Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  She said, "What?"

  "I'm here to pick up a cat."

  The woman moved to a flattened card file. "What name?"

  She sounded like the impatient voice on the telephone. I said, "The owner's name is Meagher, Nancy."

  "No. I need the cat's name."

  "Oh. Meagher, Renfield NMI."

  "NMI?"

  "No Middle Initial."

  I got a look like somebody put vinegar in the ice cream.

  "Here he is. Just a minute," The woman picked up a phone and hit two numbers. "Donny? Julie. I need cage number seventy-three, cat, gray tiger . . . Yes, in a carry-box . . . Right."

  Julie put down the phone and slapped a carboned invoice on top of the counter. "The total's at the bottom."

  I looked at the bottom and said, "God in heaven."

  The woman said, "What's the matter?"

  "The amount of the bill."

  "The cat had bilateral knee displacements."

  "But this is more than the Bears spent on Gale Sayers."

  When she said, "Who?" I said never mind and took out my checkbook.

  Julie had just given me the pink copy of the invoice when a scuzzy-looking kid I took to be Donny appeared from behind a door. He was carrying a cardboard container that resembled a Dunkin' Donuts Munchkins box magnified five times. There were airholes an inch in diameter on the short ends of the box, and one clawless gray forepaw coming through one of the airholes, trying to bend it back.

  I said, "That's him, all right."

  At the sound of my voice, Renfield cried a little from inside the container. I began to think that my picking him up might not have been such a hot idea.

  Donny reached behind the reception counter and handed me a little plastic lampshade and a strip of gauze bandage.

  "What's this for?"

  The kid said, "When you get home, you put it over the cat's head."

  "Somehow I don't think he's in the mood to party."

  "No, man. You put the thing over his head, small end down on his neck, then run the gauze through the slits on the thing there and pull on it a little — "

  "Why?"

  "Keeps him from being able to pick at his stitches with his teeth."

  "How can he get to the stitches through the casts?"

  "Man, there aren't any casts on him. Cats are tough. He'll be fine once the anesthesia wears off."

  "I thought it already wore off."

  Donny was turned and halfway through the door again.

  "Probably has."

  I hefted the box by the handle, and Renfield cried a little more. To Julie I said, "Do I need to give him anything?"

  "No. Just keep an eye on him. He acts funny, give the vet a call at the number on top of the bill."

  As I carried the container toward the main entrance, Renfield began crying steadily.

  * * *

  I parked in front of Nancy's house in South Boston. Renfield's box in one hand and my raincoat over the other arm, I used Nancy's key on the front door. I also let the Lynches know I'd be up there for a while.

  In Nancy's kitchen, I tossed my raincoat on a chair. I set the Munchkins box down on the linoleum and opened the handles carefully. The cat cried and flinched when the light hit his eyes, but that wasn't the worst of it.

  "Jesus, Renfield. What did they do to you, boy?"

  His fur was all shaved from roughly his belly button down both rear legs and then halfway up his tail. He looked like a cross between a madly groomed poodle and a plucked chicken, especially through the legs, which were incredibly scrawny with just his skin covering them.

  I lifted him out carefully, Renfield growling and trying to bite my hands, but only weakly. I laid him gently on the lineoleum. His legs were bent funny, like he was doing a deep knee bend on his side, each leg showing a line of stitches five inches long. He tried to stand up on the linoleum, flopping back down and crying. I went into Nancy's bathroom, rifling her linen closet for the oldest towel I could find. I brought a blue one back into the kitchen, doubling it over and spreading it out. I lifted Renfield onto the towel, figuring he'd have a better chance with better friction. The cat was almost able to get to his feet, then let out a terrible yowl and flopped over again. He tried to crick his neck enough to get at the stitches, just reaching the ones closest to his hip. I tried to keep him from them, which only frustrated him more.

  I realized I'd left the lampshade thing in the Prelude. I went down to the street, retrieved it and the gauze, and came back upstairs. By that time, the cat had managed to flop over to his other side, scrunching up the towel every which way. I straightened out the cloth, then tried to put the lampshade over his head.

  Renfield gave me a major argument, so I took the thing off and ran the gauze through the slits in the plastic first, like a man putting on his belt before pulling on his pants. Trying it again, I got worse noise, his cottonball front paws windmilling at my hands like a first-grader in a playground fight.

  I finally got the contraption over his head and secured, Renfield looking like a fantasy painting of an alien flower beast. As soon as I let go, however, he started growling and moaning, thrashing at the lampshade with paws that just skated across the hard plastic. I began to worry that he'd hurt himself, even strangle if he got it halfway off, but I couldn't see tugging the gauze belt any tighter.

  That's when I got out the bill and on the phone to the vet. I drew Julie behind the counter, who told me to hold on. Drumming my fingers through the Muzak, I finally heard a male voice with a singsong East Indian accent.

  "Hello, can I help you, please?"

  "My name's John Cuddy, doctor. I just picked up a friend's cat at your hospital, and he's not doing too well."

  "What is the name, please?"

  "Renfield."

  "Renfield . . . Renfield — ah, yes. The gray tiger, bilateral knee — "

  "That's him."

  "What is the problem, please?"

  "He's in a lot of discomfort, and he can't seem to stand up."

  "That is normal, sir. Partly the anesthesia, partly the weakness in the legs, yes?"

  "I also tried to put the lampshade thing on his head, but it's driving him nuts."

  "Ah, the Elizabethan collar. They do not like that much, do they?"

  "I couldn't say. This is my first."

  "Well, I would not worry about it. The important thing is not to let him have at his stitches."

  "But that's what he wants to do."

  "Yes, well, there are really two sets of stitches in each leg, some inside the skin, and the ones you can see outside. If he gets only to the outside ones a little bit, you will see just a drop or two of blood which will scab over nicely. Nothing to worry about, yes?"

  "Doctor, he's thrashing around so much with the lampshade on, I'm afraid he'll bust through his stitches or even hurt his neck."

  "Oh, well, we cannot have that, can we? Perhaps it would be best to take the collar off his head and simply monitor him."

  "Monitor him."

  "Yes. Throughout the night, if possible."

  "Great."

  "He may imprint on you a bit, as though you are the parent and he the child. But eventually the stitches will not bother him so much."

  "Is there anything I can do for him now? He really seems to be suffering"

  "Unfortunately that is natural with cats. But as they are poor patients they are good convalescents. They have much better attitudes about rehabilitation than dogs, yes?"

  "Am I supposed to be feeding him or what?"

  "Oh, I doubt he will take any food for a while. But do offer him some, the simpler the better. Dry food over canned. And do make water available. He probably will not be able to walk very well to his dish — "

  "Doctor, I'm telling you, he can't even stand up."

  " — nor to his litter box, I am afraid."

  Better and better. "Anything else I should watch for?"

  "No. Cats have a remarkable ability to heal themselves, you will se
e, sir. Just be a little patient with him. And now, I really must go."

  As I hung up the phone, Renfield let out a miserable yowl. Then he copiously wet himself and the towel.

  * * *

  About eight o'clock, I put a commercial lasagna dish from Nancy's freezer in her microwave and nuked it for seven minutes per side on low, then another five on high. Only the one towel was sacrificed to Renfield's incontinence, him seeming a lot calmer, or at least resigned, after I took the lampshade off. I cleaned his hindquarters with some paper napkins dabbed in warm water, blotting the moisture off with dry ones to keep him from getting too cold. I still decided to leave him on the washable linoleum, though, a different towel underneath him and flipped lightly over his rear legs.

  When the microwave trilled at me, I zapped some frozen garlic bread and opened a bottle of red wine. I had half the wine and all the lasagna and bread, the cat turning down both food and water whenever I edged his two-sectioned dish toward him.

  I tried to watch TV in the living room, but every time I left the kitchen, or more accurately, left Renfield's line of sight, he cried. Continuously. Nancy is a real fan of private investigator fiction, so I picked a Loren Estleman paperback off a shelf and settled into one of the kitchen chairs.

  When the book mentioned jazz, I remembered Primo Zuppone's tape in the pocket of my raincoat. I left the kitchen long enough to put it into the stereo, then listened to both sides of Wim Mertens several times, the equivalent of two albums alternating. Thoughtful, mournful, it seemed to suit my "wet nurse" mood.

  The music playing, I drank wine and read about the mean streets of Detroit until almost eleven, when I started yawning. Renfield had dropped off at some point, and stepped over him as quietly as possible. He didn't wake up. I was asleep for a while in Nancy's bed when I was roused by a terrible sound. Renfield. Yowling.

  He'd managed to drag himself across the threshold of the kitchen, getting tangled in the towel. He cried until I disengaged him and got him back onto the kitchen floor the way I'd left him. When I turned to go to the bedroom, he started crying again.

  I shook my head and went into the living room. I stacked the seat cushions from Nancy's couch like poker chips and carried them into the bedroom. I took a pillow and the blanket from her bed and stacked them on top of the cushions. Then I carried everything to the threshold of the kitchen. Renfield stopped his crying when he saw me coming. I laid out the cushions on the floor the way they were on the couch. I put the pillow at the head of the string, nearest Renfield and just into the kitchen. Then I lay down, pulling the blanket over me. He false-started toward my face with his front paw a couple of times, like a high-spirited horse scratching the ground with a forehoof.

  I extended my index finger to him. He grabbed it with the clawless paw, squeezing it reflexively. The way an infant does. I said, "Renfield, if you ever breathe a word of this . . .At which point he purred once, then again, and slid back into the peace of sleep.

  -22-

  WHEN I WOKE UP SATURDAY MORNING, My BACK FELT AS BAD AS Renfield's legs looked. Hunched up on his front ones, he did take a little water by dipping a forepaw into the dish and then licking the pads.

  The phone rang as I was munching on some Frosted Flakes. When I put the receiver to my ear, the line was full of static.

  "Hello?"

  "John, it's Nancy."

  "Thought I might get a call last night."

  "I tried, but there was something wrong with the circuits here. I nearly went crazy until I gave up around one A.M."

  "How did your talk go?"

  "Fine. How's my kitty?"

  "Kind of rocky."

  "Oh, John, don't torture me long-distance, okay?"

  "Okay. He's having trouble getting to his feet. Shaky would be a good description. He cried a lot when I got him here, but he's evened out a bit since then."

  "You stayed with him all night?"

  "As promised?

  "Oh, John, thank you."

  "I do consider it above and beyond."

  "The call of duty, you mean?"

  "That's right."

  "I'll plan something special for when I get back."

  "Still tomorrow noon?"

  "Uh-huh. Can you stay with Renfield till I get there?"

  "Yes, but I didn't bring a change of clothes."

  "Don't worry. For what I have planned, you won't need any clothes."

  * * *

  I spent most of Saturday morning in the living room, carrying Reniield in with me and laying a plastic trash bag as an exterior diaper under his towel. He seemed content to stay on the floor, sleeping.

  After I finished the Estleman book, I started a Linda Barnes one that was set in Boston with a female private investigator. Halfway through that, the Game of the Week came on the tube, Jack Buck and Tim McCarver almost making me forget Vin Scully. Almost.

  The phone rang three times, a couple of hours apart. I let Nancy's machine do its thing. The first time was just a hangup. The second and third stopped ringing before the tape could cut into the call.

  As the day progressed, so did Renfield. He took more water and even a little dry food, purring whenever I came near him. By nightfall, he was actually up and walking. Rickety, but on all fours.

  Nancy had some thin pork chops in a back corner of the freezer. Shake 'n Baked, they went down with a bottle of no-vintage chardonnay, Renfield even getting enthusiastic enough to take some rice-sized scraps from the chops.

  That evening I finished the Barnes book and started to get cabin fever. I turned the television back on, picking up a Best of Nature courtesy of Channel 2. Cheetah, shoulder muscles bristling, stalked baby antelope through high grass. Chameleons with independently roving eyes and sticky tongues slurped butterflies from twigs. Arctic foxes in a lush valley waited with infinite patience as young barnacle geese rappeled without ropes down jagged cliffs. After a week with the Danucci family, I felt for the antelopes, butterflies, and geese of the world. Following the PBS show, I watched some network show that was so inane I at first thought Saturday Night Live had started two hours early. I went to bed, again on my couch cushions next to Renfield, thinking I had to stay around pets less or drink more.

  * * *

  "Oh, my God, John, he looks absurd!"

  It was Sunday, just past noontime. After replacing the cushions on the couch, I'd snuck out for five minutes to get the Sunday papers. I'd just finished a photo ad in Parade magazine for Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute. Finally understanding what Johnny Carson was always railing about, I heard a key turn in the lock.

  Nancy dropped her garment bag to the kitchen floor as Renfield labored to his feet, doing one flop-over that I thought seemed faked for her benefit. She ignored me, rushing over to him and cooing and cuddling the little critter until I thought the thread from his sutures would burst.

  "Nance?"

  Over the shoulder she said, "Yes?"

  "The vet said to be careful around the stitches."

  "Poor little guy. If I'd had any idea he'd look this bad, John, I'd never have gone to the convention."

  "He's going to be fine."

  Nancy left her cat long enough to come give me a hug, then wrinkle her nose. "You were right about your shirt."

  "It's only on its third day."

  "Go."

  "I thought you said I wouldn't need any clothes?"

  "Don't worry about whether they match."

  "How about if I pick up some Chinese or Thai?"

  "Great. You have beer at the condo?"

  "Yes."

  "Better bring some. I think I'm out."

  I said, "You're running a little low on wine, too."

  "Small reward for a man who went so far above and beyond."

  "They're probably making up songs about me to chant around campfires."

  Nancy's eyes suddenly glistened. "John, please just go for a while, then come back."

  I got serious. "Sure."

  "I need some time alone with Renfield
, and I know I'm going to cry and I don't want you here again for that."

  "Okay. I'll be back around . . . ?"

  "Five?"

  "Five it is."

  Another hug, this one longer despite the condition of my shirt. "Thank you, John. I mean it."

  "I know."

  The young black officer in front of the blue police barricade was smiling, but only barely. He'd just gotten through with a woman who seemed determined to get detour directions to North Carolina when I pulled up Berkeley Street to the intersection of Newbury and asked him what the trouble was. He hitched a thumb toward the river and said, "Walk for Hunger. Can't cross Commonwealth for an hour or so."

  Behind the barrier I could see a throng of people moving toward downtown on the Commonwealth Avenue mall. I nodded to the cop and turned left onto Newbury, lucking out with a metered space about halfway between Exeter and Fairfield. I left the Prelude and took Fairfield to Commonwealth, waiting for a lull in the parade to continue over toward Beacon.

  Young men and women in yellow T-shirts and orange safety vests clapped for the marchers and acted as crossing guards against occasional cars on the street. Literally hundreds of people were going by in a steady stream. All ages and colors, many wearing white painters' hats. Lots of mothers and dads with little kids, most of them in shorts and athletic shoes but some wearing sweatshirts or sweaters against the early May air. They ate apples and pears pulled from small knapsacks, otherwise holding hands.

  Most of the marchers had yellow decals, big and round, with WALK FOR HUNGER and the date on them. Others had small buttons with the same legend and background. 'Blaster radios and balloons, wheelchairs and strollers. Some folks were wilting, others almost goose-stepping with energy.

  I went up to one of the crossing guards. She had sandy hair parted in the center and tied into a ponytail and looked so collegiate it hurt. I asked her how far the marchers had come.