The Cat Who Saw Red (2 page)

“Koko is probably three or four. Very healthy. And he seems highly intelligent.”

At this comment Qwilleran had smoothed his mustache discreetly and refrained from mentioning Koko’s outstanding faculty. The truth was that the precocious Siamese seemed to possess uncanny skills of detection. Qwilleran had recently uncovered a crime that baffled the police, and only his close friends knew that Koko was largely responsible for solving the case.

Qwilleran chopped chicken livers for the cats, warmed them in a little broth, and arranged the delicacy on a plate the way they liked it, with juices puddling in the center and bite-size morsels of meat around the rim.

“Lucky beggars!” he said. They could eat all they wanted without gaining an ounce. Under their sleek fawn-colored fur they were lean and muscular. Although they moved with grace and feather-light tread, there was strength in their hind legs that carried them to the top of the refrigerator in a single effortless leap.

Qwilleran watched them for a while and then turned his attention to his new assignment, sitting down at the typewriter to make a list of restaurants. He always left a fresh sheet of paper in position around the platen, ready for action — a writer’s trick that made it easier to get started — and as he glanced at this paper, his fingers halted over the keys. He put on his new glasses and had a closer look. There was a single letter typed at the top of the page.

“By golly, I knew you’d learn to operate this machine sooner or later,” he said over his shoulder, and there was a gargled response from the kitchen, as Koko simultaneously swallowed a bit of liver and made an offhand comment.

It was a capital T. The keyboard was locked in upper case. Koko had apparently stepped on the shift lock with his left paw and on the letter key with his right.

Qwilleran added, “oledo Tombs” to Koko’s T and then listed the Golden Lamb Chop, the Medium Rare Room at the Stilton Hotel, and several roadhouses, ethnic restaurants, and underground bistros.

Then he dressed for dinner, shedding the tweed sports coat, the red plaid tie, the gray button-down shirt, and the dust-colored slacks that constituted his uniform at the Daily Fluxion. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror, and what he saw he did not like. His face was fleshed out; his upper arms were flabby; where he should have been concave, he was convex.

Hopefully but not confidently he stepped on the antique scale in the bathroom. It was a rusty contraption with weights and a balance arm, and the arm went up with a sharp clunk. He held his breath and moved the weight along the arm, hesitantly adding a quarter-pound, a half-pound, then one, two, three pounds before the scale was in balance. Three pounds! He had eaten nothing but grapefruit for breakfast and cottage cheese for lunch and he was three pounds heavier than he had been that morning.

Qwilleran was appalled — then discouraged — then angry. “Dammit!” he said aloud. “I’m not going to turn into a fat slob for the sake of a lousy assignment!”

“Yow!” said Koko by way of encouragement.

Qwilleran stepped off the scale to take another critical look in the mirror, and the sight sent a wave of determination surging through his flabby flesh. He expanded his chest, sucked in his waistline, and felt a new strength of character.

“I’ll write that damn column,” he announced to the cats, “and I’ll stay on that dumb diet if it kills me!”

“Yow-wow!” said Koko.

“Three pounds heavier! I can’t believe it!”

While weighing himself, Qwilleran had failed to notice Koko standing behind him with front paws planted solidly on the platform of the scale.

As Jim Qwilleran dressed for dinner Monday evening, he was feeling his age. He now needed reading glasses for the first time in his life; his mustache and good head of hair had now reached the pepper-and-salt stage; and his beefy waistline was another reminder of his forty-six years. But before the evening was over, he was a young man again.

He took a taxi to the River Road residence of Robert Maus — out beyond a sprawling shopping center, beyond Joe Pike’s Seafood Hut with its acres of parking, beyond a roller rink and lumberyard. Between a marina and a tennis club stood a monstrous pile of stone. Qwilleran had seen it before and guessed it to be the lodge hall of some eccentric cult. It stood back from the highway, aloof and mysterious behind its iron fence and two acres of neglected lawn, resembling an Egyptian temple that had been damaged in transit and ineptly repaired.

Pylons framed a massive door that might have been excavated on the Nile, but other architectural features were absurdly out of character: Georgian chimneys, large factory windows in the upper story, an attached garage on one side and a modern carport on the other, and numerous fire escapes, ledges, and eaves troughs in all the wrong places.

Qwilleran found a door knocker and let it fall with a resounding clang. Then he waited — with an air of resignation, his stomach growling its hunger — until the heavy door opened on creaking hinges.

For the next half-hour very little made sense. Qwilleran was greeted by a slender young man with impudent eyes and ridiculous sideburns, long and curly. Although he wrote the white duck coat of a servant, he was carrying a half-empty champagne glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and he was grinning like a cat in a tree. “Welcome to Maus Haus,” he said. “You must be the guy from the newspaper.”

Qwilleran stepped into the dim cavern that was the foyer.

“Mickey Maus is in the kitchen,” said the official greeter. “I’m William.” He lipped his cigarette in order to thrust his right hand forward.

Qwilleran shook hands with the amiable houseboy or butler or whatever he was. “Just William?”

“William Vitello.”

The newsman looked sharply at the young-old leprechaun face. “Vitello? I could swear you were Irish.”

“Irish mother, Italian father. My whole family is a goulash,” William explained with an ear-to-ear smile. “Come on in. Everybody’s in the Great Hall, getting crocked. I’ll introduce you around.”

He led the way into, a vast hall so dark that scores of lamps and candles on torcheres and in sconces succeeded in lighting it only dimly, but Qwilleran could distinguish a balcony supported by Egyptian columns and a grand staircase guarded by sphinxes. The floor and walls were inlaid with ceramic tiles in chocolate brown, and voices bounced off the slick surfaces, resounding with eerie distortions.

“Spooky place, if you don’t mind my saying so,” said Qwilleran.

“You don’t know the half of it,” William informed him. “It’s a real turkey.”

In the center of the hall, under the lofty ceiling, a long table was laid for dinner, but the guests were cocktailing under the balcony, where there was some degree of coziness.

“Champagne or sherry?” William asked. “The sherry’s a bomb, I ought to warn you.”

“You can skip the drink,” Qwilleran said, reaching in his pocket for tobacco and pipe and hoping that a smoke would curb his hunger pangs.

“It’s just a small party tonight. Most of the people live here. Want to meet some of the girls?” William jerked his head in the direction of two brunettes.

“Live here! What kind of establishment is Maus running?”

The houseboy hooted with delight. “Didn’t you know? This is a sort of weird boardinghouse. It used to be a real art center — studios on the balcony and a big pottery operation in the back — but that was before Mickey Maus took it over. I’m a charity case myself. I go to art school and get room and board in exchange for several kinds of menial and back breaking labor.”

“Of which grass-cutting is not one,” Qwilleran said with a nod toward the shaggy front lawn.

William launched another explosive laugh and slapped the newsman on the back. “Come and meet Hixie and Rosemary. But look out for Hixie; she’s a husband-hunter.”

The two women were standing near a sideboard that held platters of hors d’oeuvres. Rosemary Whiting was a nice-looking woman of indefinite age and quiet manner. Hixie Rice was younger, plumper, louder, and had longer eyelashes.

Hixie was intently busy with her champagne-sipping and canapé-nibbling, all the while chattering in a high-pitched monotone: “I’m rabid for chocolate! Chocolate butter creams, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, blackbottom pie, devil’s food cake — anything that’s made with chocolate and three cups of sugar and a pound of butter.” She stopped to pop a bacon-wrapped oyster into her mouth.

There was quite a lot of Hixie, Qwilleran noted. Her figure ballooned out wherever her tightly fitted orange dress would permit, and her hair puffed like a chocolate soufflé above her dimpled dumpling face.

“Caviar?” Rosemary murmured to Qwilleran, offering a platter.

He took a deep breath and resolutely declined. “It’s rich in vitamin D,” she added.

“Thanks just the same.”

“Mickey Maus,” William was saying, “is a nut about butter. The only time he ever lost his cool was when we were having a small brunch and we were down to our last three pounds of butter. He panicked.”

“Unfortunately, animal fats —” Rosemary began in a soft voice, but she was interrupted by Hixie.

“I eat a lot because I’m frustrated, but I’d rather be fat and jolly than thin and crabby. You have to admit I that I have a delightful disposition.” She batted her eyelashes and reached for another canapé. “What’s on the menu tonight, Willie?”

“Not much. Just cream of watercress soup, jellied clams, stuffed breast of chicken baked in a crust, braised endive — I hate endive — broiled curried tomatoes, romaine salad, and crepes suzette.”

“That’s what Charlotte would call just a little bite to eat,” Hixie observed.

William explained to Qwilleran: “Charlotte never has a meal. Only what she calls ‘a bite to eat.’ That’s Charlotte over there — the old gal with the white hair and five pounds of jewelry.”

The woman with hair like spun sugar was talking vehemently to two paunchy gentlemen who were listening with more politeness than interest. Qwilleran recognized them as the Penniman brothers, members of the Civic Arts Commission. It was Penniman money that had founded the Morning Rampage, endowed the art school, and financed the city park system.

Moving nervously about the Great Hall was another man who looked vaguely familiar. He had a handsome face and a brooding expression that changed to a dazzling smile whenever a woman glanced his way; the startling feature of his appearance was a shaven head.

Qwilleran, studying the other guests, noted an attractive redhead in an olive green pantsuit… and a young man with a goatee… and then he saw her. For a moment he forgot to breathe.

Impossible! he told himself. And yet there was no mistaking that tiny figure, that heavy chestnut hair, that provocative one-sided smile.

At the same time, she turned in his direction and stared in disbelief. He felt a crawling sensation on his upper lip, and he touched his mustache. She started to move toward him across the tile floor — gliding the way she used to do, her dress fluttering the way it used to do, her melodic voice calling. “Jim Qwilleran! Is it really you?”

“Joy! Joy Wheatley!”

“I can’t believe it!” She stared at him and then rushed into his arms.

“Let me look at you, Joy… You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Oh, yes, I have.”

“How many years has it been?”

“Please don’t add them up… I like your mustache, Jim, and you’re huskier than you were.”

“You mean stouter. You’re being kind. You were always kind.”

She pulled away. “Not always. I’m ashamed of what I did.”

He looked at her closely and felt his collar tighten. “I never thought I’d see you again, Joy. What are you doing here?”

“We’ve been living here since January. My husband and I operate the pottery at the back of the building.”

“You’re married?” Qwilleran’s rising hopes leveled off.

“My name is Graham now. What are you doing here, Jim?”

“No one calls me Jim anymore. I’ve been Qwill for the last twenty years. “

“Do you still spell Qwilleran with a w?”

“Yes, and it still gives typesetters and proofreaders ulcers.”

“Married?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Are you still writing?”

“I’ve been with the Daily Fluxion for more than a year. Haven’t you noticed my byline?”

“I’m not much of a reader — don’t you remember? And my husband is mad at the Fluxion art critic, so he buys the Morning Rampage.”

“Tell me, Joy — where have you been all these years?”

“Mostly in California — until Mr. Maus invited us to come here and take charge of the pottery… There’s so much to talk about! We’ll have to — when can we —?”

“Joy,” Qwilleran said, lowering his voice, “why did you run away?”

She sighed and looked first to one side and then the other. “I’ll explain later, but first I think you should meet my husband… before the terrible-tempered Mr. G. throws a tantrum,” she added with a wry smile.

Qwilleran looked across the hall and saw a tall, angular man watching them. Dan Graham had faded carrot hair, a prominent Adam’s apple, and freckled skin stretched taut across prominent bones in his face and hands. His worn corduroy jacket, unpressed shirt, and barefoot sandals evidently were intended to express the free artistic spirit, Qwilleran thought, but instead they made the man look seedy and forlorn. But terrible-tempered?… No.

Graham’s nod of acknowledgment was curt when Joy introduced Qwilleran as “an old flame.” There was something pointed about the way she said it — not with mischief but with spite — and Qwilleran thought, All is not well between these two. And he felt guilty about feeling glad.

He said to Dan Graham, “I knew your wife in Chicago when we were kids. I was the boy next door. I’m with the Daily Fluxion now.”

Graham mumbled something. He spoke rapidly and swallowed his words.

“Beg your pardon?” Qwilleran said.

“Gettingreadyforanexhibition. Maybeyoucangetmesomepublicity.”

Joy said, “It’s going to be a husband-and-wife show. We work in quite different styles. I hope you’ll attend the opening, Jim.”

“Don’tthinkmuchofyourartcritic,” her husband mumbled. Hisreviewsaren’tworthahillofbeans.”