But at last the man and woman stepped onto the street, and as Sicily turned back into the gallery the cats streaked through behind her. Racing for the shadows, they crouched between the zigzag walls. Looking out, they could just see Sicily as she moved away toward the back, unaware of intruders. Above them in the alcove hung a stark painting of a tilting San Francisco street, a work too austere for Dulcie's tastes, and seeming to Joe hard and ugly.
And now, though Dulcie knew the gallery well, confusion touched her. As she peered away among the alcoves, searching for a better place to hide, she was riven with uncertainty. The gallery spaces seemed different tonight, the vibrant colors of the paintings seeming to shatter and converge in strange new convolutions beneath the dizzying lights.
They heard Sicily pick up the phone and punch in a number, listened to her arrange late dinner reservations for four at the Windborne, Molena Point's most luxurious restaurant. This distracted Dulcie. She was able to calm herself with visions of a lovely, leisurely meal at a linen appointed table, waited on by liveried servers as she gazed down through the glass wall to the rolling sea below. Dreaming, she began to relax.
And at last she licked her paw and smoothed her whiskers, preparing for the night's work.
As they crouched in the shadows, Sicily returned to the front wearing a wrap, an African-looking shawl thrown over her shoulders, and jingling her keys. She swept past them, carrying a briefcase and a string handbag, pausing at the door to turn out the lights.
The gallery dimmed to a soft glow from the streetlamps. Through the open door a cool breeze fingered in, then abated as Sicily pulled the door closed.
She locked the door with her key and swept away down the street; in a moment they saw her white van go by, and realized they had passed it a block away.
She was gone; the gallery was theirs. They came out from the shadows to prowl the pale recesses, studying each canvas, each glassed and matted watercolor, searching for Janet's work, but by the time they reached the back of the gallery they had found only five of her paintings. And none of these was new; Dulcie had seen them all in the gallery, long before the fire. In the dim light, the life and color of the work was nearly lost. Only the strong dark and light patterns remained, as if the paintings had turned into photographs of themselves.
Deep in the interior, beyond Sicily's desk, four closed doors were half-hidden among the oblique walls. They pawed each open. One led to a rest room smelling powerfully of Pine Sol, one to a closet with a red sweater dangling among a row of empty hangers. The third door opened on a cleaning closet: broom, mop, various cleaning chemicals in assorted spray bottles. The fourth door, to the storeroom, was open, as if perhaps Sicily left it ajar for air circulation.
And at the very back a fifth door, a broad, metal-sheathed loading door leading to the alley, was sealed by a bar and a padlock. Uneasily, Joe looked up at it.
This door was impassable. And Sicily had locked the front door with a key. There was no other way out of the gallery. The realization that they were trapped made him feel as helpless as when, as a kitten, he'd been chased into San Francisco's dead-end alleys by packs of roaming dogs or by nasty little street boys.
He shivered as they slipped into the storeroom. "You said there were no windows?"
"None. If we can throw the light, it won't be seen. The switch is there…" She peered up, then pawed the door closed behind them, so light wouldn't be seen from the street.
Joe paced, tightening muscles, staring up. He leaped.
On his third try, scaling up the wall, his paw hit the switch. The lights blazed, three sets of long fluorescent bulbs burning in a white, blinding glow.
Four rows of open racks marched away, bins made of slats to allow for air circulation, and filled with standing paintings. But Joe, shut in, felt his paws grow damp. His brain kept playing the same theme. No way out of the storeroom except this one door. No way to escape the gallery. And this storeroom was like a coffin. In his heart, he was four months old again, cowering away from attacking boys, clawing up restraining walls.
He turned away, so Dulcie wouldn't see his fear.
Hey, get a grip. This is not the behavior of a macho tomcat. But his paws were really sweaty, and he was beginning to pant.
He got himself in hand sufficiently to move with Dulcie up one corridor and down the next, looking at each canvas, searching for Janet's work. They couldn't move the big canvases out of the racks, but each group of paintings leaned against a slatted divider. As Joe pulled a painting back, Dulcie could slip in between, take a look. Their paws were soon abraded, scraped nearly raw by the rough linen canvas and cut where the raw ends of picture wire had nicked them. They found only four of Janet's paintings, all without frames, the raw edges stapled. No thumbtacks. Two were of village streets done from some high vantage.
"From the tower of the courthouse," Dulcie said. "That's Monte Verde Street below, those red blooming trees and the red roofs. And this other one, that's the Molena Point Inn. Look, she's put in a little cat asleep on the inn roof, a little black cat."
She sighed. "You should come up the tower with me, it's lovely. Up the outside steps to the second-floor balcony, then along the open corridor and up into the tower."
Her eyes glowed. "You can pull the tower door open, they don't lock it. Up the tower stairs to that open place near the top and there you are, a little jump up onto the stone rail, you can see all the town below, see the hills in one direction and the sea in the other. You can…"
"Could we hurry this a bit?" Her description of those seductive open spaces wasn't helping; he hungered for space and air. "It's about time for the patrol."
The Molena Point police not only conducted tight street patrols, but they carried passkeys to most of the shops. Joe had seen, as he prowled the night-dark rooftops, uniformed officers entering restaurants and galleries, perhaps because they heard some noise or saw an unfamiliar light. The department provided a high degree of security for the small village; you wouldn't find this kind of attention in San Francisco.
When they found no more of Janet's work, when they had flipped off the light and fought the door open, Joe sat in the middle of the open gallery calming himself, getting himself together again; but only slowly did his heartbeat gear down. Beside him, Dulcie sat dejected. "I was so sure the paintings would be here."
He washed diligently, soothing his tight muscles and shaky nerves, he'd never felt so edgy. The phrase nervous as a cat had taken on sudden new meaning. "Maybe they're in a warehouse, maybe one of those around the docks."
"Possible. There are plenty of warehouses down there. Remember the fuss in the paper about turning them into restaurants and tourist shops? That's what defeated the last mayor. No one wants Molena Point to be so commercial." She rubbed her face against his shoulder. "Yes, we can go down to the wharves, take a look Sicily…"
She stopped speaking, her eyes widening. "Or a storage locker." She stared at him, her eyes black as polished obsidian. "There are storage lockers north of the village. Charlie keeps her tools and ladders there, all her repair and cleaning stuff. Wouldn't the paintings be safer in a locker than in a warehouse? And at two in the morning, would Sicily go down into that warehouse area alone?"