As they all tucked into breakfast, there was near silence at the picnic table. Only the scrape of a fork on a plate, Rock’s eager slurping, the occasional car passing out front on the street and, from half a mile away, the rhythmic pounding of the sea against the cliffs and sandy shore. When the animals had licked their plates clean, Clyde looked across the table at Joe.
“I have an announcement.”
Joe looked back warily, his claws involuntarily stiffening at the implication of some portentous, and probably unwelcome, decision. Whatever was coming, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.
Ryan, watching the two of them, was both uneasy and amused by the tomcat’s possibly well-founded suspicions. She was still wondering herself if Clyde ’s decision had been a wise one. This particular resolution would be life changing for Clyde. Another big adjustment even after bringing a wife into the household-and that meant one more upset in the tomcat’s life. Ordinary cats didn’t like change. In that respect, she thought that speaking cats weren’t so different.
The moment she’d moved into the house, when they returned from their honeymoon, the household had morphed from a casual bachelor pad to the more complicated involvements presented by an added resident, particularly a female partner. Now, if she and Clyde pursued this new endeavor, their newly established routines would change yet again, and that would change Joe’s routine.
How would that affect the tomcat? Would further disruption of Joe’s comfortable home life complicate his other, secret life? That mustn’t happen, she thought, watching the gray tomcat. Joe Grey’s undercover investigations were far too unique and valuable to let this new venture get in his way.
6
JOE WATCHED CLYDE warily, waiting for the bomb to drop. Whatever Clyde meant to tell him, obviously Ryan already knew; her green eyes hid a smile but also a hint of worry. Certainly any statement coming from Clyde and begun in this serious vein portended nothing good, such serious pronouncements could easily end in disaster. One case in point would be Clyde ’s purchase of a derelict apartment building, which he’d intended to remodel for rental income. A project that had ended in a tangle of embezzlement, identity theft, and murder, to say nothing of the complications resulting from Clyde ’s inept carpentry skills.
Another example would be the time Clyde decided that Joe should visit the old folks’ home on a regular basis in order to cheer up the needy elderly. That seemingly charitable endeavor had not only put Joe and Dulcie in considerable danger, but had resulted in the discovery of a large number of anonymous dead, buried and forgotten in a garden of hidden graves.
So what was this new insanity? Joe looked at Ryan. She said nothing, just sat quietly waiting for Clyde to drop this one on him.
“What?” Joe said coldly.
Beside Joe, Rock eyed the last bite of Joe’s breakfast. Joe glared a friendly warning at the silver Weimaraner and lifted a daggered paw, for which he received a doggy laugh and doggy breath in his face.
“What announcement?” he repeated.
“I’m selling the cars,” Clyde said.
“You’re what?”
To some, such a comment might seem of minor importance. People sold cars every day and bought new ones, the world was based on obsolescence. But this statement coming from Clyde was a shocker. He might as well have said he was giving away all his worldly possessions and joining a nudist colony. At last count Clyde had owned eighteen antique and classic automobiles, collectors’ items all, and he loved those cars like his own children. In restoring them, he labored over every detail, as a sculptor labors over every inch of clay in preparing his bronze castings.
“You’re going to do what?” Joe repeated quietly.
Clyde took another bite of pancake and sausage, another sip of coffee. “Sell the cars. Except the roadster,” he said, referring to the vintage yellow convertible that sat, pristine and shining and completely restored, in their attached garage.
“I’m going to sell the cars,” Clyde repeated slowly, as if Joe was, regrettably, growing deaf.
“You’re selling the cars.” Joe looked at Ryan. Her green eyes, turned to him, were wide and innocent.
This transaction would include cars both domestic and foreign, ranging in age from eighty years to more recent and overblown fishtail models, and in value from a few thousand into the high six figures, each car either already painstakingly restored, lavished with love, from its wheels and pistons to its new leather upholstery-with love and skill and plenty of cash-or cars in the process of being restored, to a few wrecks still patiently awaiting their turn at Clyde’s skilled automotive rejuvenation, rather as an aging actress awaits her appointment to go under the knife of a highly paid plastic surgeon.
Ever since Joe had first met Clyde, when Clyde hauled him out of that San Francisco gutter, Clyde’s one huge passion in life, besides charming women, and his dogs and cats, had been old cars and the rebuilding thereof. When they lived in San Francisco, he had collected cars, renting an old garage over in Marin County where he’d worked on them, on weekends and his days off, taking Joe with him. That was where Joe learned to hunt, stalking mice along the bare stud walls and loose building paper of that decrepit old garage.
When they’d moved down the coast to Molena Point, Clyde had sold his two beautifully restored convertibles, but when he opened his upscale automotive repair shop, he began to collect old models again, ferreting them out by newspaper ad and word of mouth, driving halfway across the state to haul them home on a flatbed trailer. The garages at the back of the space he rented from the foreign-car agency had been largely reserved for his own growing collection of wrecks destined to become collectors’ items. In short, a nice share of their income had been generated by those restorations, besides which, they had had Clyde ’s complete involvement. Joe didn’t think his housemate could exist without those old cars.
“You mean you’re selling all the restored cars and getting a new batch to work on,” the tomcat said reasonably.
“No. Selling them all. Finished. Not buying any more cars,” Clyde said.
“This is some kind of midlife crisis?” Joe said. “A man doesn’t have a midlife crisis while he’s still on his honeymoon, just four months after the wedding.” He looked suspiciously at Ryan. Was she responsible for this sea change? “Are you two having problems?” He prayed that wasn’t so.
Ryan laughed. “Midlife crises happen to disenchanted, bored men with no positive philosophy, no positive take on life-no burning reason for living their lives.”
In Joe’s opinion, Ryan Flannery Damen was the world’s best reason for living. Anyway, nothing about that description fit Clyde. The tomcat had never observed any of the bored, flat, jaundiced, arrogant, or dully disinterested symptoms associated with the emotional demise of a human creature. In some ways, Clyde Damen was still twelve years old, enthusiastic about life to the point of sorely trying a cat’s patience.
“You need the money?” Joe asked, though he could hardly believe that. Clyde had a comfortable savings account, and Ryan was even better off. She had a nice inheritance from her first husband, and her construction firm did very well indeed. Joe turned to look at her. Did she not approve of the cars? Had she talked Clyde into selling them? Joe couldn’t believe she’d be so selfish and unfeeling. He studied her, then eyed his housemate again, waiting.
Ryan started to grin, her green eyes dancing.
Clyde said, “We’re going to buy a couple of houses. Go into-”