Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Lived High

The French doors burst open! Two figures appeared on the level above. One of them had a gun.

"Hold it! I got you covered!" Qwilleran started to raise his hands before he realized that the man with the handgun was wearing a red golf hat. The man behind him had the paunchy figure of Arch Riker.

"Call the police!" Qwilleran yelled.

Riker's ruddy face turned pale. "Qwill! You're supposed to be dead!"

20

"I NEED A DRINK!" said Arch Riker after the police and their prisoner had cleared out.

"First tell me what the hell you're doing here!" Qwilleran demanded of his friend.

"I came to feed the cats! And claim your remains at the morgue!" "I don't get it." Riker explained slowly and clearly. "The police here called Brodie in Pickax early this morning.

They told him someone shot at you on the freeway. They said your car crashed and burned. They said you were incinerated along with all identification. They traced the car to you through the license plates." "Someone stole my car! That's what happened." "Whatever. I picked up your dental records from Dr. Zoller and caught the first plane out of Pickax. The whole of Moose County is in mourning." Qwilleran started for the telephone. "I'd better call Polly." "Don't! She'll have a stroke. She thinks you're dead. I'll call Brodie and he can break the good news to her. Also, I should call my news desk and the radio station. If you're feeling generous, you can pour me a double scotch." When the two men settled down in the library with their drinks, Qwilleran posed a question: "Was the episode on the freeway a random shooting? Or did they think they were taking a shot at me?" "Why would anyone want to shoot you?" "It's a long story." Koko walked into the room with feline insouciance as if nothing had happened all evening. He jumped to the library table and sat on the Van Gogh.

"Where's Yum Yum?" Riker asked. "In the bedroom, sleeping her life away. I've got to get the cats back to Pickax.

Something here disagrees with them." "If people are taking shots at you and threatening you with knives, you'd better get your own tail back to Pickax, friend. What have you been doing? Meddling again? Snooping where you have no business?" "Do you want to hear the whole story, Arch? Or do you want to preach a sermon?" Qwilleran asked.

He related the murder-suicide myth as reported in the newspaper and described Koko's several discoveries.

"Here's the bracelet," he said, drawing it from a desk drawer.

"What's the significance of the numbers?" "It's obviously a private code between lovers. I think the numbers refer to the value of letters in a Scrabble set.

The 1-1-4-1, for example, could stand for L-O-V-E. It could also stand for T-O-F-U, although I doubt that - " "How do you know so much about Scrabble all of a sudden?" "I've found out it's not a bad game, Arch. I also tried entertaining Koko with a kind of scratch-Scrabble because he was bored, and I kept spelling words that started a train of thought. HOAX, for example. I began to wonder if Ross had been framed. At first I suspected Dianne's ex-husband." "Pity us ex-husbands," said Riker. "We're always the first suspects. I live in mortal fear that someone will murder Rosie." "The guy had a habit of pinching his nose, and I attributed it to guilt, but later I decided he was sensitive to cat dander." "I'm glad the ex-husband got off the hook." "There's more to the story, Arch. Do you want me to go on?" "Please do. This is better than television." "Okay. Then I realized that the developers who wanted to tear down the Casablanca had a strong motive for eliminating Dianne, and I began to suspect one of them - a guy by the name of F-I-e- u-d-d, pronounced Flood. Koko put the idea in my head - I won't tell you how, because you won't believe it. Anyhow, I checked it out with a guy at the Fluxion and learned that Fleudd has a past history of dirty tricks - nothing felonious, so far, just unscrupulous. So I thought, Suppose Fleudd had an agent in residence at the Casablanca who committed the double murder and tipped him off to my purpose here! The word AGENT turned up on the Scrabble board, and tonight I came up with JOVE-which is another name for Jupiter, right?" Riker said, "You spelled HOAX and AGENT and JOVE because the ideas were already lurking in your subconscious." "Be that as it may, when Jupiter came up here for a jazz session, I caught him in a couple of lies that suggested he had something to hide, so I tried a little prevarication of my own. After he'd had a few drinks and was losing control, I told him that someone on the roof had witnessed Dianne's murder through the skylight. That brought him out in the open, and if Koko hadn't whipped his tail at the crucial moment, I probably wouldn't be here talking to you." "Yow," said Koko, who liked to hear his name mentioned.

"Speaking of tails, Koko is beginning to convey information by means of tail language, just as humans express emotions with body language. In the last few days he's been twisting his taillike a corkscrew." "Are you trying to tell me that Koko knew the murderer was a bartender? If so, his tail's not the only thing that's screwy around here! What does a cat know about bar accessories?" "Cats are gifted with senses that transcend human intelligence - a fact that's hard for us to accept - and Koko's senses are becoming more acute every year." "You're really wound up tonight!" Riker held out his glass. "How about another touch? And then I'll turn in. This whole day has been an unnerving experience, and I've got to catch an early plane tomorrow. How about you? What have you decided about the Casablanca?" "I'm giving it up. I'll hang around long enough to turn my evidence over to Lieutenant Hames, and then I'll rent a car and drive the cats back to Pickax... See you in the morning, Arch. The: guestroom is down the hall, first door on the right; Just throw the cats' cushion off the bed." Qwilleran, having made his decision to forget the Casablanca and go home, slept well that night. He slept well until about three o'clock in the morning, at which time he dreamed someone was pounding him on the stomach. When he opened his eyes, he was sitting and Koko was having a catfit - jumping on and off the bed, pouncing on his body, yowling and growling. When the cat ran from the room like a crazed animal, Qwilleran followed him down the bedroom hall, past the guestroom where Riker was snoring quietly, and into the foyer. There Koko clawed at the parquet floor, his tail tense and twisted. Next he was racing madly about, knocking things over, crashing into furniture.

Qwilleran listened. He could hear what was alarming the cat! It was a rustling, crackling, creaking under the floor!

Bolting back to the guestroom he yelled, "Arch! Arch! Get up! Get up! Quick! We're getting out of here!" Then he ran to the house phone and rang the night number. "Ring the fire bell!" he shouted. "Get everyone out! Get the Countess out! Fire between Twelve and Fourteen!" Riker appeared in the foyer, groggy with sleep. "What?... What?... " "No questions! Throw on some clothes!" Qwilleran pushed Yum Yum into the carrier, and Koko followed her without bidding. "Don't pack! No time to lose!" He pulled on pants and a sweater over his pajamas and pointed Riker to the door. "Down the stairs! Take the cats and start down! Hurry!" He delayed long enough to hammer at the door of 14-B.

"Who is it?" a voice screamed.

"Building's on fire! Get out fast!" he yelled, then dashed for the stairs. The fire bell had started its urgent clamor, and at the tenth floor tenants began stumbling into the stairwell, grumbling and questioning.

Qwilleran caught up with Riker and said, "Give me the cats and you go ahead. Try to get a cab out in front." "What... ?" "Don't ask. Just do it!" On the main floor the tenants, clutching cats and other treasures, were in an uproar.