Лилиан Браун: The Cat Who Lived High

Qwilleran noticed a few plastic pails scattered about the room, and there were waterstains on the carpet. "Does the skylight leak?" he asked.

"When it rains," Rupert said with a worried nod. "Where'd you park?" "At the front door in a twenty-minute zone. I may have a ticket by now." "Nobody bothers you on Sunday. Gimme your keys and I'll haul up the rest of your gear." "I'll go with you," Qwilleran said, remembering the advice showered on him in Pickax. "I suppose we have to walk down thirteen flights and up again." "If we can find the freight, we'll ride up." "Then let's go." The custodian looked at the cat carrier standing in the middle of the foyer. "Ain'tcha gonna let 'em out?" "They can wait till we get back." Qwilleran always checked the premises for hazards and hidden exits before releasing the Siamese.

The two men began the tedious descent to the main floor, down marble stairs with ornamental iron banisters, each flight enclosed in a grim stairwell. "Good-looking staircases," Qwilleran commented. "Too bad they're enclosed." "Fire department made 'em do it." "What's that trapdoor?" In the wall of each stairwell, toward the top of the flight, there was a small square door labeled DANGER - KEEP OUT.

"That's to the crawl space. Water pipes, heat, electric, and all stuff like that," Rupert informed hint.

Halfway down they met the tiny Asian woman shepherding her two small children from one floor to another. She seemed unaware of their presence.

"Are there many children in the building?" Qwilleran asked.

"Mostly kids of the doctors that work at the hospital. From all different countries." At last they reached the main floor, and as they walked past the manager's desk, Mrs. Tuttle, who was knitting something behind the bulletproof window, sang out cheerfully, "Why didn't you two ride the elevator?" She motioned toward Old Red, which was standing there with its door hospitably open. Qwilleran squinted into the dim back comer of the car and quickly retrieved the turkey roaster, carrying it away triumphantly.

Farther down the hall Valdez, still in his yellow satin jacket, was beating his fists against the soft-drink dispenser, and Napoleon was sniffing a puddle near the phone booth, critically. There was no activity around the elaborate bronze door of the private elevator.

"Quiet on Sundays," Rupert commented. In front of the building the Purple Plum was still parked at the curb, neither stolen nor ticketed, and Qwilleran drove into the parking lot while Rupert went to the basement for a luggage cart.

The lot was an obstacle course dotted with potholes, and his #28 parking slot was occupied by a small green Japanese car.

"Park in #29," Rupert told him. "Nobody cares." "This lot is in terrible condition," Qwilleran complained. "When was it last paved? In 1901?" "No use fixin' it. They could tear the place down next week." Rupert wheeled the suitcases, typewriter, dictionary, books, and coffeemaker into the basement, Qwilleran following with the turkey roaster and the cats' water dish. They rode up in the freight elevator, a rough enclosure of splintery boards, but it worked!

"How come this one works?" Qwilleran asked. "It's never broke," the custodian said. "Tenants don't get to use it, that's why. They're the ones wreck the elevators. Wait'll you see how they wreck the washers and dryers! There's a coin laundry in the basement." "What do we do about rubbish?" "Put it out in the hall at night. Boy picks up startin' at six in the mornin'. Any problem, just ring the desk.

Housephone's on the kitchen wall in 14-A." Qwilleran tipped him liberally. Although frugal by nature, he had developed a generous streak since inheriting money. Now he bolted the door, cat-proofed the rooms, and released the Siamese. "We're here!" he said. They emerged cautiously, swiveling their fine brown heads, pointing their ears, curving their whiskers, and sensing the long broad foyer.

Koko walked resolutely to the far wall where French doors led to the terrace; he checked for pigeons and seemed disappointed that none appeared. Meanwhile Yum Yum was putting forth an experimental paw to touch the art rugs scattered about the parquet floor.

Art was everywhere: paintings on the walls, sculpture on pedestals, crystal and ceramic objects in lighted niches.

The canvases were not to Qwilleran's liking: splotches of color and geometric studies that seemed meaningless to him; a still life of an auto mechanic's workbench; a bloody scene depicting a butcher block with work in progress; a realistic portrayal of people eating spaghetti.

Then he noticed an envelope with his name, propped against a bowl of fruit on a console table. Nestled among the winesap apples, tangerines, and Bosc pears, like a Cracker Jack prize, was a can of lobster. "You guys are in luck," he said to the Siamese. "But after your shenanigans in the elevator, I don't know whether you deserve it." The accompanying note was from Amberina: "Welcome to the Casablanca! Mary wants me to take you to dinner at Roberto's tonight. Call my apartment when you get in. SOCK had your phone connected." Qwilleran lost no time in phoning. "I accept with pleasure. I have a lot of questions to ask. Where's Roberto's?" "In Junktown, a couple of blocks away. We can walk." "Is that advisable after dark?" "I never walk alone, but... sure, it'll be okay. Could you meet me inside the front door at seven o'clock? I won't ask you to come to my apartment. It's a mess." He opened the can of lobster for the Siamese, arranging it on a Royal Copenhagen plate. All the appointments in the apartment were top-notch: Waterford crystal, Swedish sterling, German stainless, and so on. After unpacking his suit- cases he wandered about the rooms, eating an apple and marveling at the expensive art books on the library table, the waterbed in the master bedroom, the gold faucets in the bathroom. He looked askance at the painting of the bloody butcher block; it was not something he would care to see early in the morning on an empty stomach, yet it occupied a prominent spot on the end wall of the foyer.

When the Siamese had finished their meal and groomed their paws, whiskers, ears, and tails, he introduced them to the sunken living room. In no time at all they discovered they could race around the rim of the former pool, chase each other up and down the carpeted stairs leading to the conversation pit, climb the trees, and scamper the length of the sofa- back. For his own satisfaction he paced off the length of the dogleg sofa and found it to be an incredible twenty feet.

Though few in number, the furnishings were large-scale: an enormous onyx cocktail table stacked with art magazines; an eight-foot bar; an impressive stereo system with satellite speakers the size of coffins.

The most dramatic feature was the gallery of paintings that covered the upper walls. They were large still lifes, all studies of mushrooms - whole or halved or sliced, tumbled about in various poses. The jarring effect, to Qwilleran's eye, was not the size of the mushrooms - some two feet diameter - but the fact that each arrangement was pictured with a pointed knife that looked murderously sharp. He had to admit that the knife lifted the still lifes out of the ordinary.

Somehow it suggested a human presence. But he could not imagine why the owner of the apartment had hung so many mushrooms, unless... he had painted them himself. Who was this talented ten- ant? The signature on the work was a cryptic logo: two Rs back-to-back. Why did he specialize in mushrooms? Why did he leave? Where had he gone? When would he return? And why was he willing to sublet this lavishly furnished apartment to a stranger?

There were no windows in the room-only the skylight, and it admitted a sick light on this late afternoon in November. Apart from the potted trees and the green and yellow plastic pails strategically placed in case of rain, the interior was monochromatically neutral. Walls, upholstered sofa, and commercial-weave carpet were all in a pale gray- beige like the mushrooms.