Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Turned On and Off

C.C. turned an unshaven but handsome face to Qwilleran. "If she starts buttering you up with her goodies, watch out, mister. She might poison you, like she did her first husband." His tone was belligerent, but Qwilleran caught a glint in the man's eye that was surprisingly affectionate.

"If I poison anybody," his wife said, "it will be Cornball Cobb…. Would you all like to hear something interesting?" She reached under a small table and brought a portable tape recorder from its lower shelf. She rewound the reel, touched a green push button and said, "Now listen" to this." As the tape started to unwind, the little machine gave forth an unearthly concert of gurgles, wheezes, whistles, hoots, honks, and snorts.

"Shut that damn thing off!" Cobb yelled, more in sport than in anger.

She laughed. "Now you know how you snore. You wouldn't believe me, would you? You sound like a calliope." "Did you spend my good money just for that?" He got up and hit the red push button with a fist, silencing the recital, but he wore a peculiar look of satisfaction.

"I'm going to use this for evidence when I sue for divorce." Mrs. Cobb winked at Qwilleran, and he squirmed in his chair. This display of thinly veiled sexuality between husband and wife made him feel like a Peeping Tom.

C.C. said, "When do we eat?" "He hates my cooking," Iris Cobb said, "but you should see him put it away." "I can eat anything," her husband grumbled with good humor. "What kind of slop have we got today?" When they sat down at the big kitchen table, he applied himself to his food and became remarkably genial.

Qwilleran tried to visualize C.C. with a shave, a white shirt, and a tie. He could be a successful salesman, a middle-aged matinee idol, a lady-killer, a confidence man. Why had he chosen this grubby role in Junktown?

The newsman ventured to remark, "I met the Three Weird Sisters yesterday," and waited for a reaction.

"How d'you like the redhead?" Cobb asked, leering at his plate. "If she didn't have her foot in a cast, she'd chase you down the street." "And what do you think of our other tenant?" Mrs. Cobb asked. "Isn't he a funny little man?" "He puts on a pretty good show," Qwilleran said. "He tells me he was a Broadway actor." C.C. snorted. "Nearest he ever got to Broadway was Macy's toy department." His wife said, "Ben loves to play Santa Claus. Every Christmas he puts on a red suit and beard and goes to children's hospital wards." "They must pay him for it," said C.C. "He wouldn't do it for free." "One day," she went on, "there was an injured pigeon in the middle of Zwinger Street-with dozens of other pigeons fluttering around to protect it from traffic, and I saw Ben go out with a shoebox and rescue the bird." Qwilleran said, "He has a repulsive thing in his shop-a stuffed cat on a dusty velvet pillow." "That's a pincushion. They were all the rage in the Gay Nineties." "Can he make a living from that dismal collection of junk? Or does he have a sideline, too?" "Ben's got a bundle salted away," C.C. said. "He used to make big money in his day-before taxes got so high." Mrs. Cobb gave her husband a startled look.

The man finished eating and pushed his dessert plate away. "I'm gonna scrounge tonight. Anybody want to come?" "Where do you go?" Qwilleran asked.

"Demolition area. The old Ellsworth house is full of black walnut paneling if I can beat the other vultures to it. Russ says they've already grabbed the stained-glass windows." "I wish you wouldn't go," his wife said. "It's so cold, and the ice is treacherous, and you know it isn't legal." "Everybody does it just the same. Where do you think the Dragon got that Russian silver chandelier? She makes like she's so high class, but you should see her with a crowbar!" Mrs. Cobb said to Qwilleran, "C.C. got caught once and had to pay a heavy fine. You'd think he would have learned his lesson." "Aw, hell! It won't happen twice," her husband said. "Somebody tipped off the police the other time, and I know who it was. It won't happen again." "Let's take coffee in the living room," Mrs. Cobb suggested.

Cobb lighted his cigar and Qwilleran lighted his pipe and said, "I understand Junktown doesn't get much cooperation from the city government." "Mister, you'd think we were some kind of disease that's got to be wiped out," Cobb said. "We asked for better street lights, and the city said no, because Junktown's due to be torn down within the next ten years. Ten years! So we tried to put in old-fashioned gaslights at our own expense, but the city said no dice. All light poles gotta be forty feet high." "C.C. has spent days at City Hall," said Mrs. Cobb, "when he could have been earning good money on the picket line." "We used to have big elm trees on this street," her husband went on, "and the city cut 'em down to widen the street. So we planted saplings on the curb, and guess what! Chop chop! They widened the street another two feet." "Tell Qwill about the signs, C.C." "Yeah, the signs. We all made old-time signs out of wormy wood, and the city made us take 'em down. Unsafe, they said. Then Russ put hand-split cedar shingles on the front of his carriage house, and the city yanked 'em off.

Know why? They projected a half-inch over the sidewalk! Mister, the city wants this neighborhood to decline, so the land-grabbers can get it and the grafters can get their cut!" "Now we're planning a Christmas Block Party to bring in a little business," said Mrs. Cobb, "but there's so much red tape." "You gotta get permission to decorate the street. And if you want to play Christmas music outdoors, you get a permit from the Noise Abatement Commission. If you want to give door prizes, you get fingerprinted by the Gambling Commission. If you want to serve refreshments, you get a blood test at the Board of Health. Nuts!" "Maybe the Daily Fluxion could expedite matters," Qwilleran suggested. "We have some pull at City Hall." "Well, I don't care one way or the other. I'm gonna go scrounging." "I'd go with you," said the newsman, "if I didn't have this bum knee." Mrs. Cobb said to her husband, "Don't go alone! Can't you get Ben to go with you?" "That lazy bugger? He wouldn't even carry the flashlight." "Then ask Mike. He'll go if you give him a couple of dollars." She looked out the window. "It's starting to snow again. I wish you'd stay home." Without any formal goodbyes, Cobb left the apartment, bundled up in a heavy coat, boots and knitted cap, and after another cup of coffee Qwilleran rose and thanked his hostess for the excellent dinner.

"Do you think the Fluxion could do something about our Block Party?" she asked as she accompanied him to the door and gave him a snack for the cats. "It means a lot to C.C. He's like a little boy about Christmas, and I hate to see his heart broken." "I'll work on it tomorrow." "Isn't he wonderful when he gets wound up about City Hall?" Her eyes were shining. "I'll never forget the time I went with him to the City Council meeting. He was making things hot for them and the mayor told him to sit down and keep quiet. C.C. said, 'Look buddy, don't tell me to pipe down. I pay your salary! I was so proud of my husband that tears came to my eyes." Qwilleran went back across the hall, unlocked the door, and peeked in. The cats jumped down from their gilded thrones, knowing that the waxed paper package he carried contained pot roast. Yum Yum rubbed against his ankles, while Koko made loud demands.

The man leaned over to rub Koko's head, and that was when he saw it — on the floor near the desk: a dollar bill! It was folded lengthwise. He knew it was not his own. He never folded his money that way.

"Where did this come from?" he asked the cats. "Has anybody been in here?" It had to be someone with a key, and he knew it was neither of the Cobbs. He inspected the typed sheets on his desk and the half-finished page in his typewriter. Had someone been curious about what he was writing? It could hardly be anyone but the other tenant in the house. Perhaps Ben doubted that he was a writer — it had happened before — and sneaked in to see for himself, dropping the dollar bill when he pulled something out of his pocket-glasses, or a handkerchief, perhaps. The incident was not really important, but it irritated Qwilleran, and he went back to the Cobb apartment.