"I'd love to have dinner," she said. "Of course I still like Mexican, and I love Lupe's."
And that was fine with Joe Grey. At Lupe's he could settle comfortably atop the patio wall above Mike and Lindsey's table, get their attention, pour on the charm until they'd fixed a plate for him, and then comfortably eavesdrop while enjoying an appealing selection of his favorite Mexican delicacies.
17
DINNER AT LUPE'S PLAYA didn't turn out as the tomcat had planned. While Mike and Lindsey enjoyed an array of delectable Mexican dishes, Joe left the restaurant with a hollow belly, feeling grossly neglected. Heading hungrily home over the rooftops, followed by the aroma of enchiladas and chiles, he prayed fervently that Clyde and Ryan would be home soon so he could once more indulge freely in the delicacies to which he was accustomed.
The minute Mike had left the house, tonight, in Clyde 's yellow roadster to pick up Lindsey, Joe had hightailed it over the rooftops to Lupe's, to crouch on the patio wall, concealed among the branches of a bottlebrush tree, waiting for them to arrive and be seated. At Lupe's he couldn't drop down to the patio's brick floor and wind charmingly under the tables mooching handouts. Unlike other village cafés with outdoor dining, Lupe's frowned on cats among the guests' ankles. At Lupe's he had to wait atop the wall for Clyde to hand him up his supper-and tonight he'd expected to do the same. Expected to yowl at Mike and make up to Lindsey until the two shared their orders with him, passing up a bit of tamale, or enchilada, or chile relleno.
But not so. When the couple entered, they were seated not against the wall, as Clyde always requested, but near the center of the patio, next to a table of loud folks in a partying mood.
There was no way he could cadge a treat. Worse, with the surrounding talk and laughter pounding at him from dozens of tables, he had to strain to hear even snatches of their conversation; he could barely make out Mike's questions, or Lindsey's soft answers.
He heard Lindsey say, "It's a shock, but…," then something more, then "…know where she got…" Then again something the tomcat couldn't hear. And then during a lull in the surrounding noise Mike said, "If not Nina, do you have any idea what other woman might have gone with him?"
Loud laughter from the four couples at the next table drowned out Lindsey's answer. They were celebrating the skinny brunette's birthday, and her laughter was the loudest. When at last they quieted, Lindsey was saying, "…but did the sheriff look for a second body?"
Mike said something Joe couldn't hear, then during another short silence he caught snatches of Lindsey's words. "If that woman…her clothes in his pack?" Another loud burst from the happy diners, then Mike said something that made Lindsey look the way she had in Dallas's office as she read the plastic-wrapped letter, made her go pale and still and rigid. Joe was watching her so intently, pushing out from among the bottlebrush leaves, that he almost fell off the wall. There was more laughter from the party table, then two waiters appeared with loaded trays and began serving the revelers-and soon all was still there, as the diners concentrated on their sizzling platters, and Lindsey was saying, "…didn't know her that well, she would never have confided something like that. If she'd had a gun, with California 's strict gun laws, surely she wouldn't tell anyone."
"Was she coming on to Carson, back then," Mike asked, "despite the fact that her husband and Carson were partners?"
"That could have been," she said, looking down, twisting her hands in her lap. "I didn't see much of her, she was my boss's wife, but I didn't like her much, and I guess she felt the same." At the next table several people were talking at once. Mike leaned closer to her, lowering his voice. He looked at her for a long moment, then put his arm around her, his words soft and private. Joe crouched on the wall for a few moments more, but when the large party of diners had demolished their dinners enough to start talking again, even louder, he gave it up, abandoned his supperless vigil, and headed home ravenously hungry, royally out of sorts, and having learned very little of interest.
He was in the kitchen morosely eating dry, tasteless kibble when the two came in, the heady scent of Mexican food wafting in with them to further enrage the tomcat. At the sound of the front door opening, a commotion of barking rose from the patio where Mike had left Rock for the short time he'd been absent. Joe sat in the center of the linoleum floor listening to Rock scratch at the locked doggy door. He scowled up at Mike and Lindsey as they came through to the kitchen smelling unkindly of Lupe's Playa-scowled until he saw that Lindsey was carrying a small, white Styrofoam box.
Abandoning the kibble, he rubbed against Lindsey's ankles, purring loudly.
She stood holding the box, looking uncertainly down at him. "You sure this won't hurt him? It's awfully spicy."
Mike shrugged. " Clyde says to give him anything he wants. Chinese, curry, Mexican. Says the cat's never sick." But Mike, too, regarded Joe with misgiving.
Joe, leaping atop the counter, yowled demandingly in their faces. He wished he had a tail to lash. Having lost his tail when he was a kitten, he missed it only when a wildly switching appendage could augment a repertoire limited, temporarily, to imprecise yowls and hisses.
"He's so hungry," Lindsey said. "The poor thing. If you're sure it's all right…"
"It's what Clyde said to do. If he gets sick," he said, grinning, "you get to clean it up."
She opened the box. Joe rubbed against her arm, purring louder than ever. When she set the container on the counter before him, he shoved his face into the still warm enchilada, lapping and slurping. Heaven couldn't be better than this.
But did the two have to watch him? Did they have to laugh? Didn't it occur to them to give a cat a little privacy?
Joe didn't emerge from the Styrofoam carton until he'd licked the plastic clean, until he was replete and purring with enchilada, chile relleno, and beans. Outside the back door, Rock was still pawing and yipping impatiently. Mike had sensibly left him there until Joe finished his supper-Rock's digestive system, unlike Joe's, couldn't handle such rich treats. Joe remained on the counter washing his paws and whiskers as Mike let Rock in, gave him some kibble, then fixed cappuccinos for himself and Lindsey. When the couple retired to the living room, where Mike lit a fire, Joe sauntered in past Rock, who had stretched out on the rug, and leaped into his own clawed and fur-covered easy chair, where he curled up pretending to doze as the couple settled cozily on the couch. Mike was saying, "You and Ryder have always been at such odds? Even when you were children?"
"We never got along, it was always war."
"That had to be stressful. Is that why you never told me much about your childhood?"
"It's painful to talk about, painful for me to go back to that time. Even when we were little, Ryder always demanded to be boss. She'd pitch a fit to get her way, and it was easier to let her have it."
She sipped her cappuccino, her hazel eyes sad. "She'd get me into trouble for something she did, and Mama never believed me. I guess that's a common enough scenario, the world over. But even so, it hurts."
"And you didn't fight back, didn't stand up for yourself?"
She shrugged. "Ryder was two years older, and she was the beautiful one, she was Mama's girl. Our father died in a highway accident when I was five, he was a trucker. After he died, I had no one to stand up for me, no one who really cared. I was the throwaway child.
"Later, the few men Mama dated, none of them made friends with me. It's strange-they were all weak men, nothing like my dad. Almost as if Mama didn't want them to compete with him? I never knew the answer.