She stared at him.
"They'll come home when they feel like it." He searched her face for understanding. "I can't keep him confined, treat him like an overcontrolled lap dog. What good would Joe's life be, if I told him what to do all the time?"
She watched him turn the truck around at the dead end and pull away toward the village, his words resonating strangely. What good would Joe's life be, if I told him what to do all the time?
A puzzling turn of phrase. For some reason, the question, thus stated, left her filled with both unease and excitement.
Tossing some tools in through the side door of the van, she went back inside to get a ladder. Slipping it in on top of the tools, she pulled the door closed. She wanted to hang some drawings tonight and put up bookshelves. As she locked up the building, she called the cats, checking each apartment so not to shut them in.
She didn't find them. No sign of the little beasts. She didn't know why she worried about them. As Clyde said, they were off hunting somewhere.
But when she slid into her van, there they were on the front passenger seat, sitting side by side, watching her as expectantly as a taxi fare waiting for the driver, urging him to get a move on.
15
JOLLY'S ALLEY was no longer a pretty retreat for either tourist or village cat. Beneath the darkening sky where the first stars shone, the cozy brick lane with its little shops looked like a garbage dump. The light of its two wrought-iron lamps shone down upon a mess of greasy paper wrappers, broken eggshells, sandwich crusts, and chewed chicken bones. Wadded paper napkins and broken Styrofoam cups spilled from the two overturned refuse cans, and the smears of cold spaghetti and slaw and potato salad were stuck liberally with tufts of torn-out cat fur-a dozen colors of fur, telling the tale of a huge battle.
Joe and Dulcie, pausing at the alley's entrance, surveyed the mess with amazement, then outrage. Dulcie's ears went back and her tail lashed. Joe crouched as if to spring on whatever feline culprit remained.
But no culprit was visible, the battling cats had fled. Only the tufts of fur told the story, and their pawprints deep in the potato salad-and the stink of fear that lingered, as sharp as the smell of gunpowder after a frontline skirmish.
And, stronger even than the fear-stink, was the odor of the perpetrator-the belligerent reek of the black tomcat.
Sniffing Azrael's scent, Joe and Dulcie padded across the greasy bricks, peering into the shadows beneath the jasmine vine, searching for him.
Suddenly above them a shadow exploded between the rooftops and dropped down within the jasmine vine, dark and swift.
The black torn sauntered out of the foliage, his bullish shoulders swaggering, his amber eyes burning. Looking around at the devastation, he smiled and licked his whiskers.
Joe's growl was deep. "I suppose you waited until all the cats congregated for an evening's snack, then attacked them. Did you trap the smallest ones behind the garbage cans, so you could bloody them?"
Azrael widened his amber eyes. "And what business is it of yours, little cat? What are you, keeper of the village kitties?" Crouching, he circled Joe, his teeth bared, his eyes blazing.
Joe leaped, biting into Azrael's shoulder, raking his hind claws hard down Azrael's belly. Azrael clawed him in the neck. They spun, a tangle of slashing and screaming, then Azrael had Joe by the throat, forcing him down. Joe twisted free and bit him in the flank as Dulcie lunged into the fray. Together they pinned the tomcat. Under their violent double assault, he went limp. When they drew back, he fled to a safer position.
Now suddenly he was all smiles, waving his tail, curving and winding around a lamppost, the change swift and decisive. Chirruping and purring, he fixed his gaze on Dulcie.
"If I had guessed, my dear, that you would be here this evening, we could have feasted together-after I routed that rabble, of course. Or perhaps," he said softly, "you would have enjoyed that little skirmish-a little playful challenge to get your blood up. Hold!" he said as Joe moved to attack. "I have news. Information that will interest you."
But Joe leaped tearing at Azrael's ear and shoulder, and again the two were a screaming whirlwind-until the deli door crashed open and George Jolly ran out swinging a bucket. A cascade of dishwater hit them. Azrael bolted under a bench. Joe backed away, shocked, licking greasy dishwater from his whiskers.
"Look at this mess! At the mess you cats made. "Jolly fixed his gaze on Joe. "What kind of behavior is this? I go away for half an hour and you trash my alley! And on a Sunday, too-with the village full of visitors. You! I'd thought better of you, gray tomcat. Why would you do this?"
He looked hard at Dulcie. "Tomcats! Stupid fighting tomcats. All this over a lady? Shame. For shame." He shook his head sadly. "I feed you no more, you tomcats. I feed no one. You disappoint me. You're nothing but common street rowdies!"
Turning his back, he went inside. But he was out again at once, carrying a broom and dustpan. Irritably he righted the garbage cans and began to sweep, filling the dustpan over and over, dumping garbage back into the metal barrels. Azrael had disappeared, and as Jolly unwound a hose, Joe and Dulcie fled to the end of the alley.
Bouncing a hard spray across the bricks, Jolly washed up every smear, hosing the last crumbs into the drainage grid. Giving Joe a disgusted look, he disappeared inside. As he shut the door, Azrael dropped down from the roof. Ignoring Joe, he sidled up to Dulcie, looking incredibly smug.
"Such a charming companion you were the other morning, my dear Dulcie-diverting me so cleverly, while your crude friend, here, tossed Mavity's cottage."
He eyed Joe narrowly. "What were you looking for, gray cat, prowling Mavity's home while Dulcie performed her little ruse?"
Joe washed his paws, sleeking the white fur, and spread his claws to lick them dry.
"If you so enjoy snooping," Azrael told him, "if you like poking into human business-which I find incredibly boring-you might be interested in last night's telephone conversation. Though I would prefer to share my information privately, with the lady," Azrael said, purring.
Dulcie looked at him coldly. "Share it with both of us. One does not hunt another's turf without shedding blood. What was this conversation? Why would we be interested?"
"An invitation to dinner," Azrael told her. "Someone in the village has invited Dora and Ralph out to dinner-without Mavity or Greeley."
"Humans go out to dinner frequently," Dulcie said, yawning.
"They are keeping this dinner a secret. They've told no one. The reservation is at a very fancy restaurant, much too elegant for those two Georgia hicks."
Dulcie yawned in his face. "Who made such an invitation?"
"They got a phone call, so I only heard one side. Heard Dora say Winthrop. Couldn't tell if she was talking to Winthrop Jergen or about him. You know Jergen-Mavity's financial guru."
"We know him," Joe said, turning from Azrael to wash his hind paw.
Azrael sat tall, puffing himself up, lashing his thick black tail. "Why would a big-time financial advisor take those two rednecks to dinner? And why wouldn't they tell Mavity and Greeley? Not a word," Azrael said, narrowing his amber eyes.
"Maybe the Sleuders want to invest," Dulcie suggested. "Surely Mavity bragged about Jergen-about how much money he's earned for her."