Shirley Murphy: Cat Pay the Devil

Roof after roof; the blocks had never seemed so long. At last, backing down a jasmine vine to the sidewalk, Joe fled across Wilma’s street, between parked squad cars and through Wilma’s tangled garden. He was headed beneath the bushes for Dulcie’s cat door when Dulcie and Kit materialized out of a forest of lavender, Dulcie looking as miserable as he’d ever seen her. Her sleek tabby fur was bedraggled, her peach-tinted ears twitching with distress.

“She’s gone,” she panted, pressing against Joe and mewling as pitifully as a lost kitten. “Somewhere…,” she said. “Those men…Cage Jones…” And she collapsed against him, trembling.

T he old man was sitting at a sidewalk table in front of a hole-in-the-wall café enjoying a beer when half a dozen police cars moved swiftly up the street. No sirens. Two cops in each car. He watched with interest as they turned onto the street where that Wilma Getz lived. Several blocks up, they slowed. Looked like them cops was headed for that Getz woman’s place, sure enough. Fancy stone house. Cottage, they called it.

Pretty fancy place for a retired parole officer. Hard-assed old bitch. She’d throwed him out of that house when he was trying to visit his own sister, Mavity, sick in there, near to dying. Threw him right out, or tried to. Two years ago, that was. Just because he’d had a couple of drinks. Dried-up old prune…

Well, Mavity was just as judgmental. Raised a hell of a fuss this afternoon when she saw him drinking an innocent beer.

A person had to walk into the village, pay through the nose-tourist prices-if he wanted to have a drink in peace. Open a beer in that house or let ’em see a bottle of whiskey, all hell broke loose, Mavity fussing and the other three scowling like he’d made a bad smell. One little drink…What the hell did they do for recreation?

Gulping his beer, watching for more cop cars, Greeley rose. If them cars was parked in front of the Getz woman’s place, he sure as hell didn’t want to miss the action. Tucking the price of the beer but no tip under the wet bottle, he double-timed up the sidewalk. What a joke, him following squad cars. How many times in his sixty plus years had cop cars followed-and lost-him. He moved fast, dodging tourists. This village with its too cute cottages and shops always made him feel smothered. Too cozy for his taste, but a good place to rip off innocent shopkeepers and not get shot at.

Ahead, them cop cars was pulled up smack in front of the Getz place. Cops in the yard and moving around behind the house. He was slipping into the shadows of a porch half a block down and across the street when a car careened out of a side street racing away. Greeley stared.

Cage?

Sure as hell was. Cage Jones, driving fast, dodging other cars. Big hulking guy like Cage Jones was hard to miss, that long face and long lip. He hadn’t seen Cage since they’d got back from L.A. more’n a month ago, done their business in San Francisco, and parted. But he’d read the San Francisco papers, paid attention to the hearing, all right. Cage due to be sent back, and he walks out of that San Francisco jail easy as you please, big smile and a fake ID. What a laugh. Had to hand it to Cage, though it would have suited Greeley’s own plans better if he’d stayed locked up.

But what, exactly, was he doing at the Getz house? What the hell did Cage have in mind, coming there? He ought to be staying as far as he could from Wilma Getz; the woman meant nothing but trouble, specially for Cage.

Well, that car had sure as hell been coming from her place, cop fear written all over Cage’s bony face, him bent over the wheel, ducking down, driving as fast as he dared and not get stopped-but the next racing figure left Greeley openmouthed. And then he grinned a cold, knowing smile.

As the cops burned their searchlights into the fading evening, flashing along the crowded cottages, sure as hell looking for Cage, he saw a streak of gray with white markings run through a beam high up along the roofs, then vanish. That damn tomcat. He’d seen Joe Grey for only an instant, but he knew that cat, all right. Well, the cat had sure as hell followed them cops.

In a moment he saw the cat again, sailing from an oak tree onto the Getz woman’s garage roof, could see the cat’s white markings as he crept along the edge of the roof. The next minute he vanished in the thick shadows of another oak. Greeley, hunkering down in the bushes, stayed out of sight, trying to put it all together, figure out what Cage had in mind, coming here.

Cage was a damn fool to come down here to Molena Point-well, he sure wouldn’t go home, cops knowing where he lived. Greeley hoped to hell he wouldn’t. Because that was where he was headed, for a little visit to Cage’s place-though he sure didn’t look forward to playing nice to Cage’s sister Lilly. Sour old spinster, meaner than a snake.

But even if Cage was fool enough to go to ground there in his own house, with Lilly, he’d wait, make sure the cops had searched the place first.

Meanwhile he’d have that big house all to himself, if he hurried. And if he could sweet-talk Lilly just right. That Jones house, that was what he’d come for.

He hadn’t seen Lilly Jones in some years, not since long before them little burglaries he and the black tomcat had pulled off together in the village. He’d never got caught-though them two village cats knew who did it, all right. They’d saw black Azrael go down through a skylight, saw his black tail disappear inside. Nosy little bastards spying on them.

Well, them cats’d kept their mouths shut and with good reason. If he’d got caught, and his black tomcat, too, that damned Azrael would have mouthed off at the cops. And that would have let the cat out of the bag, Greeley thought, laughing. Cops find out there were talking cats in the world, cops heard Azrael cursing them, they’d be forced to believe it. And that would sure as hell blow Joe Grey’s secret.

That was when he’d met Sue, met her at her South American Shop, and first thing you knew, they were all over each other and headed on back to the tropics to get married-though the honeymoon hadn’t lasted long before Sue split. Thanks in part to Azrael. That black tom sure had hated her, sure as hell drove her out. Well, but Greeley, he’d been glad to see the last of her, himself, she was such a teetotal. Hell, he wasn’t made for marriage anyway.

Black tomcat was gone now, too. Greeley didn’t know where. Evil little bastard, always into voodoo. Sometimes he’d even scared Greeley. He didn’t miss Azrael, but he sure missed his skill at break-and-enter. Cat could get into Fort Knox if he had the time to work at it, as good with the windows as Greeley himself was with a safe. They’d made a good team, and Greeley did miss having a partner the cops would never make.

His marriage to Sue might be finished, too, but at least they’d parted friends. When she’d moved back to Molena Point, she was still willing to do a little business on the side, if it profited her. And his own line of work, at the moment, had fit right in, her exports to the States, that shop and its replicas of devils and idols; those little geegaws she’d helped him bring back had set him up real nice. Well, Sue’d get her share when this was all over-what he told her was her share.

Sure as hell, he was past the age when he relished the diving like he once had, and his lungs was going real bad on him. And Panama starting to hire locals and younger men, the bastards. Damn doctors said lung trouble was to be expected, the amount of whiskey he drank. He’d never heard that! What the hell did they know? Screw ’em all, the medical profession didn’t know no more than some jungle witch doctor, maybe a hell of a lot less.