"I do my best but I didn't think anyone ever noticed." "Even your signs in the laundry room are done with a certain flair." "Oh, my! That makes me feel real good. Is everything all right on Fourteen?" "Everything's fine. The skylight doesn't leak. The radiators are behaving. The sunsets are spectacular. Too bad this building is going to be tom down. Do you know when?" She shrugged. "Nobody tells me a thing! I just take one day at a time and trust in the Lord." "One question: Do you happen to know where Mr. Yazbro parks his car?" "Wait a bit. I'll look it up in the rent book." She leafed through a loose-leaf ledger. "I remember he changed his parking space a while back.
He always liked to park against the building, but..." "But what?" Qwilleran asked when she failed to finish the sentence.
"Something fell on his car, and he asked to be changed." "Do things often drop on cars parked near the building?" he asked slyly.
Mrs. Tuttle glanced up sharply from the ledger. "We used to have trouble with pigeons. Don't you go feeding them, now! Here it is - Mr. Yazbro. He was in #18. Now he has #27." She slapped the book shut.
Twenty-seven, she said. "Thank you, Mrs. Tuttle. Keep up the good work!" Qwilleran made a beeline for the parking lot. He had been parked in #27 when someone tampered with his tires.
Now there was a minivan parked there. The slot had been vacant during the afternoon. Yazbro had just come home from work - that is, if the minivan belonged to Yazbro. It was impossible to be certain considering the disorganized parking system. He recorded the license number on a scrap of paper and returned to the front desk, waving it at Mrs. Tuttle.
"Sorry to bother you again," he said, "but is this Mr. Yazbro's license number?" She consulted the ledger again, and the two numbers tallied. "Is anything wrong?" she asked.
"There certainly is! Yazbro is the snake who let the air out of my tires yesterday, and I'd like to discuss it with him.
What's his apartment number?" "He's in 4-K. I hope there won't be any trouble, Mr. Qwilleran. Do you want Rupert to go up with you?" "No, thank you. It won't be necessary."
11
RIDING OLD RED up to Yazbro's apartment on Four, Qwilleran had plenty of time to plan his confrontation with the man who had deflated his tires. He had dealt with villains before, and he knew how to bring them to their knees without incurring hostility. He was a good actor and could always carry it off. The trick was to open with. friendly small talk, throw in a little prevarication, and then catch them off-base with an accusation and a warning that was sinister but not too threatening. He knocked on the door of 4-K with authority but not belligerence; that was another important detail. Then he waited. He knocked again.
A voice from within shouted, "Who zat?" "Your neighbor, Mr. Yazbro," he replied in an ingratiating voice.
Qwilleran, standing six feet two and weighing a solid two twenty, did not consider himself a small man, but the giant with bulging muscles and aggressive jaw who answered his knock-totally filling the doorway, grasping a beer bottle by the neck, and stripped to the waist - made him feel like a pygmy.
"Mr. Yazbro?" he asked with poise that was admirable.
"Yeah." "Do you drive a minivan and park in #27?" "Yeah." No one had ever called Qwilleran a coward, but he knew the better part of valor, and he was a master at inventing the quick lie. "I believe you left your parking lights on," he said agreeably. "Just thought you'd like to know." Then, without waiting to hear Yazbro's grunts of rage, he walked casually to the elevator and pressed the UP button for Old Green. The giant soon followed, rattling his car keys and muttering to him- self, and pressed the DOWN button for Old Red.
"We've had a lot of rain lately," Qwilleran said pleasantly.
"Yeah," said Yazbro, as Old Green opened its door and transported Qwilleran, inch by groaning inch, to Fourteen.
The Siamese met him at the door. "Time for dinner?" he asked them.
A reply of sorts rattled in Koko's throat; "Rrrrrrrrrrrr." "Does that mean you want roast raccoon rare... or ragout of rabbit?" "Rrrrrrrrrr," Koko gargled, and Qwilleran opened a can of red salmon, reflecting that he might have to take the cat to the veterinarian for a laryngoscopy.
While they devoured the salmon with rapt concentration, he analyzed Koko's current behavior. Besides making ugly noises in his throat, he prowled restlessly and followed Qwilleran everywhere, patently bored. It was understandable.
Yum Yum was sleeping a lot and providing little companionship; there were no pigeons for entertainment; and Qwilleran himself had been absent a great deal or preoccupied with matters like Scrabble or the Grinchman & Hills report.
"Okay, you guys," he said. "Let's have some fun." He produced the new leather harnesses, jiggling them tantalizingly.
Koko had been harnessed before and was eager to buckle up, but Yum Yum resisted the collaring and girdling.
Although usually susceptible to blandishments, she disregarded remarks that the blue leather matched her eyes and enhanced her fawn-colored fur. She squirmed; she kicked; she snapped her jaws. When Qwilleran tugged the leash, she refused to walk or even to stand on her four feet. He tugged harder and she played dead. When he picked her up and set her on her feet, she toppled over as if there were not a bone or muscle in her body and lay there, inert, not moving a whisker.
"You're an uncooperative, unappreciative, impossible wench!" he said. "I'll remember this the next time you want to take possession of my lap." Meanwhile Koko was prancing about the room, dragging his leash. He was a veteran at this. Some of his greatest adventures had happened at the end of a twelve-foot nylon cord. Now he made it clear that he wanted to explore the terrace.
"It'll be cold," Qwilleran warned him.
"Yow," Koko replied.
"And there are no pigeons." "Yow!" "And it's getting dark." "YOW!" Koko said vehemently, tugging toward the exit.
On the terrace he led the way impatiently, pulling Qwilleran toward the front of the building and then all the way back to the rear. At one point the cat stopped abruptly and turned toward the parapet. Qwilleran tightened his hold on the leash as Koko prepared to jump on the stone baluster. Teetering on the railing with his four feet bunched together, he peered over the edge. Holding the leash taut, Qwilleran also looked over the railing. Directly below was parking slot #18, the number painted on the tarmac in faded yellow paint.
"Incredible!" said Qwilleran.
"Rrrrrrrrrm," said Koko.
"Let's go inside. It's chilly." Koko refused to move, and when Owilleran grabbed him about the middle, his body was tense and his tail curled stiffly.
Why, Qwilleran wondered as he carried the cat back indoors, did Ross walk, run, or stagger a hundred feet down the terrace in order to jump on Yazbro's car? Even more mystifying was the next question: How did Koko know the exact spot where it happened?
Back in the apartment he found Yum Yum asleep on the waterbed - harness, leash and all. Gently Qwilleran rolled her over, unbuckling the strap and drawing the collar over her head. Without opening her eyes she purred. And why not? She had won the argument. She had had the last word.
"Just like a female!" Qwilleran muttered.
It was time to dress for dinner with the Countess, and he brought his dark blue suit and white shirt from the closet, marveling that he had worn suits twice in two days. In Moose County he had worn them twice in three years, once for a wedding and once for a funeral. To his funeral suit he now added a red tie to elevate its mood. A striped shirt would have had more snap, but sartorial niceties were not in Qwilleran's field of interest.