"If you've never stroked a Siamese," Qwilleran said, "you don't know what fur is all about." Cautiously Roger extended a hand and patted the silky fawn-colored back. "Good boy!" he said. "Good boy!" The cat looked at Qwilleran, slowly closing one eye, and Qwilleran thought, Score another one for Koko.
The two men finished their drinks and then drove from the palatial splendor of the K mansion to the stolid ugliness of the Hotel Booze. It was a stone building three stories high, with the plain shoebox architecture typical of hotels in pioneer towns. A sign, almost as big as the hotel itself, advertised booze, rooms, and food.
"In this hotel," Roger said, "a miner could get a man-sized dinner and a bed on the floor for a quarter, using his boots for a pillow, or a sack of oats if he was lucky." The dim lighting in the dining room camouflaged the dreary walls and ancient linoleum floor and worn plastic tables.
Nevertheless, the room hummed with the talk of customers wearing feed caps and wolfing down burgers and beer.
Qwilleran tried three chairs before finding one with all its legs and rungs. "I'll have the Cholesterol Special," he told the waitress, a homey-looking woman in a faded housedress.
"Make it two, Thelma," said Roger.
The sandwich proved to be so enormous that she served it with her thumb on top of the bun to hold it all together.
"We call her Thumbprint Thelma," Roger whispered. Qwilleran had to admit that the burger was superior and the fries tasted like actual potatoes. "Okay, Roger, how about a history lesson to take my mind off the calories? Tell me about the abandoned mines around here." "There were ten of them in the old days — all major operations. Shafts went a thousand feet deep, and the miners had to climb down on a ladder! After a long day underground, with water dripping all around, it took half an hour to climb back up to the surface." "Like climbing a hundred-story building! They must have been desperate for work." "Most of them came from Europe — left their families behind — and hoped to send money home. But — what with payday binges at the saloon and buying on credit at the company store — they were always in hock." Thelma brought coffee, and Roger — without much difficulty — persuaded Qwilleran to try the wild thimbleberry pie.
"Picked the berries myself this morning," the waitress said.
The men savored each forkful in the reverent silence that the pie merited and ordered second cups of coffee.
Qwilleran said, "I suppose the old saloons had gambling in the back room and girls upstairs." "Right! And a bizarre sense of fun. When a customer drank too much and passed out, his pals carried him outside and nailed his boots to the wooden sidewalk. And there was always an old soak hanging around the saloon who would do anything for a drink. One of these characters used to eat poison ivy. Another would bite the head off a live chipmunk." "This isn't the best dinner-table conversation I've ever heard, Roger." "I'm telling it like it was! The K Saloon was notorious." "Is that what you teach in your history classes?" "Well, it grabs their attention. The kids eat it up!" Qwilleran was silent for a moment before he asked, "Did you ever have a student by the name of Daisy Mull?" "No, she dropped out before I started teaching, but my mother-in-law had her in art class. She said Daisy was the only Mull who would ever amount to anything — if she applied herself. She was kind of goofy." Qwilleran told him about the graffiti — then about his plans for a studio over the garage — and then about his search for a housekeeper.
"How do you figure you'll adjust to a live-in housekeeper?" Roger asked him. "I suppose it's like having a wife, without the fringe benefits." "Speak for yourself, Roger." "Are you getting along okay with GandG?" "So far, so good. Penelope is the one handling the estate. I haven't figured her out yet." "She's the bright one in the family. What do you think of her brother?" "Alexander hasn't been around much. He's gone to Washington again." Roger lowered his voice. "There's a rumor he's got a woman down there. If he's serious, it's big news. Alex has always been a confirmed bachelor." "Is Penelope involved with anyone?" "Why? Are you interested?" "No thanks. I've got all I can handle at the moment." "She never bothers with guys," Roger said. "Strictly careerist. Too bad. She's really got it together." Qwilleran picked up the check and paid the cashier on the way out. She was a large woman in a patterned muumuu splashed with oversize black-eyed Susans. Qwilleran found himself whistling Daisy, Daisy.
Instantly the hubbub in the dining room dissolved into silence, and the cashier wagged a finger at Qwilleran. "That's a no-no." She pointed to a sign over the cash register: No credit. No checks. No spitting. No whistling.
"Sorry," Qwilleran said.
"It's bad luck," Roger explained. "It used to be considered unlucky to whistle in the mines, and the superstition stuck.
There's no whistling in Pickax — by city ordinance.
6
He had never been much of a whistler, but as soon as Qwilleran learned that whistling was forbidden in Pickax he felt a compulsion to whistle. As he prepared the cats' breakfast he whistled an air from The Mikado causing Koko to twist his ears inside out and run into the back entry hall. Yum Yum went slinking into the laundry room and crouched behind their commode.
The cats' commode was an oval roasting pan containing a layer of kitty gravel-an unorthodox but substantial piece of equipment that worked well. Their water dish was an lmari porcelain bowl that Qwilleran had found in the butler's pantry.
Their food he arranged on a porcelain dinner plate with a wide blue and gold border-appropriate because the border matched the ineffable blue of Yum Yum's eyes, and because the gold-embellished crest bore a K.
Qwilleran put a plate of canned red salmon on the floor in the laundry room and called the cats. Yum Yum reported immediately, but there was no response from Koko. "Drat him! He's gone up to the attic again," Qwilleran muttered. It was true. The door to the attic stairs stood ajar, and Koko was on the third floor, sharpening his claws on a roll of carpet.
Qwilleran made a lunge for him, but the cat eluded his grasp and bounded to the top of an Art Nouveau chifforobe, where he assumed a challenging posture. Then it was an insane chase around the dusty storeroom — Koko streaking over a General Grant bed, under a bowlegged Chinese table, around a barricade of steamer trunks, with Qwilleran breathing heavily in stubborn pursuit.
Koko finally allowed himself to be caught, while crouching defiantly on a cheap cardboard suitcase patterned to resemble tweed. Qwilleran's moustache sent him a signaclass="underline" another item of significance! He grabbed an unprotesting cat in one hand and the suitcase in the other and descended to the kitchen, where Yum Yum was washing up after finishing the whole can of salmon.
Attached to the broken handle of the luggage there was a tag written in the perfect penmanship he had seen before: Daisy Mull. The contents had the same musty odor he remembered from opening her carton of winter clothing. This time the collection included sandals, T-shirts, cutoffs, a faded sundress, underpants dotted with red hearts, and the briefest of swimsuits.
Qwilleran could explain why the girl had abandoned her cold-weather gear, but why had she left her summer wearabIes as well? Perhaps she had lined up a situation that would provide an entirely new wardrobe — either a job or a generous patron. Perhaps a tourist from some other part of the country had come up here and staked her to a getaway — for better or worse. Qwilleran wished the poor girl well.
There were other items in the suitcase: a paper bag containing tasteless junk jewelry as well as one fourteen-karat gold bracelet, heavy enough to make one wonder. Had she stolen it? And if so, why had she left it behind? Another paper bag was stuffed with messy cosmetics and a toothbrush; she had left in a hurry!
There was one more surprise in the suitcase. In a shopping bag with the Lanspeak's Department Store logo Qwilleran found a pathetic assortment of baby clothes.