The Pet-Sitting Peril (10 page)

“Why don't you tell Mrs. Sylvan you don't want to give Eloise her medicine any more?” Sam asked. “She probably wouldn't even want you to do it if she knew how we had to wrestle her around.”

Nick shifted his weight from one foot to the other, staring at the cat. “I don't know. For one thing, I don't know who else she'd get to do it. I mean, can you imagine Mr. Griesner or Clyde and Roy coming in to give medicine to a stuck-up cat? And I agreed to do it, so I'm sort of obligated. Dad says if you agree to do something, you should follow through even if it turns out it's not as good a deal as you expected it to be. It's kind of a challenge, I guess.”

Sam pushed back the lock of red hair that had fallen forward. “I suppose I wouldn't like it, either, if somebody held me down and put nasty-tasting stuff into me. Oh, well, come on. Let's get out of here and feed Maynard and Fred. I like them a lot better.”

It was easy to like Maynard and Fred. They
were both friendly, and Maynard, especially, was cute. He knew how to lie down on command, to sit, to beg, to shake hands, and to fetch things. Fred didn't do any tricks, but the big gray striped cat would rub against them and his rumbling purr was clear evidence that he liked them, too.

When all their chores were over, they had to decide where to spend the night. “Maybe you should stay one night with Rudy, and the next one with Maynard and Fred,” Sam suggested. “That would be fair to everybody.”

“I'm getting the extra pay to stay with Maynard and Fred,” Nick pointed out. “Only of course before Rudy wasn't alone, and in some ways he's a bigger baby than Maynard. At least Maynard has Fred to keep him company. And the two of them don't really seem to mind being alone the way Rudy does.”

“I wonder if we could take them all into the same apartment? Would that work? Then everybody would keep everybody else company.”

It sounded like a good idea, except for one thing. “Rudy chases cats,” Nick remembered.
“I don't think Fred would put up with much of that.”

They decided to walk the dogs again, at the same time, with Nick handling the Airedale and Sam holding the leash for the little mop dog. Outside of the fact that Rudy didn't seem to notice when he stepped on Maynard in the excitement of getting started on an extra walk, the dogs got along together all right.

When they came back, it was nearly dark. The newly painted van belonging to Clyde and Roy was gone; in its place was a beat-up old pickup. A man in coveralls was getting a tool box out of the back of it, looking up to the sign identifying the building; a companion sat behind the wheel.

“You kids live here?” the man asked as they passed him and turned in.

“No. I mean, we're staying here for now, taking care of some dogs and cats,” Nick said.

The man was young, with a sandy mustache and rather longish hair under his cap that matched the coveralls. A name,
Al,
was embroidered over his breast pocket.

The driver got out and came around the
front of the truck. He was very skinny and dark haired, and over his coverall pocket was the name
Greg.

“This the right place?” he asked.

“Hillsdale Apartments, right?” Al said, and Nick nodded. “Okay. The manager is supposed to live in the back. Do we ring the front doorbell, or go around the side?”

“I think he'll come if you ring the bell,” Nick said.

“You got a key to the front door?” Al looked at the ring of keys Nick had taken out of his pocket. “No need to bother the manager if you kids can let us in.”

Nick stared at him. “I don't have any right to let anybody in except me, to take care of the dogs.”

“Hey, we're not here to rip anybody off,” Al said, and laughed. He had crooked teeth. “The owner sent us, to do some repairs.”

“Funny time to start a job like that, this late on Saturday,” Sam said.

“Well, we have to work at night and on weekends because we're doing this on the side. We work regular jobs in the daytime. Besides
we're just here to look things over,” Al told them. “It don't make no difference to me if you don't want to let us in. Ring the bell, Greg, and get the manager. We'd ought to tell him we're here, anyway.”

Nick felt a little bit silly, letting himself and Sam and the dogs inside and leaving the newcomers to stand on the porch waiting for Mr. Griesner to answer the bell. But it wasn't his house, and he didn't intend to be responsible for anyone getting into it. He inserted the key into Mr. Haggard's door, nearly tripping up when the dogs wound both leashes around his legs so that Sam had to disentangle them.

Mr. Griesner, wearing his usual soiled trousers and a plaid flannel shirt, came toward them in the dimly lighted hallway.

“What's going on? You kids monkeying with the bell?”

“No, sir,” Nick said. He got the door open, and Rudy pushed past him into the apartment. Sam dragged Maynard inside, too. Behind them, they overheard the manager and the repairmen.

“Whatta you want?”

“Mr. Hale sent us. Do some repairs, you know?”

“He didn't say anything to me about sending anybody over. What do you mean, comin' at a time like this.”

“You reported stuff needing repairs, didn't you? We came to look it over. Call him up and ask him. We can wait. He's paying us by the hour, so it don't matter to us how long it takes,” Al said.

Nick closed the door on the conversation. Maynard was sniffing the unfamiliar quarters; Rudy waited expectantly with his tongue lolling out for his treat.

“I don't know about Fred, but these two are okay together,” Sam said. “Where's this dog biscuit Rudy's supposed to get? I suppose I'd better give Maynard one, too, okay?”

“In the cupboard under the sink,” Nick said. “A red-and-yellow box.”

He was busy drawing the shade over the big colored glass window onto the street; he felt as if they were on exhibition otherwise, even if the window was high off the street. He
turned around when he heard Sam's surprised grunt.

“Hey, Nick! Look what's under here. The gas can you were talking about.” Sam lifted it and shook it. “It's just about full, too. The old man must have taken it out of the closet and brought it over here.”

Nick frowned. “Why would he do that? I mean, it would be Mr. Griesner's job to get rid of it, and under Mr. Haggard's sink isn't a very good place to store it.”

“No better than the closet,” Sam agreed. “Especially with the junk he's got under here.”

Nick stared into the compartment. Had it all been there before: the stack of rags and a paper bag full of burnable refuse? He didn't remember noticing it the times he'd gotten out the “cookies.”

“I don't think we'd better leave it there. When I told him about it, Mr. Haggard didn't act like it was his can.”

“What'll we do with it?” Sam set the red can on the counter and brought out the bone-shaped dog biscuits, making both dogs sit up for their treats. “Take it back to Mr. Griesner?”

“Grouchy as he is, he probably wouldn't appreciate having his TV watching interrupted again. I ought to call up that Mr. Howard and show him the can. At least then he wouldn't think I made it all up.”

“And it's full, so nobody used it to start any fire,” Sam said. “You know how to reach Mr. Howard?”

“No,” Nick admitted. “I don't even remember his first name, so I probably couldn't find him in the book. Well, give me the can. I'm going to put it outside, around the corner of the house, behind those bushes. Nobody'll steal it from there, if it's out of sight, and it's not likely to do any damage from there before I can show it to Mr. Howard.”

“Maybe it's got fingerprints on it,” Sam suggested. “Maybe they can tell who handled it.”

“Sure,” Nick said. “It's got yours and mine. What's that going to prove?”

He put the can safely outside and returned to find Al and Greg in the front hallway, with Greg writing down things on a paper and talking as he wrote. “Fix that broken board on the back step. Shore up the railing to the outside
stairs where it goes across the roof. Replace the linoleum here by the stairs. Check to see how the wiring looks for these front lights. What else did you want to check, Al?”

“He said something about water stains on the wallpaper upstairs. Maybe a leak in the roof.”

“Hale's going to blow his stack if he needs a whole new roof,” Greg observed, with the objective air of one who isn't going to have to pay the bills. “How do we get in the attic to see where it's coming through?”

Nick was in the act of closing Mr. Haggard's door when Al's eyes met his. “You know, kid? Is there a stairway to the attic?”

Nick shook his head. “I don't know. I told you, I don't live here.”

“You staying here for now, though?” Al laughed, looking around the gloomy entryway. “Spooky old place, isn't it?”

“He's right about that,” Sam observed when Nick had closed the door. “It's like one of those places in the movies, where a ghost comes floating down the stairs and everybody's found murdered in their beds in the morning.”

“Just because it's old doesn't mean it's haunted,” Nick told him. “What are we going to watch on TV?” Sam had turned the set on.

“Reruns, I guess. There doesn't seem to be anything else.” Sam settled into a corner of the shabby couch and allowed Maynard to crawl into his lap. “Good thing Rudy's willing to stay on the floor. If he got into your lap, he'd squash you flat.”

As it was, the Airedale chose to rest his head against Nick's foot, as if he drew comfort from the contact with a human being. He misses the old man, Nick thought, and reached out a hand to stroke the big head.

From time to time they heard hammering as Greg and Al seemed to be testing various parts of the building. Finally, with much banging and bumping around, the repairmen let themselves out and drove away in the pickup.

“I guess it's time we went to bed, huh?” Sam asked, yawning. “We've eaten everything we brought with us.”

“Okay. I'm tired, too. I suppose I better go up and check on Fred first. Do you think I
should bring him down here, too? I'd hate to have Rudy go for him and wreck something.”

“I'll put the choke chain on Rudy and hold him while you hold Fred,” Sam proposed. “If it looks like it'll get wild, you can always put Fred back in his own apartment.”

Nick felt strange climbing the stairs in the quiet house. It was different at night. Spooky, just as Al had said. Nick knew that Mr. Griesner was home, downstairs in the back of the house. And probably Mrs. Sylvan was home, too, though he hadn't heard her come in.

Up here on the second floor there was no one but himself. No music throbbed behind the door of Clyde and Roy's apartment. The stairs creaked even under Nick's meager weight, and though the bulb was on in the upper hallway, it didn't produce much light.

Nick let himself into Mrs. Monihan's apartment, and was halfway across the living room toward Fred when an odor reached him. For a few seconds he didn't identify it, and then he did.

Hot. Something was hot, burning.

Panic gushed through him; for a moment
he almost turned and ran, but reason took over almost immediately. It wasn't a fire, not yet, he thought. Something was simply overheated.

He went into the kitchen and reached for the light switch, staring at the electric stove. One of the burners glowed crimson, and smoldering at the edge of the red circle was a cereal box that had fallen over onto the element.

Nick reached for a spatula from the set of utensils on the wall and pushed the blackening carton into the sink. When he ran water on it, charred bits of cardboard flaked off and gave off an odor much like the one he'd smelled in the alley.

Nick turned off the burner and waited until the heat and color faded from it, inhaling deeply so that his breathing slowed to normal.

Who had turned the burner on? It couldn't possibly have been on ever since Mrs. Monihan left to visit her sister. Nick knew he would have noticed it.

He'd been in the kitchen several times a day, to put out fresh water and food for Maynard
and Fred. Fred followed him now, leaping onto a chair, switching his long, thick tail.

Could Fred have been on the counter and knocked over the cereal box so that it fell across the burner? Yes, Nick decided, that could have happened. He wiggled the knob experimentally. Could Fred have accidentally turned it on if he'd brushed against it? Even now the big cat sprang onto the window sill looking out over the back stairs; obviously he wouldn't have any problem leaping onto the counter and the stove.

It didn't seem likely that a cat brushing against the knob could have turned it, but how else could it have gotten on?

Nick made sure the cereal box was soaked and no longer dangerous, then scooped up Fred and locked the door behind them to return downstairs.

“I don't think it's safe to leave you alone in there,” he muttered, while Fred purred his pleasure at the attention.

Fred was not quite so pleased when he was carried into Mr. Haggard's living room. He stopped purring and glared at Rudy, who
leaped up to meet him, restrained by the choke chain.

“I thought you were never coming back,” Sam complained. “Once I got the chain on him, Rudy figured we were going for another walk, and it was all I could do to keep him still.”

Nick related what had happened. “Do you think a cat could turn on a burner on the stove?”

“I don't know. Maybe. Fred's a strong cat. Anyway, you caught it in time. Put him down, Nick, see what happens.”

What happened left them both shaken. For though they had thought themselves prepared to handle the situation if Rudy and Fred took a dislike to each other, they had underestimated both Rudy's strength and the determination of both animals.