Once again looking for an “out,” I noticed a rather sinister figure stroll into the repair bay. A lean, middle-aged man with long, graying hair and lots of tattoos stopped in one shadowy corner. He folded his arms across his chest and glared in our direction.
Ironically, it made me almost grateful that I was no longer alone with Ted.
I tried again to cut our conversation short by debunking his local legend. “Well, even if some big cat got loose back in the seventies, it wouldn’t still be alive today.”
“Maybe not the same cat, but it could have bred with something else, couldn’t it? Don’t they sometimes cross different cats to get new species?”
“Some breeders do, but certainly not with anything that big,” I told him. “Well, as you said before, speaking of cats . . . I’ve got a bunch back at my shop that need to be groomed and fed, so I’d better get going.”
“Sure, sure.” He gave me a little more breathing room, but still partly blocked my exit. “Y’know, I don’t usually like cats, but I wouldn’t mind having one like that. Imagine owning a wildcat—one that could take down a dog!”
His enthusiasm for animal-on-animal combat began to turn my stomach, but I tried to find a non-confrontational way to discourage him. “Hybrids are very expensive, and I hear they can be hard to handle.”
Todd leaned back against the door jamb and leered openly at me. “That’s okay. After all, I can be pretty hard to handle, too.”
Oh, to leap into my trusty CR-V and speed away! Unfortunately, Todd already had pulled it into the repair bay.
Behind us, the guy with the tattoos cleared his throat. “Hey, Gillis, if you’re not too busy putting the moves on your customers, we gotta talk.”
His boyish face twisting in annoyance, Todd told me, “I’ll let you know when your car’s done.”
I saw my chance and sidled toward the exit. “You’ve got my number, right?”
“You bet I do, Cassie!” He winked.
Ugh.
I hurried out the door and across the garage’s parking lot. Meanwhile, I could hear the discussion heating up between Todd and his customer.
“Man, how many times I got to bring this van back here before you fix it right?”
“Hey, whadya want from me? That thing’s an antique. They don’t even make parts for those anymore.”
Sounded like Todd had never heard that the customer is always right. I had to give him credit, though, for talking back to a tough dude with flames and skulls crawling up and down his arms.
I covered the four blocks back to my shop at a brisk clip. I’d thought I lucked out, finding a place to get my car serviced that was within walking distance. Now I wondered if the convenience was worth dodging clumsy advances from Todd Gillis.
With a sense of relief I neared my own shop, on the first floor of a two-story building that originally served as a single-family home. It was over a hundred years old, and at some point the first floor had been converted for retail use. The last owner had operated a rather fly-by-night beauty shop and left a mess behind. I’d made a lot of renovations and given the exterior a coat of cream paint with blue-gray trim.
Now I paused on the sidewalk to admire, once again, my front display window. Large, quirky purple letters spelled out “Cassie’s Comfy Cats” and a smaller font added “Feline Grooming and Boarding.” I’d originally stenciled the lettering myself, when I’d opened six months ago. But my first window had to be replaced when a stray bullet went through it, during an incident at my shop that spring.
I’d expected running a business in this small, semi-rural suburb to be pretty uneventful. But in the short time since I’d opened, Cassie’s Comfy Cats already had seen more than its share of excitement.
Glancing through the window now, I saw Sarah Wilcox behind the sales counter dealing with a customer. My petite, African-American sixty-something assistant looked relieved when I stepped through the door.
“Cassie, glad you’re back,” she said. “I wasn’t sure how to handle this.”
The young man on the near side of the counter turned to face me, also. A grayish plaid shirt and faded jeans hung loosely on his thin frame, and his pale, narrow face showed a trace of acne. He needed a shave and a haircut, too. I put his age about the same as mine.
On the sales counter between him and Sarah rested a rectangular, soft-sided black cat carrier. Even the mesh inserts were so dark that I couldn’t really make out what was inside.
“You’re the owner?” the man said, eagerly. “You board cats, right? Can I leave mine here, just for a few days?”
The request wasn’t strange, but his manner was. His eyes bugged a little and his voice had a nervous edge. Still, a customer was a customer.
“No reason why not,” I said. “We have room at the moment.”
A couple of months ago, we would always have had room. But that spring we’d gotten some unusual publicity, and now our boarding facilities were sometimes filled to capacity. A large room toward the back of the shop featured more than a dozen “condos,” each the size of a broom closet and with three different levels, for litter pans, food and water dishes and lounging.
“May I see your cat?” I asked. “Can you take him out?”
“Her.” He unzipped the mesh door of the carrier.
Its occupant stepped out with a confident, fluid stride. She was a big, athletic-looking shorthair with a dark brown coat. Her long legs and slightly large ears hinted at some exotic genes.
A murmur from Sarah told me she also was impressed.
“Quite an animal,” I said, while the cat allowed me to stroke her back. “What’s her name?”
He hesitated. “Ayesha. Y’know, like the queen in She?”
I don’t think he expected me to understand this reference, but I actually had seen the 1960s fantasy-adventure movie. One of my college boyfriends had a thing for Ursula Andress. My bad luck—a mere brunette, I also couldn’t compete in terms of my chest or my cheekbones with Andress the Goddess.
“That’s certainly regal,” I said. “What breed is she?”
“No idea. I got her from a shelter as a kitten.”
Ayesha, who had been scanning the counter with her brilliant golden eyes, suddenly pounced on a pile of our brochures, scattering them to the floor. Sarah caught her before she could jump down after them. The blond man also helped get her under control.
“Has she had all her shots? Do you have any recent vet records?” I asked him. “She certainly looks healthy, but I have to be careful about bringing in any cats that might be carrying contagious diseases.”
“Sorry. I don’t.”
Which raised another question. “Is she spayed?”
When he shook his head, I prepared to turn him down. I’d never yet had to refuse a customer, but my boarding area is pretty close quarters. A cat with FIV or another contagious disease, or a female in heat, could cause serious problems. “I’m very sorry, but we have rules. . . .”
The guy looked on the edge of tears. “Please, I’m desperate! My . . . my house burned down last night. I can’t go back there, and I have to find someplace else to live that will let me keep Ayesha. I just need a couple of days!”
I worried that it might take him more than a couple of days to find new quarters. Still, I sympathized. I have three cats of my own, and couldn’t imagine what I’d do if all of us were suddenly homeless. “You don’t have any friends or relatives—?”
“Not around here. I came from out of state and I can’t go back. Please, this is an emergency! I’ll come get her as soon as I can.”
I thought of the extra-large condo that my handyman, Nick Janos, had recently built on a wall opposite the others. I’d asked for it just in case we even had to quarantine a boarder.
“All right,” I told the blond guy. “Maybe I can keep her kind of isolated.”
“That’s great!”
He paid a week’s board in advance, cash, and wrote down his name—Rudy Pierson—and a cell phone number
. With his help, Sarah urged the lively Ayesha back into her carrier. Though a standard size, it almost seemed too small for her.
“Does she need any kind of special diet or handling?” I asked.
Rudy requested an all-natural food that I figured I’d have to get from the big pet-supply store on the highway. “She’s well-trained, but she needs a lot of exercise.” He glanced through the wood-and-mesh screen that separated our playroom from the front sales counter. “I can see you’ve got a big space with cat trees and wall shelves. She’ll like that.”
I nodded. “We let the boarders out there every day, in shifts.”
“Terrific! Oh, and she’ll walk on a leash. Y’know, with a harness.”
“Really?” Sarah peered into the carrier.
“Anyway, thanks so much,” Rudy said, on his way out. “You guys are lifesavers!” From the doorway, he cast a sad, backward glance at the black carrier, as if he feared he might never see his pet again.
“What a shame,” said Sarah, after he’d left. “I wonder where the house fire was? I didn’t hear anything about it on the local news.”
“He said he’s from out of state, so maybe you wouldn’t have. Wonder how he found out about my place?”
“You’re on the Web. If he’s got a smartphone, he might have found you that way.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I shrugged off the small mystery. “Well, let’s get Miss Ayesha settled. I’m going to put her in that big condo away from the others. Let’s just hope she doesn’t go into heat while she’s here, or even our neutered male boarders might freak out.”
Sarah put a pan with fresh litter at the bottom of the “quarantine” condo, while I filled one dish with water and another with high-quality dry food. Her Highness would just have to make do until I could track down some of the fare Rudy had recommended.
If it’s a “natural” brand, Dawn even might carry it at Nature’s Way. That would be convenient. I dropped into my friend’s health-food store frequently, just to visit.
I toted the black carrier back to the condo area, where a few of the other boarders looked up or meowed in interest. Meanwhile, the lean cat’s weight surprised me. When I unzipped the bag and lifted her out, I noticed again how muscular she was. Before putting her in her new quarters, though, I hesitated. Although Ayesha had short, sleek fur, in some areas it looked matted.
I usually groom boarders at a discount, anyway. Given Rudy’s circumstances, I’d throw in the service for free.
“I want to deal with her coat first,” I told Sarah. “It’s kind of sticky or something.”
My assistant followed me into the grooming studio. “Maybe from the house fire?”
“Could be. From the smoke, or maybe some other kind of fumes in the air.” I set the carrier on my stainless-steel grooming table, let the new boarder out, and gave her fur a sniff. “Definitely has an odd, perfume-y smell.”
Though lively, restless, and strong, Ayesha didn’t fight the grooming process. Sarah was able to hold her by the scruff while I started working with a slicker brush. The cat’s coat had a slightly stiff texture and it took a bit of effort to pass the brush through.
“What breed do you think she is?” Sarah asked. “She’s an unusual color—such an even, dark brown.”
“There is a Havana Brown breed,” I told her. “I’ve seen them in pictures, but never in person. And Burmese are brown. But those are valuable purebreds. Rudy said he got her as a kitten from a shelter.”
I switched to a comb, which seemed to glide through the hair more easily, but then noticed something weird.
Most cats have at least two kinds of fur—the silky or smooth guard hairs on top and a fluffier undercoat. The colors of the two can sometimes be different. Ayesha didn’t have much of an undercoat, but her guard hairs changed color close to her skin. It wasn’t the kind of “tipping” that occurs in some cat’s fur, though. I’d never seen anything like this before.
I ruffled her hair back in several places, and always found the same thing. In some areas, the dark brown color went a little deeper. In others, like her belly, the light, golden shade showed up more. But it didn’t follow any typical, natural pattern.
When I paused, perplexed, Sarah asked me what was wrong.
“Forget grooming,” I said. “This cat needs a bath.”
“O-o-okay.” She sounded confused. “Think she got into something oily in the fire?”
“Let’s just say, whatever she’s got on her coat might not be good for her, and I don’t want her licking it off.”
We put Ayesha in the big bathing sink, filled it partway with warm water, and squirted shampoo over her. Again, she was a surprisingly good sport, as if she’d been bathed before. Wearing thin latex gloves, I massaged the soap deep into her coat and scrubbed gently with my hands. Sarah held the sprayer close to her skin, to rinse her without upsetting her too much.
Dark brown begin to swirl into the shallow bath water.
“What on earth—?” Sarah gasped.
“There’s a reason we couldn’t tell what breed she was,” I guessed out loud. “And maybe a reason why Rudy claimed he didn’t know. She’s been dyed.”
In spite of our efforts, only a little of the stuff washed out. Finally we gave up and towel-dried the cat. But not before we could just make out a faint pattern of leopard spots over her whole body.
“That’s so bizarre!” my assistant said, with a shake of her head. “Why would anyone dye such a beautiful coat?”
“Maybe to hide the fact that she’s worth thousands?” I flashed back on Rudy’s anxious and secretive behavior. “I’m betting Ayesha is a purebred show cat. And possibly stolen.”
The Persian Always Meows Twice Page 23