“In what way is it nice, Roland?” asked Dick.
“In the way that a strong young man likes having a lovely woman around,” said Liz. Another lift of her balloon glass.
“I’ve forgotten,” said her husband.
“Fifty-one years of marriage and Dick lost interest halfway through,” said Liz. “Garaged the car with plenty of miles still left on her.”
“Do we have any noise-canceling headphones around here?” I said.
“I’ve got a pair in the house,” said Dick. “Believe me, they’re well used!”
Liz sighed and leaned back on the chaise. “Rollie, just FYI? The electrical in my place is acting up again. My brand-new microwave sparked and fizzled out last night. Had to drink my hot toddy cold.”
“Why not use the stove?” asked her husband. “You remember how to boil water, don’t you?”
“This Chilean wine I found must be really good. Halfway through and even you seem funny, hon.”
“What’s the latest on the cat?” asked Dick.
Owner Tammy Bellamy had left me four emails when I was closing nightclubs in Bakersfield. There had been two false sightings yesterday, Tuesday, and two more today. People were reporting average-weight gray striped cats — not twenty-two-pound Oxley. One was not even gray, and only one of them had Oxley’s green eyes. Tammy said that the brief rain shower on Monday night had ruined most of the posters. Would I take a few minutes to replace the soaked posters with fresh ones from my stack?
“Tammy needs some help putting up new posters,” I said. “You guys up for that tomorrow?”
“There are hundreds of them,” said Dick.
“The rain ruined them,” I said.
“She should never have let that cat get over ten pounds,” said Liz.
“Tammy needs our help.”
“You’re making the big money off of this cat, not us,” said Dick.
“I’ve got some of Tammy’s apricot-brandy jam and you’re welcome to it.”
Dick shrugged. “Okay. Liz and I will put up more posters. But it’s been what, ten days? Every time I hear those coyotes yapping I think Oxley just got lunched. What a racket those things make. And almost every night. Maybe Dale can shed some scientific light on why those animals are running around unchecked. Maybe find a way to cut their numbers down. Dale’s won awards, you know.”
“Coyotes have to make a living, too,” Liz pointed out.
Dale being Dale Clevenger, award-winning video-journalist now residing in casita number two. Who, judging by the lights already on in the barn, was hard at work on his next program.
After the last strip of orange had blipped out over the black hills, I got a handful of LOST CAT flyers from my office and brought them down for Dick and Liz. They were disputing the truth of the “flash of green” in Key West sunsets: Liz pro and Dick con, on and on as always — poster models for how not to grow old. Or maybe they had it right: the secret to longevity was dispute.
Liz took the flyers and squared them on her lap. “We’ll find this kitty.”
Clevenger and Burt were in the barn. Radio news playing low, every light on. Clevenger had taken over one end of the space, arranging two long utility tables in a wide V shape for a workstation. One table for his three custom-made computers, three monitors, a bank of wireless speakers, and an audio mixing board. The other table for his drones and their corresponding tools. He had four, five, or six drones — the number kept changing. Tonight it was five, three of them whole and two taken apart for maintenance or repair.
Clevenger stood inside the V like an impresario, looking up from one of the monitors when I walked in. He’s husky, curly-haired, and thick-armed. Hangdog eyes, big and expressive. Glasses always out of kilter, an air of benign intensity. He reached down to the audio mixer and the barn filled with the sound of yipping coyotes. It’s a high-pitched sound, wild and inscrutable. Starts and stops abruptly. Eerie. Sounded like there were ten of them right there in the barn with us.
“How many of them are there, Roland?” he asked in his soft Georgia accent.
I’d been told that one coyote can make much more noise than you think. This sounded like a platoon. “Four.”
“You’re close. What’s the most you’ve ever seen together, here in Fallbrook?”
“Four,” I said. “Parents and two young ones, by the look of them.”
“Check these guys out. Got them out near Winterwarm Street last night, that big field where the longhorns are pastured.”
I came to the monitor to see six coyotes moving across a moonlit meadow, shot from above by drone. The light was weak and the animals looked ghostly. They had the familiar, light-footed coyote trot, and their heads were up. As if on cue they stopped, listened, then started yipping and howling again. Paced nervously. Something out there. Snouts raised, they howled at the drone. The camera panned to a half-dozen Texas longhorns — staunch and imposing creatures kept for nostalgia by a Texas-raised Fallbrook resident — watching the coyotes with little apparent interest.
Then back to the coyotes, silent and spreading into a loose half-circle to work their way across the pasture. Noses down. Noses up. One by one, disappearing into the thick scrub of an arroyo. Consumed, they struck up their inquisitive yipping again, their voices braiding together. I could barely see the forward shiver of brush as their bodies pushed through.
Suddenly the yips turned urgent, a crazed blast of determination rising in pitch. Then came to a perfect stop. Hushed snarls as the bushes quivered in the darkness. A rabbit shrieked and a puff of dust rose in the moonlight. Then the snarls of the five hungry coyotes snapping at one another while the lucky one tore into his prey. Beneath the soundtrack, the radio news ran on, Redskins in L.A. against the Chargers on Sunday. Clevenger stopped the show.
“How was Bakersfield?” asked Burt.
“Slow.”
Clevenger gave me a look: curiosity and concern behind his crooked glasses. “Why don’t you come out with us tonight, Roland? I could use another hand. We’re going back to the longhorn pasture, but this time I’ve got floodlights set up. Enough to light up a soccer practice. Sometimes when you light these critters, they give you dirty looks and hightail it. Sometimes they just keep on doing whatever they’re doing. I’ve got the cameras and mikes, infrared binoculars, and two drones ready. We’ll call the animals in with the varmint recording.”
Clevenger touched a keyboard and the sounds of the coyotes killing the rabbit filled the barn again. I was sick to my soul with death. The brush parted and the coyotes looked straight up at the drone overhead.
“No Oxley?” I asked.
Clevenger shook his head. “Didn’t see him. But I’m ready if I do. Got my Kevlar animal gloves and the crate out there in the van.”
“I’ll pass tonight,” I said.
“It’s cold and boring, mostly,” said Clevenger. “But you’re welcome to come along anytime.”
Burt walked me across the barnyard, toward the house. He’s small and takes short, fast steps and I’m tall and take long, slow ones. If you added us together and divided by two you’d get an average man. A year and a half ago, we were little more than landlord and tenant, agreeable strangers. Then he’d offered to help me out of a very tight situation. Two capable men had wanted to do me harm. There’s a story behind it, like there’s a story behind everything, but the punchline is that Burt and I prevailed at great cost to my tormentors. The cost to ourselves, we have not discussed. But in that muzzle-flashed moment, we become something new to each other. I trust him with my life, and I owe it to him.
“Someone’s threatened Lindsey,” I said. “That’s why she’s here.”
He looked up at me, matter-of-fact. “She’s jumpy.”