Лоуренс Блок - Catch and Release

I wondered whatever happened to that cat. It was a gray tabby, and I can remember the sound it made when it purred. Although I guess all cats make the same sound, pretty much. It’s a comfort, hearing them make that sound, which I guess is part of the reason I always liked having animals in the house.

I thought it probably wandered off. They come and they go. But something must have happened to this one, and then it just turned up again.

“It’s like an archaeological dig. You go down another stratum and you’re in another year.”

“And if it’s a truly productive site, sooner or later you unearth a dead cat.”

“Did you hear what she said? She always wondered what happened to that cat. You know what it looked like?”

“A cartoon cat.”

“Exactly! Like Wiley Coyote when he falls off a cliff and flattens out on the pavement. Or like Tom when Jerry outsmarts him—”

“Which is all the time.”

“—and he gets run over by a steamroller. Then he picks himself up, fills out again, and gets back into the game.”

“Without having learned his lesson. But I’m afraid this cat’s not going to fill out again.”

“No.”

“I wonder how it died. And when.”

“I hope you’re not going to order an autopsy.”

“No, hardly that, but they didn’t come across it until they’d moved a whole mountain of junk. It must have been there for years.”

“Unless it dug its way under there and died.”

“Why would it do something like that?”

“Maybe it knew it was dying, and how else could it make sure it got buried? You know what else I was wondering? I was just — oh, hang on a minute. Arnie, is there a problem?”

“A problem? It’s all of it a problem, isn’t it? The thing is, well, I don’t know if you need to know this, or if you even want to know it, but the boys just found another cat.”

It was the little calico.

Except I should say she. All calico cats are female. It’s genetic, and you’ll never find a male one. How many people know that?

They think I’m stupid and ignorant, but I’m not. There are a lot of things I know that most people probably don’t. All white cats with blue eyes are deaf. Born that way. Genetic.

How do I know? Well, I sure didn’t learn it in school. There’s a book about cats, a very good book, and there’s a chapter in it about genetics. One gene decides if a cat is Siamese or not.

I’ve got the book here somewhere. Unless one of them threw it out, one of these geniuses with his name on his shirt so he won’t forget who he is.

That calico cat, she was always Little Debby’s favorite. Of course all of the children liked all of the animals, that’s the way they were brought up, but that calico, Little Debby was crazy about her.

“That woman in Swedish Haven?”

“She was remarkable. The way the inner and outer lives were at such utter variance.”

“Right, but here’s my question. How many cats did she have?”

“Not a one.”

“Seriously? I thought they all had a house full of cats.”

“She didn’t have any, living or dead. Unless you count china cats.”

“She had those?”

“Oh, plenty of them. She collected them. And patterned glass, and travel books, and postcards and matchbooks. All of them carefully organized and neatly displayed, except that there was such a profusion of clutter that you couldn’t really see any of the displays. But they were all there, and all in apple-pie order.”

“Your organized lunatic, as opposed to your disorganized lunatic.”

“Except they’re not lunatics, or at least not all of them. Something goes wrong in their wiring, or maybe it’s a way to come to terms with a horrible childhood, or—”

“Oh, shit, everybody had a bad childhood.”

“Well, I have to say nobody molested me, or locked me in the closet for a week at a time. While some of the cases we get—”

“All right, point taken. Mine wasn’t that bad, either. I used to say I had as miserable a childhood as the next braggart, but it was way short of being that kind of nightmare.”

“I just hope there aren’t any more dead animals. Because the good news is that we’re making real progress here.”

“Well, give the dead cats some credit.”

“What do you mean, John?”

“Ever since the first one turned up, she hasn’t been kicking up a fuss. Haven’t you noticed? Instead of putting up a fight every time somebody wants to throw out the 1972 World Almanac , she stays locked into her own private world and leaves the men alone. It makes a big difference.”

“Maybe she’s resigned herself to it.”

“And maybe she figured she knows where the county landfill is, and she can just drive down there and retrieve her treasures after we’re gone.”

“Oh, God, don’t even say that.”

“Plus who knows what other treasures she might find while she’s there, and — Arnie, what is it? And please don’t tell me dead cats come in threes.”

“No, John, I think it’s worse than that. Arnie, you’re white as a sheet. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Arnie, what is it?”

“Eddie and that other fellow, I can’t think of his name right now—”

“Never mind his name.”

“I don’t know why I can’t think of it. But it don’t matter for now. The two of them, they was in the basement, which is no judgment calls involved, you know, because it’s all water-damaged and all gotta be thrown out, and they were in, I don’t know, the root cellar or the fruit cellar, or maybe it was the coal cellar back in the day.”

“And?”

“You just better come downstairs. You better come see for yourselves.”

One look and I knew who I was looking at. I recognized her right off. Her T-shirt was faded, it used to be yellow and now it’s more of a gray, but you can still make out Minnie Mouse’s picture on it, and that meant it was Little Debby. It was one of her favorite shirts, she plain loved Minnie Mouse.

But I’d have known anyway, because of the size. She was the youngest, and small for her age on top of that, so it for sure wasn’t Tricia or Maxine. Plus her red hair was a dead giveaway. Nobody else had hair that color. I guess she got it from her father, not that he was a redhead but his mother was. And nobody on my side of the family had red hair.

Not that I know just how that works in people. Cat genetics, there’s something I know a little about, but I think it’s more complicated in human beings.

I’ll tell you something, I think I knew it was Little Debby before I even set eyes on her. I just got this powerful feeling on the way down the cellar stairs. I couldn’t guess when was the last time I went anywhere near the cellar, but on the staircase, well, I had this feeling.

So I guess she didn’t run off after all. I guess it couldn’t have been so bad here at home, I guess she liked it well enough to stay.

A mother’s not supposed to play favorites, but she was my favorite, Little Debby. It’s funny, I don’t know how to explain this, but I have to say it: I’m sort of glad she’s here.

I wonder what else will turn up.

SCENE: A restaurant in Hoboken, New Jersey. BILLY CUTLER is at a table for two, reading a thick hardcover novel. DOROTHY MORGAN enters, looks around the room, unsure if this is the man she’s supposed to meet. She goes offstage and returns accompanied by a WAITER, who steers her toward Billy’s table. Billy looks up, and closes his book and stands as she approaches.