Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

The rules of Cora’s condo forbid tipping the valet, but I always tip anyway because I appreciate not having to lope around on the parking lot for my car. The new valet pocketed the money with a smile, and I drove away smiling back. I’m not sure if either of our smiles was genuine.

Everything in the world had begun to seem fake to me, so it was a huge relief to start making my afternoon pet rounds. If a dog wags its tail at you, he really means it. If a cat purrs at you, that’s not a fake purr. And there’s not a dog or cat in the world who would wonder if a change of eye color might make him more popular, or if dying her hair would bring her more attention. Animals may be the only creatures on earth who are content with being who they are.

I usually start at the south end of the Key and work my way north, but since I was crossing the north bridge onto the Key, I changed my usual routine and called on two cats at the north end. They were sisters, sweet Siamese mixes named Gumdrop and Licorice. Young enough to find their primary entertainment in chasing each other through the house, they didn’t let tile floors dampen their enthusiasm for racing. They slid and skidded a lot going around corners, but they seemed to find that an additional thrill.

When I unlocked their front door and went inside, I could hear the soft thudding noise of a wild galloping chase. The noise stopped when they heard me, and I called to them to set their minds at ease.

“It’s just me, Dixie.”

They came charging to look at me with that Siamese expression of alert intelligence. They followed me to the den, where I pulled a peacock feather from my bag. For a cat, a peacock feather waved over its head is an opportunity to leap into the air and grab a bird of its very own. For a cat sitter, waving a peacock feather over a couple of cats is an opportunity to sit on a hassock and enjoy watching the grace and style with which cats spring into the air. Since I had groomed them during the morning call, I was there solely to play with them and feed them. With all the running they did, they got plenty of exercise on their own, but it’s as good for cats to have new experiences as it is for humans.

The cats were fascinated with the feather, I was fascinated with the cats, and none of us knew Briana had come into the house until she was in the room with us.

20

I felt her before I saw her. A faint scent of perfume, perhaps, or just the rearrangement of the air’s molecules by a foreign body. Curiously, I wasn’t surprised. That white convertible I’d seen in traffic had really been following me, then, and a thief who knew how to disengage a specific area of a security system would surely have no trouble creating an electronic signal that would bypass a home’s security pad.

Briana wore an outfit similar to the one she’d worn when we met at the beach pavilion—sheer, wide-legged white linen pants and a matching loose tunic. Not the same outfit, of course, just similar. Briana probably never wore the same clothes twice. Her silky red hair was twisted into a knot on the top of her head. Her hands hung loosely at her sides. She had glittering green stones in her ears, and I knew they were real emeralds. Briana wouldn’t have been caught dead in fake emeralds.

I didn’t even stop waving the peacock feather. The cats gave Briana a questioning look and went back to leaping at their prey.

I said, “When did they release you?”

“This morning. I told you I didn’t kill that woman.”

“But you knew who did.”

She shrugged. “Justice will be done.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t hold you as a material witness.”

“Thanks to you, I have a good lawyer who arranged bail.”

“Why are you here?”

She sat down on the arm of a sofa.

“Dixie, I don’t think you know the danger you’re in. You’re holding something that two groups of people much stronger than you want, and if you have any ideas about selling to the highest bidder, forget it. You’re not dealing with sweet little pussycats, you’re dealing with professionals who will snap you in half and throw your body into the ocean if you oppose them.”

I lowered my right hand holding the feather and let my elbow rest on my knee. My gun was in the right pocket of my cargo shorts, and I wanted to be ready to grab it. The peacock feather was still suspended in the air but not moving. The cats watched it suspiciously.

I said, “What is it that you think I have?”

“I must have dropped it in Cupcake’s bedroom and you found it.” With an arch smirk, she added, “If you were the law-abiding citizen you claim to be, you would have turned that list of contacts over to the FBI.”

I thought, List of contacts?

I moved the peacock feather to my left hand and waggled it. The cats jumped at it. Briana watched the cats while I slid my right hand up my thigh to the flap of the pocket on my cargo shorts. I hooked my thumb in my pocket as if I were resting my hand.

I said, “Why should I give you the list, Briana?”

Her mouth made a little O of realization.

“You want to be my partner? My Florida agent? Is that it?”

“Maybe.”

Her lips curled. “I’ve worked my butt off to get where I am. I’ve been felt up by every obnoxious old fart in Europe. Plus, I can’t take a pee without some goddamn paparazzi catching me on film. You think you can just waltz in and share in the profits when all you’ve done is find a list of names?”

I swirled the peacock feather in the air with my left hand while my right hand slid all the way into my pocket and grasped the butt of my .38.

I said, “I know you had to work hard to be who you are. I really admire that.”

Oddly, I actually meant it.

She said, “You wouldn’t believe all the people in the fashion world that top models have to kiss up to. Not to mention rich men who think a model is just an expensive whore.”

I said, “Like the Serbian gangster who went to prison for adding heroin to a shipment of fake Gucci watches?”

Her eyes widened, and I was afraid I’d gone too far. Then she laughed. “I guess my life is more of an open book than I’d realized.”

In my pocket, I laid my trigger finger alongside the barrel of the gun.

She said, “You know, the partnership you’re proposing might be a good idea. You have the right contacts for my business. They’re all around you. Some of them are probably your clients. Since you already know what the business is, perhaps we should talk about how we might help each other.”

“You’d cut me in on your profits if I help you?”

“Right.”

“Doggone generous of you, considering that I’m the one with the list of names.”

Briana said, “The list is only one side of the equation. I hold the other side. One without the other is useless.”

I had pushed my luck as far as it would go. If I made one slip, Briana would figure out that I really didn’t have a list of names. I didn’t even know why the names were important, but I was pretty sure they had something to do with an illicit business involving fake designer merchandise.

I said, “I still don’t understand why you stalked Cupcake.”

Her eyes closed, and for a second she looked like an ancient carving. Gumdrop must have felt her sadness, because she jumped onto the sofa and nuzzled Briana’s arm with her nose. Briana opened her eyes, smiled, and began to stroke Gumdrop’s head.

She said, “Cupcake was the sweetest boy I ever knew. He didn’t have a mean bone in his big muscle-bound body. After I killed my uncle, somebody told the cops that I had a hideout in the swamps. I didn’t, and I’d never told anybody I did, but while I was losing myself in the French Quarter, search parties were slogging through every bayou and swamp in the county. I always suspected Cupcake was the one who told that swamp story.”