. Sometimes I just want to jump into that horrid river!"

  Joy was still sitting on the arm of his chair, but she was straight-backed and tense now. The lamplight, hitting her face in a certain way, revealed wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. The sight of his childhood sweetheart with signs of age in her face filled Qwilleran with sadness and affection, and after a moment's silence he said, "I could lend you something."

  Joy showed genuine surprise. "Would you really, Jim? I don't know what to say. It would save my life! I'd sign a note, of course."

  "I don't have much savings," he said. "I've had some rough sledding in recent years, but I won a cash prize at the Fluxion in January, and I could let you have — about seven hundred and fifty."

  "Oh, Jim! How can I thank you?" She swooped down to kiss him, then jumped up, grabbed Koko from his blue cushion, and whirled around the room with the surprised cat.

  Qwilleran went to the desk to write a check, automatically reaching for his glasses, then changing his mind out of sheer vanity.

  Joy leaned over his shoulder to watch and gave his temple another kiss, while Koko struggled to get out of her enthusiastic embrace.

  "Why don't you pour yourself another drink — for good luck," Qwilleran suggested, fumbling with the checkbook and concealing the figure that represented his meager balance. He was lending this money against his better judgment, and yet he knew he could not have done otherwise.

  After Joy had gone back to her own apartment, he deducted the amount of the check and wished he had not bought t
he new suit or the antique scale. He looked at the note she had signed, written in the absurd hand he remembered so well — all u's and w's.

  "I oww Juu Qwwww $750," it read, and it was signed "Jww Gwww." She had never been willing to take time to cross t's and loop h's. Funny, lovable, exhilarating, capricious Joy, Qwilleran thought. What would the future hold for both of them?

  The cats had behaved themselves, more or less; that was not always the case when Qwilleran had a woman visiting his living quarters. Koko was a self-appointed chaperon with his own ideas of social decorum.

  "Good cat!" said Qwilleran, and in his mood of reckless indulgence he gave them their second dinner. He opened a can of lobster — the last of their Christmas present from the affluent Mary Duckworth. Koko went wild, racing around the apartment and singing in a falsetto interspersed with chesty growls.

  "Do you think I did the right thing tonight?" Qwilleran asked him. "It leaves me right back where I was before. Broke!" And the man was so preoccupied with his own wonderment that he failed to notice Koko's sudden silence.

  After their feast, the cats went to sleep in the big chair, and Qwilleran spent his first night in the new bed. Lying on his side and staring out of the studio window, he had a full view of the navy-blue sky and a string of lights marking the opposite bank of the river. For several hours sleep evaded him. This time it was not his past that kept him awake but his future.

  He heard and identified all the sounds of a new habitat: the hum of traffic on River Road, a lonely boat whistle, a radio or stereo somewhere in the building, and eventually the crunch of tires on the crushed stone of the driveway. He guessed it would be Maus returning from his gourmet meeting, or Max Sorrel coming home from his restaurant, or Dan Graham in the old Renault, returning from some rendezvous. The garage door creaked, and soon there were footsteps tapping on the tiles of the Great Hall. Somewhere a door closed. After that there was the distant rumble of an approaching storm, and occasionally the sky flashed lavender.

  Qwilleran had no idea at what hour he fell asleep — or how long he had slept when he was startled awake by a scream. Whether it was the real thing or a fragment of his dream, it was impossible to say. He had been dreaming intensely — a silly dream about mountain climbing. He was standing triumphantly on the summit of a snow-white mountain of mashed potatoes, gazing across a sea of brown gravy. Someone shouted a warning, and there was a scream, and he waked.