I Called Her Cat

For her part, she gave a small cry of terror, rolled her eyes so far I suspected that she could discern the folds and whorls of her brain and then sank to the ground in an oddly graceful manner. I felt more than a little foolish, when Jane's voice, dripping sarcasm, came from right behind my left ear, startling me into another leap to attack.

"First you keep a poor naked, terrified woman in your apartment, then you go and kill my landlady, and now you're threatening me with grievous bodily harm.. I'm not sure that I want to know a man who has such a deleterious effect on the women in his life." She looked down at the woman on the floor with little more than clinical interest. I vowed, in one small part of my mind not occupied with getting my heart rate to slow enough to be able to breath that I would have to find out a lot more about this lady who could look at inert bodies on the floor with such dispassion. "What did you do, bash her on the head? I hated the cranky bitch, but I didn't seriously want to have her killed."

Then I felt really foolish. The landlady groaning and shaking herself saved me trying to explain that the woman on the floor was alive and untouched by my hand. She took one look at me and scrambled to her feet, losing one of the bunny slippers in the process and then galloped from the apartment screaming for the police at the top of her not inconsiderable lungs. I picked up the slipper, and following Jane's lead left that apartment in the wake of the shrieking landlady. Doors had popped open and heads were peering into the hall looking a little uncertain and afraid.

As each person saw Jane and I walking towards them heads withdrew at a speed that would make a turtle proud, and doors slammed. Jane looked wryly at me, and allowed as how she appreciated the need in men for a weapon, but that it would be better if I either concealed it or got rid of it entirely. I looked foolishly at my hand and realised that I still carried the broken bit of wood that so recently had been an integral part of a lady's dresser. I dropped it with some feeling of relief, and realised that my other hand held Jane's empty purse and the bunny slipper. I had been examining the purse when I heard the noise in the living room of her apartment. I solemnly handed it to her and she equally solemnly accepted it, and slung it over her shoulder.

VI When we reached the ground floor, there was a uniformed cop there, and the landlady was speaking at a high rate of speed to him. She caught sight of us, and pointing a finger at me shrieked, "That's HIM!! The man who attacked me!" The cop, obviously having dealt with hysterical women before, glanced at Jane and then me, asking sardonically, "Did you jump out and try to beat this woman on the head with a club?"

Gallantly bowing to the landlady I handed her the bunny slipper and turning to the cop, I smiled slightly, and replied, "Hmm, yes that about sums it up in a nutshell. I am guilty as accused. Do your worst."

He looked at me a little more sharply, "That's an interesting response. I'd like to hear your story."

The landlady continued to shriek in the poor cop's face about how I was a rapist-dope-fiend-communist-mad-bomber and that he should avoid the trouble of arresting me by simply killing me like the mad dog I obviously was, and why wasn't he doing something to protect the virtue and safety of a good woman. There was a lot more, but most of it was a variation on the same theme.

"Mrs. Ardusky, ya gotta be quiet now and let me handle this. You called the cops, and now I'm here to keep you safe. Lemme do my job, OK?" he turned back to me and I could see that he was tense, his right hand, although not actually touching it, carefully near to his pistol. "Y'wanna tell me some more?"

"Certainly. I am of the firm opinion that a person has the right to attack any intruder or trespasser, and that is what I was doing to Mrs. Ardusky. Of course I didn't know it was an overweight old lady with a bad mouth when I came into the room."

OLD!!! Why! I'll..." here Mrs. Ardusky had so many things to scream at me that she couldn't get them all out at once, so fell to grinding her teeth and turning red.

Jane stepped in then and calmly informed the cop that there had been a break-in in her apartment, that she and I had discovered it, and when we heard some furtive padding in the living room, I had gallantly leapt to her defence: that there was no way to know who had snuck so scurrilously into her home, and that at the moment I realised it was not a return of the original burglars, I had desisted at once and that Mrs Ardusky, while certainly in the wrong for silently sneaking into someone else's apartment, was also guilty of simply making a mistake.

For the second time that day we were embroiled in the clutches of the bureaucracy. We all four trooped back up to Jane's apartment, and the cop summoned assistance. For four hours, we answered questions, denied having any part in the act in spite of the landlady's assertion that Jane had been entertaining other dope-fiends who had got a little out of hand. Other dope fiends than me: she still contended that I was a bad'un. I did nothing to dissuade the cranky old woman. I just smiled enigmatically and kept silent. Which had the delightful effect of satisfying a childish whim of mine. She was so livid by the time Jane and I left that I was beginning to seriously wonder about her heart. Even the cops admitted that the place had become uninhabitable, and with the landlady we returned to the ground floor, where she told Jane to give her the keys, that she was tossed out as of that moment, that she didn't tolerate tenants who were so sleazy or who had such evil companions and that she was going to sue Jane for all damages. When she ran out of breath I smiled and wished her a good evening, at which she literally hissed, and slammed into her suite.

VII Jane and I got into my car, and I offered her a drink. She was surprisingly calm throughout the whole day's ordeals, but I was sure that she felt devastated. She accepted then said,

"Wait! We forgot to get Cat some clothes!" looking at her watch, "I think that department store over on Bay is still open, and it looks as though you are going to be buying a few things for me too. I can get an advance Monday or Tuesday from work, and pay you back then, but I will still need some clean underwear and a toothbrush." So we went shopping. It had been a number of years since I had gone shopping for women's clothing and I had blessedly forgotten the time it seems to take. Actually, I remembered it being a lot more torturous than it turned out to be with Jane. She seemed to have a pretty good idea of the things Cat would need to be inconspicuously dressed, (there was no way she could be considered inconspicuous in her normal state), but it still took us quite a while and by the time I had paid for three complete changes of clothes, (one for Jane), I was more than ready for a soothingly dark lounge somewhere with quiet jazz and a sympathetic bartender.

We had settled our order in just such a place and began to relive the events of the day.

"I suppose that your purse was stolen to find out where you lived." I said at one point, and Jane nodded, and then said in a quiet voice, "I guess I wasn't as discreet finding out about Cat as I thought I was. Someone followed me or phoned ahead to have me met at the Airport. Thank God they didn't get my laptop! That has the whole thing on it."

"They didn't?" I was a little mystified. I hadn't seen it at the apartment, nor had she carried it or stored it the night before at the airport. "Why didn't they get that? I didn't notice you carrying it yesterday."

"No. There were three of us who went to Winnipeg and his wife was meeting Joe, one of my co-workers. He took all the computers, because he was going into the office today, and there is other stuff on them that needs to be dumped into the mainframe as soon as possible. Georgia and I decided to take today off and make it a long weekend." She got this look of consternation on her face "HEY! We have to get to your place RIGHT NOW!"

She literally leapt to her feet, actually leaving the ground by an inch or so and landed running for the door. I quickly threw a couple of bills on the table and took off after her. I caught up with her dancing on one foot by the driver's side of the car, and yelling at me to hurry up, that she was driving. She was so urgent that unthinkingly, I tossed her the keys and ran to the passenger side door. By the time I had one foot in the car she was accelerating madly down the street. The door swung closed on my shin with excruciating results. It was two or three moments before I could say anything and by that time I was less interested in talking than praying that the Goddess of fast drivers was watching over her!.

There wasn't a great deal of traffic on the roads she took, but they might as well not have been there for all the notice that Jane took. Actually, it very quickly began to be obvious that although she was incredibly fast behind the wheel, she was totally in control. I calmed down a bit, got my seatbelt on, and taking a deep breath, asked what the hurry was. Jane shifted gears a couple of times, skidded around a delivery truck parked in the road, and then cryptically barked,

"My address book."

It took me a moment to figure out what she was saying, and then I too began to panic. We had seen no sign of that book, and I know she had my address in it. And that meant that Cat was in danger. And naked. And incapable or disinclined to cry out for help. It took a very short time to get to my building, not more than a century or two, and Jane's driving had certainly turned my hair white, my liver yellow and my heart into a jackhammer. We ran up all the stairs to my place and saw the door wide open. I started to gallop into the apartment, ready to call out for Cat, but Jane grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip, and shushing me, began to retreat to the stairwell. As we ran back down she whispered that they were probably still in there, and we needed to get to a phone. I leapt into the corridor on the floor below mine and ran to a neighbour's place. I knew him vaguely; we picked up each other's mail and watered plants when one of us was out of town.

Bruce answered my frantic knocking and leaving Jane to explain as best she could I barked, "phone" and ran into his kitchen. While I was dialling 911, she told him that my place was burglarized and I was telephoning the cops. Who arrived in their own good time. The arrest report claims it was three minutes from the time I called until they got there, but I know it was at least a week. Two of the biggest uniforms I have ever seen showed up soon enough, I suppose, as events would prove, and those giant uniforms were strained to confine the monsters inside. We went back up to the penthouse, this time by the elevator. Which was on a work-to-rule strike. It crept up the floors so slowly; I thought I would be dead of old age before it arrived.

Cops being cops, we were asked a lot of questions as we rode that snail. When we arrived, we were cautioned to stay back, and drawing their pistols the cops entered my apartment. My first thought was relief that we had been rescued from a nasty situation. My next was what reaction Cat was going to get if she was alive, being naked and silent. Then I wondered if she was even alive. I sweated enough to lubricate a small truck, and we waited. The cops were gone quite a while, and then there were suddenly shouts and the sounds of an intense, though very brief struggle. Eventually one of the cops came to the hall and beckoned us inside.

VIII Sitting on the floor in front of my couch, hands bound behind him, was a slight, rather diminutive but dapper gentleman of some substance. His suit alone was worth more than I made in a month, and his shoes were even more expensive looking. He wore a topcoat, although it was not all that cold out. Even with the evidence of a roughhouse, he wasn't all that mussed up. He had a thick swelling under one eye, and his suit jacket was folded up under the topcoat, exposing a shoulder harness for an automatic pistol. Other than television, this was the first such harness I had ever seen, and I took a moment to examine it.

I began to take in the rest of the room. The monster cop standing guard over this paragon of the tailor's art was in pretty rough shape himself. One sleeve of his uniform shirt was dangling from the cuff, having been torn off in the evident struggle, and he too was sporting several bruises and abrasions. The room itself looked a little the worse for the brawl, but no serious damage. The coffee table and the television would have to be scrapped, but everything else looked OK. I was a little worried about Cat, but could see absolutely no evidence that she was anywhere about, from the living room. I could tell that Jane was equally wondering: she kept fidgeting and making quickly aborted moves as though to run into the kitchen and the utility room.

The battered cop asked me something while I was taking stock, and assessing a situation that was new to me. I lifted an eyebrow at him and he said again, "Ever seen this person before, sir?"

Once again I looked to the small man on my floor. He was quite harmless looking, but if the evidence of the huge cop's wounds were an example of his harmlessness, he was a master of understatement!. He was darker than I, with a full rich head of black hair, very few of which were out of place in spite of his recent activity. On his face was an expression of interest, as though hanging on my response with bated breath. I continued to watch him as I replied that as far as I was aware, I had never seen him before. Jane surprised both of us when she stated in a flat emotionless voice that she not only had seen him, but also had been forced to have him arrested in a recent business trip, for assaulting her in a parking lot.

Jane was beginning to pique my usually repressed curiosity. She calmly told the cop that the burglar had jumped her as she and a friend were leaving a restaurant, that the friend had suffered a broken collarbone, and she had been forced to subdue him. This from my gentle lover. Had subdued a man who had very nearly bested a 150Kg or better experienced brawler like that cop. I was not the only one who was startled by this revelation. The dapper man on the floor got for the briefest moment, an expression as near to total hate as any I have ever seen on a man's face. The cop snorted in derision, and actually said, "That one nearly tore my arm off with some kind of Kung Fu or sumpin' and you subdued him in a parking lot? What'd you use? A Mack truck?"

The other cop laughed a little, but Jane had her dander up. She can look at supposedly dead landladies with equanimity, but riding her would cause a little consternation. "Mr. Delgado's discipline is Karate, and I happen to be a better black belt. I also got lucky; his concentration was a bit off that night. So I would appreciate it if you could keep the snide comments to yourself." Her patient voice belied her obvious anger at being doubted. Her voice turned all sweetness and light. "I am going to make coffee. Can I make you gentlemen some?" she walked with dignity and without awaiting an answer into the kitchen.

The battered cop, sighing, asked me if I was prepared to prefer charges, and with my assent, asked me to come down to the station. I agreed, stating that I would follow him; I wanted to check out my place first. That seemed to satisfy them both, and taking the elegant Mr. Delgado, soundlessly slung between them like a sack of meal, they departed. I rushed into the kitchen to see Jane calmly making coffee, and told her that the cops had gone, that I was to follow them and asked if she had found any sign of Cat. She silently beckoned me with her head to the utility room, and opened the drier as though she was presenting the crown jewels.

There, all scrunched into that tiny drum was Cat. Not a big woman, to be sure, but it had to be a terrible fit. We both, with some wincing from Cat as her only protest, managed to extricate her from her makeshift hiding place. Once out, she looked at us both with a glimmer of a smile, and silently went into the bathroom. I stood there, an astonished look on my face until I was slapped on the shoulder by Jane who asked, "What did you think she was supposed to do with no clothes and no time to try to escape? I think she was brilliant! What man would even look at a washer or drier?"

Jane stalked back into the Kitchen while I slowly made my way out to the hall, nursing a small hurt that I was so badly treated by one who was supposed to be my new love and my joy. That lasted all of the thirty or so seconds it took to get to the hall and spy the packages of clothing we had bought lying by the stairwell entrance. Returning to the living room, I saw that Cat was coming out of the bathroom, and called to her that I had bought her some clothes, which she could wear or not as she chose. She came a little more eagerly than I had seen her move to date, and taking the bags from me, went into the kitchen. I went to the police station for my third bout of form filling. IX I came back in the dark, weary to the point of exhaustion from an almost constant barrage of bureaucrats, shocks to the system and more strenuous physical effort than was my customary wont. I was literally dreaming of my bed, silence and peace. It was not to be. When I entered the apartment, the lights were out in the living room. But there was a soft glow from the bedroom, and a sharper light spilling from the kitchen doorway. I had barely closed the door, when Jane came from the bedroom, and looking at me with a peculiar expression on her face, beckoned me into the bedroom. When I got there, she whispered to me that I was to be nice and supportive and then grabbing my wrist in a soft hand, tugged me into the kitchen.

Where Cat was sitting at the table. Apprehension was all over her face, as though she expected me to be angry with her. I didn't care why she was feeling nervous, at the moment she could have stood and opened fire with an automatic weapon, and my only reaction would have been one of gratitude for the peace offered by the flying bullets. I sat at the table, took the proffered glass of chilled white wine from Jane, and said nothing. These two, whatever they had cooked up, had prepared with some care. The kitchen looked brighter somehow, and I realised that the table held a vase I didn't know I possessed full of primary-coloured flowers. The wine being chilled showed a little forethought, and there was something on the stove that smelled quite good.

Cat, still looking like a kid waiting in the principal's office, reached out and for the first time in the whole eight months she had been resident in my utility room, touched me. More, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the first three fingers of my left hand and squeezed. I couldn't have been more shocked than if she had actually had an automatic weapon. My weariness sloughed off instantly, and looking close, I saw that Cat was still nervous as she rapidly returned her hand to her side. Solemnly I thanked her for the squeeze. A tear formed in her eye, and she quickly left the kitchen. Turning to Jane, I raised an eyebrow.

"She still hasn't said a word, but I think she feels grateful, for the sanctuary you have provided, for not taking advantage of her, you have kept your distance haven't you?" I smiled a little and nodded. Regardless of how close we had become in the past few weeks, she still didn't completely know me. "And I think mostly for not wanting to know about her past. When she comes back, I am going to tell you about that."

She held up a hand, forestalling any protest, and said that she had told Cat that it was time and Cat had agreed. I realised that although Cat was being a little, (very little) more expressive in her facial reactions to me, she must have been far more open with Jane. Jane had no doubts that she had communicated her desire and that Cat had acquiesced. At that point Cat returned to the room, still looking scared. I had the distinct impression that she was scared of me! I had gone out of my way to insure that Cat felt as comfortable as any incommunicative, naked woman in the apartment of a single male could feel, yet she was still scared. Obviously I hadn't managed as well as I had thought.