Cat Playing Cupid

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  "It did," she said. "We'll call you when we get there. It's nearly supper time. We brought you a little something. Wait, Clyde wants to talk."

  Another silence while she handed the phone back. Joe heard her whisper, "Be nice. The poor cat's scared, all alone in that place. I'd be scared silly." And Joe thought, My God, I love this woman.

  Clyde came on. "I wish, Joe, when these things happen, you would use a little judgment. That you would at least call me. What did you do, stow away in Lindsey's car?"

  "Ryder Wolf is dead," Joe told him. "Gibbs shot her. Dallas and Mike are on their way to San Francisco to meet Lindsey-she followed Ray. Hopefully SFPD will find him first."

  There was another long silence that made Joe wish he hadn't tried to sort it out on the phone. "Sometimes…," Clyde began, then, "Where did you find a phone?"

  "It's Ryder's phone."

  Clyde sighed and didn't ask any more questions. "If we can't find you, we'll call that number. That's a big airport. Stay put if you can. Hold on." There was another pause as Ryan took the phone.

  "Fast-food burger okay? With fries?"

  "Sounds like heaven," Joe said, licking his whiskers. If Clyde had ever shown good sense, it was when he asked Ryan Flannery to be his wife. He hung up thinking fondly of a hot, greasy hamburger and greasy fries.

  Pushing the phone back among the crates, he curled down on the hard metal floor of the pickup, yawned, and closed his eyes. He'd be sure to wake if the driver appeared. Cats are light sleepers, a cat hears every slightest sound, senses every movement. And, curling his front paws under him, Joe Grey dropped into sleep.

  35

  GULLS SWOOPED LOW over Fisherman's Wharf, winging beneath the low clouds. Circling and screaming they dropped down among the rich smells of raw and frying fish to land on a restaurant roof; there they strutted, stomping softly like little thumping drumbeats, directly above Lindsey Wolf's head where she sat inside at a window table.

  Having angled her chair behind a potted palm, she was out of sight from the hotel across the street. Distracted for a moment by the pitter-pat above her, she abandoned her surveillance, looking up-she looked back just in time to see Ray Gibbs pull aside the second-floor curtain, as he had done twice before.

  Standing in plain view, he peered down at the narrow, crowded street, watching the wandering tourists, then looked across at the restaurant windows. She was sure he couldn't see her behind the palm and crammed among other diners. The interior of the restaurant, despite its big windows, was shadowy in contrast to the bright street.

  He had the TV on, she could see its light flickering behind him through the thin curtain. She wondered, shivering, if the shooting was on the news yet, if that was what he was watching.

  If she'd hesitated when he shot Ryder, she'd be dead, too. She was certain Ryder was dead, she couldn't have lived, the way she was shot. She grieved for Ryder, guilt had ridden with her as she hailed a cab, following Ray. Praying for Ryder, and riven with hate for Gibbs, she wanted to see him burn. Burn for Ryder, and for Carson, and for Nina Gibbs.

  Why had he come here after he shot Ryder? Why not catch his flight, for which they must have had last-minute reservations? Or head up the coast among the small fishing and lumbering towns of northern California and southern Oregon, with all the open land and woods where he could disappear?

  But maybe he thought, among the city's crowds of tourists, he wouldn't be noticed. The sidewalk below was jammed with gaudily dressed pedestrians moving back and forth across the narrow street, pushing around the fenders and bumpers of slow-moving cars, hungering to spend their money on little treats, or on useless wares to cart home as unique gifts for family and friends who would soon throw them away.

  Gibbs moved again, letting the curtain fall back into place, and disappeared from view. Had he seen her, was that why he was staring across at the restaurant? She watched the street, praying to see Dallas's Blazer, praying they'd hurry. She was terrified Gibbs would come down, come across to the restaurant. Every time he left the window she drew farther back behind the palm, wanting to run.

  When the waitress came to refill her glass of iced tea, she ordered a dessert that she didn't want, buying time. She couldn't sit there forever not ordering anything, the restaurant was too full. She had picked up her fork, was toying with the meringue when Gibbs stepped out the front door of the Argonaut. He stood a moment looking around, then headed across the street toward her, toward the door of the restaurant.

  ***

  JOE GREY WOKE to the step of high-heeled cowboy boots, a distinctive sound one couldn't mistake. The next instant, the pickup bed shook as the cab door was flung open. He caught a whiff of male sweat, glimpsed the guy before he ducked back between the boxes-a squarely built man dressed in a faded western shirt and worn, western straw hat. There was a thud as he tossed something into the narrow space behind the driver's seat, maybe a suitcase or a duffel. Joe, snatching the phone in his teeth, leaped over the metal side of the truck bed just as the guy started the engine. Sailing to the roof of the next car, he leaped again to the top of a white Honda van, where he flattened himself against its roof, hiding the cell phone under him. The guy hadn't seen him, was busy backing out, looking over his shoulder, maneuvering the big pickup out of the tight space.

  When the cowboy had gone, Joe rose up, hoping his weight hadn't punched any buttons on the phone that would send it into some incomprehensible mode that he couldn't figure out.

  Should he call Clyde back, tell him he'd had to move? Or wait to see what happened? He hoped this van would stay in place for a while. It hadn't been there when he'd hopped into the truck. Hoped the driver wasn't just picking up a passenger. He must have been deep in sleep when it pulled into the parking space, he hadn't even heard a door slam.

  He decided to stay where he was despite the fact that on the white van he was as visible as a dead rat on clean sheets. He was up high enough to see cars pulling in and out, to see the yellow roadster or Ryan's red pickup. He hadn't thought to ask what they were driving. He watched a beefy woman with three cranky, arguing kids approaching, heading straight for him, and he hunkered down again, praying the van wasn't theirs, trying to make both the phone and himself invisible.

  And wouldn't you know it. Here they came, straight for him, the woman jingling her keys, the kids whining and arguing.

  Maybe they were too busy arguing to notice him. He daren't move, they were feet from him. Frozen in place, he watched the flabby woman in her tight black pants and red T-shirt unlock the driver's door then slide the back door open. Crouched low, he was slowly backing away from that side when the tallest kid, a straggly girl of about ten, spotted him.

  "There's a cat on top of the car! Ma, look! A cat!"

  Hadn't she ever seen a cat before? What was it about innocent animals that made kids want to shout?

  "Look, it's rearing up!" she screamed, running around the side of the van and jumping up, reaching. The kid was a good jumper, he hadn't thought she could reach that high. Her hand grazed him, and before he could stop himself, he'd slashed her a good one. She dropped to the concrete, screaming, "It scratched me! Maaaaa, the cat scratched me!"

  He'd hardly touched her. Hardly drew blood. Well, only just a drop or two, glistening on her dirty little fingers. He wished he hadn't done it, that hadn't been a smart move.

  But it was too late now, and the woman was furious. As she lunged up, reaching to grab him, he abandoned the cell phone, leaped to the roof of the next car. He couldn't drag the phone with him and let her see it, that would tear it. As he sailed away from one car to the next, the woman ran between cars chasing him, screaming, "Catch it! Catch that cat! It attacked my baby." Thudding and leaping across car tops, he glimpsed the flash of a red vehicle pulling in through the far gate.

  Let it be them! He paused, rearing up, hissing at the woman to make her back off. Praying that was Ryan's red truck. Let that be Ryan and Clyde. Please God-and get this woman off me!

  36
>
  HAVING PRESSED her last twenty into the waitress's hand, Lindsey slipped out through the restaurant's kitchen. Behind her, the plump, motherly server told Gibbs there'd been no woman in there matching that description. She said a man had been sitting at the recently vacated window table, that she hadn't seen the woman he described. That maybe she'd gone into one of the other restaurants along the row. Pausing in the hot, steamy kitchen, Lindsey heard enough to know he was arguing, that he didn't believe her. She spotted the back door and fled among a half dozen busy cooks who turned to scowl at her, never breaking their rhythm of frying and slicing and dishing up. The place smelled of steaming crab and hot fries. And she was out the door, on the side street where she slipped into a group of tourists.

  She moved away with them, and ducked into a curio shop, was mingling with the dawdling customers, looking out, when she saw him leave the restaurant.

  He headed in her direction. Stepping behind a big, bald man in a pink T-shirt, she looked for another way out of the shop and saw none. She waited until the clerk at the cash register turned away, and slipped past her into a dark little storeroom.

  The small, dim space smelled of cheap scented candles. It was crowded with cartons stacked on the floor. The shelves behind these were piled with T-shirts, cheap pottery, piñatas, folded Japanese kites, and Mexican baskets. There was no back door, there was only the one way out of the closetlike space. She turned at a scuffing sound.

  Gibbs stood blocking the door. She backed away. He grabbed her, spun her around, and shoved the gun in her stomach.

  He wouldn't shoot her here, she thought, encumbered by the crowd in the shop, he'd never escape.

  But then she thought about news stories in which the shooter had killed in a crowd, and run, knocking people aside, and had gotten away, with no armed officer to stop him. Gibbs shoved her so hard she twisted, lost her balance, and fell. He jerked her up, gripped her against him as he faced the door, his gun drawn.

  Two uniformed officers filled the doorway.

  Lindsey didn't wait, she elbowed him as hard as she could in the groin, and ducked down behind a stack of cartons. He turned the gun on her. There was a shot, and another. Gibbs staggered, dropped the gun, fell nearly on top of her. She was grabbed from behind and pulled away.

  "For God's sake, Lindsey." Mike held her close as an officer retrieved Gibbs's gun. Gibbs twisted, trying to get up. The other cop sent him sprawling again, and the two officers, snapping cuffs on him, jerked him up and duck-walked him out through the now deserted shop. She could see more uniforms outside herding the tourists away. Leaning against Mike, needing his warmth, she saw Dallas come in from the street.

  "You okay?" Dallas asked her.

  "I am now," she said shakily.

  "You did good," Mike said, tenderly touching her face.

  "Ryder's dead," she said woodenly.

  Mike held her away, looked deep into her eyes, looked at the blood smeared across her tank top, Ryder's blood. She looked down at herself where she'd held her sister for an instant before Ryder went limp-before she turned and fled, to follow Gibbs, wanting to kill him.

  What Ryder's life had been, and then her senseless death, only added to Lindsey's rage, to fury at herself that she'd done so little to change Ryder's life. Hiding her face against Mike's shoulder, she let him lead her out of the shop. She felt weak and hopeless, wanted only to be quiet, to be alone, just the two of them, Mike holding her close. Out on the street she stood within Mike's arms, oblivious to the cops and the staring tourists, stood in a world where there was no one else, where there was no cruelty, no murder, where there was only safety and love.

  ***

  AS LINDSEY CLUNG within Mike's embrace, some miles away the gray tomcat felt equally safe in the secure embrace of Mike's daughter. The feel of Ryan's shoulder against which he lay, the clean smell of her hair against his nose-and the fact that he was full of a burger and fries-filled Joe Grey with a deep sense of well-being. The team of Flannery and Damen was all right, the tomcat liked this new sense of belonging within a real family.

  Where his relationship with Clyde had rocked along on good-natured male confrontation and wisecracking, Ryan added an amused tenderness that Joe hadn't known was missing, she added the gentle understanding that Clyde, too often, didn't like to exhibit.

  Though back there in short-term parking, Clyde had stood up for him. Had laughed at the angry mother when she threatened to sue him, threatened to call the dogcatcher and have the cat quarantined-as if Joe had flayed that kid alive.

  It was Ryan who'd retrieved the phone. Having double-parked her pickup behind the woman's white van, she'd glimpsed the phone on its roof and, hiding a grin, had put it in her pocket while Clyde fetched the first aid kit. And before Clyde fished out the bandages, she'd fetched her camera and taken pictures of Joe's minute claw marks in the kid's hand, and then of the pudgy mother doctoring the scratch and bandaging it. She made sure to photograph all aspects of both arms and hands, and of the child's face, to prove there were no other wounds.

  "The cat didn't bite you?" Clyde asked the child as her mother bandaged the hand.

  "I saw that cat-" the mother started to say, but the kid screamed, "It didn't bite me! It scratched me! Can't you see it scratched me!"

  Taping the wound, the woman clutched her own cell phone, ready to call 911 and animal control. Until Clyde pointed out that if she did that, the authorities would take the cat away, and he, Clyde, wouldn't be able to give her the five hundred dollars he had intended, to cover her inconvenience. He told her Joe had had his rabies shots. He gave her their vet's name and address and, of course, his own address. When the woman stopped shouting, to accept the money and to sign a release that Clyde hastily wrote out on a scrap of paper, Ryan turned her attention to Joe, taking him in her arms.

  "Does this mean a lawsuit?" Joe had asked her when they were alone, slipping into the passenger side of the truck.

  "I doubt it. But between Dad, Max, and Dallas, we'll come up with an unbeatable lawyer if we need to. Personally," she said, grinning, "I think she'll drop it. Maybe try to hit us up for more money later." She looked deep into Joe's eyes. "Clyde and I aren't worried. Neither should you be."

  Clyde slid into the driver's seat, cutting her a look, but said nothing. Heading home, Ryan kept telling Joe over and over, "It's all right." Holding him close, looking down into his worried face. "It's all right, Joe. You didn't hurt the little brat. We have pictures. Don't sweat it."

  Joe had listened, hiding a smile, as Clyde explained to the woman the many steps she would have to go through if she sued him, the forms she would have to fill out, the time she would have to spend with an attorney, and in court, and the probable cost of an attorney. This, and the whining of her restless kids who were hungry and had to pee and wanted to go home, had at last induced her to accept the money, load up her unruly family, and leave the three of them in peace.

  One thing for sure, Joe thought, purring against Ryan. He never wanted to see the San Jose airport again. Not in all his nine lives. For a while there, he'd thought if he didn't starve in that oversize concrete crypt or get run over by some hurrying driver racing to catch a plane, he would be picked up by animal control, imprisoned behind bars for maybe the rest of a very short life.

  Now, Ryan's concern went a long way toward dispelling that icy fear of abandonment. And as the three of them hit the freeway, heading home, he snuggled down in her lap, smugly comfortable, filled once more with macho confidence.

  37

  MUCH EARLIER that evening, Dulcie had stood on the roof of Clyde's house watching the red pickup pull out of the drive, watching Clyde and Ryan head for San Jose. They didn't want me! Clyde and Ryan didn't want me. She had been left behind. She was hurt, she was worried about Joe, and she was mad as hell. Where else should I be when Joe's in danger?

  "Please, Dulcie," Ryan had said, "Rock's so upset and nervous. When I'm upset, he gets like this. I'll have to shut him in the house so he won'
t try to climb out of the patio and follow us, but…Please stay with him until he calms down. A Weimaraner can tear a whole house to pieces when he's frantic. Please, stay for a while. Later, when he settles down, if you go somewhere, please come back and check on him. Or call Charlie."

  She knew they were trying to keep her out of trouble, that they didn't know what kind of danger they were heading into. But when Ryan asked like that, what else could she do? And Rock was upset, he was a basket case, pacing and panting and pawing at the doors.

  Who would guess that a big strong dog like Rock could get so undone, could be so sensitive to Ryan's distress? Pacing nervously from room to room, he reared up to peer out the windows and to paw at them until Dulcie backed him away, hissing at him.

  "Sit, Rock!" the tabby told him. "Sit, now!"

  Rock sat, with that puzzled look he got when any of the three cats gave him a command. Dulcie kept talking and talking to him, to calm him. She'd seen him upset before, when Ryan was stressed over a job, but never this bad. The Weimaraner's sensitivity to human feelings showed his intelligence, but it made him a challenge to live with. Rock would never be a phlegmatic house dog who easily rolled with the punches.

  But talking to him helped. He was always attentive when she or Joe or Kit spoke to him, he had never gotten over his amazement at the wonderful talking cats. At last she got him to lie down on the rug, and she stretched out close to him.

  "They'll be back soon, Rock. It's all right, everything's all right."

  He turned to nose at her; he was still shivering. Could he be upset not only because Ryan and Clyde were distressed, but because of some elusive canine sensitivity that told him Joe was in trouble? No human really knew the extent of an animal's perceptions. She could tell animal researchers a number of stories they'd find hard to believe.