Shirley Murphy - Cat Pay the Devil

“Just as dangerous for you. So put the top up.”

“A soft top is going to protect you at freeway speeds? And it’s getting dark. That discount mall is nothing but parking lots. Reckless drivers in a hurry to get home. Too many cars, Joe. And you wouldn’t stay in a carrier. I can never trust you. You could get-”

“Crushed under someone’s wheels,” Joe snapped. “Picked up by strangers. So stop by the shop, pick up a hard top. You have a hundred cars you can choose from.”

“There isn’t time.”

Joe flexed his paws just above Clyde’s expensive new upholstery, the soft yellow leather as creamy as butter. “Not a scratch on it. Yet,” he said softly. “Really beautiful. Wasn’t this the most expensive leather they had?”

Clyde wanted to wring Joe’s furry gray neck. He waited for Joe to retract his claws, then eased the vintage roadster into gear and headed for Ocean Avenue, for his automotive shop.

The tomcat watched him narrowly. “One trick,” Joe said, “one act of subterfuge, and you’ll have dead mice in your bed every night for the rest of your natural life. Ripe, smelly mice specially aged for your benefit.”

Clyde turned into the broad drive of Beckwhite’s Automotive and stepped out of the car. “You will behave in Gilroy. You will do as I say, every minute. Or I swear, Joe, I will leave you in a cage at the county animal shelter.”

Joe looked back at him with chilling feline disdain.

Turning away, Clyde activated the overhead door of his big repair and maintenance shop that occupied the north half of Beckwhite Automotive. The handsome Mediterranean building provided, besides Clyde’s several spacious repair and storage garages and work bays, a vast, elegant showroom along the south side: tile-floored exhibit space for the latest models of BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, and a dozen far richer imports, as well as high-priced antique models. Clyde leased his space in exchange for handling all repairs and regular maintenance on Beckwhite’s customers’ vehicles. Joe watched, peering through the roadster’s windshield and the big doors as Clyde disappeared into a back garage.

In a few minutes, a new white Lexus SUV eased out from the back. Clyde pulled it onto the front drive, put the roadster in the shop, scooped Joe up from the front seat, and dropped him in the SUV. Threatening the tomcat with mayhem if he clawed, or even shed upon, its soft black leather, he shut the big shop door behind them, and headed for Gilroy.

After two blocks, as he turned onto Highway 1, headed for 101, Clyde fished his cell phone from his pocket and dropped it on the leather seat. “Try Charlie. Max couldn’t reach her.”

“She always carries her cell. Where would she be, that she wouldn’t answer?”

“Riding, Max thought.”

Frowning, Joe punched in Charlie’s number. When she didn’t answer, he tried the number for the Harper’s small, hillside ranch. In both instances there were four rings, then the voice mail clicked in. Pressing disconnect, he stared at Clyde.

“Try Ryan.”

Joe went through the same routine: same pattern of four rings, then a message recording.

“Riding,” Clyde said again; but a worried frown darkened his brown eyes.

The old man slipped away after watching the police action around the Getz house, having seen and heard enough to know that Wilma Getz had disappeared. This made him smile. Sure as hell, Cage had her. Served the old bitch right.

He guessed he’d better get on over to Lilly’s while he still had the chance, before Harper sent someone to search the house again, because that cop would be sure to do it. He’d have to make it damn fast, knowing Harper. He hoped to hell Cage wasn’t there.

Not likely, though, with cops crawling all over. Specially as that car Cage’d been driving when he left here, that old blue Plymouth thick with dirt, that’d be easy enough to spot if there’d been a witness. Someone must’ve seen it, to call the law. Well, Cage wouldn’t go home, Cage was smarter’n that. Maybe he’d stashed Wilma there, and now would take off down the coast. Or head north. Either way, Cage knew how to lose a cop on them back roads. Thinking about that, Greeley headed up the hills on foot, toward Cage’s place, moving fast, thinking how best to approach Lilly Jones, how best to handle her.

The Jones house stood above the village on the ridge of a canyon that cut down from the Molena Point hills, an old brown house, tall and narrow, an ugly frame structure with straight sides, surrounded by brittle-leafed eucalyptus trees that, in the faint wind, shook and rattled against the siding. Ten small windows in the front, five above, five below.

Greeley walked for several blocks, circling the house, looking for Cage’s car. Didn’t find it. Back at the house, he studied the drive that sloped down to the garage beneath the two floors; the drive was covered with dust and leaves. Didn’t look like Cage or anyone else had pulled in there for a long time. He was about to approach the five brick steps that led to the front door when a water company truck turned onto the street, parking a block down. A pair of uniformed utility workers got out and knelt by the curb.

Removing a heavy metal lid, they peered in, making notes, fiddling with the meter or the pipes or whatever; they took their time, then moved on to the next meter box. Pretty late in the day for water company personnel, unless there was an emergency. Was this a stakeout, waiting for Cage? He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but a chill of unease filled Greeley.

But what difference, if they were cops? They weren’t watching him, they had nothing on him. It was a free country. He had started toward the steps again when a gas company truck pulled up from the other direction, parking in front of a low white house. Three men dressed in gray jump-suits got out. Moved in between the houses, one after another, as if checking the meters or connections. Men who, in Greeley’s opinion, got to work too fast for city employees.

Well, he’d just arrived in town recently, he’d gone to school with Cage. He could come to the house if he liked, maybe come to see Lilly, see how Cage was doing. What business was that of Harper’s?

Mounting the steps, he rang the bell, stood listening for sounds from within, for the shuffle of feet approaching, for Lilly’s slow, deliberate movement. Cage’s sister’d never liked him much, even when they was kids in grammar school, him and Mavity and Cage-and that Wilma Getz. Lilly was some older, in high school then. Tall, bone thin, dry as dust even when she was young.

The door creaked open, and Lilly Jones stood there tall and plain and wearing the kind of shapeless cotton dress his own mother had called a housedress; Lilly was more dried up and skinnier than ever.

“Evening, Lilly. It’s me, Greeley Urzey. Heard Cage was out of prison and I come over to visit.”

Lilly looked at him like she might look at a frog skewered on a stick. “Cage isn’t here. I don’t know where he is. What did you want?”

“Like I said, to visit. Been a while since I seen Cage.” Greeley gave her what he considered a winning smile. “You going to ask me in? It’s been a long time, Lilly. It’s hot out, I’d sure enjoy a drink of water. It sure is mighty hot, even this time of evening. Water, or that good lemonade you make. You always made the best lemonade, back when we was kids.”

Lilly looked resigned or too tired to argue. She backed away from the door, motioned him in, pointed to the couch. The woman wasn’t big on graciousness. But then Greeley guessed maybe he wasn’t so smooth, either, in the manners department. Mavity said that often enough. But what the hell difference, anyway?

“I can make you some frozen lemonade,” Lilly said shortly. “That’s the best I can do. There are some magazines there on the table. But he isn’t here, Greeley. And he won’t be.”