The yard was completely shut away from the surrounding streets except for this fenced entry, and for a narrower passage at the back, a slim alley which was also secured by two locked, chain-link gates. That passage led through to a narrow parking strip facing Highway One. Both wire gates hugged the concrete paving, and their tops touched the roof of the walkway.
They had seen, as they circled the block, that other businesses backed up to the rear automotive buildings. The row of separate stores facing the highway included a hobby shop, a quick-stop grocery, a photo shop, a laundry, and a restaurant. The intruding passage ran between the restaurant and the photo shop. Joe knew that in the daytime, when the gates were unlocked, agency employees went regularly through from their work yard to the side door of Mom's Burgers for coffee breaks and lunch. Clyde usually had a late breakfast there, as did Jimmie Osborne. Midmorning breakfast at Mom's had been a ritual with Samuel Beckwhite.
Standing against the front glass studying the showroom and the gleaming cars, they stiffened suddenly and ducked as a car turned onto Haley.
It was a wedge-shaped red sports car, long and low and sleek, and was running without lights, headed from the residential section toward Ocean. It turned right toward the automotive shop. Joe thought it might be a Lamborghini, an elegant Italian job that would mean really big bucks. "Get down. It's slowing."
They crouched behind the bougainvillea vine as the sleek vehicle slowed before the entrance, then moved on. Seconds later another car followed: Wark's black BMW, also unlit. Both cars cruised slowly past and turned onto Ocean toward the shop driveway. The instant they passed, Joe and Dulcie swarmed up the bougainvillea and onto the tile roof.
Trotting over the low peak, they crouched at the edge looking down on the lit inner courtyard. A tow truck was parked beside the repair shop, close against the wall, a gleaming tan vehicle with Beckwhite's logo on the side. Dulcie said, "Why do they need a tow truck, when these are all such expensive cars?"
"I guess any car can have a problem on the road, maybe a flat tire. Anyone can have a wreck." Both cars had pulled into the drive. Wark got out and unlocked the wire gates, then slid back into the driver's seat. The two cars pulled in, followed by a low yellow roadster also running dark. When the three were inside, Wark closed and locked both gates.
"I think that's an antique Corvette," Joe whispered.
"The yellow one?"
"Mmm. A collector's model." He was surprised at how much he'd picked up from Clyde, and from reading over Clyde's shoulder.
Yes, the red car was a Lamborghini, a vintage model. He recognized the hubcaps from pictures, and he could vaguely remember the names of some of the antique models, Miura, Espada, Islero, because the words appealed to him; he didn't know which model this was, but it was bucks, all right.
Jimmie Osborne got out of the Lamborghini, and a woman emerged from the Corvette, her long blond ponytail, secured high on her head, bouncing like a tassel. She wore skintight black jeans and a black lace blouse that left nothing whatever to the imagination.
Crouched at the edge of the roof, the cats watched Jimmie unlock the door into Clyde's shop and wheel out a metal cart, its shelves fitted with tools. Jimmie laid a folded paper drop cloth on the ground beside the Corvette, and Wark slid into the front seat.
There he scrunched down nearly on his back and placed his feet, clad in black running shoes, up on the car's windshield.
The cracking glass sounded sharp as a gunshot, and the windshield popped out. Jimmie removed it and laid it on the drop cloth as Wark pried at something on the dashboard.
"He's removing the VIN plate," Joe said. "The identification number, it's on a metal plate. They're stealing cars, all right. I wonder if Beckwhite knew."
"Does the agency sell those cars?"
Joe licked a whisker. "Clyde was talking about VIN numbers on the phone just…" he stared at her, his eyes round. "He was talking to someone about stolen cars just before Beckwhite was killed."
Her eyes grew wide. "You mean Clyde's part of this-this car ring?"
Joe shook his whiskers. "Not old Law-and-Order Damen. No way. I think maybe he suspects something-he's been really irritable, coming home from work. And he hasn't seen Jimmie and Kate much lately. And he's been keeping some kind of list in a little notebook."
"Could Jimmie and Wark have killed Beckwhite because he found out? How could he sell cars in his agency, and not know they were stolen?"
"I guess if Wark had false papers, they could make it look legit. They killed Beckwhite for some reason. There's a lot of money down there, I'd guess the Corvette way up in the six figures, and the Lamborghini more than that."
"Maybe that was why Wark hid the wrench. Because they thought Clyde knew something. Maybe Clyde was nosing around." She looked at him thoughtfully.
He tried to remember Clyde's phone conversations over the last weeks, but he'd had no reason to listen carefully. The usual banter with his women friends, a complaint to the cleaners for losing a button on his sport coat, a call to his accountant. Dull stuff. He flicked a whisker and hunched lower, watched with growing interest as the men worked on the Corvette. He hadn't pictured Wark as a careful person, but the man was careful now as he installed the new VIN number. "I expect they got that plate from a wrecking yard, from an old wrecked Corvette, same model, same year."
"How do you know so much?"
"From Clyde. And from the late shows. What do you watch, late at night?"
"Wilma reads to me. Or if we're watching TV, I'm looking at the clothes and the beautiful houses."
As, above them, the sky began to pale, they drew back away from the roof's edge. From down in the yard, if one of those three were to look up, they'd see two cats as stark against the sky as gargoyles on a gothic roof.
They watched Wark rivet a new metal strip to the dashboard, working as carefully as a surgeon, while Jimmie removed a new windshield from the backseat of the BMW.
When the men were ready to install the windshield, Wark squeezed cement from a tube, around the edge of the Corvette's window frame. The smell rose up to the cats, making their noses itch and their eyes blink. As the men set the windshield in place, Joe could see a heavy bulge, like a gun, in Wark's pocket. He didn't mention it to Dulcie. She'd been through enough with Wark's poison and Wark nearly pushing her off the cliff. Even if it was a gun, why make a big deal.
Dawn was pushing into brightness as Wark and Jimmie cleaned up the edges of the glass and cleaned the new windshield. Dulcie crept forward, flattened against the roof, staring over. "What's the woman doing, rooting around inside the yellow car?"
"Sheril. That's Sheril Beckwhite."
The blonde was leaning into the Corvette, feeling under the seat. She had been rummaging through the interiors of all three cars as the two men worked. She seemed to be filling a canvas tote bag. When she backed out of the Corvette, rear first in the tight black jeans, the bag was fat and heavy. She was barely out of the car when Wark snatched the bag from her and headed for the small gate that led to the restaurant.
"Where's he going? What's in there?"
"Come on," Joe said.
"But it's…"
"Shh. Come on." He backed away from the edge and led her across the roof until they were over the repair shop. The sky above them was bright with pale, swift running clouds.
Below them in the yard, Sheril put her arm around Jimmie. "I'm starving, lover. And I'm purely dead for sleep."
"We're almost done," Jimmie said. "You sure you didn't miss any? We'll leave the cars in the yard-Clyde's expecting a delivery."
She laughed.
"A legit delivery. Come on, Wark can stash the bundles, we'll get some breakfast and grab a couple hours' sleep."
"I don't want to go to my place. I can just feel the neighbors staring, and it's broad daylight." She had a whiney voice, as annoying as sand between a cat's claws.
Jimmie mumbled something the cats couldn't hear; and Sheril giggled.
Wark was
unlocking the small gate. As he swung it back, he looked up toward the roof. The cats sucked down as flat as frogs mashed on a highway. He seemed to be staring straight at them.
But he hadn't seen them. He moved on away, through the gate into the narrow alley between the stores that faced Highway One. "Where's he going?" Dulcie said, creeping forward. "What's he up to?"
Joe stared down at the tow car parked below them, and leaped. Dulcie followed, they made two soft thumps on the metal top, and hit the concrete running. Wark had disappeared but he had left the gate ajar, maybe for a quick getaway.
"Hurry," Dulcie breathed, glancing toward the two figures beside Corvette, and they slid through the open gate into the alley.
They were facing an open door, a side door into the restaurant; they could smell stale grease and cigarette smoke. The room was dark, but large and chilly. Behind them in the yard they heard the big driveway gate being rolled back, and heard one of the cars start and head out. They slipped inside, to Mom's Burgers.
The restaurant was so black they couldn't see Wark. And they couldn't hear him, not a sound. Moving in away from the square of light provided by the open door, they hunched in the blackness against the wall.
Before them loomed an army of tables, their legs standing at attention on the dirty carpet. Chairs had been piled up on top, a second row of mute soldiers waiting for the carpet to be vacuumed. At the far end of the room near the floor, a faint light shone. It seemed to come from around a corner, and they heard a soft thud, then a door suck closed with a pneumatic wheeze.
They trotted on back between the table legs to a short hall where, halfway down, a strip of light shone beneath a closed door. "Men's room," Joe said. They could hear from inside, metal rubbing against metal. As they pressed against the door they heard a thunk. Then silence. Then, in a few minutes, a metallic click like the turn of a lock.
The light under the door went out. The hall dropped into blackness. They leaped away as the swinging door opened, emitting a suck of air.
Wark passed so close to them that they could have clawed his ankles to shreds. He was carrying the canvas bag, a pale smear against his dark pants; even in the blackness they could see that it hung limp and empty.
He swung out of the hall and across the restaurant. In a moment they heard the outer door close and the lock slide home. They were locked in.
They heard the wire gate slam, the click of the padlock. Dulcie shivered.
"So he locked the door. So let's see what he was doing in there."
They shouldered open the heavy pneumatic door. As they pushed into the dark room, a chill hit them. Their paws hit cold tile. The room echoed with the sound of the door closing behind them.
Joe leaped up the wall, and leaped again. On his third try his groping paw found the light switch and grabbed it, clawing.
Light blazed, shattering against the white tile walls, reflecting back and forth from the slick surfaces, nearly blinding them.
The small, white tiled room had one booth, a sink, and a urinal. It smelled of human bodily functions and of Lysol.
Though the room was cold, an even colder chill emanated from the ceiling, where a black hole gaped.
Above them in the white ceiling, two acoustical tiles had been removed, leaving a rectangular space maybe three feet across, and black as the inside of a locked car trunk. The missing tiles were not anywhere in the small bathroom. Looking up into the hole, they could see in its dark interior only the edge of a wooden beam, and a few taut metal rods, maybe part of the grid that held the ceiling tiles. Joe thought that an attic must run the full length of the store complex. It would be the logical place to hide something.
But Wark would have had to stand on the toilet, then hoist himself up onto the thin partition of the booth. And even if the partition would hold his weight, Joe could find no footprint on the toilet seat or on the top of the tank. There was no strong scent of Wark around those fixtures. "He sure didn't use the facilities."
Dulcie reared up to stare with curiosity at the urinal, then grimaced, realizing what it was. "He used this," she said with disgust. She leaped to the sink and dabbled her paws in the few drops of water that clung around the drain, then examined the rectangular mirror.
The glass was fixed solidly to the wall-it was not like the medicine cabinet at home. In fact, nothing in the room seemed movable, except the toilet tank top, and what could you hide there? The tank would be full of water.
Dulcie said, "I know I heard a key in a lock." But there was no lock. They were still standing on the sink, pawing at the mirror, when the door swung open behind them.
24
The swinging door slammed open; the cats had no time to leap off the sink. Wark stood staring in, into the bright white glare of the men's room. His muddy eyes glinted with rage. As he lunged at them, they exploded apart. Joe hit the floor. Dulcie leaped straight to the top of the booth, brushing past Wark's face; but she moved too late, the Welshman grabbed her. As he fought the brindle cat, Joe leaped at his head raking and snarling. This allowed Dulcie to twist free from Wark's hands; with one last rake of her claws she sprang away into the attic and disappeared within the black hole.
When she appeared again looking over, Wark had scrambled up onto the toilet seat. But Joe still clung to his neck; as the Welshman fought Joe with one hand he grabbed for Dulcie with the other. She fled again. Joe propelled off Wark's shoulder into the dark behind her but he was off-balance. He hit the side of the hole, scrabbling into the soft tiles, felt them tear under his weight. Wark's fingers closed on his leg. Joe twisted, bit the offending hand, and leaped upward with a force that carried him up into the blackness.
They fled away through the cavernous dark along the wooden beams, dodging the thin metal struts. They heard him climbing, heard the clang of the porcelain tank as his weight hit it, then a dry, tearing sound as tiles gave way beneath him.
Then a loud crack, a sharp indecipherable word, and the clattering of dislodged porcelain as Wark fell.
Cheered by Wark's mishap, they turned to look back and in the darkness, Dulcie smiled. "Good for him. I hope he broke a leg."
But in a moment they heard him step on the toilet seat again, and climb. They moved away quickly.
The attic was vast, its low, sloped roof receding into an endless tunnel of unrelenting night, the tangles of metal struts hindering any swift flight.
"This can't just be the attic over the stores," Joe said. "It's too big, it has to go on over those open sheds." And why not? The buildings were all attached.
They were headed deeper in, toward the area over Clyde's shop, when Dulcie stopped and turned back, and began pawing at something.
In a minute, she hissed, "Here! Come and look."
She stood looking down between two acoustical tiles, where a sliver of light squeezed through no thicker than a thread.
Digging, she tried to force her paw through. They dug together, and soon widened the crack until they could see, below them, rows of metal pipes. The air smelled of cleaning solvent and steam. The pipes were loaded with hanging clothes, all sheathed in plastic bags. They were pawing again, trying to get through, when they heard voices from below, from an unseen part of the room. A woman's voice approached. She said something about tags and numbers, then laughed. They backed away into the dark.
"There's another crack," Dulcie said, "near the men's room."
"Its too close. He'll be up here in a minute."
But all sounds from Wark had ceased. They dug at the new crack until a tile shifted. A two-inch space revealed an office below. A battered desk and chair stood directly below them, and, to the left, two metal file cabinets. Next to those was a whole wall full of cubbyhole shelves, crammed with papers. As they fought to dislodge the tile, their faces pressed close together, they heard the men's room door open, and heard a sharp clang of metal.
"What's he doing?" Dulcie breathed.
"Whatever he's doing, you can bet your fur booties he'll up here in a
minute. Dig harder."
But then a rhythmic noise began, a sharp metallic Click click click rising up. "Extension ladder," Joe hissed.
They fled again, but their scrabbling feet knocked the tile loose behind them; they heard it fall down into the office. Dulcie paused, turning back. "We've time to get through, come on." But Wark was already up through the hole, his lit face pushing up. They sped away crashing into metal struts and through cobwebs, dragging cobwebs with them. Joe didn't like to think about being trapped up there with no way to get out.
But if the attic continued over the drive and over the showroom, maybe there would be a way out. They raced on, slowed by the struts, swerving and dodging as if in some fun house obstacle coarse-a fun house as seen in nightmare.
They had scrambled around a corner, they were halfway around the U-shaped building, over the repair shop, when a perpendicular wall stopped them. They slid to a halt. The attic ended.
They crept along the wall nosing and pawing at its base. It was solid, not a hole or a crack. And suddenly light burst across the attic from behind them.
The swinging beam of a flashlight sought them, burning a path through the dark. They crouched behind a beam, out of its range. On it came, picking out beams and struts above them, frosting the curtains of hanging cobwebs. It glanced over the top of the beam where they crouched, and went on, as frantically and uselessly they dug at the floor. And Wark crawled nearer, swinging his light back and forth, searching.
This floor wasn't soft under their claws, not like acoustical tiles; this ceiling over the shop was hard and unyielding. And again Wark's light swung close.
Cat On The Edge Page 17