Лилиан Браун: The Cat Who Lived High

He left the freeway at the Zwinger exit. On this late Sunday afternoon, downtown was virtually deserted. Zwinger Street, formerly a blighted area, was now Zwinger Boulevard-a continuous landscaped park dotted with glass towers, parking structures, and apartment complexes. Then the boulevard narrowed into the nineteenth-century neighborhood known as Junktown, with the Casablanca standing like a sentinel at the approach.

"Oh, no!" Qwilleran said aloud. "It looks like a refrigerator!" The Casablanca was indeed white, although in need of cleaning, and it had the proportions of a refrigerator, with a dark line across the facade at the ninth floor, as if delineating the freezer compartment. Modified Moorish, the SOCK brochure had called it. True, there were some arches and a marquee and two large ornamental lanterns of Spanish persuasion, but on the whole it looked like a refrigerator. Not so in 1901 perhaps, when iceboxes were made of golden oak, but now...

Qwilleran made a U-turn and pulled up to the curb, where the city permitted twenty-minute parking. He unloaded the cat carrier and the turkey roaster and then, taking care to lock all four doors, approached the shabby entrance. Broken glass in the two lanterns exposed the light bulbs, and the glass sidelights of the door were walled up with plywood that no one had bothered to paint. Carefully he picked his way up the cracked marble steps and set down the carrier, opening the heavy black door and holding it with his foot while he maneuvered into the dark vestibule.

"Help ya?" called a voice from the gloom. A jogger was about to leave the building.

"How do I ring the manager?" Qwilleran inquired.

"Right over here." A young man with a reddish moustache almost as imposing as Qwilleran's pressed a button on the apartment directory panel. "You moving in?" "Yes. Where do you jog around here?" "Around the vacant lots behind the building. Two times around is a mile - and not too much carbon monoxide." "Is it safe?" The man held up a small tube and pointed it at Qwilleran. "Zap!" he said, looking wise. "Hey, nice cats!" he added, squinting at the carrier. When a voice finally squawked on the intercom the obliging jogger yelled, "New tenant, Mrs.

Tuttle." A buzzer released the door, and he sprang to open it. "Manager's desk straight down the hall, opposite the second elevator." "Thanks. Good running!" Qwilleran wished him. The inner door slammed behind him, and he found himself in an empty lobby.

It was narrower than he had expected-a tunnel-like hall with a low ceiling and a lingering odor of disinfectant.

Fluorescent tubes were spaced too far apart to provide effective light. The floor was well-worn vinyl, but clean, and the walls were covered with something that looked like sandpaper. When he reached the first elevator, however, he stopped and stared; the elevator door was burnished bronze sculptured in low relief, representing scenes from Don Quixote and Carmen.

As he studied the unexpected artistry, the door slid open, and a man in black tie and dinner jacket stepped out, saying coolly, "This is a private elevator," at the same time flinging a contemptuous glance at the turkey roaster.

With the top handle of the carrier in one hand and the roaster under the other arm, Qwilleran walked slowly toward the rear of the building, observing and sniffing. Someone on the main floor was cooking, and he knew Portuguese garlic soup when he smelled it. Lined up in the tunnel were a cigarette machine, a soft-drink dispenser, and an old wooden telephone booth. Some attempt had been made to brighten the hall by painting apartment doors in jellybean colors, but the paint was scratched and dreary with age.

As he reached the phone booth, a body tumbled out onto the floor. It was a woman of indefinite age, wearing a red cocktail dress, and she was clutching a pint rum bottle, uncapped. "Oops!" she said.

Gallantly, Qwilleran set down his baggage and went to her assistance. "Hurt yourself?" She slurred an apology as he helped her up, propped her on the seat of the phone booth, and closed her safely inside, leaving only a puddle on the floor. He picked up the cat carrier and commode and walked on. As he approached the manager's desk, there was sudden activity within the carrier, which started jiggling and swinging, the reason being that two felines - a calico and a tiger with a, chewed ear - had wandered out from nowhere and were eyeing the new arrivals.

Although the host cats were not hostile, Qwilleran thought it advisable to place the carrier on the scarred counter where a homemade sign announced: "Mrs. Tuttle, manager. Ring for service." Separating the manager's desk from the tenants' counter was a window of thick, bullet-proof acrylic.

He rang the bell, and a large, powerful-looking woman with a broad smile on her ebony face bounded out from the inner office. "Oh, you've got two Siamese!" she exclaimed joyously. Despite her genial greeting, she studied Qwilleran with a stern and forbidding eye, and he imagined that she tolerated no nonsense from the tenants or the resident cats.

"Good afternoon," he said. "Are you Mrs. Tuttle? My name is Qwilleran. The penthouse apartment has been reserved for me." "Yes, SIR!" she said. "We're expecting you! Glad to have you here. Did you have a good trip?" "Fine, thank you. Do you also have a parking space for me?" "Yes, SIR!" She produced a ledger and flipped the looseleaf pages to Q. "First we need one month security deposit and one month rent, and the parking is payable by the quarter... What are they called?" "Uh... what?" Qwilleran was concentrating on his checkbook. He considered the rent high, even though utilities were included.

"Do your kitties have names?" "Uh... the larger one is Koko, and the... uh... female is Yum Yum." He had put the turkey roaster on the floor, and it was being sniffed by the calico and the tiger. "I see you have a welcoming committee down on the floor." "That's Napoleon and Kitty-Baby," she said. "They live on the main floor. Your kitties will be the only ones on Fourteen." "Fourteen? I thought the building had thirteen stories." "They skipped Thirteen. Bad luck, you know. On the top floor there are two apartments, 14-A and 14-B. Yours is the nice done, all furnished. You'll be very comfortable. Here is your receipt and your key to 14-A. And here's your mailbox key; the boxes are through the arch. Mail is delivered around three or four o'clock. Your parking slot is #28 on the west side of the lot. The elevator's right behind you. Ring for the one with the red door. Old Red, we call it. A nice old elevator.

Old Green is out of order." "What's the one with the bronze door, near the entrance?" he asked.

"A private elevator for the owner of the building. Bye-bye, kitties! Glad to have you here, Mr. Qwilleran." The Siamese had not uttered a sound. He picked up the roaster and the carrier and moved to the elevator bank, accompanied by Napoleon and Kitty-Baby. Two doors, one painted red and one painted green, were closed, displaying an abstract design of scratches and gouges made by impatient tenants carrying doorkeys. He pressed the button, and noises in the shaft indicated that Old Red was descending... slowly... very slowly. When the car finally arrived, it could be heard bouncing and leveling. Then the door opened with a convulsive jerk, and a tiny Asian woman with two small, doll- like children stepped out and scurried away as if glad to escape safely.

Qwilleran boarded, signaled for the fourteenth floor, and waited for the door to close, while Napoleon and Kitty- Baby stayed in the lobby staring into the car as if they would not be caught dead in Old Red. The Siamese were still ominously silent.

There was a bulletin board on the rear wall of the elevator, where manager and tenants had posted notices, and Qwilleran amused himself while waiting for the door to close by reading the messages. Two signs were neatly lettered with a felt marker and signed "Mrs. T." IF DOOR IS OPEN, DO NOT JUMP! ATTENTION ALL CATS! MONDAY IS SPRAY DAY!