Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

by Blaize Clement

  The living room wasn’t lit, but through the glass wall I could see flames leaping in the fireplace. It was almost eighty degrees outside, and he had a fire. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. Ken Kurtz seemed almost as cold-blooded as Ziggy. While I waited for him to come to the door, I remembered there had been a basket of firewood by the fireplace. Fire must be important to Kurtz.

  His shadowy form moved past the window toward the door faster than he had moved before. Perhaps all the excitement of the guard’s murder and Gilda’s disappearance had given him a spurt of new energy. Or maybe it was the food I’d brought him from Anna’s. Maybe real food had cured the guy, the way menudo had cured my concussion.

  He opened the door in the same bedraggled bathrobe he’d worn before and stepped aside to let me in without speaking. The house was like an oven.

  I said, “Hello, Mr. Kurtz.”

  I didn’t see any point in telling him his house was being picketed by religious fanatics. The man had enough problems without knowing that.

  Ziggy had left the dry sauna and was running up and down the corridors. Iguanas only poop once every three or four days, and from the hint of desperation in his scurrying, I had a feeling this was the day.

  I said, “It’s eighty degrees outside. Shall I put Ziggy out?”

  Kurtz flapped his blue hands. “Take him out. He needs the fresh air.”

  I opened one of the sliders to the courtyard and went to Ziggy’s side. Kurtz seemed to lose interest and shuffled down the corridor toward the living room. Keeping a wary eye on Ziggy’s tail, I got ready to slip my arms under his body and grab his legs to lift him. But he stuck out his tongue and tasted fresh air from the open slider and scampered out, heading straight for a clump of hibiscus bushes.

  Remembering that my grandfather’s iguana had also preferred to poop on the roots of hibiscus, I grinned and went to the hospital-white kitchen to gather Ziggy’s fruits and vegetables for the day. Most of the leftovers from Anna’s were still in the fridge, so Kurtz wasn’t in danger of starving. For Ziggy, I sliced zucchini and yellow squash, bananas and pineapple, added romaine and swiss chard, and carried them outside in a big wooden bowl.

  I said, “Hey, Zig, I brought you some goodies.”

  With an extra-satisfied smile on his face, he bobbed his head and sniffed me with his tongue. He was beginning to associate me with food, so I smelled good to him.

  I knelt to set the bowl on the ground, and Ziggy raised himself on his front legs and flicked out his tongue to smell it. That’s when I saw the telltale evidence of an indwelling tunneled catheter low on his chest wall—not like Kurtz’s ordinary PICC line that any good nurse can insert, but one like my grandfather had in the months before he died—the kind that is surgically inserted directly into the large vein that enters the heart.

  Somebody had been giving Ziggy transfusions or withdrawing blood, and on a regular basis. But why? And what was the connection to the catheter in Kurtz’s arm?

  The implications made me dizzy, but so did everything else in this weird house.

  I left Ziggy eating his dinner and went looking for Kurtz. He was in the wine room, moving slowly down the line of bottles as if he were taking inventory. In the eerie red light, his bluish skin looked faintly puce.

  He said, “Did you feed the iguana?”

  It was another moment when I had a choice. I could keep my mouth shut and walk out the front door and go home. Or I could open my big mouth and then walk out the front door and go home.

  I said, “I promised Jessica Ballantyne that I’d give you this message—Ziggy is no longer an option. You must act now.”

  I turned and almost made it across the living room before Kurtz shouted at me. “Dixie! For the love of God, please!”

  Sap that I am, I turned to look back at him. In the red-lit door to the wine room, he stood with both arms pressed overhead against the door frame. With his arms raised like that, his bathrobe sleeves had drooped over his sinewy arms, exposing the gauze dressing on the inside of one elbow.

  “Jessie’s alive?”

  “She said you abandoned her.”

  He pulled his arms down and sagged against the doorway. “How does she look?”

  “As opposed to what? She looked okay to me, but then I don’t know her from Adam’s off ox, so I really can’t say if she looked unusually good or not. All I know is that somebody she called they are tapping your phone and that you’re in danger. She’s the one who set the fire last night, at which time, by the way, somebody hit me on the head and gave me a concussion. So thank you very much for involving me in your life, Mr. Kurtz. So far it’s been a real pleasure.”

  “Jessie was here last night?”

  “She said you ran out on her, that you left her to die. Evidently she loves you anyway, because she wants to warn you about them, whoever they are.”

  “I wouldn’t have left her there! I thought she was dead. They said she was dead.”

  “Would these they be the same they who are watching you now?”

  He wiped his hand against his face. “Jesus. I have to see her.”

  “I don’t think so. From what she said, she can get in a whole lot of trouble from them if they find out she’s trying to help you.”

  “Of course. Good God.”

  I said, “Okay, I’ve delivered the message, and I’ve told you everything she told me. That’s all I’m going to do. It’s all I can do. You people have used me sixteen ways from Thursday, and I’m going home now and leave you to whatever it is that you’re doing. There’s just one thing—I saw the catheter in Ziggy. If you’re hurting him, I won’t be so nice and cooperative. You understand?”

  He gestured toward the chairs in front of the fireplace. “Please, I’d like to explain.”

  Okay, now we were getting somewhere. I dropped into a chair and waited until Kurtz had shuffled to a chair across from me. The fireplace was unpleasantly warm, but in its flickering amber light Kurtz didn’t look so sick.

  He said, “Not that it makes what I’m going to tell you any more palatable but I’m a veterinary microbiologist and pathologist with a long list of degrees and appointments.”

  I raised an eyebrow, meaning What the heck does that have to do with anything?

  “I just want you to know that I’m not a mad scientist, never have been.”

  “Okay, so you’re a professional.”

  “Jessica and I were both bizogenetic researchers for the army.”

  “Our army?”

  He smiled. “I’m not a foreign terrorist, Dixie.”

  Maybe not, but I had a feeling he might be a native terrorist, which in some ways is even worse.

  “In the beginning, we were trying to develop vaccines or antidotes for a host of animal diseases that we expect to see in humans in the future. Some of them have already popped up here and there, like the outbreak of SARS, which originated in an obscure wild animal in China, or the West Nile virus, which originates in horses. A disease that’s benign in animals can be fatal to humans, and when a disease leaps from animals to humans, it can become highly contagious. Look at what happened with the bubonic plague. It spread from rats to humans via fleas, and in five years it wiped out a third of the European population. The next plague will probably come from poultry in Southeast Asia.”

  His eyes had taken on the shine of enthusiasm that people have when they talk about something that gets their juices flowing. Even his voice seemed stronger and more confident.

  I hated to be the ant at his picnic, but I said, “And then what happened?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said you were developing vaccines in the beginning. What happened after the beginning?”

  He took a deep breath, and the shine left his eyes.

  “Then somebody in a position of power decided that a disease that began in animals and was fatal to humans could be a useful weapon. If we could find a way to create and disseminate an interspecies disease in a controlled way, we could wipe out an entir
e nest of terrorists or an entire population that we believed posed a threat to world peace.”

  Hearing somebody talk about widespread killing in order to bring about world peace always makes me want to projectile vomit, but I kept quiet.

  He said, “The army contracted with a civilian company to take responsibility for the work, but basically the same researchers continued doing what we had always been doing. We just had different employers. Our assignment was to develop a fatal disease that we could test on an isolated island in Southeast Asia.” Looking quickly at my face, he said, “Fewer than a thousand inhabitants, virtually no outside contact. It was an ideal testing locale, especially in the event that biocontainment was breached. That happens sooner or later in any animal disease lab, but in our location any accidentally released virus would disperse over the ocean.”

  With a bitter grimace, he added, “We never expected the ocean to turn on us.”

  “You lived there, on the island?”

  “Yes, we lived among the people we planned to kill.”

  “And did you? Did you kill them?”

  A ripple of pain moved across his face. “We were just doing our job, Dixie. But no, we didn’t kill them. We killed our fellow researchers instead. Not by intent, of course—it was purely accidental. I imagine you find a poetic justice in that.”

  I shrugged. “What’s the quotation, He who lives by the sword dies by the sword? I suppose that applies to those who live by diabolical research too.”

  “You call it diabolical. We thought of it as exploring the limits of genetic engineering.”

  “Okay. So what happened?”

  Wearily, he said, “Our biocontainment lab was in a secret underground installation under a concrete complex that housed legitimate biotechnology laboratories. Our basement lab was divided into zones separated by heavy air-lock doors that opened and closed by a computer code known only to the senior researchers. The air pressure steadily decreased toward the central zone, where we kept freezers full of frozen viruses. That way, any stray pathogens would flow inward and up through a large particulate filter.”

  He fell silent for a moment, as if he had to summon the courage to tell the rest of what he intended to say. I didn’t pressure him. I know all too well that some memories are too awful to tell all in one burst.

  He said, “From the beginning, those of us in charge of the project were concerned about the fact that the air locks couldn’t be opened manually. We wanted a manual option in case of a power failure, but every time we complained, we got a runaround about the expense, or the possibility of losing our secrecy, or some other bureaucratic crap.”

  As he talked, his arms began to cross over his chest until he was hugging himself against some chilling memory.

  “The same tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Southeast Asia hit the island. The thing came out of nowhere, a wall of water that destroyed everything in its path, including the concrete building above the lab. Water flooded every zone of the basement and knocked out the backup generators that allowed the air locks to open. Without manual controls, everybody in the innermost chambers drowned, along with the infected animals in their holding chambers.”

  He put a quivery hand to the side of his face and held it there for a moment, either to calm the twitching tremors under his skin or to calm his own obvious fury at a company whose negligence had cost lives.

  “If the goddamned company had listened to us and put in manual controls, they could have survived. Rescuers had to push their way through contaminated water to reach the dead, and many of the rescuers sickened and died too. My own theory is that they either had open sores or accidentally ingested some of the water. They all died within twenty-four hours.”

  He turned his tortured gaze to meet my eyes.

  “Jessie was supposed to be on duty in the biocontainment lab when the tsunami hit, and she was listed as one of the dead. I have always believed she died there.”

  I felt like Alice after she ate the cookie that made her become enormous. The overheated room seemed to be shrinking, and Kurtz was beginning to look like somebody seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

  “Why not you? Why not Ziggy?”

  His face took on a sly, crafty look. “I was using that particular iguana for some special research. I had taken him to my private residence that was farther inland.”

  “And when the tsunami hit?”

  “Near the shoreline, it was pure chaos. But higher up, where I was, some people weren’t even aware it had happened. I heard the news on the radio and knew our lab would have been destroyed, along with all our work. I knew if any of the researchers survived, they would do what they could to keep the work secret. I did the only thing I could do. I put the iguana in the helicopter the army provided and got the hell out of there.”

  As delicately as I could, under the circumstances, I said, “That doesn’t explain what caused your—”

  He gave that braying pseudo-laugh again. “Funny thing about creating diseases to use for espionage. We can manipulate cells to cause blood to boil or bones to crumble or the brain to implode. But we never consider the long-range consequences to the creators. One careless moment, and you can be seeing a death mask in the mirror for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m just guessing here, but does that mean you were careless?”

  “You get so familiar with the animals, you know? You sort of forget why they’re there and why you’re there. Sometimes you’re too tired to do things exactly the right way. You don’t put on gloves or you accidentally stick yourself with a contaminated needle or you inhale particulate in the air after an animal sneezes or coughs. In the early days we used silver nitrate to attenuate the viruses we were working with, and I was exposed to so much of it that my skin was beginning to turn bluish even before the tsunami. It’s become a lot more pronounced in the past few months. The neural spasms and the episodes of debilitating pain didn’t appear until after I left the island. That’s why I need heat too. My body’s temperature regulator has been destroyed.”

  “If you created your condition, can’t you create an antidote for it?”

  His face was blank for a moment, and then a light seemed to switch on in his eyes.

  “Smart girl, Dixie. That’s exactly what I think. That’s why the vials Gilda took are so important.”

  I was a hundred and eighty degrees past exhaustion, but I knew Kurtz had just told a gigantic lie.

  Dully, I said, “Those packages in the refrigerator were vials of an antidote?”

  “Exactly! It’s somewhat the same principle as homeopathy, to treat an illness with minute amounts of the the same toxins that caused it. Gilda gives me the injections. She’s dedicated to seeing me returned to health.”

  “Then why did she run off with the vials?”

  He shrugged, flicked his eyes upward, and found another lie.

  “I think she was scared, Dixie. She didn’t understand what had happened to Ramón, and she was afraid. But she’ll be back when she thinks about it. She wouldn’t abandon me.”

  I thought of Jessica saying, He abandoned me, and knew Ken Kurtz was hiding something I would probably be better off never finding out.

  Before I left, I asked him if he wanted me to bring Ziggy inside for the night.

  He shook his head. “Leave him out. He’s happier outside.”

  His voice had an unaccustomed hint of affection. Maybe Kurtz wasn’t as cold as he seemed. Whatever he was, I left him there in his house with the number that instilled fear in the hearts of the marchers outside.

  As I drove past them, they didn’t look as loony as they’d looked before.

  NINETEEN

  When I got home, I went straight to Michael’s kitchen, where he and Paco were busy putting dinner together.

  Michael’s face was grim. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. A headache, but it’s better.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  I did a mental gr
oan. If I had to tell it one more time, I might start making stuff up to make it more interesting.

  “When I was passing the Kurtz house on my way home last night, I saw the woman’s car I told you about, the one with the dog named Ziggy. It was parked in the driveway by the guard’s house, so I pulled in.”

  Michael gave me a big-brother disapproving look, and I hurried to justify myself.

  “I wanted to catch her and Kurtz together because he’d lied to me, said she died two years ago, so it couldn’t have been her that I talked to. But I was going to call Guidry to check it out, I swear I was. I drove in and got out of my car, and that’s when somebody hit me on the head. When I woke up, I smelled smoke and called nine-one-one.”

  “The fire marshal said you passed out while you were there.”

  I rubbed my forehead, not unlike the way Kurtz touched his face before he lied. All the questions were taxing my brain.

  I said, “I fainted on the way to tell your guys about the woman. Guidry found me and took me to the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial.”

  Michael rubbed his own temples with his forefingers, rotating his fingertips like giving himself a shiatzu massage. I had a feeling his head hurt almost as bad as mine.

  He said, “That fire was set by somebody who knows chemicals and has access to them. The stuff they used doesn’t explode, but it burns for a long time and puts out lots of dark smoke that looks like a major fire. Whoever set it meant to draw attention.”

  I didn’t want to tell him I knew the arsonist. That was information still reserved for Guidry. Besides, as much as I resented her, I was beginning to feel a sort of female bond to Jessica.

  I said, “Other than getting a concussion, I had a great evening. My date with Ethan, I mean.”

  He raised his head and quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  “I really did. We danced.”

  Michael allowed his mouth to twitch in an almost-smile.

  Paco said, “You danced? For real?”

  “Honest to God, and I didn’t step on his feet or trip him or do anything embarrassing.”