Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

The music changed to “O Holy Night,” and I looked down at my arms to see if my goose bumps were visible. “Do you mind telling me how much money he gave you?”

She leaned forward and in a proud girlish whisper said, “A hundred thousand dollars!”

The likelihood that somebody from an insurance company had hand-delivered a hundred thousand in cash to Paloma was so remote that it boggled my mind that she believed it. On the other hand, it wasn’t much of a jump from believing Gilda had performed satanic rites with Ziggy.

I swallowed the last morsel of meat loaf and said, “I suppose your brother is pleased for you.”

“And for himself too. To tell the truth, Jochim has not been himself here. He has been influenced by bad friends, I think. Now he can start over again.”

I wondered if Jochim was as naive as Paloma or if he was simply taking advantage of a chance to take his family and go home. In either case, I had a feeling that he and Paloma would be a lot safer once they were well away.

Feeling like somebody who’s already seen what’s behind Doors Number One and Two, I said, “Paloma, the man who gave you the money—did he have an Irish accent?”

She looked confused. “He sounded like any Anglo to me.”

I thought about Paco saying people always remember an accent instead of anything else. But maybe Paloma lumped all non-Spanish accents together and just heard Anglo.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Paloma. It has been a big help.”

She smiled shyly, caught in a flood of new self-importance that almost overshadowed her grief.

I couldn’t help myself. I said, “What about the kitten?”

As if she were reprimanding a child, she said, “We can’t take a kitten all that way. We will give it to somebody.”

I said, “You should leave as soon as you can. Whoever killed Ramón may think you know whatever he knew. You could be in danger too.”

She turned her head in slow motion, as if she were afraid her cells would fly away if she moved too fast.

“We are good people! Ramón was a good man! Why has this happened to us?”

I didn’t have any answers. Her questions would be with her forever. They’re the real legacy survivors are left with—the endless questions of why .

In the Bronco, I sat for a second before I pulled out of the parking place. It wasn’t true that meeting with Paloma had been a big help. All it had done was give me a bit of information about the man who had called me to take care of Ziggy. He was either rich enough to pass out envelopes containing a hundred thousand dollars in cash, or he worked for somebody who was.

As I drove away, my mind played hide-and-seek with itself. At least Paloma seemed to have dropped the plan to declaw the kitten, so I could stop worrying about that. She had been so positive about Gilda taking blood from Ziggy that I had almost believed her. At least I believed that she believed it, and that Ramón had told her he’d seen Gilda do it. But I drew the line at the idea that Ken Kurtz had drunk Ziggy’s blood. No way, José. Kurtz might be a weird duck, but he wasn’t weird enough to drink iguana blood.

A little voice in my head said, Maybe he didn’t know he drank iguana blood. Maybe Gilda slipped it to him in one of his health drinks.

“Hunh,” I said, because when my little voice makes a good point, I give it credit.

Ken Kurtz had made a big point of saying Gilda kept him on a strict diet, saying she gave him special drinks she concocted. It seemed too bizarre to credit, but maybe Ramón had actually seen Gilda mix the drinks. Maybe he and Gilda had indulged in a few good laughs at how she was turning old Ken blue with her blood cocktails.

I thought of the missing packages from the refrigerator and said, “Hunh,” again. Could those packages have been vials of blood? Ziggy’s blood? Was that why Gilda had taken them and run, because she was afraid Guidry would find them and know she was playing at being Dr. Jekyll?

Out loud, I said, “Come on, Dixie, get a grip. That’s as nutty as Paloma’s devil rites.”

When I made the rounds to my pet clients, I found that Muddy’s owners had returned early to the rank odor of cat urine and the sight of Muddy on top of their baby grand piano. He had been systematically making deep scratches on the lid.

I didn’t know whether I felt more sympathetic toward them or toward Muddy. He was far too old to be trained not to scratch, and even the most dedicated cat love can lose its hold in the presence of claw marks on the furniture.

I said, “You know, Muddy lived outside for such a long time, he may never make the adjustment to living in a house.”

Mark Cramer said, “It’s too dangerous outside.”

“Here in the city, yes. But maybe you could find a family in the country where he could sleep in a barn or on a porch.”

With her nose wrinkled against the acrid urine odor, Mrs. Cramer eyed the grooves cut into her piano. “He’d be safe from traffic in the country, wouldn’t he?”

I said, “And he could chase moles and rabbits.”

Mark said, “Do you know any farmers who’d like a cat?”

I didn’t but said I’d check with the vets I knew with an offer of a free mouser to a good country home. I left them with my blessings and a bottle of Anti-Icky-Poo spray.

It may have been my imagination, but Muddy’s yellow eyes seemed full of gratitude when I told him goodbye.

I was still in the Cramers’ driveway when my cell phone rang. Not very many people have my cell phone number, so I thought it might be Guidry. But it wasn’t Guidry, and the voice was loud and abrupt in the way of people more comfortable speaking face-to-face.

“Dixie? Antonio Molina—Tony.”

I had always called him Papa Tony, but his clipped tone made me abrupt too.

“Yes?”

“I had Joe give me your number. People are saying Ramón Gutierrez was shot by his wife’s brother. That’s what is going around, and you should know this.”

“Jochim?”

“ Sí, Jochim. I have spoken to him, and I want you to hear what he has to say. Private, you understand?”

My heart fluttered, but I said, “I understand.”

“We will be at the Flores Cantina on Three-oh-one at five o’clock today.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

He rang off without saying goodbye, leaving me knowing that I had just agreed to keep anything I learned from Tony or Jochim to myself.

TWENTY-THREE

U.S. Highway 301 branches off Tamiami Trail, cuts through the middle of Sarasota’s municipal district, and continues as Washington Boulevard through a welter of dingy strip malls and stand-alone businesses. The cantina was on the west side, wedged between a run-down print shop and a take-out pizza place. The pot-holed asphalt parking lot was filled with pickups pulling metal mesh-sided trailers holding landscaping tools. Inside, recorded mariachi was blaring over Hispanic men washing down grit and grass clippings with cold cervezas.

Tony and Jochim were in a booth at the back, Jochim’s face taut with humiliation and resentment. Tony’s was stern and hard, the visage of a proud man made ashamed by one of his own.

Tony said, “Draw up a chair, Dixie,” which meant that both men were too macho to scoot over to make room for me.

I pulled a chair from a table behind me and sat at the end of the booth between them. Jochim hadn’t looked at me yet, but stared at a sugar packet in his square hands that he was tearing into fragments.

Tony gave Jochim a disdainful glare. “Tell the lady what you told me.”

Like a petulant child, Jochim shot me a hostile glance and remained silent.

Tony sighed. “ Hijo, you have two choices. You can tell the truth to Dixie or you can go with me to the cops and surrender.”