He'd known Rube since he himself was a kitten, when Rube was a young, strong dog. When Joe was half grown and feisty, it was Rube who had mothered him. Already mourning Rube, Joe felt like half of him had dropped away into an empty abyss; life would be very strange, with Rube gone.
Dulcie had read something to him once, in the library late at night as he lounged on a table among the books she had dragged off the shelves, something about part of your life suddenly breaking away, sliding away, forever gone. Even then, the words had stirred a huge emptiness in him. He was filled with that same dropping feeling now as he raced over the rooftops toward home.
The thin moon and stars were hidden, the sky gone dark and dense with clouds, and the sea wind blew harsher, too, and more cruel. Jumping wearily across the last chasm from an overhanging cypress branch to the rooftops of his own block, Joe glanced down automatically at Chichi Barbi's small front yard.
There were lights reflected there, no light from the living room window and no flickering from the TV The house beneath him was silent, and when he looked around the side, down the drive, no light reflected from her bedroom. Making one last mournful jump from Chichi's roof to his own, landing heavily on the fresh cedar shingles, Joe padded into his cat tower dreading what lay ahead.
"Joe?" Clyde spoke from the study just below him. Joe studied the flicker of firelight that reflected through his plastic cat door, sniffed the nose-twitching scent of burning oak logs, and pushed through under the plastic flap flinching as it slid down his spine. Padding out along the rafter, he dropped down to the desk, trying hard not to scatter Clyde's papers.
Clyde sat in the leather chair holding Snowball, stroking and cuddling her. They were alone. He had not carried the invalid dog upstairs. Joe thought Clyde would not have left Rube downstairs alone.
Clyde looked up at him, and there was no need to explain.
"I brought his body home," Clyde said sadly. "So the cats could see him, so maybe they'd know and understand. He's downstairs, tucked up on the loveseat on the back porch, as if… so they can see him there."
Joe nodded. If animal companions were not allowed to see the dead one when he passed, their grieving was far worse; they never understood where their friend had gone. The finality of death was, for an animal, far kinder than thinking a loved one had simply gone away, far less stressful than waiting for the rest of their own lives for that pet or human to return.
"I wrapped him in his blanket. I'll take him in the morning, to be cremated."
Again, Joe nodded. They would bury Rube's ashes beside old Barney's ashes, at the foot of the high patio wall beneath the yellow rosebush. There was room there for all the animals. Room for me someday, Joe thought, and felt his paws go cold. Leaping from the desk to the arm of Clyde's chair, Joe rubbed his whiskers against Clyde's cheek, then crawled into Clyde's lap and curled down beside Snowball. And for a while he was only cat, safe in Clyde's arms, at one with Snowball and with Clyde in the pain of their grieving.
Only after a very long time, when the fire had burned to ashes and the moon had come out again gleaming down through the skylight, did Clyde get up and warm some milk for all four cats, and break up bits of cornbread into the bowls, a special treat they all enjoyed. He waited at the kitchen table while the cats ate, then settled the two older cats cozily among the blankets in their bunk. He made himself a rum toddy. Carrying Snowball and his toddy, he headed upstairs behind Joe, and the three of them tucked up in bed.
But as Snowball slept in Clyde's arms huffing softly, all worn out, and Joe's eyes drooped and jerked open, Clyde insisted on hashing over Rube and Barney's puppyhood in a maudlin display of memories that Joe found more than painful. Clyde reminisced about how he would take the young dogs to the beach to chase sticks in the ocean, how he judged his girlfriends by how they related to the two dogs. On and on, trying to get rid of the pain. The red numbers on the bedside clock flipped ahead steadily toward morning. It was after four when Clyde finally drifted off. Exhausted, Joe curled down deeper in the blankets, but he couldn't sleep. All the joyful and irritating and funny memories of Rube crowded in to nearly smother him. Long after Clyde was snoring, Joe lay atop the pillow wide awake, his teeming thoughts too busy to settle.
He tried to pull his mind from Rube, to examine again the jewelry store scenario, to see Chichi all dressed in black slipping into her dark house carrying that small black bag, hiding something important, while a dressed-up kitchen broom sat in her easy chair watching sitcoms. Thinking about anything was better than lying there wide awake, thinking about Rube.
Right now, was Chichi asleep over there? How deeply did the woman sleep? Frantic for distraction, Joe rose and leaped off the bed.
What was the best way inside?
He considered the tried-and-true methods: check all the windows; if he couldn't claw one open, then try a roof vent and go in through the attic.
Except that moving those plywood doors that opened from an attic could get noisy, and they were heavy as hell. Most weren't even hinged, and you had to lift them away Usually, Dulcie was there to lend some muscle.
But who knew, maybe Chichi had left a window unlocked and he could claw right on through the screen. Worth a try. He wasn't doing himself any good lying there fretting, listening to Clyde and Snowball snore.
Trotting across the little Persian rug into Clyde's study, he leaped to the desk, so preoccupied he sent the stapler clattering to the floor. Cursing his clumsiness, he sprang to the rafter and pushed out through his cat door.
Scorching across the shingles to Chichi's roof, he backed down the jasmine vine and dropped to the scruffy yard. First thing, he tried the front door just to make sure, swinging like a monkey with his paws locked around the knob. When the knob turned, he kicked hard with both hind paws.
But it was bolted, all right. The door didn't budge. Well, what did he expect? Trotting around the side of the house he peered up at the evenly spaced roof vents.
They all looked pretty solid, as if they were not only nailed but sealed with several generations of paint. Circling the house, he pawed at the eight under-house vents, shaking them as hard as he could. All were screwed down tight. His nose was filled with the damp smell of earth and moldy wood, and of the dusty old bushes that pressed around him.
Making his way around to the door of Chichi's bedroom, he swung on that knob, kicking vigorously while trying to make no noise. Of course it was locked. But hey! From the power of her sleeping scent, and the tiny sounds of her slow, even breathing that came from the far window beyond the door, he knew that window had to be open.
Leaping up onto the narrow sill, Joe smiled. She had locked the window open six inches, a space no human burglar could breach. Pressing his nose to the screen, he looked in sideways at the bolt that locked the sliding glass in place. Lifting a paw, claws rigidly extended, he ripped down the old, rusty screen wincing at the dry scraping sensation as it gave way under his pad. The long, jagged tear jerked and caught at his paw, then at his fur as he slipped through.
The room smelled of dust and of Chichi, that distinctive sleeping-woman smell, as rich as baking bread. In the dim room, Chichi lay curled up around her pillow. She slept naked, with the covers thrown back, even on this chill night. She was tan all over, no strap or bikini marks. Maybe a salon tan. Or maybe sunbathing on her San Francisco rooftop? When he and Clyde lived in the city, Clyde always hurried home on sunny days, to enjoy the view from their apartment window.