Shirley Murphy - Cat Breaking Free

The lighting Max wanted would not have spoiled the atmosphere, but it sure would have hindered such stealthy break-ins as was occurring below. Lucinda and Dulcie and Kit watched as a dark figure slipped out the broken glass door and fled, vanishing among the street's shadows.

"Two are still in the store," Dulcie said, watching the pair of black-clad figures barely visible in the blackness, even to a cat's eyes; watching them moving about at their work. Then, "Oh!" Dulcie hissed. The thieves came bolting out and took off up the street, disappearing-and before Lucinda could grab Kit, the cats were after them, racing away unheeding of the old lady's cries.

Sailing from the rooftop terrace into an oak, they crossed the street on bending branches into another tree, leaped four feet to the shingled roof of the jewelry store and raced across it following the thieves. Running, the cats heard the purr of an engine; a car swerved around the corner and skidded to a stop, and the two figures piled in and were gone.

Lucinda stood looking after the cats, half annoyed, half filled with fear for them. But she couldn't stop them, couldn't change them; they were doing what, according to their rules, they must do. As the little cats were swallowed by the night, two squad cars slipped around the corner without lights. Four darkly uniformed officers emerged, moving to cover the door and the broken display window. She cursed herself for calling the cats' attention to the burglary, for putting them in danger. If she'd kept her mouth shut.

But it would have made no difference. If they hadn't seen the burglars, they'd be off to the fire, and that could be worse. Or, if they had paused before they raced away to the hills, they would have heard the jewelry store break-in for themselves, the tinkle of shattered glass.

For a long moment Lucinda stood envying the cats, wishing she, too, could race across the rooftops leaping from peak to peak as free and sure of herself as they. She caught a glimpse of movement down the alley where other officers were approaching, friendly shadows slipping silently through the dark streets. How many men could Harper spare, with something happening up in the hills, too, where the red glow bloomed brighter and another siren screamed?

It was some time later that two more patrol cars pulled to the curb facing the jewelry store and switched on their lights to blaze in through the broken window. Now, in the harsh glare, Lucinda could see every detail, the glitter of scattered glass as bright as spilled diamonds, the smashed display cases gaping empty, stripped of a fortune in jewels-surely a large portion of James Marineau's livelihood. She could see, now, that the front-window glass had been secured, before breaking, with wide strips of silver duct tape. Maybe that was the thunk she'd heard, the sound of a hard object striking a dull blow into the taped glass. Several blocks away, two more squad cars raced by while three others cruised more slowly, shining their spotlights into doorways and alleys.

She heard, farther up Ocean, the screech of tires as a car braked, then another car skidded behind it. Both sets of lights came racing down Ocean and onto the side street, to stop before Marineau's: Max Harper's truck followed by Dallas Garza's green sedan. Had the burglars escaped? Had there been silent arrests?

She wished she'd been able to see more clearly, to offer up some description of the men. How many had there been? Maybe even the two cats hadn't seen the robbers clearly. Thank goodness they were on the roofs now, and not down there! Safety, with those three, never seemed a prime concern.

As Lucinda watched the captain and detective enter the jewelry store, up the hills north of the village two of the thieves, free of danger now, slipped into a darkened house. They carried no loot from the job, no little bags filled with diamonds, no pockets bulging with Carrier watches, though Marineau's was the most prestigious jewelry store in Molena Point, the kind of shop where every entering patron was treated with courteous respect but even the most elegantly dressed among them, if they were not regulars, were carefully observed.

The house they entered was dark, tall, built against the hillside, the drive climbing steeply up beside it. The thieves had not emerged from a car-there was no car in the drive or on the street. They appeared out of the shadows, moved halfway up the drive and onto the little porch, and slid noiselessly in through the front door. They did not speak until the door had closed softly behind them, then the two resumed arguing, but quietly; dark-haired Luis angry and cursing in whispers, his redheaded partner snickering until Luis turned on him with cold rage, grabbing him by the collar.

"Shut up, Tommie! He's not your brother!"

"You said you'd as soon be rid of him! You've said it a hundred times, he's a damn screwup! Now he's out of your way. What trouble can he get into, in jail? Safest place for him!"

"We don't need a screwup in the hands of the cops, you dummy!" Luis pulled off his dark windbreaker, dropped it on a chair, and headed down the hall through the dim house toward the kitchen. "Cops hassle Dufio enough, he'll spill everything."

"Nah. He knows better. Even Dufio ain't that stupid."

"Keep your voice down."

"Knows damn well," Tommie muttered, "stoolies die in jail." He followed Luis into the kitchen, shutting the door behind them as Luis turned on the light. Luis didn't call his sister to the kitchen as he usually did, to fix their meal. They stood at the counter, eating what Maria had left out for them-cold beans, cold tortillas, a dozen small cold tamales, a twelve-pack of beer. Around them in the silent house the other residents slept, or pretended to sleep.

Only in the back of the house, in the smaller bedroom, did anyone make a sound. There, from within a cage, came the faintest mewl as one of the captive cats woke. The men didn't hear her, nor would they have paid any attention as long as the beast didn't yowl loud enough to wake the neighbors. In the shadowed bedroom, the cat looked around her. She listened to the two women's breathing. She listened to the men's harsh arguing from the kitchen, her ears catching small sounds that the women, even awake, would not have heard.

She stared at the crusting food dish in the corner of the cage, but she didn't approach it. She drank a little water, listened shivering to the voices, then curled up tightly again on the wadded cotton towel and stuck her nose under her tail, trying to get warm.

She was a pale calico color, her white coat marked with bleached gray like pussy willow buds, and with pale orange, a subtly colored cat with a rather long, distinctive face, and a look of distrust in her green eyes. The three cats had been in the cage for two weeks. They kept careful count of the days, not that it did them much good. In all that time, they had not been able to breach the lock. They had tried every way they could think of, but no cat, not even one with their talents, could open a padlock. Even if they'd had the key that Luis kept in his pocket, even though they understood the functions of lock and key, they could not have manipulated such a tool. It would take fingers to do that, and opposable thumbs; these were among the few blessings they wished they possessed along with their ability to speak and understand human language.

The hinges and joints of the cage were welded, too, so there was no way they could force them apart. Their only chance of escape was when, once a day, Luis's sister, Maria, removed and changed the litter box-except that Luis was always there, watching her. Luis would unlock the cage, then slam the door shut the instant Maria pulled out the litter box. He would slam and lock the door again when she'd put the box back inside. She seldom changed the sand, just scooped out the wet and dirty part, so the box stunk bad. That made the food and water taste bad. Even the air tasted like poop. Willow felt sick all the time, confined so. All she wanted to do was growl and hiss and hunch to herself and not eat. She thought they'd die there. She longed for the green hills and fresh winds, for cold fresh water.