"Teddy went out here. Spice shaving lotion."
"So?"
"So when Dillon was dragging me all over, I saw wheelchair marks going out the fire door and into the parking lot."
"Mae Rose said he drives a car, one of those specially equipped cars. If he's Adelina's cousin, probably he comes and goes as he pleases."
"Then why does he live here? Adelina Prior is loaded. Why wouldn't she get him a nice apartment and hired help? Or why doesn't he live on that big estate with her?"
"Maybe he's sort of unofficial social director. Mae Rose says most of the old people like him, that he's always doing little favors, asking for the special foods they want, remembering their birthdays. He doesn't seem as sarcastic with the others as he is with Mae Rose."
Someone changed the Spanish radio station to hard rock, and the thudding drummed at the cats' nerves like a distant demolition crew. Over the din they heard another nurse coming, the sticky sound made by her rubber-soled shoes on the carpet, and quickly they slid into a darkened bedroom.
Immaculate white shoes and red-tasseled sox passed them at a trot, trailing the scent of Ivory soap. Then two more nurses, their snowy Oxfords flitting like two pairs of white rabbits hopping along the hall.
When the way was empty again the cats moved fast, looking up at the names on the charts. The hall formed a rectangle around a block of center rooms, so that only the outside rooms had windows. By the time they had rounded the last corner and could see the nursing station again, they had found not one of the six residents that Mae Rose claimed were missing.
The nursing station ahead was so busy they might never get past it and out the door. Nurses moved swiftly between two counters, which were covered with medicine bottles and boxes and cartons and a stack of paper towels, with a large stainless-steel coffeepot and a tray of ceramic mugs. As they slipped into yet another darkened room, they were beginning to fidget with impatience. Staring out at hurrying feet and listening to disjointed snatches of conversation, both in English and in Spanish, they felt completely surrounded. Trapped. They grew so irritable they nearly hissed at each other.
Someone changed the radio station back to Spanish music. One of the nurses began to sing with it in a sultry voice. When at last the hall was clear for an instant, they fled for the nursing station, running full out, pausing only to scan the remaining charts, then slide beneath the counter.
Crouching under the crowded shelves that lined the back of the counter, they were hardly out of sight when Size Nine returned, moving in near them, smelling of dog doo. She had only to glance down beneath the shelves to see them huddled. Standing inches from their noses, she began to stack papers, tamping the stacks against the desk. The air under the shelf was hot and close. They heard the pneumatic door to the hall open, and someone wheeled the food cart away, presumably back toward the kitchen.
A nurse came to the counter, there was a short conversation about medications, then Size Nine went away with her, down the hall. The instant she left, they reared up to examine the contents of the shelves, looking for some record of the patients' names.
They found boxes of syringes, tongue depressors, small packets containing artificial sweetener and fake coffee cream. There was a row of nurses' handbags lined up, fat and wrinkled, smelling of peppermints and makeup and tobacco; but no files, no list of patients.
"Come on," Joe said. "Check out the other counter. You watch the hall while I look." Leaping to the counter among the medicine bottles and IV tubes and the makings for a hot cup of coffee, he sorted through the tangle, patting irritably at the boxes.
"Here we go," he said softly, pawing a small file box out from behind the coffee canister.
She leaped up, watching the hall, watching him impatiently as he clawed through the alphabetized tabs. The cards contained patients' names and their medication information, the dosage, times per day, and for how many days.
They found no Jane Hubble, no Darlene Brown or Mary Nell Hook. They had no time to look for the others. Dulcie hissed, and they leaped down, dived back beneath the shelves as three nurses appeared.
"I'm beginning to feel like a windup toy," Joe said. "Programmed to jump at the sight of a human. I need a good run, need to clear my head."
"Shh. They're coming."
The nurses moved back and forth. Medicine bottles clinked. Someone sneezed. Coffee was brewed, and the radio station was changed again. They waited nearly half an hour before Size Nine returned to pick up her stack of papers, thumped them on the desk again, and headed for the pneumatic door.
They followed behind her heels and fled into the hall. For an instant, behind her, they were as visible as dog turds on a white sidewalk If she had turned to look back, it would have been all over; they'd have had the whole staff chasing them.
They dodged into a bedroom, and in the dark, Joe paced. He couldn't settle. When something furry touched his nose, he jumped and raked at it, hissing.
But it was only a furry slipper. He shook it and shoved it aside. Out beyond the glass the moon was setting, its slanting light fading into the blackness of predawn. When the nurse vanished down the hall, they fled for the admitting desk.
In less time than it took for the moon to sink beyond the windows, they had searched not only that tall counter but two nearby file cabinets, clawing open the drawers, pawing through the folders. The procedure gave Joe fits-he'd been creeping and stealthy too long. All this snooping made him feel as if he was going to jump out of his skin. He needed to storm up trees, yowl at the moon. His mood would be considerably improved by a good bloody tomcat brawl.
But Dulcie pressured him on. She was most interested, of course, in the one office that was locked. They could smell Adelina's scent beneath the door, the same expensive perfume that had accompanied her into the entry the first time they saw her. The same scent which had already settled faintly into the leather upholstery of her new red Bentley the day Clyde took them for that memorable ride. Dulcie tried the door, leaping and fighting the knob, but at last she turned away.
In the two open offices they clawed open the desk drawers and file drawers, pawing through, flipping the file tabs with their claws.
They found the patients' full-sized record files, each set of documents in its own manila folder, but they found no record of any of the six missing residents. If those people had ever really existed, they weren't here now. Or at least their records weren't here.
"Maybe Jane took off for Tahiti, booked a cruise. Maybe right this minute she's paddling her feet in some balmy tropical bay, eating coconuts."
"Very funny." Dulcie leaped down from where she had been balancing on the last file drawer.
"There have to be records, even if those people aren't here. Dead files." She shivered.
"Whatever secret this place is hiding. I'm betting it's in Adelina's office." She leaped up onto a desk. "That would be the…"
She paused, looking down between her paws at the glass-covered desk top. Beneath the glass, the desk was overlayed with photographs.
"Movies-they're movie stills. All the old reruns. Look at this, here's Clint Eastwood before he had any wrinkles. And Lindsay Wagner-she can't be more than twenty."
Joe leaped up. Strolling across the desk, he nosed at the pictures. "Who's the washed-out blonde? She's in every shot."
The thin woman appeared in the background behind Clint Eastwood, and at a restaurant table with a very young Jack Nicholson. Joe twitched a whisker. "She looks familiar, but I…"