On the window seat, the kit, always jumping to the worst conclusions, moved between Joe and Dulcie, nervously kneading her claws. It took stern stares from both cats to make her settle down again. Above them the sky brightened as the clouds blew past, revealing the thin moon.
"When I mailed the preliminary drawings to them last week," Ryan said, "they were in Eugene." She looked at Kate. "Aren't they coming through San Francisco?"
"They are," Kate said, "so I can show them the Cat Museum. It was nice they were here in the village the same time I was; Lucinda and I hit it right off. I'd never known her well when I lived in the village. Just to speak to. I had no idea she was so… that we'd have so much in common. We're some forty years apart, but that doesn't matter, I feel like I've know her forever."
As you should, Joe Grey thought, exchanging a look with Dulcie. And Wilma glanced across at the cats, knowing exactly what they were thinking: that Kate and Lucinda, because they shared special knowledge, would naturally be friends.
Those who knew the cats' secret had grown to a number that was sometimes alarming to Joe Grey. Secrecy was the only true protection he and Dulcie and Kit had against the wrong people knowing their true nature. They had learned that the hard way. Certainly, if ever the news media found out about talking cats, the fur would hit the fan big time.
Though as for their true friends, it was deeply satisfying to be surrounded by six staunch supporters, to have human allies who understood them. With Clyde and Wilma, Charlie and Kate, Lucinda and Pedric Greenlaw playing backup, as it were, they were not alone in the world.
As for the three criminal types who knew their secret, the cats tried not to think about that. If fate were truly to smile, not only convicted killer Lee Wark, but Jimmie Osborne, Kate's ex-husband, would remain behind bars in San Quentin for the rest of their natural lives. And old Greeley Urzey, if indeed he had not accompanied Azrael back to the States, would stay in Central America for the rest of his evil days.
Well, Joe thought, he wasn't going to ruin his supper thinking about those no-goods. The salmon mousse was far too delicious. Licking the creamy confection from his whiskers, he would, like Scarlett, think about his enemies tomorrow. He listened to Ryan, Charlie, and Wilma make plans for an early breakfast and had almost finished his large helping of mousse when a black shadow appeared on the window seat, cast down from the moonlit skylight, a pricked ear and feline profile striking across his plate. Staring up, Joe met the blazing yellow eyes of the black tomcat; the beast's presence made Joe swallow his supper with a shocked snarl.
Beside him Dulcie hissed, crouching and looking up. And beside her the kit cringed low, staring up through the glass where the black tom poised predatory and still, intently watching them, his eyes blazing with the reflected glow of the restaurant's soft lights. In the backlight of the moon Joe could not see the beast's wicked face, only his broadly extended cheeks and flattened ears; surely a cold smile played across that evil countenance. As the three cats stared, rumbling low in their throats, the humans at the table looked up, too; and Charlie caught her breath; Wilma and Clyde half rose as if to chase the beast away, then glanced at each other and sat down again.
Max Harper put his hand on Charlie's arm. "It's only a cat, some cat wandering the rooftops." He looked at her strangely. "What did you think?"
"I… I don't know. It's so big, it appeared so suddenly up there."
The cats knew well that she was thinking the same as they; they could see her flash of shocked dismay that the black tom had returned, before she hid her true feelings and smiled at Max.
"Nerves, I guess," she said softly. "More stressed over the show than I'd thought."
Harper nodded. He did not look convinced. Glancing puzzled at Clyde, he hugged Charlie. She relaxed against him, smiling as if she had been flighty and silly.
Above them Azrael hadn't moved. Joe imagined him highly amused by the stir he was causing-to Joe, and to those who understood Azrael, the presence of the black tom cut through the companionable evening like claws ripping velvet. Beside Joe, Dulcie's green eyes glinted and her low growl was deep with rage, her angry rumble hiding a keen anxiety. But now that the kit's first startled fear had passed, she looked from Joe to Dulcie wide eyed, and extended a soft paw to Dulcie, a silent question. Joe watched her uneasily.
The kit had been told about Azrael; but Kit did not like to take others' word, she wanted to experience every new thing for herself. Joe glanced at Dulcie. The kit would need some talking to.
The delight of the evening, Charlie's joy in her first one-man show, and the friends' happy celebration, had, with the waiter's death, turned chill and worrisome. Now with the dark presence of the half-wild beast who called himself the death angel, Joe Grey felt his skin crawl with an ugly portent of disaster.
6
Charlie's late supper party was long over, the guests departed and by now sleeping deeply, the predawn village deserted. The time was five A.M. The courthouse clock had just struck, as the black tom left the roof where he had slept.
Pacing the streets through the muted glow from the shop windows, he looked up with interest at interminable arrangements of holiday confection, leather coats displayed among autumn leaves, hand-knit sweaters and bright jewelry framed by golden pumpkins-every window so full of fall excess they made a cat retch. Swaggering as he approached the windows of the Aronson Gallery, he considered with disdain the seven pieces of Charlie's work that hung facing the street, the large drawing of Joe Grey dangling a mouse from his teeth, the color print of Dulcie reclining on a paisley cushion like some 1940s girlie calendar.
These little cats were too high above themselves, they had grown far too vain with all this attention. It was time they were taken down.
At five o'clock on this dark fall morning the streets were still deserted, no lone gardener working along the sidewalk tending the shop-front flowers, not even a seagull careening and diving across the inky sky. The only living creatures in view besides Azrael himself were a couple of homeless men huddled in a doorway trying to keep warm, trying to maintain a low profile in this village where police did not encourage nonpaying overnight guests.
Azrael had slept quite comfortably on the roof of the Patio Cafe tucked between the steeply slanting shingles of a small penthouse and the restaurant's chimney, which had held its warmth until long past midnight. The brick-and-shingle cave, conveniently out of the wind, had been scented pleasantly with aromas from the restaurant, with the heady smell of steak and lobster and fried onions.
He hadn't slept hungry. Before he retired to the roofs he had taken a leisurely supper from the restaurant's garbage bins, probably scrounging the leavings, he thought sourly, of Charlie Harper's dinner party.
From the roof last night he had watched the party break up and emerge from the restaurant in twos and threes, Charlie and Captain Harper pausing to bid good night to Wilma and her houseguest. Very nice. Wilma had invited Charlie to an early breakfast, so that Charlie could then show Kate Osborne the duplex that Kate wanted to rent.
No one but these weird women would invite company for breakfast at six on a winter morning-all this human camaraderie made Azrael retch.
Now, swarming up an old, thick bougainvillea vine, he prowled the rooftops again. They were barely beginning to brighten. To the east, the first light of dawn smeared bloody fingers across the dark hills. Heading across the roofs for Wilma Getz's cottage, he shivered in the cold wind that whipped in off the sea-felt like it came straight out of the Arctic. He never would get used to the damp chill in these northern regions, he could never shake the longing to sidle up to a sunny wall or to a rooftop heat vent. This part of the continent was fine for a short visit, for a brief session of snatch-and-grab with one human partner or another, but he would never want to live here.