Cat Raise the Dead (18 page)

She froze, remained still, the tip of her tail flicking.

She was gone in a sudden blur, flashing through shadows into the blackness.

Silence. No sound, no movement. He could see nothing within that dark, rotting world. He crept swiftly closer.

A scream jarred him, the enraged scream of a rat. A board fell, thundering. Dulcie yowled. He dived for the blackness, charging in, storming in beneath fallen boards.

She screamed again, then another rat scream. He saw its eyes red in the blackness. The two were thrashing; it was a huge rat, a monster. Joe piled into the thudding squealing flailing bodies, grabbing at rat fur. He found the rat's face and bit deep. Pain burned him. Dulcie twisted and shook the rat so violently she shook him, too. His ears rang with rat screams and with the thuds of his own body. The three of them slammed into timbers, into the earth. His blood pounded, he felt teeth in his leg.

And then, silence.

His mouth was filled with the bitter taste of rat. The beast lay between them, unmoving, their fangs in it, Dulcie's in its throat, his seeking its heart, its ribs crushed against his tongue. It was a huge, grizzled beast, its body as long as Dulcie, its coat rough with age, its pointed muzzle knobby with old scars. Its eyes even in death were cold and mean.

They rose, spit out rat hair.

But they did not turn away from the kill in the usual ritual to wander aimlessly, cooling down and letting off steam. They remained watching, one on either side of the rat, staring at that giant kill.

It was the biggest rat Joe had ever seen. He wanted to yell at Dulcie for having attacked such a beast, for having been so damned stupid. And he wanted to cheer her and lick her face and laugh. His lady had killed the monster, had killed the king of rats.

She gave him a green-eyed grin of triumph and leaped up. She spun, clawing at the timbers. She leaped over the rat, racing and whirling among the fallen boards, careening in circles; she laughed a human laugh; she spun and danced, driving out the built-up tension, ridding herself of that last terrible violence and rage. She careened into him broadside, pummeled him.

“We killed the king—king of rats—we killed it.” She was insane, rolling and spinning and chasing her lashing tail. “The king, we killed the rat king.” She was crazy with victory and release.

She collapsed at last and lay still. He sat beside her, washing himself. They licked the blood and cobwebs from each other's faces and ears, licked the deep wounds that would, too soon, begin to hurt like hell.

Joe's paw and leg were torn, and his cheek ripped. There was a gash across Dulcie's pale throat, another up her shoulder. They cleaned each other's wounds carefully, though they would be tended again at home. Joe could hear Clyde now, ragging him about how septic rat bites were. And Wilma would pitch a fit.

But they had demolished the great-great-granddaddy of wharf rats.

The midmorning sun warmed them. Dulcie rubbed against him sweetly and smiled. A gleam of sunlight picked out the shingles and boards of the old barn, the rusted nails, and the rat's mangled body. Joe supposed that some possum coming on the rat in a week or two would be thrilled, would maybe drag the moldering rat away to its babies. Possums would eat anything, even the blood-spattered cobwebs.

He watched Dulcie stretch out limp across the grass, her green eyes closed to long slits, her purr rumbling with little dips and high notes. Life had turned out better than he'd ever imagined. If a cat really did have nine lives, he hoped he and Dulcie would be together in all the lives yet to come.

Last summer, his alarm when he found himself able to speak human words had nearly undone him. He knew himself to be a freak, an abnormal beast fit only for a side show. He hadn't dreamed there was, anywhere in the world, another like himself.

But then he'd found Dulcie, and he was no longer alone in his strangeness. She was the most fascinating creature he had ever met; their love had changed his
very cat soul. Lovely Dulcie of the dark, marbled fur, her pale peach paws and peach-tinted nose so delicate, her green eyes watching him, laughing, scolding, emerald eyes set off by the dark stripes perfectly drawn, like the eyes of an Egyptian goddess.

Only a master artist of greatest talent could have composed his lady. And she was not only beautiful and intelligent, she'd beaten the hell out of that rat.

She rolled over, her green eyes wide. “I'm starved. Too bad rats are so bitter.”

“How about a nice fat rabbit?”

She flipped to her feet and stood up on her hind legs, looking away across the grass to where the hills rose in a high, flat meadow bright with sun, a meadow so riddled with rabbit burrows that any human, walking there, would fall through to his arse pockets. And within minutes, high on the sun-baked field, they were working a rabbit, creeping low and silent, each from a different angle, toward a shiver of movement within the dense grass.

No normal house cat hunted as these two; ordinary
Felis domesticus
hunted only as a loner. But Joe and Dulcie had developed a teamwork as intricate and beautifully coordinated as any team of skilled African lions. Now they crept some six yards apart, moving blindly through the grass forest, rearing up at intervals to check the quarry's position. They froze, listening. Slipped ahead again swift as darting birds.

Joe stood up, twitched an ear at her.

She sped, a blur so fast she burst at the cottontail before it had any clue. It spun, was gone inches from her claws. Joe cut it off. It doubled back. Dulcie leaped. It swerved again; angling away. They worked together hazing, doubling, then closed for the kill.

The blow was fast, Joe's killing bite clean. The rabbit screamed and died.

They crouched side by side, ripping open its belly, stripping off fur and flinging it away. Joe ate as he plucked the warm carcass, snatching sweet rabbit flesh
in great gulps. But Dulcie devoured not one bite until she had cleaned her share of the kill, stripped away all fur. When the warm meat lay before her as neat as a filet presented for her inspection by a favorite butcher, she dined.

They cleaned the rabbit to the bone. They washed. They cleaned one another's wounds again, then climbed an oak tree and curled together where five big limbs, joining, formed a comfortable nest. The breeze teased at them, and, above the oak's dark leaves, the blue sky swept away free and clean. Below them, down the falling hills, where the village lay toy-sized, their own homes waited snug and welcoming. Home was there, for that moment when they chose, again, to seek human company.

But at that moment the cats needed no one. They tucked their chins under and slept. Joe dreamed he was a hawk soaring, snatching songbirds from the wind and needing never to touch the earth. Dulcie dreamed of gold dresses and of music, and, sleeping, she smiled, and her whiskers twitched with pleasure.

They woke at darkfall. Below them the lights of the village were beginning to blink on, bright sudden pricks like stars flashing out. The smell of cooking suppers rose on the salty wind, a warm and comforting breath of domesticity reaching up to enfold them.

Galloping swiftly down the hills, within minutes they were trotting along the grassy center median of Ocean Avenue beneath its canopy of eucalyptus trees, their noses filled with the familiar and comforting aromas of Binnie's Italian and an assortment of village restaurants, and with the lingering scent of the greengrocer's and the fish market; how comforting it was, when home smells embraced them. Their wounds were beginning to burn and ache.

They parted at Dolores Street, Dulcie trotting away toward the main portion of the village, where, beyond the shops and galleries, her stone cottage waited. Joe
turned left, crossed the eastbound lane of Ocean, and soon could see his own cat door, his own shabby white cottage. He pictured Clyde getting supper, pictured the kitchen, the two dogs greeting him licking and wagging.

He stopped, sickened.

Only Rube was there. Barney would never again greet him. He approached the steps slowly, riven with sadness.

His plastic cat door was lit from within, where the living-room lights burned, and he heard the rumble of voices. Looking back over his shoulder toward the curb, he realized that he knew the two cars parked there—both belonged to Molena Point police officers.

Turning back across the little scraggly yard, he leaped up onto the hood of the brown Mercury. It was only faintly warm; Max Harper had been here a while. Sitting on Harper's dusty hood studying the house, he tried to decide—did he want to spend an evening with the law?

He didn't relish Harper's cigarette smoke. But he might pick up some useful information. And it amused him to hassle Harper, and to spy on the police captain, to lie on the table among the poker chips, listening. Learning things that Harper wouldn't dream would go beyond those walls. And even if his eavesdropping didn't prove useful, it was guaranteed to drive Clyde nuts.

Flicking an ear, he leaped down and trotted on inside.

The letter had been folded many times into a tiny rectangle no larger than a matchbook. It had been stuffed between layers of cotton filling in the belly of the doll, and the doll's stomach sewn shut again with the ragged green stitches. The letter had lain concealed for more than three months, and the doll hidden and forgotten.

Joe pushed in through his cat door and headed for the kitchen, toward the cacophony of good-natured male voices and the click of poker chips. He heard someone pop a beer, heard cards being shuffled. When he heard Clyde belch and politely excuse himself, he knew there were ladies present. And that meant a better-than-usual spread from Jolly's Deli. He could already smell the corned beef, and wished he hadn't eaten so much of that big cottontail rabbit.

As he quickly shouldered into the kitchen, the good smells wrapped him round, the thick miasma of smoked salmon and spiced meats and crab salad, this gourmetic bouquet overlaid with the malty smell of beer, and, of course, with a fog of cigarette smoke that he could do without. His first view of the group as he pushed in through the kitchen door was ankles and feet among the table legs: two pairs of men's loafers below neatly creased slacks; a pair of well-turned, silk-clad legs in red high heels; and Charlie Getz's bare feet in her favorite, handmade sandals. Clyde, as usual, was attired in ancient baggy jogging pants and worn, frayed sneakers. On beyond the table, Rube lay sprawled listlessly across the linoleum, the big Labrador's eyes seeking Joe's in a plea of lonely grieving.

Slipping between the tangle of feet, Joe lay down beside Rube, against the dog's chest. He tried to purr, to comfort the old fellow, but there was really no way
he could help. He could only be there, another four-legged soul to share Rube's loneliness for Barney. Rube licked his face and laid his head across Joe, sighing.

Clyde had buried Barney in the backyard, but he had let Rube and the cats see him first. Dr. Firetti said that was the kindest way, so they would know that Barney was dead and would not be waiting for him to return. He said they would grieve less that way. But, all the same, Rube was pining. He and Barney had been together since they were pups.

Joe endured the weight of Rube's big head across his ribs until the old dog dozed off, falling into the deep sleep of tired old age, then he carefully slipped out from under the Labrador. Rube didn't stop snoring. Joe was crouched to leap to the table when he glanced toward the back door and saw the latest architectural addition to the cottage: Clyde had installed a dog door. He regarded it with amazement. The big plastic panel took up nearly half the solid-core back door, was big enough to welcome any number of interested housebreakers. Clyde had evidently reasoned that Rube would need something to distract him from grieving. Surely this new freedom, this sudden unlimited access to the fenced backyard, couldn't hurt. Too bad Barney wasn't here to enjoy it.

The other three cats would certainly find the arrangement opening new worlds. They had, heretofore, been subject to strict supervision. They were kept shut away from the living room so they couldn't go out Joe's cat door, and Clyde let them into the yard only when he was with them. In the mornings and evenings he let them have a long ramble, but strictly inside the yard. With the aid of a water pistol, he discouraged them from climbing the back fence. Two of the cats were elderly, and disadvantaged in any neighborhood fight, and the little white cat was so shy and skittish she was better off confined. Joe wondered what they'd make of their new liberty. Clyde must have been really
worried about Rube to instigate this drastic change in routine.

As for himself, he had never been confined, not from the very beginning of their relationship, when he was six months old and Clyde rescued him from the San Francisco alleys. For the first week he'd been too sick to go out, too sick to care, but when he was himself again and wanted access to the outer world, and Clyde refused, he'd pitched one hell of a fit. A real beauty, a first-class, state-of-the-art berserker of snarling and biting and raking claws.

Clyde had let him out. And from that moment, they'd had a strict understanding. They were buddies, but Clyde would not under any circumstances dictate his personal life.

Leaving Rube sleeping, Joe leaped to the poker table, gave Clyde a friendly nudge with his head, and watched Clyde deal a down card. This group seldom played anything but stud. If the ladies didn't like stud, they could stay home. Max Harper glanced at his hole card, his expression unchanging. Harper had the perfect poker face, lean, drawn into dry, sour lines as if he held the worst poker hand in history.

Harper had gone to high school with Clyde—that would make him thirty-eight—but his leathery face, dried out from the sun and from too many cigarettes, added another ten, fifteen years.

The other officer was Lieutenant Sacks, a young rookie cop whose dark curly hair and devilish smile drew the women. Sacks had recently married, the heavily made-up blonde with the nice ankles and red shoes had to be his new wife. Joe thought her name was Lila. Absently he nosed at Clyde's poker chips until the neat round stacks fell over, spilling chips across the table.

“Oh, Christ, Joe. Do you have to mess around?”

He gave Clyde an innocent gaze. Clyde's second card was a four of clubs, and Joe wondered what he had in the hole. With Clyde's luck, probably not much. He
tried to think what he'd done on poker nights before he understood the game. Just lain there, playing with the poker chips. The smell of the feast, which had been laid out on the kitchen counter, was making his stomach rumble. Clyde always served fancy, in the original paper plates and torn paper wrappers. He tried to remember his manners and not dive into Clyde's loaded plate, which sat on the table just beside him, but the smell of smoked salmon made his whiskers curl. Watching the bets, he studied the two women.

Charlie Getz was Clyde's current squeeze, a tall, liberally freckled redhead, friendly and easy, the kind of woman who did most of her own automotive repairs and didn't giggle. She wore her long red hair in a ponytail, bound back, tonight, with a length of what looked like coated electrical wire in a pleasant shade of green. Charlie tossed in her chips to raise Harper, and absently petted Joe, then handed him a cracker piled with smoked salmon. Across the table the little blonde watched this exchange with distaste.

He tried to eat delicately and not slop salmon onto the table, but when he took a second cracker, this time off Clyde's plate, the blonde shuddered, as if he'd contaminated something.
Who the hell are you, to be so picky
?

Though the fact did cross his mind that he'd recently been gnawing on a dead rabbit and had, moments before that, bitten and ripped at a flea-infested rat.

Sacks bet his king, and Lila folded on a six of hearts. On the last card, Clyde dealt himself another four. Across the table, Max Harper's lean, leathery expression didn't change. There ensued a short round of bluffing, then the hole cards came up and Harper took the pot on a pair of jacks. Charlie made a rude remark, rose, and filled her plate. She prepared a plate for Harper, too, and set it before him, then fixed a small plate for Joe, a nice dollop of crab salad and a slice of smoked salmon cut up small so he needn't make a mess, so he wouldn't have to hold it down with his paw and make a spectacle
of himself chewing off pieces. Charlie did understand cats. He feasted, standing on the table beside her, thoroughly enjoying not only the fine gourmetic delicacies, but the scowling blonde's disgust.

When he had finished, he gave Lila a cool stare and curled up next to Charlie's chips, ducked his head under one paw, and closed his eyes. He was dozing off when Charlie said, “Oh, hell,” and tossed her three cards toward the center of the table.

Joe reared his head to look. Harper had a pair of aces showing. With Harper's luck, probably his hole card was an ace. Clyde started to bet, glared at Harper, and changed his mind. He folded. Sacks and Lila folded.

“Bunch of gutless wonders,” Harper said, gathering in the few chips. “What kind of pot is this?” He did not turn over his hole card, but shuffled it into the deck.

“His luck won't last,” Sacks said. “It's the full moon—screws up everything.” Sacks rose and opened the refrigerator, fetched five cans of beer, and handed them around.

Lila gave her bridegroom an incredibly sour look. “Honey, that's such a childish idea. I wish you wouldn't talk like you really believe in that stuff.”

Harper looked at her. “Believe in what stuff?”

“In these silly superstitions—that the full moon changes your luck. The moon can't affect people. The moon—”

“Oh, it can affect people,” Harper told her. “You'd better read the arrest statistics. Full moon, crime rate soars. Moon's full, you get more nutcases, more wife beatings, bar fights.”

Charlie, petting Joe, had discovered his wounds. She sat examining them, parting the fur on his paw and leg, holding his head so she could see his cheek. Anyone else tried that—except Clyde—he'd get his hand lacerated. But for Charlie, he tried to behave, waited patiently as she rose, opened the kitchen junk drawer, and fetched the tube of Panalog. Returning to her chair, she began to doctor him, drawing from Lila a look like Lila might throw up.

“The presumption is,” Harper said, “that the increase of crime is caused by the pull of the moon, same as the moon's pull on the ocean causes the tides. That people emotionally or mentally unstable lose what little grip they have on themselves, go a little crazy, teeter on the edge.”

Lila studied Harper as if he had suddenly started speaking Swahili.

“It's the same with animals,” Charlie said. “Ask any vet. More crazy things happen, more cat fights, runaway animals, dog bites during the full moon.”

Lila looked at them as if
they
came from the moon. Joe had never seen a more closed, disgusted expression. The woman had no more imagination than a chicken. He wanted badly to set her straight, tell her how he felt when the moon was full—like he was going to explode in nine different directions. The full moon made him wild enough to claw his way through a roomful of Doberman pinschers.

But he couldn't speak; he could tell Lila nothing. She wouldn't buy it, anyway. She stared at Charlie and Max Harper as if they were retarded. “You can't really believe that?”

“Come down to the station,” Harper said. “Take a look at the stat sheets, check them with the calendar. Right now, today, full moon. Seven domestic violence, five dog poisonings, and one little old lady brought in a human finger.”

Lila shuddered.

Joe raised his head, watching Harper.

Clyde said, “A finger?”

“Nettie Hales's mother-in-law called the station.” Harper sampled the crab salad from the plate Charlie had fixed for him. “The Haleses live up the valley, a little five-acre horse farm up there. Her terrier brought the finger in—just a bare bone, dirt-crusted.”

Harper tilted his beer can, took a long swallow. “The old lady didn't know where her dog had been digging. Said he'd brought the bone in the house and was chewing
on it.” Harper laughed. “Gumming it. Old dog doesn't have a tooth in his head. Still, though, even gumming it didn't please the lab. Bone was fractured, and covered with dog slobber. Don't know what kind of evidence it might have destroyed.”

Lila's blue eyes had opened wide. “You mean it might be a murder? Al, you didn't tell me there'd been a murder. You didn't tell me anyone was missing.”

Sacks gave his new bride a sour look. “The finger is old, Lila. Old and dark and brittle. And when do I ever talk about that stuff?” He glanced uneasily at Harper.

Lila grew quiet.

It was Joe's turn to study the blonde.
This woman isn't only a snob, she isn't too bright
. He didn't realize he was staring until Clyde began to stroke his back, pressing down with unnecessary insistence. He lay down again and shuttered his eyes, tried to look sleepy.

Clyde said, “What did the lab come up with?”

“Nothing yet. That finger'll be sitting under a stack of evidence until Christmas. They're so backed up, the place looks like a rummage sale. The court's putting all criminal investigations on hold, waiting for the lab. Victims' relatives can't even collect insurance until the lab is finished, can't do anything until they get a death certificate. Thirty investigators working the county lab, and still they can't stay on top.”

Harper sipped his beer. “That Spanish cemetery up the hills, it may have come from there—that old graveyard on the Prior place. It's only a mile from the Haleses' house.” For Charlie's benefit, because she hadn't lived in Molena Point long, he said, “It was part of the original Trocano Ranch from Spanish land-grant days. Family members were buried at home, tradition to be buried on family land. Even after the land passed down to the children and grandchildren, the family still buried their dead there. The funerals—”

“Isn't there a law against that?” Lila interrupted.

Harper looked at her, a hard little pause as expressive as an explosion. He did not like interruptions. “No one would enforce that law, with the Trocanos,” he said shortly. “Long after Maria Trocano married Daniel Prior, they buried family at home. Both Daniel's and Maria's graves are there.

“When Adelina came of age she sold off all but five acres. Kept the original old ranch house and the cemetery, turned the house into servants' quarters,” Harper said. “Built that big new house for herself and Renet, and I guess Teddy's there part of the time. Turned that fine stable into garages. Not a horse left on the place.

“That was quite some stable in its day,” Harper said. “Some of the finest thoroughbreds in California came off the Trocano Ranch.”

He drained his beer. “When Mrs. Hales brought in the finger bone, we had a look at the old cemetery. Thought the dog might have dug into one of the old Spanish graves, but not a clod disturbed. The Priors keep the grounds nice, the grass mowed and trimmed around the old headstones.

“We've got three men out walking that area looking for where the dog was digging, and I've ridden every inch of that land. So far, nothing.” Harper lived on an acre up in the hills several miles north of the Prior estate. He kept only one horse now, since his wife died.