“My father!”
“Not a bad guy—your dad. The city is going to establish a Landmarks Preservation Committee, prompted by the Fluxion and underwritten by your father’s bank as a public service. He’s agreed to act as honorary chairman. But you are going to spearhead the program.”
“I?”
“Yes, you! It’s time you started putting your knowledge and enthusiasm to work. And here’s something else: scrounging is going to be legalized. All you need is a permit and—”
“Qwill, did you do all this for Junktown?”
“No. Mostly for you,” he said. “And if you make this contribution to the success of Junktown, I don’t think you’ll be bothered by those crank calls any more. Someone wanted to scare you—to chase you out of the neighborhood. I think I know who, but the less said the better.”
Mary’s expression of delight and gratitude was all the Christmas that Qwilleran needed—better, much better, than the brass candlesticks—better, almost, than the $1,000 prize he was sure of winning.
His satisfaction was short-lived, however. The girl’s eyes clouded, and she swallowed hard. “If only Andy were here,” she mourned. “How he would—”
“Koko!” shouted Qwilleran. “Get away from that wall!”
Koko was standing on the daybed and sharpening his claws on Andy’s carefully pasted wall covering.
“He’s been working on that blasted wall ever since we moved in,” the man said. “The corners are beginning to curl up.”
Mary looked across the room, blinking her eyes emotionally. Then she stood up quickly and walked to the daybed. Koko scampered away.
“Qwill,” she said, “there’s something else here.” She pulled at one of the curled corners, and a page of Don Quixote started to peel off.
Qwilleran hobbled across the room and joined her on the daybed.
“There’s something pasted underneath this page,” she said, peeling it slowly and carefully.
“Greenbacks!”
“Money!”
Under the page that Mary was pulling off there were three hundred-dollar bills.
Qwilleran peeled a page of Samuel Pepys and found three more. “Iris told me Andy had used peelable paste, and now we know why!”
“Where did Andy get these?” Mary cried. “He didn’t make this kind of money! Any profit he made went right back into antiques.” She peeled off another page. “This whole wall is papered with currency! How did Andy—”
“Maybe he had a sideline,” said Qwilleran. “Do you suppose he did business with Papa Popopopoulos?”
“I can’t believe it!” Mary said. “Andy was so . . . He was so . . . Why would he hide it like this?”
“The usual reason,” Qwilleran said, clearing his throat diplomatically, “has to do with unreported income.”
He said it as gently as he could, but Mary collapsed in tears. He put his arms around her and comforted her, and she was willing to be comforted.
Neither of them noticed Koko as he rose weightlessly to the swanlike daybed. Standing on his hind feet he rubbed his jaw against the carved wood. He stretched his neck and rubbed the nearby doorjamb. He rubbed against the light switch, and the apartment was thrown into darkness.
In the moments that followed, the pair on the daybed were blissfully unaware of two pale apparitions hovering over the dinner table in the vicinity of the pressed duck.
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, Ate Danish Modern, Turned on and Off Page 19