Billy Elliot and I went downstairs, and as soon as he had peed on every bush that needed peeing on and had run around the oval track three times, I took him back upstairs. Tom was sitting in his wheelchair with an anxious face.
“Dixie, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but I know something is wrong. If you’re in any trouble that I can help you with, please don’t do a strong stoic act. I’m your friend, and friends help friends.”
My eyelids pricked with hot tears. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with the rank awfulness of parts of the world that I forget we’re all connected by a solid foundation of goodness and kindness.
I stooped to remove Billy Elliot’s leash before I answered him. I was afraid I’d bawl like a baby if I talked before I got myself under control. Billy Elliot caught the atmosphere and looked from Tom to me with a quizzical arch to his eyebrows.
I said, “I can’t talk to you about it yet, but as soon as it’s over, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Are you in danger?”
I hesitated. “Maybe.”
“Have you called Guidry?”
There it was, the reminder that my protector was gone. For a moment, I felt a stab of annoyance, a woman’s resentment that a man thought she needed another man to keep her safe. But the truth was that I was up against an amoral woman with transnational criminal contacts, not to mention a rogue security cadre who answered to no recognized authority. Both groups believed I possessed information vital to their existence, and neither of them would hesitate to use torture to get what they wanted.
I said, “I’m meeting in just a few minutes with an FBI agent.”
“This has something to do with that woman killed in Trillin’s house, doesn’t it?”
I nodded. “The woman was an FBI agent. That’s all I can tell you now.”
Tom had gone pale. “Somebody killed an FBI agent in Cupcake Trillin’s house? Good God.”
Tom’s smart. I could almost hear the gears in his brain processing the implications of an FBI agent being in Cupcake’s house while an internationally famous model was there, too, and what the agent’s murder might mean.
He said, “Will you let me know if there’s anything I can do?”
“I promise.”
I left with a fake cheery smile and assurances that I was being very careful and that everything was going to be fine, but I wasn’t sure that everything was going to be fine at all. I’d had a sample of the Serbian group’s ability to inflict great pain without leaving evidence, and it scared me. I don’t like pain. I don’t deal well with pain. If I were tortured, I’d probably confess everything in about three nanoseconds. If I did, they would move to Cupcake’s house and do God-knew-what to get that list.
Before I drove out of Tom’s parking lot, Michael called to tell me he was going to an Orioles/Mets spring training game at Sarasota’s Ed Smith Stadium, so he wouldn’t be home for dinner. I was sorry he wouldn’t make dinner but glad he wouldn’t be home to see all the emotions I was feeling. I didn’t want him to know anything about my fear of men coming with saps to hurt me, because he would go ape-shit if he knew it had happened before. When Michael feels the call to protect me, he tends to break bones.
I arrived at Cupcake’s house almost exactly three hours from the time I’d called and told him to have Steven there. A brown sedan was parked in Cupcake’s driveway, so Steven had apparently taken my message seriously. Before I got out of the Bronco, I got my gun from my shorts pocket and put it in the glove compartment. Friends don’t carry guns into friends’ houses.
When I rang the bell, Jancey opened the door. She looked annoyed, scared, and angry. I didn’t blame her. She had gone to bed one night the wife of a famous athlete who was admired by everybody who knew him and woken up the next morning the wife of a famous athlete whose reputation was teetering on the razor’s edge of disaster.
She said, “What’s going on, Dixie?”
“Do you have a ladder?”
“A ladder?”
“I need to climb up to look in the cats’ hiding places.”
She opened her mouth to ask a question, then closed it and hurried ahead of me to the kitchen where Cupcake and Steven sat drinking coffee.
“Cupcake, Dixie needs a ladder.”
Both men looked up at me as if Jancey had asked for a flying saucer, but Cupcake lumbered to his feet and went through the kitchen door to the garage. Steven stood up and looked a question at me. I waited until Cupcake came back carrying a stepladder so long the ends of it waved out of control. Jancey rushed to support the ends, not because Cupcake couldn’t handle the weight but because she didn’t want her walls scratched.
Without waiting for them, I turned and moved rapidly toward the media room.
Steven said, “What are you doing, Ms. Hemingway?”
“Elvis has stashed a paper in one of the condos on the climbing tree.”
“Excuse me?”
The outraged disdain in his voice was palpable. It said he was an important man with an important case to solve and I was wasting his time looking for a scrap of paper a cat had hidden.
I whirled so fast that Jancey jerked her end of the ladder and bumped it against the wall.
I said, “You know, I’ve had it with you guys! You waltz in here with your leather jacket and your beard thing, and you let me think you’re a homicide detective when you’re really an FBI agent but you’re just on loan as an FBI agent because you’re really with Interpol, and you investigated us and you questioned us and you warned us that we’re in danger, and in the meantime I’m the one who got worked over with a sap and I’m the one who was stalked by Briana, and you and your leather jacket didn’t do a damn thing to protect me. Now I’m here to solve your case for you and you have the unmitigated audacity to question what I’m doing! Talk about a weenie thinking it’s a salami! Please, please, please just shut the hell up and let me get the evidence you need so the rest of us can get on with our lives!”
His green eyes met mine, and a spark of humor took the place of outrage. “I beg your pardon. Please show me the evidence.”
I knew he meant it as an apology, but I didn’t forgive him. I was tired of the whole thing. I wanted to be done with Briana and her sordid enterprise.
In the media room, the humans clustered together and watched me scan the places the cats used for hiding or sleeping. The cat condos were at different levels on the climbing tree, all covered in soft fuzzy fabric, each a different size and color. They looked a bit like a cluster of colorful houses clinging to a Mediterranean hillside.
Without speaking, I motioned to Cupcake to bring the ladder forward. He obeyed as silently as I had flapped my hand. I had become the imperious director of a play, and all the stagehands moved at my command. I pointed to the spot where I wanted the ladder set, and Cupcake carefully spread its legs and made sure it was secure for me to climb.
Figuring I’d begin with the easiest ones, I had chosen a fat turquoise condo on a lower limb of the tree. I could get to it by climbing only four or five rungs of the ladder. When I looked inside, I saw a felt mouse and a single strand of heavy string. I climbed down and motioned Cupcake to move the ladder. The next short tube was ruby red. It must have been a favorite spot of Lucy’s, because it held a nice supply of white cat hair. Otherwise, it was completely empty. I pointed at another wide tube, Cupcake repositioned the ladder, and I climbed up again. This time I found paper, but it was a grocery store receipt, not the paper I wanted.
Jancey and Steven stood silently watching while Cupcake and I went through our routine. I motioned where I wanted the ladder, he moved it, I climbed up and peered inside a condo, then climbed down, and we repeated the whole process with another tube.