The two cats looked beautiful this morning, Wilma thought, sleek and healthy, their coats set off by the blue velvet cushions, Dulcie's curving, chocolate stripes as dark as mink, her pale, peach tinted ears and paws freshly washed. And Joe always looked as if he had groomed himself for a formal event, his charcoal-gray coat shining, his white paws, white chest, and white nose as pristine as new snow.
Wilma didn't speak to them in front of Bernine, even to prattle baby talk as one would to ordinary pets; their responsive glances were sometimes more intelligent than they intended, and Bernine was far too watchful. The history that Bernine had picked up from a previous boyfriend, the Welsh mythology of unnatural and remarkable cats that had peopled the ancient world, was better not stirred even in the smallest way. Better not to set Bernine off with the faintest hint of immediate feline strangeness.
In fact, having Bernine in the house with Dulcie was not at all comfortable. She just hoped Bernine would find a place soon. And certainly Bernine's intrusion into the guest room was not a happy situation for Charlie who, half an hour ago, had disappeared in the direction of the garage, silent and uncommunicative. Wilma knew she would be out there sulking as she unloaded her possessions from the van. Already cross at the eviction from her apartment- though she hadn't let her anger spoil last night's gallery opening- her sullenness was multiplied by Bernine's unexpected presence. Bernine was not Charlie's favorite person.
Earlier this morning when the two young women had coffee in the kitchen, Charlie had made no effort to be civil, had hardly spoken to Bernine. Wilma hoped that when Mavity arrived, her old friend would ease the atmosphere, that her earthy temperament would soften their various moods. Mavity might be ascerbic, without subtlety or guile, but her very honesty made her comfortable to be near.
As she picked up the coffeepot from the desk and moved across the room to fill Clyde's cup, she watched the cats sniffing the good smells from the kitchen and licking their whiskers. She could just imagine Bernine's sarcasm when the cats were fed from the same menu as the guests.
Clyde lowered the sports page and held out his cup. "Charlie going to stay out in the garage all morning? What's she doing?"
"Unloading her tools and equipment-she'll be in shortly. You could go out and help her."
Clyde sipped his coffee, shook his head, and dug out the editorial section, burying himself again. Bernine watched him, amused. Very likely, Wilma thought, Bernine understood Charlie's temper-and the reason for it-far better than did Clyde.
Dulcie watched Clyde, too, and she wanted to whop him, wished she could chase him out to the garage with Charlie. Didn't he know Charlie was jealous? That she was out there sulking not over the eviction, or simply over Bernine's presence, but over Bernine's proximity to Clyde himself? Males could be so dense.
But you didn't need female perception, or feline perception, to see that Bernine's sophistication and elegant clothes and carefully groomed good looks, coupled with her superior and amused attitude, made big-boned Charlie Getz feel totally inadequate. You didn't need female-cat intelligence to see that Charlie didn't want Bernine anywhere near Clyde Damen.
Scowling at Clyde, she realized that Bernine was watching her, and she turned away, closing her eyes and tucking her nose beneath her paw, praying for patience. Must the woman stare? It was hard enough to avoid Bernine at the library, without being shut in, at home, with that cat hater.
Why were anti-cat people so one-sided? So rigid? So coldly judgmental?
And how strange that the very things Bernine claimed to value in her own life, her independence and self-sufficiency, she couldn't abide in a sweet little cat.
Beside her on the couch, Joe was avoiding Bernine's gaze by restlessly washing, his yellow eyes angrily slitted, his ears flat to his head. He'd been cross and edgy anyway, since last night when they followed the old man and Azrael and lost them. And then the front page of the Gazette this morning hadn't helped, had turned him as bad-tempered as a cornered possum.
The Molena Point Gazette didn't concern itself with news beyond the village. Problems in the world at large could be reported by the San Francisco Chronicle or the Examiner. The Gazette was interested only in local matters, and last night's breakin occupied half the front page, above the fold.
SECOND BURGLARY HITS VILLAGE
A break-in last night at Jewel's Liquors netted the burglars over two thousand dollars from a locked cash register. This is the second such burglary in a week. Police have, at this time, no clue to the identity of the robber.
Police Captain Max Harper told reporters that though the department performed a thorough investigation, they found no mark of forced entry on the doors or on the window casings and no fingerprints. The crime was discovered by the store's owner, Leo Jewel, when he went in early this morning to restock the shelves and prepare a bank deposit. When Jewel opened the register he found only loose change, and loose change had been spilled on the floor.
Captain Harper said the burglar's mode of operation matched that of the Medder's Antiques burglary earlier this week. "It is possible," Harper said, "that the burglar obtained duplicate keys to both stores, and that he picked the cash register's lock."
Leo Jewel told reporters he was certain he had locked both the front and the alley doors. He said that no one else had a key to the store. He had closed up at ten as usual. Captain Harper encourages all store owners to check their door and window locks, to bank their deposits before they close for the night, and to consider installing an alarm system. Harper assured reporters that street patrols had been increased, and that any information supplied by a witness will be held in confidence, that no witness would be identified to the public.
Dulcie wondered if the police had collected any black cat hairs. She wondered what good the stolen money was, to Azrael. So the old man buys him a few cans of tuna. So big deal. But she didn't imagine for a minute that any monetary gain drove Azrael. The black torn, in her opinion, was twisted with power-hunger, took a keen and sadistic pleasure in seeing a human's hard-won earnings stolen-was the kind of creature who got his kicks by making others miserable. For surely a chill meanness emanated from the cat who liked to call himself the Death Angel; he reeked of rank cruelty as distinctive as his tomcat smell.
When the doorbell blared, she jumped nearly out of her skin. As Wilma opened the door, Mavity Flowers emerged from the mist, her kinky gray hair covered by a shabby wool scarf beaded with fog. Beneath her old, damp coat, her attire this morning was the same that she wore for work, an ancient rayon pants uniform, which, Dulcie would guess, she had purchased at the Salvage Shop and which had, before Mavity ever saw it, already endured a lifetime of laundering and bleaching. Mavity varied her three pants uniforms with four uniform dresses, all old and tired but serviceable. She hugged Wilma, her voice typically scratchy.
"Smells like heaven in here. Am I late? What are you cooking?" She pulled off the ragged scarf, shook herself as if to shake away remnants of the fog. "Morning, Clyde. Bernine.
"Had to clear the mops and brooms out of my Bug. Dora and Ralph's plane gets in at eleven. My niece," she told Bernine, "from Georgia. They bring everything but the roof of the house. My poor little car will be loaded. I only hope we make it home, all that luggage and those two big people. I should've rented a trailer."
Dulcie imagined Mavity hauling her portly niece and nephew-in-law in a trailer like steers in a cattle truck, rattling down the freeway. Bernine looked at Mavity and didn't answer. Mavity's minimal attention to social skills and her rigid honesty were not high on Bernine's list. Yet it was those very qualities that had deeply endeared her to Wilma. Mavity's raspy voice echoed precisely her strained temper this morning; she had been volatile ever since her brother arrived two weeks ago.