Блейз Клемент - Even Cat Sitters Get The Blues

I picked Ella up and pressed my nose to her nose. I said, “Don’t pee on anything. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

On the way to Ethan’s place, I passed the Kurtz house again. The marchers hadn’t returned, and smoke was still curling from the chimney. Maybe Ken Kurtz was in his living room sitting in front of a roaring fire. Maybe Jessica was with him. Maybe they were discussing how they could escape both the FBI and BiZogen and ZIGI and run off to Argentina and take tango lessons and live happily ever after. Or maybe Gilda had come back and was administering the antidote to whatever Kurtz had, and maybe the two of them were planning to run away together.

Personally, I wasn’t going to run away with anybody to anywhere. I was simply going to have a quiet dinner with a man and come home. Maybe I would make out a little bit. Kiss some, touch some, but that was it. I ignored the proven fact that I had never wanted to stop if the kissing and touching were good. I was older, now, and wiser. At least older.

Ethan’s house turned out to be an ultra-modern cypress hidden behind a thick tangle of oaks and sea grape and palms on Fiddler’s Bayou, where John D. MacDonald used to live. When I eased the Bronco down Ethan’s shelled driveway, he was outside with a gray-muzzled bloodhound on a lead. The bloodhound was on the scent of something, with his head so low his eyes were hidden under drooped folds of skin and his ears were sweeping the ground. Ethan waved at me and then was jerked forward by the bloodhound.

I slid out of the Bronco and yelled, “What’s he trailing?”

Ethan grinned. “Ghosts, I think. I’ve seen him go hard on a trail that ended up at a rock.”

I went over and stood beside Ethan and watched the hound sniff the ground. With his liver-and-tan coat, he cut a fine figure. The hound, not Ethan. Except for my high heels, Ethan was dressed in pretty much the same clothes I wore.

I said, “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“Something else I inherited from my grandfather. He always had bloodhounds, wouldn’t even think of any other dog. Sam is the last. He actually did a little bit of police tracking when he was young, but he’s ten now.”

He didn’t need to add that a ten-year-old bloodhound won’t be around much longer.

I said, “He looks healthy and happy.”

“Yeah. I think he misses my granddad, though.”

And right then I decided that I might not leave after dinner after all.

We went inside after Sam found his quarry, which was a rotted knot of oak buried in dead leaves. Ethan praised him liberally and gave him plenty of time to climb the curving steps to the front porch, then held the door for Sam and me. We went into a large round room with a dark wood floor and mostly glass walls. With the exception of a couple of curved walls that I assumed hid bathroom and closets, the entire house was one big room. With soft uplights illuminating the green foliage against the glass, it was like being in a snug tree house.

I said, “Wow. This is fantastic.”

“Thanks. My brother built it. He’s a genius.”

The kitchen was marked by curved cabinets and black polished countertops, and a bed with tall pilasters draped with sheer white linen announced the bedroom. A grouping of white linen chairs and sofas sat around a white shaggy rug. A glass-topped dining table flanked by Japanese benches sat on another white shaggy rug. A clear glass vase of paperwhite narcissus was in the middle of the table—not a poinsettia plant like ordinary people all over the country had, but paperwhite narcissus. I mean, how cool is that?

Leaving a discreet trail of drool on the dark floor, Sam drooped over to an elevated dog bed and crawled into it with a contented sigh.

Ethan tossed a paper towel on the floor and skated it along Sam’s drool trail.

“Want some wine?”

Of course I wanted wine. I wanted to sit on the white linen sofa and drink wine in that enchanted room for the rest of my life. Ethan flipped on soft music and poured two glasses of red wine without even asking if I’d rather have white, which was somehow very satisfying. We sat on the white linen furniture and talked about bloodhounds and cypress houses and genius brothers, and I forgot that I was on a date.

After a while, Ethan went in the kitchen and clattered around for a while, and I carried my empty wineglass to the curved counter and watched him dish out steaming lasagna onto plates. A salad bowl of oil-coated greens sat on the counter next to salad plates, so I showed my domesticity by putting salad on the plates and carrying them to the table.

When we sat down, I said, “You cooked this?”

“Are you kidding? I bought it at Morton’s and heated it.”

“Oh, good. I was afraid you’d cooked it. I mean, not that I was afraid it wouldn’t be good if you cooked it, it’s just that everything else is so perfect I couldn’t stand it if you were a good cook too.”

I didn’t even care that he laughed. Dating was fun. I loved dating.

The lasagna was delicious, the salad was sublime, and dessert was chocolate-tipped strawberries, of which, so far as I’m concerned, there is no whicher.

I helped him clear the table and put away leftovers, and then he poured us teeny cups of very strong coffee to take with us to the white linen furniture grouping. The coffee was flavored with cinnamon and it was delicious too, but it wasn’t exactly romantic. It was more like something to give wine-drinking guests before they drive home. The music wasn’t romantic either. It was the kind of music you listen to when you’re working, the kind to keep you alert. Like a not-so-subtle announcement that romance wasn’t on Ethan’s mind.

I sneaked a quick look at my watch, which said it was close to midnight. I stood up and carried my cup to the kitchen counter.

I said, “I have to get up at four, so I’d better say good night.”

He said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

Sam raised his head and thumped his tail goodbye as we went out the door, and for a moment I felt like falling on the floor and having a fine leg-banging tantrum. Here I’d worried all week about how I would handle the sex thing, and there wasn’t any sex thing. I’d been invited to dinner and that’s all I’d got. I hadn’t even been offered a choice, just like I hadn’t been offered white wine.

At the Bronco, I turned to Ethan and said, “It was a lovely evening. Thank you.”

He didn’t answer. Just put his hands on my arms and leaned down and kissed me, long and hard.

“Good night, Dixie. Drive safely.”

I poured myself into the driver’s seat and started the Bronco and backed out while Ethan stood in the headlights and watched me. I didn’t begin to breathe until I was on the street.

I was surprised my breath didn’t come out flaming.

TWENTY-SIX

The world seemed to have taken on a new clarity as I drove home, as if the evening with Ethan had sharpened my senses. The streets were bright with both moonlight and man-made light, with deep pools of shadow under oaks and clumps of palms, many of their trunks outlined by teensy Italian Christmas lights and weighed with plate-sized bursts of night-blooming cereus. I put the Bronco’s windows down and inhaled the salty night air drifting from the sea. I felt oddly deflated and exhilarated at the same time, as if I’d failed to get something I greatly wanted and was wildly grateful for failing.

I thought about the kitten waiting for me at home, and it felt good. I wasn’t planning on keeping her, but a kitten waiting for you to come home is a spot of love in your life, and that’s nice. It’s actually very nice.

Approaching the Kurtz house, I automatically swiveled my head to look down the moonlit driveway. As I did, another part of the puzzle fell into place. I not only knew there was another room between the garage and the wine room, I knew what kind of room it was and how it was being used. I also knew without a shadow of doubt why somebody had tried to steal Ziggy, and what Ken Kurtz was up to in that house. The realization caused my hands to shake on the steering wheel.