Cat On The Edge

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  Yes, it was Lee Wark, she knew him from the agency. Wark was a freelance car buyer-he furnished the agency with many of its used foreign cars.

  What did he want with her? She tried to back away, but he held her arm tightly. His eyes frightened her. She wanted to cry out, but she couldn't seem to speak. When he didn't loose his grip she went limp, and stood relaxed, watching him, waiting for the moment she could jerk away and run.

  He was wearing a tan windbreaker and a tan print shirt. His clothes were respectable enough, but his slouched shoulders dragged wrinkles into the jacket, making it hang like a rag. His long rough hair, and the thick, skin-colored salve he had on his face, made him look dirty. She felt trapped by his eyes, light brown eyes, small and unpleasant, no hint of human warmth. Still he hadn't spoken. She felt so cold, felt strange. She didn't understand what was happening. He had begun to whisper, words she couldn't make out, perhaps a foreign language, maybe his native Welsh. His unintelligable words terrified her; she jerked away, kicking at him. He grabbed her again. She hit him in the face and twisted, broke away and ran.

  He shouted, pounding after her. She prayed for a shop to duck into, but she was beside a tall, solid fence. She bolted for the shops ahead, but Wark grabbed her from behind, spinning her around to face him.

  His voice was so low she had to strain to hear. But now she wanted to hear, suddenly she needed to hear, she longed to hear every whispered word. His words made a rhyme, soft and foreign and musical, words flowing all together. Sweet, so sweet, like music. His hands were huge. Immense hands jerking her up, dangling her off the ground. He was a giant swinging her in the air, throwing her soft furry body like a toy. She tried to scream and heard a cat screaming. She dug her claws into Wark's arm and leaped into his face, clawing and biting, wild with rage, hungry for the taste of his blood, relishing the feel of his tender flesh tearing under her claws.

  He struck her. She fell twisting, hit the sidewalk on four paws running, dodging pedestrians' feet, running from him. Her vision filled with shoes and pant legs. She skidded past the wheels of parked cars and beneath bushes, then across a street. Huge cars exploded toward her; tires squealed as she fled between them.

  The village she sped through was both familiar and totally foreign. She saw streets and buildings she recognized. But mostly she saw the bottoms of windows just above her, the thresholds of doors, saw feet and wheels and skirt bottoms. She dodged between potted trees, seeing little more than the pots, leaped beneath newspaper racks. The smells from the pavement were sharp, smells of people, of dogs. The sidewalks were so hard under her paws; every crack and pebble telegraphed itself through her body by way of her flying paws. She heard her pursuer pounding behind her. But his footsteps grew fainter.

  When she at last reached home, she had lost him. Or he had simply stopped following. She didn't think until later that Wark already knew where she lived, that he had stopped by the house several times on business, once to consult Jimmie about a restored MG that Wark had bought for the agency.

  Wark knew where she lived. He could find her any time.

  Shivering, she crawled beneath the rhododendron bushes that edged the front lawn, the bushes she had so painstakingly planted, digging the deep holes herself, working in the peat moss and manure. Jimmie hated yard work.

  Beneath her flowering bushes she lay licking the pain in her side where Wark had hit her. Slowly her breathing eased. She lifted an exploring paw and touched her long whiskers. What a strange, electrical sensation that made, the charge racing all through her. Her whiskers were little, stiff antennae sending intricate alarm messages through her entire body.

  She flexed her claws, liking the feel of that, and she was amused to see Wark's blood on them. Casually she licked it off.

  How sharp were the smells in the garden, the spicy geranium, the bitter scent of the lantana growing along the sidewalk. Her ears flicked forward, then back, catching each hint of sound. She could hear clearly the sharp, bright, tin whistle call of a wren several blocks away. She could hear the loud rustle of a lizard across the yard, one that had got itself trapped in a discarded candy wrapper.

  Each sound was many-layered, not flat and muffled as it had come to her as a woman. Even the breeze had far more tones than she had ever imagined, as did the pounding waves on the distant shore.

  For the first time in her life, her senses were totally alive, as if she had just awakened from some somnambulant half-life. As she rose to prowl the garden, her pads telegraphed every turn of earth, every degree of warmth or chill or dampness. Wandering, she stared over her shoulder at her lashing tail, and she liked the feel of that, too. Tail lashing seemed as sexy and liberating as dancing.

  She should have been terror-stricken at her transformation, should be screaming with horror, trying to escape the thing she had become. Instead she felt only delight.

  For the first time in her life she was free. This keen-sensed, sharp-clawed, soft-furred and perfect creature was an entity all to herself.

  She didn't need Jimmie. She didn't need any human companionship. She didn't need money or clothes or even a roof. She could hunt for her supper, sleep where she chose. She had no doubt of her hunting powers, at the movement of each bird she could feel her blood surge, feel her body and claws tense.

  She had no need, now, of anything human. She was absolutely perfect, and free.

  11

  Night closed quickly around the Molena Point Library. From within, the bare black glass reflected walls of books; and striking through the reflections, shone the branches of oak trees which stood guard outside the Spanish-style building, big twisted trees sheltering the patio and the street.

  In the library's reference room, Wilma turned off the computer and began to collect the scattered machine copies which were strewn across the table. Beside her, Clyde tamped a stack of papers to align the edges. They had been at their research, through the computers and books, since midmorning. Clyde now knew more about cats than he had wanted to know. The new knowledge was sharply unsettling.

  Early that morning when he arrived at Wilma's house, she had just come in from looking for Dulcie, from wandering the streets and walking the shore calling the little tabby cat. He had set out with her again, working their way through the village, searching for both cats. Not until they returned to Wilma's kitchen to brew a pot of coffee, did he tell her about Joe's phone call.

  Of course he had expected her to accuse him of a bad joke. But he had to talk about it, get it out. He had to bounce that unnerving call off someone: the rasping voice, the mysterious and knowledgeable presence of a supposedly feline communicator. What he badly needed was a dose of Wilma's sympathy and understanding. Maybe a dose of her more liberal outlook.

  From the time he was eight, her supporting slant on the world had helped sort out his often confused views. His parents had been good and steady; but Wilma had supplied that extra something, had offered slants that sometimes were beyond the realm of parental conservatism. Wilma was able to see life with a rough, commonsense humor.

  This morning, sitting in her bright kitchen, fortified with coffee and a slice of her homemade lemon cake, he had told her about Joe Grey's call, expecting- waiting warily for-the wisecracks.

  But she did not accuse him of a bad joke. In fact, her reaction had been remarkable.

  Wilma had reminded him that cats were strange. "That," she said, grinning at him, "is the very nature of cats."

  "Hey, this is beyond strange. This is impossible."

  Wilma shrugged, pushed back a strand of hair that lay tangled over her shoulder. "Cats' strange habits and strange perceptions, that's part of their charm. Read any cat magazine, look at the letters they receive from readers. Cats are admired for their peculiar behavior, their sometimes almost-human behavior."

  She had recounted a dozen stories about the strange deportment of individual cats. She told him about a cat who would lie beside the telephone recorder and punch the button to hear the little message his mis
tress had left. She told him about a cat who liked to unravel balls of yarn, and while doing so would weave the yarn around chair legs, back and forth into intricate and sophisticated patterns.

  "That," Clyde said, "is not a normal cat."

  "With cats, what's normal? You've read about cats who have wakened the family during a fire. And about the cats in San Francisco that alerted their households before the 1906 quake."

  "But that's…"

  "Of course a cat can feel the temblors long before people can. But, Clyde, it takes more than a dumb beast to want to alert his family. And what about the cat attack on a prowler? I read about that just a few months ago. Scratched the man so badly he ran out of the house, didn't steal a thing. And the cat that saved a baby from strangling by summoning the child's mother.

  "They're all documented. As much as any report by a cat owner can be documented." She cut another slice of lemon cake for him, and filled his coffee cup.

  "Look," he said, "this isn't just unusual behavior. Not like those examples. It's…"

  "Impossible," she said, and shrugged. "What we need is more information. Before you think you've gone over the edge, let's see what we can find out."

  He had not expected this reaction. He should have. Wilma was never one to let popular conceptions influence her. "And," she said, "if Joe Cat did phone you, if you aren't the butt of some joke-which of course is entirely possible-then maybe Joe's not alone."

  "Not alone?"

  "Why would he be the only cat with such talents?" "Are you thinking of Dulcie? But she…" "I don't know what I'm thinking. Let's go over to the library, see what we can learn. You're not going to find Joe until he wants to be found." "But Dulcie hasn't come home, either." "Let's go, Clyde. I worry about that cat too much. She's good at taking care of herself." She finished her coffee and cake, and rose.

  Within ten minutes they were settled in the library reference room, and into the computer, pulling up references to cats in history, cats in folklore, cats in mythology. Within an hour they had begun to find unsettling references, tucked into more mundane material.

  And then from the veterinary school at Davis they found several references to strange behavior in the feline.

  Accessing the Internet, they printed out the pages. Wilma copied entries, as well, which were not strange in themselves but which might add to the overall picture. She was intrigued by articles on the building of the Panama Canal, when crates of alley cats had been imported by freighter to fight the overwhelming wharf rat population. She found similar references about the importation of stray cats to San Francisco during the gold rush, to control the rat infestation along the wharves. A local folklore of amazing cat stories had grown up, intertwined with gold rush tales.

  Their research formed a disturbing fabric. Wilma was fascinated, as if their discoveries answered some urgent question of her own. He didn't realize the library was closing until the overhead lights began to go off, throwing the corners into darkness. "I thought they stayed open until nine."

  "It is nine." She gave him an exhausted and satisfied smile, and began to collect their scattered copies. "I need a beer, I feel-shaky."

  "I need three beers and a hamburger."

  She brushed a fleck of computer paper from her sweatshirt. "Let's run by my place first. Just-to see if Dulcie's come home."

  They retrieved Clyde's car from the library parking lot and swung by both houses. Neither Joe nor Dulcie had come home. Clyde fed his animals, and let them out for a few minutes, then they headed for Marlin's Grill. Driving slowly along the lit village streets past the few shops and galleries still open, past planters of flowers blooming beneath the reaching oaks, they watched for the two cats. Through the open car windows, the sea wind was damp and cool. They were quiet as they parked in front of Marlin's.

  The grill's plain wood storefront made a stark contrast to the glittering glass and chrome high-tech gallery on its right, and to the used-brick building on the left, with its deep, flowered entry patio and exclusive decorator studio.

  Marlin's Grill had no potted plants framing its door. No fresh, modern persona. It was dismally dated. Just a plain pine, 1950s exterior. And the interior was equally uninspired.

  Marlin's was the product of a time when knotty pine paneling, inside and out, was big. The present management had seen no reason to change what had once been popular. Marlin's was possibly the only business establishment in Molena Point that was not regularly refurbished to a bright, exciting new interior. But who needed to redecorate, when the hamburgers were the best in town and the seven varieties of draft the best you could get anywhere on the coast.

  Over the years, Marlin's yellow wood walls had darkened to the color of dead oak leaves. The leather upholstered booths were worn and cracked, but were deep, comfortable, and private. Clyde and Wilma sat at the back, away from the few other customers. They ordered an English dark draft, and rare burgers with onions and Roquefort.

  When the Latin waiter had brought their beer and gone away, Wilma said, "Just before we left the library, when I went back to my office, Nina Lockhart told me that someone else has been interested in the material on cats."

  "Oh? But not the kind of material we dug out."

  "Exactly the same material. The same references."

  Clyde watched her uneasily.

  She said, "I remember the man, he came in late last week. I remember Nina helping him." She sipped her beer. "Nina pulled up the same entries we used. She brought him the same books." She set down her glass. "She plugged into the Internet, helped him copy the same pages we copied. I was working in a carrel across the room. I remember him because he seemed uncomfortable and hurried."

  The soft overhead light brightened her steel-colored hair and the silver clip that held it. "He didn't notice me until around midmorning. But then, when he looked up and saw me, he looked shocked. Looked as if he knew me. He stared at me hard, then snatched up his copies and left."

  Wilma sipped her beer. "He didn't finish copying the references Nina had set out, he just left."

  "Who was he? Do you know him?"

  "I've seen him around the village. I don't know who he is."

  "He couldn't be an old parolee?"

  "No." She laughed. "That man was never on my caseload."

  "Did he check out books? His name would…"

  "He didn't check out anything, just made copies. He didn't tell Nina his name, and he's not a regular patron. A thin man, tall and quite stooped. Light brown, straight hair down to his shoulders, muddy-looking eyes. Some kind of scars on his face and hands, covered over with flesh-colored makeup. Nina said it looked disgusting. He wore a tan windbreaker, tan cotton sport shirt, dirty white running shoes. Nina said he had a British accent. I could hear a little of it from where I sat. Lyrical-I'd say maybe Welsh-a poetic lilt. Charming, but amusing in such a dour man."

  Clyde had set down his beer. "That was Lee Wark."

  She waited.

  "He's Welsh, been over here about ten years. A freelance used car agent. He deals with us, picks up special models for us across the country. Are you sure it was cats he was researching?"

  "Of course it was cats. I told you, the same references we were using. What else do you know about him?"

  "Not much. I think he grew up in a small fishing village on the Welsh coast. I get the impression his family didn't have much, that they were dirt-poor."

  "Welsh," she said, making circles with her beer glass on the table. "The Welsh are raised on the old folktales, on Selkies, Bogey Beasts, the shapeshifting hounds."

  The waiter brought their hamburgers. His English wasn't too good, he had trouble understanding that Clyde wanted mustard. He returned with catsup, Tabasco, steak sauce, and mustard, and seemed pleased with himself that he had covered all possibilities.

  Clyde spread a thin layer of hot mustard on his French hamburger roll. "This is weird. Why the hell does Wark want to know about cats?"

  Wilma shrugged, "I don't like coincidences.
If Wark's connected with the agency, maybe I can learn something about him, some reason for him to be interested in cats, from Bernine Sage."

  "I didn't know you and Bernine were friendly."

  "We're not close friends, but she's useful. You've forgotten, we worked together in San Francisco."

  He remembered then. Bernine had been a secretary in the U.S. Probation Office the five years Wilma was there. He wasn't fond of Bernine. She had been Beckwhite's secretary, and was the agency's head bookkeeper, a striking redhead who always dressed to the teeth, smart orange outfits, pale pink blazers. She was a woman who used the truth as it suited her, bending it for maximum advantage. At one time, Bernine had had a thing with Lee Wark. They had lived together during his swings through Molena Point.

  Wilma finished her fries, drained her beer, and handed the briefcase across the table. They paid the bill and headed for her place, Clyde driving slowly, watching the streets. When he dropped her off, even before he pulled out of the drive he heard her calling Dulcie. His last view as he drove away was Wilma's thin figure in jeans and sweatshirt, standing alone in her yard calling her lost cat.

  At home he dropped the briefcase on the couch and yelled for Joe. No response. He hadn't really expected any. He petted the dogs and the three cats, talked to them and gave them a snack. While the animals ate their treats he straightened their beds in the laundry room.

  He had removed the door between the laundry and the kitchen, and had installed a narrow, two-bunk bed against the wall between where the washer and dryer stood and the corner. The dogs had the bottom mattress. The cats had the top; they could jump up onto the dryer, then onto their bunk, enjoying a private aerie that the dogs couldn't reach.

  Both beds were covered with fitted sheets which could be easily laundered, and each bed had several cotton quilts that could be pawed into any required configuration. Finished with bed making, he popped a beer and went out to the backyard.