"I'm back freeloading on Wilma."

"And you've joined Sicily Aronson's group," he said. "I stopped in the gallery to have a look." He nodded his approval. "Your animals are very fine." Charlie's cheeks reddened. Harper glanced up at Dulcie and Joe as if inspecting them for a likeness. "You make those cats look…"

He paused, frowning, seemed to revise what he'd started to say. "It's fine work, Charlie. And the Aronson is a good gallery- Sicily's people sell very well. I think your work will be very much in demand."

Charlie smiled. "That would be nice-it would be great to fatten up my bank account, stop feeling shaky about money."

"It'll come," Harper said. "And Charlie's Fix-It, Clean-It appears to be doing well-except," he said, glancing at Clyde, "you need to be careful about questionable clients."

"If you hit it big," Clyde said, "if you sell a lot of drawings, you could put some money with Jergen, go for the high earnings. A bank doesn't pay much interest."

"I don't like the uncertainty," Charlie told him. "Call me chicken, but I'd rather depend on a small and steady interest."

Clyde tested the meat, slicing into one end, a tiny cut that ran bloody. In the tree above, the cats watched, mesmerized.

Harper passed Charlie a beer. "Have you found a new apartment?"

"Haven't had time to look. Or maybe I haven't had the incentive," Charlie said. "I get pretty comfortable with Wilma."

"There are a couple of cottages empty down near Mavity's place. We cleared one last week-busted the tenant for grass."

"Just what I want. Handy to my friendly neighborhood drug dealer."

"In fact, it's pretty clean down there. We manage to keep them at bay."

Molena Point depended for much of its income on tourism, and Harper did his best to keep the village straight, to stay on top of any drug activity. But even Molena Point had occasional problems. Several months ago, Joe remembered, there'd been an influx of PCP and crack. Harper had made three cases and got three convictions. In this town, the dealers went to jail. Harper had said that some of the drugs coming into the village were designer stuff, experimental pills.

Clyde said, "I could turn one of the new apartments into two studios. You could rent one of those."

"Your permit doesn't allow for more than five residences," Charlie said.

"Or you could move in here, with me."

Charlie blushed. "If I move in with you, Clyde Damen, I'll sleep in the laundry with the cats and Rube."

At the sound of his name, Rube lifted his head, staring bleerily at Charlie. The old dog's cataracts made his eyes dull and milky. His black muzzle was salted with white hairs. When Charlie reached to pet him, Rube leaned his head against her leg. The three household cats wound around Clyde's ankles as he removed the steak from the grill. But when the foursome was seated, it was Charlie who took up a knife and cut off bits of her steak for the animals.

The CDs played softly a string of Preservation Hall jazz numbers, the beer was ice cold, the steak pink and tender, the conversation comfortable, and as evening drew down, the fog gathered, fuzzing the outdoor lights and enclosing the backyard until it seemed untouched by the outside world. It was not until the four had finished dinner, the animals had had their fill, and Charlie was pouring coffee, that Harper mentioned the burglaries.

There had been a third break-in, at Waverly's Leather Goods. "They got over four thousand in small bills. Didn't take anything else, just the cash." Waverly's was the most exclusive leather shop in the village. "We have one partial print-we're hoping it's his. The guy's real careful.

"The print doesn't match any of the employees, but it will take a few days to get a make. He may have taken off his gloves for a minute while he was working on the safe."

"Are you still going on the theory the burglar's getting hold of the store keys?" Wilma asked.

Harper shrugged. "We're checking the locksmiths. Or he could simply be skilled with locks." He started to say something more, then hesitated, seemed to change his mind.

In the tree above him, the cats stared up at the sky, following the antics of the diving bats that wheeled among the treetops, but taking in Harper's every word.

Wilma, glancing up at them, exchanged a look with Clyde and turned away torn between a scowl and a laugh. The cats aggravated them both-but they were so wonderful and amazing that Wilma wished, sometimes, that she could follow them unseen and miss nothing.

It was not until the company had left, around midnight, that Clyde vented his own reaction. As Joe settled down, pawing at the bed covers, Clyde pulled off his shirt and emptied his pockets onto the dresser. "So what gives?"

"What gives about what?"

"You're very closemouthed about these burglaries." He turned to look at Joe. "Why the silence? There is no crime in Molena that you and Dulcie don't get involved with."

Joe looked up at him dully.

"Come on, Joe."

Joe yawned.

"What? Suddenly I'm the enemy? You think I can't be trusted?"

"We're not interested in these petty thefts."

"Of course you're interested. And isn't it nice, once in a while, to share your thoughts, to have some human feedback?"

"We're not investigating anything. Three amateurish little burglaries-Harper can handle that stuff."

"You have, in the past, not only confided in me, but picked up some rather useful information, thanks to yours truly."

Joe only looked at him.

"Clues you would surely have missed if Max and I didn't play poker, if you didn't scrounge around on the poker table, eavesdropping. But now you're too good to talk to me?"

Joe yawned again. "I am eternally grateful for your help on previous occasions. But at the moment I am not in need of information. We're not interested." Turning over on the pillow, with his back to Clyde, he began to work on his claws, pulling off the old sheaths.

He and Dulcie already knew who the perp was. As soon as they checked out Mavity's brother, Greeley, and found where he'd stashed the money, they'd tip Harper. And that would wrap it up. If the prints on the stolen bills matched the print from the leather shop, Harper would have Greeley cold.

Biting at his claws to release the sharp new lances and listening to Clyde noisily brushing his teeth in the bathroom, he quickly laid his plan.

Dulcie wasn't going to like the drill.

But she'd asked for it. If she wanted to play cute with the black tomcat, wanted to cut her eyes at Azrael, then she could make herself useful.

12

MAVITY FLOWERS'S cottage stood on pilings across a narrow road from the bay and marsh, crowded among similar dwellings, their walls cardboard-thin, their roofs flat and low, their stilted supports stained with mud from years of soaking during the highest tides. Mavity's VW Bug was parked on the cracked cement drive that skirted close to the house. Beyond the car, at the back, the open carport was crowded with pasteboard boxes, an old table, a wooden sawhorse, two worn tires, and a broken grocery cart. Joe, approaching the yard from across the road through the tall marsh grass, skirted pools of black mud that smelled fishy and sour; then as he crossed the narrow road, Azrael's scent came strong to him, clinging to the scruffy lawn.

Following the tomcat's aroma up onto Mavity's porch, he sniffed at the house wall, below an open window. Above him, the window screen had been removed and the window propped open, and black cat hairs clung to the sill. Mavity might complain about the tomcat, but she treated him cordially enough. From within the cottage, the smell of fried eggs and coffee wrapped around Joe, and he could hear silverware clatter against a plate.