"If Sicily has them."
"If they're in a locker, there should be some kind of receipt. Charlie got a receipt for her locker. I saw it on her dresser, stuck into her checkbook."
"You just happened to be passing."
"Actually, I was looking at her art books. She doesn't care if I prowl."
Trotting across the gallery, she leaped to Sicily's desk, began to nose through the papers in an in-box, then through a little basket containing a tangle of small, handwritten notes and postcards.
She clawed open the file drawer. And as she searched, Joe prowled the perimeters of the gallery, nosing along the bay windows, hoping one would open.
When he turned, all he could see of Dulcie were her hindquarters and tail as she peered down inside the files. "Look for a duplicate key, a spare for the front door."
She raised her head, watching him. His kittenhood must have been terrible. He couldn't bear to be trapped though he would seldom talk about it.
Sicily's files were filled with brochures and announcements of one-man exhibits, with newspaper clippings and reviews. Some contained, as well, glossy, full-color offprints of magazine articles featuring the artist's work. In the front of each file was clipped an inventory listing by title, the medium and size of each painting received by the gallery, the date received, the dates of exhibits entered, and whether the work was accepted or rejected. There were notations of awards won, and of reviews.
The listing also contained the date a painting was sold, the price, and the name and address of the buyer. All the inventories were handwritten in small, neat script. There were three J folders.
Janet's folder contained a list of her work taken by the gallery, but the dates were all months old. Two-thirds of the works had been sold. Dulcie could find no indication that a large number of paintings had suddenly been added to Sicily's inventory-unless the dates had been altered. And when she clawed open the smaller desk drawers she found only office supplies-a stapler, pens, blank labels, stationery, and envelopes- and in one drawer, beside boxes of paper clips, a tangle of bracelets and a lipstick.
She was patting some restaurant receipts back into order when suddenly the burglar alarm screamed.
She shot off the desk straight into Joe, the siren vibrating in waves, exploding, shaking them.
Joe pushed her toward the back, into darkness away from the windows. Her fur felt straight out, her heart pounding.
"They'll send a patrol car," he said. "I was looking for an escape route and I broke the beam." They stiffened as police sirens screamed up the street and Dulcie spun around toward the storeroom.
"No," Joe hissed, "not there. There's not even a window. Come on-under the desk."
"But…"
Lights blazed in the street as a squad car slid to the curb. Its doors flew open. Two officers emerged, shining their lights in through the glass, and the cats shrank back beneath the desk. "Keep your face down," Dulcie whispered. "Your white markings are like neon. Hide your paws."
Joe ducked his head over his paws, turning himself into a solid gray ball. From the alley behind the gallery, a second siren screamed.
"If they see us," Dulcie said, "try to look cute."
"You think this is a joke."
"Relax. What can they do? If they shine their lights under here, roll over and smile. You're a gallery cat. Try to look the part."
"Dulcie, those cops'll know Sicily doesn't have gallery cats. When they open the door, run for it."
"How would they know she doesn't have cats? And what if they do? So they think we got shut in here accidentally. What else would they think? What are they going to do, arrest us?"
"You left the desk drawer open."
"Oh…" She tensed to leap up.
He grabbed her, his teeth in the nape of her neck. "They'll see us."
She shrugged, her dark eyes wide and amused. "What are you afraid of?" she said softly.
He was ready to fight, to claw any hand that reached for them, but he was scared, too. "They'll think we're strays and call the pound." The pound had cages, locked cages. Having grown up in city alleys, he was far more aware of the terrors of the pound than was Dulcie. Far more wary of the powers of the police. Who could outfight a trained police officer? A cop knew all the tricks, knew to grab you by the tail and the back of the neck, putting you at an extreme disadvantage.
Those two cops were going to get some heavy claws if they tried that trick.
"They won't hurt us," she said gently. "We're not criminals, we're just little village cats."
"Village cats don't get locked in the stores; they have better sense." He gave her a long look. "Get real, Dulcie. In here, we classify as a nuisance, and a nuisance goes to the pound. You think, at the pound, they allow you to call your attorney?"
He didn't know what was wrong with him tonight; he was acting like a total wimp. Maybe he was sickening with something. He dug his claws into the carpet, watching the two officers let themselves in the front door, shivering as their spotlights swept the angled walls-and trying to talk sense to himself.
So they see us. Dulcie's right, no big deal. We're not strays, we're respected village cats. People know us. Certainly most of the cops know us.
And if some of the cops knew them too well, so what? Though he had to admit, Captain Harper had enough questions about them already without provoking him further.
Harper was, in fact, too damn suspicious. And when Harper asked questions of Clyde, Clyde got upset. And Clyde lit into him.
No, if we're going to snoop into police business, play PI and maybe step on a few police toes, then secrecy is our best weapon-our only weapon.
The cops' lights glanced and paused, illuminating paintings, then running on across the zigzag walls, illuminating a sculpture stand holding a bronze head, flashing across a huge seascape, then onto the desk, blazing inches from their noses.
19
Spotlights hit the desk, focusing on the open drawer above Joe and Dulcie, and an officer approached. Black trouser legs and black shoes filled their vision. He smelled of shoe polish and gun oil, stood above them as if looking into the drawer and studying its contents. The cats barely breathed. But Dulcie's dark eyes were slitted with amusement. She had that devilish look, as if any second she'd trot out from under the desk and wind around the officer's ankles. Joe glared until she quit grinning and settled back into the blackness of the desk's cubbyhole.
But at last the officer turned away, directing his beam on across the gallery, the officers' two lights washing away each shadow, illuminating each niche. And talk about a small world. Lieutenant Brennan and Officer Wendell had been present up at the car agency when Captain Harper found the counterfeit money. The cats, wandering among the officers' feet, had watched the result of their clandestine efforts with great satisfaction. Brennan was the hefty one. It was hard to tell whether his snug uniform concealed fat or muscle. Wendell was skinny, pale, his narrow face too serious. Joe could not remember ever seeing Wendell smile.
As the officers moved toward the back of the gallery, throwing the desk into darkness, Dulcie shifted her position, easing her tension. At the back, the flashlight beams picked out, one by one, the storeroom door, the three closed doors, the loading door.
But suddenly Brennan's beam swung around, returned to Janet's desk, and dropped beneath it. Hit them square in the face. They were pinned in the glare like moths against a window.
Brennan's gun was drawn. When he saw them he lowered it, laughing. "Cats! Only a couple of cats."
"Cats, for Christ sake," Wendell said. "Could cats trip the alarm?"
"It's at floor level. Anything moving could trip it." Brennan approached the desk, but still scanning the room, keeping his back to the wall. He knelt, reached under. "Come on out, you two. Come on out of there." He reached for Joe, gentle but authoritative.