Shirley Murphy - Cat Spitting Mad

When Garza finished with the phone, he nodded to Detective Davis and Ray, and the three of them headed back to the conference rooms, Garza carrying the reports Davis had given him, as if he meant to go over the meat of the case in strict privacy. The cats were crouched for a swift race down the hall to listen, when they heard the conference room door slam closed.

Slipping into the shadows of an adjoining room, they pressed their ears uncomfortably to the wall-cats' ears are not made for wall-pressing; it hurts the delicate cartilage. Even with their superior hearing, they could make out only indistinct murmurs, and the conference rooms had no windows that might be open to the bright morning. Their source within Molena Point PD had dried up faster than canned tuna left in the sun. Sometimes even a cat, the most facile and adept of snoops, gets outshuffled.

"Come on," Joe said, and he headed down the hall, through the courthouse, dodging behind the heels of a pair of attorneys- you could always tell attorneys, they had briefcases growing out of their hands-and down the street to Dulcie's house, hot to get at the phone.

JOE AND DULCIE spied the kit in Jolly's alley as they were headed for Dulcie's house and the phone. The kit sat smugly beneath the jasmine vine beside an empty paper plate.

Dulcie nudged her. "Come on, kit. Is that your second breakfast?"

The kit smiled. Her face smelled of caviar and roast lamb.

The two cats hurried her along out of the alley and down the street-like herding fireflies. She was everywhere, up the bougainvillea vines that climbed the shop walls, up into the oaks and across the roofs and down onto balconies and awnings. When they nosed her through Dulcie's cat door, she charged at a plate of scrambled eggs that Wilma had left on the floor and inhaled yet another meal.

"I saw Wilma walking to work," she said between bites. "She looked elegant. Those beautiful pale jeans and that new black blazer and cashmere sweater."

"Just jeans," Dulcie said. "Not so very fancy, kit."

"Elegant," the kit repeated. And Dulcie had a sharp sense of the kit's fascination with beautiful clothes-a hunger perhaps as keen as Dulcie's own covetous craving. She wondered if the kit had ever stolen a silky garment from some house when she traveled with that rebel band of homeless cats. Wondered if the kit, just as she herself, had ever innocently lifted a silk nightie from someone's clothesline or nipped in through an open window to snatch a lacy teddy or a pair of sheer stockings.

Well, Dulcie thought, I don't do that anymore.

At least, hardly ever.

She missed having those lovely garments to snuggle on. Oh, Wilma gave her pretty things. But the stolen ones were nicer.

She was ashamed of her failing, and secretly reveled in it. She didn't consider herself a thief. She always gave back the stolen items, in a way-leaving them in the box on the back porch that Wilma had provided, where the amused neighbors knew to retrieve their "misplaced" clothes. Not stealing, she thought, following Joe through the dining room and onto Wilma's desk.

Joe pushed the phone from its cradle, squinched his paw small, and punched in the San Rafael number. He was unusually nervous. The kit bounced up beside them to watch, round-eyed. And the three cats bent their heads, listening to the measured ringing.

A man's gravelly voice. "Year. Alby? That you, Alby? You're two minutes early."

Joe said, "Is this Davis Drugs?"

"What the hell? Who's this? Who you calling?"

"Davis Drugs." Joe repeated the number he'd dialed.

"You got the wrong number, buster. Get off the friggin' line."

Joe pressed the disconnect, scowling. "That didn't net much."

"Didn't it?" said Dulcie. "Wait a few minutes, and try again."

He waited, then punched the redial, checking the little screen to be sure he'd dialed the right number the first time. The kit watched every move.

A different voice answered. Smooth but equally abrupt. "Yeah? Who you want?"

"Hello?" Joe said inanely.

"Who you want to talk to?"

"I was calling Davis Drugs. Can you tell me what place I've reached?"

"Davis Drugs ! That's a good one! We ain't got that brand, buddy. Who you calling?"

"Can you tell me what place this is? Maybe I have the…"

A clanging, metallic voice sounded in the background, its vibrating rumble so loud they couldn't make sense of the words. Sounded like "Wall uh-uh-ers heave ta ecc-ecc-ecc-ed wall at once." A man shouted, "Come on, Joobie. Get off the damn phone! I got a call coming." Then a click and the line went dead. In a moment the recording came on telling Joe to hang up and dial again.

He slapped his paw to silence the offensive message. "What was that all about?"

Dulcie sat scowling, trying to make out the words. She lifted her paw. "Let me try."

She punched the redial and the speaker button so they could all hear. She sat washing her paws, listening with all the sophistication of a debutante buffing her nails while monitoring the call of a dull-witted suitor. The gravelly voice answered. "Start talking. It's your nickel."

"Hi, honey. This is May."

"May who?"

"Maybe I could give you a good time, baby."

He guffawed, his laugh so loud that Dulcie backed away. But her voice was sweet and smooth as cream. "Honey, are you the handsome one?"

"You bet I am, baby. That's me." The guy bellowed a rasping laugh. "Handsome as a hound pup. Who is this? Where you calling from, honey?"

"My name's Chantelle. What's yours?"

"Baby, this is Big Buck Brewer. You calling from near here? Why don't you come on up? Have us a little conjugal visit."

Dulcie rolled her eyes at Joe. "I'm just a few blocks away, honey. Maybe if I come up there, we could party?"

"Baby, if you can figure out how to get in here, I guarantee you'll have a party."

The loudspeaker went again. "Waaalll pr-boom-boom- boom-out of the… yar-yar-yard…" And the phone clicked and went dead. Dulcie looked at Joe, her green eyes huge.

"A prison," Joe said softly.

Dulcie nodded. "Prison loudspeaker. 'All prisoners out… out of the exercise yard'?" Her eyes were wide and gleaming, her ears sharp forward. "A prison, Joe? How could we call inside a prison? What prison?"

"There's only one prison in that area code." And Joe Grey thanked the great cat god-or the great phone god-that Pacific Bell was so explicit in its billing, listing each city along with its long-distance number. "San Rafael, Dulcie. San Quentin State Prison." He showed his teeth in a wicked feline grin. "San Quentin, temporary home of every serious felon and convicted murderer in the state of California."

"But… how could we phone into a prison? Were those inmates-how could inmates answer the phone? What am I missing here? They're locked up, they're supposed to… They wouldn't have telephones."

"Right. And I don't have claws and whiskers."

She only looked at him, her green eyes wide with shock-and with growing excitement.

The kit gaped at them both. She was beyond her depth.

And Joe Grey looked like he'd swallowed a whole nest of mice. "This is from the horse's mouth, Dulcie. Straight from Harper's men, at the poker table. There are pay phones all over San Quentin. Maximum security prison, but the inmates can make a call to anyone, any time they please."

"You're putting me on."

"Not a bit. They can call out, and can receive incoming calls if they stand around and wait for them. Like, say, their outside contact calls at a prearranged time."

Dulcie shook her whiskers, her green eyes narrowed with disgust. "What's the point of putting them in prison? I thought it was to get them out of circulation. What good, if they have all that contact with the outside?"