“Where is he?”
“With the car. I call him when I need him.”
Blaine felt he might be on to something. “Do you have his number?”
“Somewhere.”
“Did he ask you about the crystals when he drove you home from the parlor?”
“Kitty doesn’t talk much,” said Lydia Brandywine. “Sometimes, but not much. Ah, here she comes now….”
McCracken had time only to register the fact that the padding of approaching paws was too loud and out of place. He swung, too late his eyes told him, and he froze in his tracks.
Kitty was a black panther.
The big cat opened its mouth and snarled from deep in its throat.
“You’re carrying a gun,” said Lydia Brandywine, no longer interested in the cat food and suddenly quite in command of her faculties. “I saw the bulge. Reach into your belt and pull it out slowly. Move too fast and she’ll lunge. Don’t challenge her.”
As if to reinforce the old woman’s words, the big cat snarled again and whipped its paw through the air, claws bared. A single lunge away, a lunge that could be covered in the shadow of an instant. Blaine slid the pistol he’d lifted from one of the 47th Street assassins out of his holster and let it drop to the floor.
“Very good, Mr. McCracken,” Lydia Brandywine said. “Now slide it over here.” When he had, she stooped to retrieve it, all the while keeping her eyes on him. “Now move backward very slowly and settle yourself in that chair. Remember, slowly, and keep your hands by your sides.”
Again Blaine did as he was told. He found the chair with the back of his legs and slowly settled into it. The big cat advanced a bit, staying a lunge away.
“I’m going to leave you briefly. Rise from that chair and she’ll tear you apart. Move your hands from the arms and she’ll tear you apart. She won’t move so long as you don’t.”
Lydia Brandywine kept her eyes on him as she glided past, the gun clutched in her hand, no longer seeming as old. She petted the panther’s head on the way out. There was no phone in this room and Blaine figured she was moving to another to summon reinforcements. More of the men behind the attack on 47th Street, no doubt, and they’d be on their way here in minutes.
The cat snarled again, stretching its lips wide to show its teeth and whipping its long tail from side to side. Blaine knew he could not possibly move before it was upon him. Panthers were in many respects the most dangerous jungle cats, the best fighters, and the most precise killers. He was certainly no match for Kitty, even though he might have been able to disarm the woman. Once she returned, though, there’d be two forces to contend with. So if he was going to move it had to be fast. But how?
He remembered he still had the tranquilizer pistol loaded with one more dart in his right pocket. If he could extract it and fire before the big cat was upon him…. No, even if he scored a perfect hit, the panther would have the second it needed to find his throat. Blaine had to buy himself that second, as well as shoot.
He knew Kitty would lunge at the first sign of motion. But if the motion was deceptive it might be fooled long enough for the tranquilizer to work. Blaine heard Lydia Brandywine’s voice speaking to someone over a phone. He knew the conversation wouldn’t last much longer.
Blaine braced his legs. He was depending on the big cat to be just as quick and deadly as legend had it, so when it attacked he could make the lunge work in his favor. He pushed his legs hard on the floor and tossed his body backward, giving the chair all his weight. As expected, it toppled over. The cat lunged but failed to adjust to his tumble backward. Its leap carried it short, buying him the second he needed.
The tranquilizer gun was in his hand, and he fired as the cat regained its footing and came for him. The slightest fumble would have meant death, but the dart shot out with a fssssssst and thudded into the animal’s extended shoulders. The cat didn’t falter and kept coming. The huge jaws opened wide and lowered over him, teeth bared and breath hot and dripping, and he closed his eyes in terror, latching on to the beast’s throat instinctively.
But the panther was already limp with the weight of unconsciousness. Blaine heard Lydia Brandywine’s heels clicking fast for the library and lurched back to his feet. She had his gun and he was out of darts. He had another weapon, though.
As she crossed through the double doors, McCracken hoisted the sleeping panther up by its neck and let its feet dangle above the floor. It took all his strength and he felt his shoulders popping from the strain. Lydia Brandywine lurched into the room and steadied the gun with both hands a dozen feet before him.
“The gun’s a Brin-10, Mrs. Brandywine,” Blaine said ever so calmly. “Packs quite a wallop. Difficult to keep steady. You might get lucky but then again you might not. Kitty’s only stunned now but miss your first shot and I’ll break her neck. Miss your second and I’ll break yours.”
“No!” the old woman screamed, more out of concern for the cat than herself.
“I’m an animal lover myself, Mrs. Brandywine. Never think of harming one unless I have to. She’s just sleeping now. Still breathing,” he said, making sure to display the contracting chest. “See? But that will change if you don’t drop the gun and slide it over here.”
Lydia Brandywine’s old hands shook uncontrollably for a few seconds before she let the gun drop.
McCracken held fast to the cat. “You called someone. Who?”
“The party that hires me from time to time.”
“To do what?”
“Search out rare, precious gems and then furnish detailed descriptions. The cat, you’re hurting her!”
“No I’m not. You did that with the crystals you saw at Earnst’s?”
“Yes.”
“And then they were stolen.”
“I had nothing to do with it. Please let the cat go!”
McCracken wasn’t ready to do that yet. “Who are these men?”
“I don’t know. I swear it! They sought me out, paid me enough money so I wouldn’t have to move from my house. I never meant any harm!”
“These men did plenty today. They’re coming, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Let the cat down.”
“How long?”
“A half hour. Twenty-five minutes maybe.”
“I’ll be going, then. I’ll have to tie you up but I won’t make the bonds too tight. I promise.”
He let the panther down easy and tied Lydia Brandywine into a chair with drapery cords stripped from the wall. He checked to make sure they weren’t too constricting and was halfway to the double doors when he headed back for the glass table.
“She’ll probably be in a bad mood when she wakes up,” he said, lifting the cat food dish up and placing it next to the snoring panther. “I hate to see a good meal go to waste.”
The car screeched onto Lydia Brandywine’s property exactly twenty-seven minutes later. McCracken watched it from a concealed position behind a tree with his Hertz rental stowed safely out of sight. After fifteen minutes the three men returned to their car, and Blaine climbed back into his and followed them all the way back into Manhattan. It was rush hour and he fought with his nerves as the car he was shadowing maneuvered ahead of him, out of sight on occasion. He couldn’t risk being spotted by the men. If they were pros, it wouldn’t take much. He had given Lydia Brandywine his real name and she would have passed it on to them. A check would be made, and the men would know they had problems.
He managed to keep their car in sight right until it swung off Park Avenue onto East 48th Street. They continued on past Lexington and slowed as they crossed over Third Avenue into the Turtle Bay neighborhood, parallel parking into a spot before the low 200s. Blaine pulled past them and double-parked. In his rearview mirror he watched the three men climb out of their car and ascend the steps to the right half of a slate-brown townhouse duplex squeezed between a pair of larger brick buildings. One of the men pulled the steel security grating open and another unlocked the townhouse’s door. Seconds later all three men had disappeared inside.