A Cat Tells Two Tales (22 page)

Oh, I had work to do—a lot of work—and some mice to catch. But I knew what I was going to do and I was quite sure where it was going to lead.

I picked up the programs and placed them gingerly on the table. They seemed much heavier now. They were laden with relevance. They were the journeys of a theatrical group whose itinerary was so eccentric that it was obvious their art was diluted in the service of some other agenda. That agenda was the center on which the strands converged. I drank a third of a snifter of very elegant brandy. Bushy purred.

20

“Who?”

“Me, John. Alice . . . Alice Nestleton.”

There was a silence on the other end of the phone. Poor John Cerise. I was obviously one of the few people he didn’t want to hear from.

“John, don’t worry. I’m not going to get you beat up again.”

He laughed.

“Are your wounds healed?” I asked. I realized I should be ashamed of myself for not calling him before, when he got home from the hospital.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just a bit stiff.”

There was an awkward pause. Then he asked: “Did you ever find that white cat . . . Carla?”

“You mean Clara, John. Yes, she’s alive and well and living in a pet shop.”

“There’s nothing like happy endings.”

“Look, John, I need another favor from you,” I said.

He laughed nervously.

“I want to borrow one of your cats . . . one of your Abyssinians.”

“Borrow a cat? Why, Alice?”

“Well, it’s really too complicated to explain, but it’ll only be for a couple of days and I’ll take good care of it.”

“But I thought you told me your cats don’t like visitors.”

“Well, I won’t keep the cat at my apartment—at a friend’s.”

“For how long, Alice?”

“A few days. It’s just for some cat photographs for a friend of mine in advertising. He needs a beautiful Abyssinian and you have only beautiful Abyssinians.” I was only half lying to him. I did intend to take a photograph, but it was not really for advertising purposes. Or, rather, it was for a different kind of offering.

“Well, Alice, how can I get the cat to you?”

“My friend has a car. We’ll pick the cat up tomorrow morning . . . about ten . . . will ten be okay?”

“Good. That will be good. Ten o’clock is fine. I’ll let you have Jack Be Quick,” he said.

I hung up the phone. God bless you, John Cerise, I thought. He could always be trusted. Risa was on the sofa, playing an elaborate kind of hide-and-seek with Bushy. I smiled at both of them. I felt wonderful. Ever since I discovered that the Nikolai Group was not what it had appeared to be—that it must have had a very secret agenda—the pieces had been falling into place. I had been to the library many times, burying myself in back issues of newspapers and journals. I had a full-scale model of past, present, and future—but it had to be proved, and the cat from John Cerise was the first step.

I walked, almost danced, to the window and stared down onto the street.

Madame Swoboda would be proud of me now, I thought. For wasn’t that the essence of Method acting? One does not walk out onto a stage and begin to act. One walks out and speaks words or does motions and they are totally authentic because they come from authentic recollections and understanding of oneself. One doesn’t act—one is. One doesn’t fret in the wings, because there is nothing to fret about.

“Why are you so happy?” I heard Risa ask.

“Oh,” I said, “just middle-age mirth.”

“And where do you go all the time lately? You’re never here.”

“Research,” I replied, “research, inquiry, analysis, a little here, a little there.”

She cocked her head like a cat. She didn’t know what I was talking about.

“I think, Risa, that I’m very close to finding out why Bruce Chessler died,” I explained.

She stopped asking questions. She pulled into herself. I had forgotten how she must have loved him; I had never believed her attempt to distance herself from him.

About an hour later she seemed to revive. She said: “I think I’ll move back to my apartment tomorrow. I don’t want to interfere with your research, your analysis, your what-have-you,”

Her voice was contemptuous. I didn’t rise to the bait. I didn’t want to argue with Risa about anything. Now she was furious for some reason, standing in the center of the room, her hands clenched on her waist. What kind of odd transference had she made to me?

“Research, analysis . . . why do you say such stupid things? What does it have to do with Bruce’s murder? He’s dead . . . he’s off the planet . . . out of the universe . . . gone . . . dissipated . . . vanished. How can
you
find out why Bruce died? You didn’t even know him!”

She spat her words out to me as if I were the mother who had betrayed her. Yes, it was time for the girl to go.

“Are you sure that cat is not going to jump around?” Basillio asked in a nervous voice. He kept staring through the rearview mirror at the beautiful Abyssinian cat pressed against the backseat of the car, his back arched.

“Don’t worry, Tony, he loves it there, he won’t bother you at all.”

I was turned completely around, staring at the cat we had just picked up at John Cerise’s. His name, I remembered, was Jack Be Quick. It was a very good name for a cat. He had a ruddy-brown coat ticked with black, and green eyes. He was lithe, hard, muscular, and gave off those signals in movement that seemed to say: “Yes, I not only look like a miniature cougar, I can act like one if you don’t watch out.” Of course, it was just a joke. Abyssinians are very kindly pussycats—exotic, yes, but kind. And Jack Be Quick settled down very quickly, much to Tony’s relief.

It wasn’t until we were crossing the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan that Basillio said: “Swede, I really hope you know what you’re doing this time.”

“Are you frightened, Tony? It may well be the greatest performance of your life.”

“Not frightened so much, Swede, as feeling stupid.”

I patted his hand. “We all feel stupid sometimes, Tony,” I said. “It can’t be helped.”

Basillio had been very difficult to convince this time. My plans were simple and straightforward. First I was going to create a bogus photograph of a white cat with black markings that looked very like Clara. And I was going to use the Abyssinian, Jack Be Quick, to accomplish that. Basillio said it could be done easily with color transparencies and all kinds of xerographic magic.

Then Basillio was going to take the photograph to Bukai and offer him the cat for ten thousand dollars. Bukai would throw him out. But then I knew a whole lot of interesting things were going to happen.

“And I think one of the reasons why I feel so stupid is that you refuse to tell me what you are doing,” he complained.

I didn’t reply. Why hadn’t I confided in Basillio? I don’t know. I usually did. But this crime seemed to be so elaborate, to consist of so many strands, to require the uncovering of so many details, that I simply had stopped using Basillio as an intellectual companion midway through. I really didn’t know why. It dawned on me that his feelings must really be hurt—I had been ordering him around like he was a chauffeur . . . as if he worked for me. Maybe it had something to do with my meeting up once again with Joseph Grablewski. Yes, maybe that was it. I had heard that Grablewski had been discharged from the hospital. He was probably back in his Forty-fourth Street coffin once again, gazing down at his vodka.

When we finally pulled up in front of the copy shop, Jack Be Quick seemed to have developed a glaring affection for Basillio.

Once inside, Tony and an assistant got to work. I cannot really describe what happened. There were mounted Polaroid cameras . . . airbrushes . . . plastic overlays . . . strange whirrings and screechings . . . dripping pieces of material that seemed to come from a hospital laboratory.

But within two hours Basillio presented to me an 8 ½-by-11 photograph, or copy of a photograph, that was in dazzling color—a brilliant portrait of Jack Be Quick. Only Jack had changed colors.

He was now white with black spots on face and rump.

Magic. It was sheer magic. My hand began to tremble as I held it.

I had the delicious temptation to take a cab immediately to that pet store on Hudson Street where Clara and her two friends were incarcerated and then show it to Clara . . . ask her opinion . . . ask her whether we had done a good job.

“Is that what you wanted?”

“Exactly,” I replied.

“Well, they don’t call Mother Courage the best full-service shop in downtown Manhattan for nothing,” Basillio said. He winked at me. “Now what do we do?” he asked, staring at Jack Be Quick, who had leapt to the top of his desk and was staring longingly at his swivel chair.

“We proceed with the plan,” I said.

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

It was just past two in the afternoon. Basillio and I stood across the street from Bukai’s town house, making sure to be out of sight of the windows, more toward the Fifth Avenue end of the street.

Basillio was obviously nervous. It had been a long time since he’d played a difficult part.

“Okay, Swede,” he said grimly, “let’s go over this again. Step by step.”

“Fine, Tony.”

“Who am I?”

“No names. You’re a guy who needs money. A lot of money fast. And you have what Bukai wants.”

“You mean I have a white cat with black spots in my shop.”

“Right.”

“And I’ll give it to him for ten thousand dollars.”

“Right.”

“And he has twenty-four hours to pay or forget it.”

“Right.”

“God, Swede, this is crazy. What kind of lunatic would pay ten thousand dollars for a white cat?”

“Just show him the photo, Tony. And tell the old man the cat is at Mother Courage. You’ll deliver if he pays.”

“Is he going to pay?”

“I don’t think so, Tony. I’m banking that he won’t.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“Are you ready, Tony?”

“Wait. What if I can’t get in?”

“I told you. A young woman will answer the door. Tell her you want to see Bukai. Tell her Bruce Chessler sent you. You’ll get in.”

“I don’t know why, Swede, but I find this very distasteful.”

“I appreciate it, Tony.”

He smiled. Then he drew his hand over his face as if he were changing masks, and what emerged was a snarling, ugly, yet strangely vulnerable thief . . . or gambler . . . or hustler.

“Look good?” he asked from the corner of his mouth.

“Right out of
The Threepenny Opera
,” I assured him. Without another word he strode across the street to the doorway. I turned and started to walk toward the museum. It was there we would meet as soon as he finished his mission—by the small bar at the entrance of the museum cafeteria.

I didn’t dawdle in the museum. I walked right to the appointed place and sat down on one of the divans and ordered a club soda with lime. The lunch crowd was gone but a group of German tourists were seated all around me.

Basillio arrived twenty-five minutes later. He knelt beside me as if he were imparting some kind of classified information.

“Okay, Swede. It was a piece of cake. I walked inside with the young woman. She pushed me into this room cluttered with books. Five minutes later this ancient Russian comes downstairs. I show him the photograph of Jack Be Quick turned white. I tell him I need ten thousand dollars fast. I’m in trouble, I tell him. The deal is simple, I tell him. Ten thousand right now in my hand. And I bring you the cat in a half hour. Then I figure I’m going too fast. So I modify the offer. Five thousand down and five thousand when I bring the cat.”

He paused and then stood up.

“What happened, Tony?”

He knelt again. “The old man just stares at me like he’s looking at some kind of ghost or lunatic. Then he tells me to get out. That’s all. He tells me to get out. I leave him the card in case he changes his mind. And I’m gone.”

I leaned back and closed my eyes. The game, as they say, had begun. And the first serve I had called correctly.

“Anything else for the moment?” Basillio asked sardonically.

“No,” I said, “but could you give me the key to the shop? I want to go over tonight and make sure Jack Be Quick is fed.”

“How long are you going to keep the beast in my shop?” he asked.

“Not long, Tony, not long.”

“Have to go,” he said, slapped me very gently on the cheek as a sign of comradeship, and was gone.

I had to move quickly now, I realized—quickly and carefully.