"Now I know. They told me at the pet hospital. But I wasn't taking any chances. Too bad he had to select my new shoes as a receptacle. Both shoes!"
"You should brush the cats. The kids brush ours every day, and we never have any trouble."
"Why don't people tell me these things? I just paid fifteen dollars for an office call." Qwilleran lighted a pipeful of tobacco and signaled the waitress for coffee.
"Well, what's the big news you mentioned on the phone?" Riker asked.
Qwilleran puffed his pipe intently and took his time about answering. "History repeats itself. Joy has disappeared — again."
"You're kidding!"
"I'm not kidding."
"So she's up to her old tricks."
"I don't know what to believe," Qwilleran said. He told Riker about Joy's visit to his apartment and her plans for a divorce, but not about the $750 check.
Riker said: "Rosie was going to call her up and invite her over for some girl talk. She thought it might help."
"Too late now."
"What does her husband say about it?"
"He says she's done it before. He says she always comes back. But he doesn't know what I know."
"What does he look like, anyway? Rosie told me to find out. You know how women are."
"He looks and talks like a hayseed. Not Joy's type at all. Tall and gangling. Washed-out red hair and freckles. Talks like a hayseed, too. He thinks he's got such a colorful vocabulary, but his cliches are pathetic, and his slang is out of date by about thirty years. If you ask me, he's a guy who wants desperately to be somebody and never will."
"The man who loses the girl never thinks highly of the winner, I might point out," said Riker, looking smug and enjoying his own trenchant observation.
"Joy said it herself. She said he's no crashing success as a potter."
"Why would a classy girl like Joy pick someone like that?"
"Who knows? She always liked tall men. Maybe he's a great lover. Maybe his freckles appealed to her maternal instinct."
Riker ordered another martini, and Qwilleran went on: "Now that you've had a drink, I'll tell you the rest of the story. I lent Joy some money just before she vanished."
The editor choked on an olive. "Oh, no! How much?"
"Seven-fifty."
"Seven hundred and fifty? Your prize money?"
Qwilleran nodded sheepishly.
"What a pushover! Cash?"
"I wrote a check."
"Stop payment, Qwill."
"She may need it — badly — wherever she is. On the other hand," he said reluctantly, "she may have run off with another guy. Or . . . something may have happened to her."
"Like what? Where did you get that idea?" Riker was familiar with Qwilleran's hunches; they were always totally correct — or totally unfounded.
"Last night I heard a scream — a woman's scream — and shortly afterward a car pulled out of the garage." He tamped his mustache nervously.
Riker recognized the gesture. It meant that his friend was on the scent of another misdeed, great or small, real or imagined. Qwilleran's early years on the police beat had given him a sixth sense about crime. What Riker did not know — and would not have believed — was the unique sensitivity in that oversized mustache. Qwilleran's hunches were usually accompanied by a prickling sensation on the upper lip, and when this happened he was never wrong.
Riker said, "Got any theories?"
Qwilleran shook his head. He said nothing about the numbers that Koko had typed, although the recollection made his hair stand on end. "I told Dan about hearing the scream, and he had an explanation. He said Joy got her long hair caught in the wheel."
"What wheel?"
"The potter's wheel. They use it to throw pots. Dan says she screamed and he came to the rescue. I don't know whether to believe it or not."
"I think you're worrying without any cause. She's probably on her way to Chicago to see her aunt, if the old lady's still living."
Qwilleran persisted. "At dinner last night Joy was snapping at everyone. There was something in the air."
"Who else lives in that weird establishment?"
"There's Robert Maus, the lawyer, who owns the place. He can't make a statement on any subject, including the weather, without first considering the pros, cons, legal implications, and tax advantages. Very dignified gent. But here's a curious development: This morning he was nursing a black eye. . . Then there's Max Sorrel, who owns the Golden Lamb Chop. He comes on strong as a ladies' man, and it was his car that drove out of the garage shortly after I heard the scream."
"But you aren't positive he was in it," Riker said. "Joy may have been driving."
"If she was, she gave the car a pat on the rump and sent it home again: it was back in the garage this morning. Dan said she probably went on the River Road bus. If so, she picked a fine time; it was pouring rain."
"Who else lives there?"
"Three women. And a houseboy who's nosy but likable. And a housekeeper." Qwilleran leaned his elbows on the table and massaged his mustache. He remembered Joy's remark about a "discreet" extortion scheme and decided not to mention it.
Riker said, "You're letting your imagination run away with you, Qwill. Nothing's happened to Joy. You wait and see."
"I wish I could believe it."
"Well, anyway, I've got to eat and get back to the office. A syndicate salesman's coming in with some comic strips at two o'clock." He hailed a waitress. "Bowl of bean soup, meatballs and noodles, salad with Roquefort, and let's have some more butter at this table."
"And what'll you have, Skinny?" she asked Qwilleran. "You want cottage cheese again?"
"I'm starving. Quips are not appreciated."
"You want a cheeseburger with french fries? Macaroni and cheese? Ham and sweets?"
"No, I'll have a poached egg," he decided with firm resolve, "and all the celery they've got in the kitchen. I can burn up more calories chewing celery than I get from eating the damn stuff."
"Where are you eating tonight?" Riker asked.
"I've invited Maus to go with me to the Toledo Tombs, and it's going to be a heroic test of willpower on my part. I hear the food's the best in town."
"That's the place where you get a fresh napkin every five minutes. Rosie and I went there for our anniversary, and the waiters made me nervous. After they brought the seventeenth clean ashtray, I started flicking my ashes on the floor under the table."
That afternoon Qwilleran went to the public library to get a book on French food. He also picked up a book on the art of ceramics, without knowing exactly why. At the liquor store he bought a bottle of sherry and some bourbon in preparation for possible visitors to his apartment. He bought a brush at the pet shop. Finally he stopped at a supermarket to buy food for the cats. Goaded by his own unsatisfied appetite and his financial setback, he was hardly in a generous mood.
They're spoiled brats, he told himself. Lobster — red salmon — boned chicken! Other cats eat cat food, and it's about time they faced reality.
He bought a can of Kitty Delight (on sale), some Pussy Pate (two for the price of one), and a jumbo-size box of Fishy Fritters (with a free offer on the back).
When he arrived home, Koko and Yum Yum were sitting in compact bundles on the windowsill, and their behavior indicated that they sensed the nature of the situation. Instead of chirping and crowing a welcome, they sat motionless and gazed through Qwilleran as if he were invisible.
"Soup's on!" he announced, after smearing a dime's worth of Pussy Pate on a plate and placing it on the floor.
Neither of the cats moved a whisker.
"Try it! The label says it's delicious."
They seemed totally deaf. There was not even the flicker of an ear. Qwilleran picked Koko up bodily and plumped him down in front of the pate, and Koko stood there with legs splayed, frozen in the position in which he had landed, glaring at the evil-looking purple smear on the plate. Then he shuddered exquisitely and walked away.