I flung off my jacket, stalked over there, and removed the file box, camera, and tape recorder, depositing them unceremoniously on the floor. Then I lay down and contemplated the ceiling. It was cracked and water-stained, and cobwebs trailed down from the rosette above the fluted light fixture.
I refocused on the wall beside the fireplace. That was even worse.
I'd only been working out of the office for a little over a year, and it had taken me six months to really notice the wallpaper. For years previous to that, Hank had lived in the room (because All Souls pays salaries that are lower than the going market rate, it makes a policy of providing cheap living quarters on an as-available basis to employees and partners who request it) and I'd had little occasion to visit it, much less examine the decor. The wallpaper would definitely not have been of either of our choosing: faded rose and gray and cream, with flowers and garlands and cherubs arranged in a repetitious ovate pattern. After moving in, I'd paid it as little attention as I assumed Hank had.
Then one day, in a fit of contemplation, I noticed that it looked uncannily like one of those charts of the female reproductive system usually displayed on the walls of examining rooms in gynecologists' offices. When I mentioned this to Hank, he confessed that he'd noticed it long ago, but had merely been amused. I was not amused, however; every time I looked closely at the walls from then on, I was reminded of stirrups and a cold speculum.
I closed my eyes, but the image of the wallpaper remained with me, intruding on my concentration. A car raced its engine in the street below, and downstairs in the parlor that doubles as a waiting room, someone turned up the TV. Shortly afterward there came a thump and a series of scrambling noises from Ted's room next door. Then a second thump and a loud curse.
I sighed, got up, and went out into the hall. When I knocked on his door, Ted's voice called out in harried tones, "Come in, but be quick about it."
I opened the door, and a furry yellow missile hit my shins. Reflexively I reached down and grabbed it, found myself holding a wiggly little cat.
"Shut the door!" Ted shouted.
I did as he told me. He was sitting on his red velvet Victorian sofa, as dejected-looking as I'd ever seen him, and against his chest he cradled an equally wiggly bundle of black and yellow and white fur.
"Good Lord," I said, getting a firmer grip on the creature in my hands. "What is this?"
"Harry's cats." The calico wriggled free from him and bounded to the floor, skidding slightly. Ted rolled his eyes in resignation as it made a beeline for the ladder to his sleeping loft.
"Harry's? These are kittens; they can't be over twelve weeks old."
"Exactly twelve weeks. They were an ill-advised gift from a well-meaning friend who thought they might cheer him up. His landlady's been keeping them since he went into the hospital, but now she's turned them over to me. I promised Harry I'd find a good home for them."
"Oh." The kitten I held had stopped wiggling and started to purr. It reached out a paw and patted my cheek. Quickly I set it down. "Are you going to keep them?"
"In here? Be serious."
He had a point. Ted's room is really a cubbyhole-the former bathroom for the room that is my office. It's a baroque retreat with red-flocked wallpaper and one of the ugliest lamps this side of Denver, but Ted takes great pride in it. And I have to admit that he's made the most of the least possible space: the sleeping loft, curtained off by red sheers, is suspended above the ornate brass-and-marble sink and toilet; the tub has been removed and replaced by the sofa and an antique armoire; a Japanese screen discreetly separates the two areas. To me, it looks like a tiny room in an 1890s whorehouse, but to Ted it is perfect-minimalist and opulent at the same time.
I sat down beside him on the sofa. Both cats were in the loft now; there was a tearing sound, and Ted winced. "My sheers-again."
"What about Hank?" I asked. "Maybe he'd take them."
"He'd forget to feed them."
"Anne-Marie?"
"She's allergic."
Briefly I considered the other partners and employees of the co-op, but dismissed them all for various reasons. "Do they have to stay together?"
"They're brother and sister, and they get on. It would be a shame to separate them." Now Ted was watching me hopefully. "Shar, maybe you could-"
"No," I said quickly. "I don't want another cat."
He was silent for a moment, then said, "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Sure."
"Are you kind of… closing off since George moved back to Palo Alto?"
"Why would you think that?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's none of my business, really. Forget I asked."
"Ted, the only reason I don't want another cat is that I'm not home very much. I can't care for a cat properly. Wat was different-he was old and very independent. These are kittens; they require a lot of attention."
Another tearing sound. "I know," Ted said morosely.
"Look, I'll ask around for you, see if I can't find somebody who wants them."
"I'd appreciate that."
I got up and went to the door, but before I opened it I asked, "What're their names?"
"Ralph and Alice."
"The Honeymooners.'"
He brightened some. "I'm glad you knew that. Half the people I tell don't get it. It makes me feel ancient. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who remembers things like old TV shows."
"I remember," I said, and left the room, shutting the door quickly against further feline onslaught.
Contemplation no longer seemed possible, so I went downstairs and looked into Rae's office-my former one, a converted closet under the stairs. The light was out and, although there were papers scattered all over the desk, her coat wasn't on the hook where it usually hung. Then I remembered the liquor-store surveillance job; most likely she was still on it.
As I turned to go back upstairs, Hank came through the front door, a sack from a tacqueria down on Mission Street in hand. Seeing it made me realize how inadequate a lunch was the chocolate bar that I'd eaten on the drive to Point Reyes. "Working late?" I asked him.
"Yes. You?"
I shook my head. "I'm going home pretty soon. Did you get a chance to draw up that document for Tom Grant to sign?"
"It'll be on your desk in the morning."
"Good. I want to talk with him again, and that'll give me an excuse." Hank looked eager to go on to his office, but I lingered in the hall, wishing he'd ask me about the Hilderly case so I could put off departing for my empty, lonely house.
He noticed my reluctance to leave, plus the way I was eyeing the tacqueria sack, and said, "You want some of this? There's enough for two."
"I don't think I could take Mexican food right now. And I shouldn't keep you from your work."
"Oh, come on to the kitchen with me. Sit a spell, have a glass of wine at least. You can brief me on Hilderly while I eat."
I followed him back there, mildly embarrassed that he'd realized how needy I felt tonight.
For once, however, he didn't feel called upon to dissect my emotional state. While I sipped chablis and outlined what I'd found out about Hilderlyet al., he ate two burritos, dripping salsa and grease all over the table, then balled up the wrappings and tossed them at the garbage bag under the sink. They missed and ended up next to it. Hank shrugged and went to get some coffee.
"No wonder Anne-Marie can't live with you," I said.
He grinned, plainly pleased by his own slovenliness. "Speaking of Anne-Marie, did you know the police dug the sniper's bullet out of one of her planter boxes on our porch?"
"No. When did that happen?"
"This morning. I read about it in Brand Ex a couple of hours ago." Brand Ex is the local nickname for the evening paper, the Examiner. "Looked like a three-fifty-seven Magnum, and they were rushing the ballistics work on it. Bet it'll match the others."
"You're pretty calm about all this. Are you still convinced the sniping was just a coincidence?"