Part 13 (1/2)
In three leaps Madame Phloi crossed the ledge back to her own window and pushed through the screen to safety. After looking back to see if the fat man might be chasing her and being rea.s.sured that he was not, she washed Thapthim's ears and her own paws and sat down to wait for pigeons.
Like any normal cat Madame Phloi lived by the Rule of Three. She resisted any innovation three times before accepting it, tackled an obstacle three times before giving up, and tried each activity three times before tiring of it. Consequently she made two more sallies to the pigeon promenade and eventually convinced Thapthim to join her.
Together they peered over the edge at the world below. The sense of freedom was intoxicating. Recklessly Thapthim made a leap at a low-flying pigeon and landed on his mother's back. She cuffed his ear in retaliation. He poked her nose. They grappled and rolled over and over on the ledge, oblivious of the long drop below them, taking playful nips of each other's hide and snarling gutteral expressions of glee.
Suddenly Madame Phloi scrambled to her feet and crouched in a defensive position. The fat man was leaning from his window.
”Here, kitty, kitty,” he was saying in one of those despised falsetto voices, offering some bit of food in a saucer. The Madame froze, but Thapthim turned his beautiful trusting eyes on the stranger and advanced along the ledge. Purring and waving his tail cordially, he walked into the trap. It all happened in a matter of seconds: the saucer was withdrawn and a long black box was swung at Thapthim like a baseball bat, sweeping him off the ledge and into s.p.a.ce. He was silent as he fell.
When the family came home, laughing and chattering, with their arms full of packages, they knew at once something was amiss. No one greeted them at the door. Madame Phloi hunched moodily on the windowsill, staring at a hole in the screen, and Thapthim was not to be found.
”The screen's torn!” cried the gentle voice.
”I'll bet he's out on the ledge.”
”Can you lean out and look? Be careful.”
”You hold Phloi.”
”Can you see him?”
”Not a sign of him! There's a lot of gla.s.s scattered around, and the window next door is broken.”
”Do you suppose that man . . . ? I feel sick.”
”Don't worry, dear. We'll find him . . . . There's the doorbell! Maybe someone's bringing him home.”
It was Charlie standing at the door, fidgeting uncomfortably. ” 'Scuse me, folks,” he said. ”You missin' one of your kitties?”
”Yes! Have you found him?”
”Poor little guy,” said Charlie. ”Found him lyin' right under your window, where the bushes is thick.”
”He's dead!” the gentle one moaned.
”Yes, ma'am. That's a long way down.”
”Where is he now?”
”I got him down in the bas.e.m.e.nt, ma'am. I'll take care of him real nice. I don't think you'd want to see the poor guy.”
Still Madame Phloi stared at the hole in the screen and waited for Thapthim. From time to time she checked the other windows, just to be sure. As time pa.s.sed and he did not return, she looked behind the radiators and under the bed. She pried open cupboard doors and tried to burrow her way into closets. She sniffed all around the front door. Finally she stood in the middle of the living room and called loudly in a high-pitched, wailing voice.
Later that evening Charlie paid another visit to the apartment.
”Only wanted to tell you, ma'am, how nice I took care of him,” he said. ”I got a box that was just the right size-a white box, it was, from one of the nice stores. And I wrapped him up in some old blue curtain. It looked real pretty with his fur. And I buried the little guy right under your windows, behind the bushes.
And still Madame Phloi searched, returning again and again to watch the ledge from which Thapthim had disappeared. She scorned food. She rebuffed any attempts at consolation. And all night she sat wide-eyed and waiting in the dark.
The living room window was now tightly closed, but the following day the Madame- when she was left by herself in the lonely apartment-went to work on the bedroom screens. One was new and hopeless, but the second screen was slightly corroded, and she was soon nosing through a slit that lengthened as she struggled out onto the ledge.
Picking her way through the broken gla.s.s, she approached the spot where Thapthim had vanished. And then it all happened again. There he was-the fat man-holding out a saucer.
”Here, kitty, kitty.”
Madame Phloi hunched down and backed away.
”Kitty want some milk?” It was that ugly falsetto, but she did not run home this time.
She crouched on the ledge, a few inches out of his reach.
”Nice kitty. Nice kitty.”
Madame Phloi crept with caution toward the saucer in the outstretched fist, and stealthily the fat man extended another hand, snapping his fingers as one would do to call a dog.
The Madame retreated diagonally-half toward home and half toward the dangerous brink.
”Here, kitty. Nice kitty,” he cooed, leaning farther out of his window, but under his breath he muttered: ”You dirty sneak! I'll get you if it's the last thing I ever do. Comin'
after my bird, weren't you?”
Madame Phloi recognized danger with all her senses. Her ears were back, her whiskers curled, and her white underside hugged the ledge.
A little closer she moved, and the fat man made a grab for her. She jerked back a step, with unblinking eyes fixed on his sweating face. He was furtively laying the saucer aside, she noticed, and edging his fat paunch farther out the window.
Once more she advanced almost into his grasp, and again he lunged at her with both of his powerful arms.
”This time I'll get you, you stinkin' cat,” he mumbled, and raising one knee to the windowsill, he threw himself at Madame Phloi. As she slipped through his fingers, he landed on the ledge with all his weight.
A section of masonry crumbled beneath him. He bellowed, clutching at air, and at the same time a streak of creamy brown fur flashed out of sight.
The fat man was not silent as he fell.
As for Madame Phloi, she was found doubled in half-in a patch of suns.h.i.+ne on her living room carpet-innocently was.h.i.+ng her fine brown tail.
Tragedy on New Year's Eve ”Tragedy on New Year's Eve” was first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March 1968.
January 1 Dear Tom, Another New Year is beginning. I hope and pray that the trouble will end soon, and you'll be stationed closer to home. You are constantly in my thoughts.
It's four in the morning on New Year's Day-strange hour for a mother to be writing to her son-but I'm so upset, Tom dear. A terrible accident just happened behind our apartment building. I'm home alone-Jim is working-and I've got to tell somebody about it.
Jim went on special duty with the Cleanup Squad tonight, so I curled up on the sofa and read a mystery novel, and at midnight I opened the window and listened to the horns blowing and bells ringing. (Excuse the smudge. There's a cat sitting on the desk, pawing the paper as I write. Just a stray that I picked up.) At midnight the neighborhood looked like a Christmas tree-green lights on the gas station-red neon on Wally's Tavern-traffic lights winking. The traffic was moving slowly-we'd had a freezing rain, then more snow-and I said a little prayer that Jim would get home safely.
After that I put on the pretty fleece robe he gave me for Christmas and had a snooze on the sofa, because I promised to wait up for him. The sirens kept waking me up-police, ambulance, fire-then I'd doze off again.
Suddenly loud noises jolted me awake. Bang-bang-CRASH-then shattering gla.s.s. It came from the rear of the building. I ran to the kitchen window and looked out, and there was this black car-up over the sidewalk-rammed into the old brick warehouse back there. The car doors were flung open, and the interior light was on, and something dark was sprawled out of the driver's seat with the head hanging down in the snow. Man or woman? I couldn't tell.
I was stunned, but I knew enough to call the police. When I went back to the window everything down on the street was quiet as a morgue. No traffic. No one came running.
No lights s.h.i.+ning out of apartment windows. And there was this stranger hanging out of the wrecked car-dead or dying.