Блейз Клемент - Raining Cat Sitters And Dogs

He grinned. “You oughta go on Oprah .”

“Tom, did you see Maureen Salazar on the news?”

He was still grinning when he looked up at me, and the grin died as he registered my question.

“The oil broker’s wife? Good God, Dixie, was Salazar the guy you asked me about yesterday?”

“You saw her?”

“She said her husband was kidnapped and that she’d given the kidnappers a million dollars to get him back. She got that money out of her home safe, didn’t she?”

Billy Elliot whuffed to let us know he’d endured our chatter as long as possible, and I let him lead me out the door. Billy was right. My job was to run with him, not to prod Tom into speculating about why a man like Victor Salazar would keep buckets of cash in his home safe.

18

On the way to Big Bubba’s house, I made a quick stop at the market for more fresh bananas. At the cashier’s stand, a young girl at her mother’s elbow was doing that maniacal thumb-dancing that kids do when they text-message. Her attention was so rapt on the minuscule screen that her mother had to poke her arm after she’d paid for her groceries and was ready to leave. The mother rolled her eyes at the rest of us so we could share in her long-suffering patience with her text-messaging kid, and several people muttered amused understanding.

As my underripe bananas moved forward on the conveyer belt, the checker said, “Kids are going to give themselves carpal thumb syndrome with those things.”

A woman behind me said, “I caught my grandchildren text messaging their friends during our seder.”

The checker read my total aloud and I handed her money. As I grabbed my bag of bananas, it hit me that I had never seen Jaz with one of the phones that every other kid in the world has. No BlackBerry, no iPhone, no anything, not even the old kind without a keyboard for texting.

Girls talk to one another. My generation did it by phone, now they do it via typed messages on teeny little computer screens. They tell secrets, what boys they like, what they had for lunch, what music they like, what TV shows they watch, and what they’re doing right that minute. Why wasn’t Jaz doing that?

I thought about that all the way to Big Bubba’s house. I was convinced that Jaz had described one of the honeymoon cottages to somebody she knew, and that person had passed along the description to the thugs who’d come in Reba’s house. How had she done that? It was entirely possible, of course, that Jaz had a cell phone at home and that she text-messaged like nobody’s business when she was alone. I didn’t think so, though. In fact, I could not imagine Jaz alone without seeing her huddled in fear.

Big Bubba was in a loud and aggressive mood. The floor around his cage glittered with seed residue, and he had painstakingly dropped every Cheerio into his water dish. His millet branch looked as if he’d held it in his beak and beat the bejesus out of it against the bars of his cage.

He hollered, “Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?”

He sounded as if he was fed up with being taken for granted, that he’d reached the limit of his patience, and that if he didn’t get a lot more respect, the world could kiss his red tail feathers.

I turned off his TV and opened his cage door. I peeled one of his bananas while he clambered out. When he was atop the cage, I held the banana up to him so he could peck at it. He went at it like a woman hitting a newly stocked sales bin at Victoria’s Secret.

I said, “You’re getting bored, aren’t you? Your mom will be home soon.”

In actual fact, Big Bubba had spent a lot of his life waiting for Reba to come home from the college, but I knew the house felt more silent to him than usual.

I spent extra time playing with him on the lanai, and I gave him a shower. While he ran around squawking and flapping his wings to dry them, I put fresh seed in his cups. I vacuumed up all the flung-out seed hulls and hung a fresh millet branch in his cage. I threw away the soggy Cheerios and gave him fresh water. I made his world as clean and organized as possible, but I knew he wouldn’t be completely happy until Reba came home. We all rely on that special someone to make us feel secure.

After I’d coaxed him back into his cage and chatted with him awhile longer, I covered his cage for the night and left him.

It had become habit now to stop at Hetty’s house after I left Big Bubba, but when I got there I saw her and Ben on the sidewalk walking toward home. I parked in the driveway, got out of the Bronco, and leaned on the door and waited. Ben trotted along with the happy look of a youngster discovering the world. Hetty held his leash with enough slack to let him explore interesting rocks and plants alongside the sidewalk, but short enough to keep him focused.

When they reached me, I knelt to scratch the spot between Ben’s shoulders while his tail did a delighted helicopter whirl.

Hetty said, “Come in for a cup of tea.”

She went toward the front door, snapping her fingers at Ben as she went. At least I thought she was snapping her fingers at Ben, but I guess she could have been signaling me to follow.

Ben and I obediently trotted after her, and as I went in the door I noticed a dark sedan parked half a block away at the curb. It gave me a moment of paranoia because cars don’t park on the street in that kind of neighborhood. I told myself I was being silly and went inside the house.

In the kitchen, Winston was asleep, stretched on his back on the windowsill with his front paws bent like a Japanese dancer. If humans slept as much as cats do, we might be as lovable as they are. Well, some of us might be.

I sat down at the table, and Ben lay at my feet. Hetty effortlessly filled a teakettle and got out cups. She had taken off the elastic bandage.

I said, “Did Jaz come back?”

She shook her head. “She seemed so scared when she left, I’m afraid she won’t be back.”

I said, “I followed her this morning, but she ran into the nature preserve behind the Key Royale. I think she and her stepfather are living there. If they are, I’m sure it’s temporary. The only explanation I can think of is that he’s a security guard.”

“That would explain some things.”

“It doesn’t explain why those gang members know her or why they’re looking for her.”

Hetty shook cookies from a square plastic container onto a plate. “She said she didn’t know those boys.”

“Do you believe her?”

Hetty sighed and poured boiling water over tea bags in a pot. “No, I think she was lying.”

“Well, then.”

“Dixie, I’ve had kids, I’ve taught kids, I know kids. Jaz is a good kid.”

“And her stepfather may not be working at the Key Royale. He may actually be a paying guest, and his money may come from gang involvement.”

Hetty sighed again. “He did look like a gangster, didn’t he?”

She poured two cups of tea and shoved one across the table to me.

She said, “It seems like such a straightforward thing to ask. With anybody else, you can just ask, ‘Honey, what’s your stepfather’s name?’ and they tell you. They don’t jump up and run away because it’s a secret.”

I took a cookie from the plate and bit into it. It was tasty, not too sweet, a little crisp. Had a peanut butter flavor and a hint of blueberry. I looked more closely at it. It was a doggy biscuit.

I said, “Are you giving me doggy treats because I deserve them, or are you just trying to get on my good side?”

She looked at the cookies, then did a double take. “Oops, wrong container!”

“Never mind, I like it.”

“It’s healthy too. Organic peanut butter and blueberry.”

Ben raised his head as if he might offer a biscuit review, then thought better of it.