"Where's he going? What's in there?"

"Come on," Joe said.

"But it's…"

"Shh. Come on." He backed away from the edge and led her across the roof until they were over the repair shop. The sky above them was bright with pale, swift running clouds.

Below them in the yard, Sheril put her arm around Jimmie. "I'm starving, lover. And I'm purely dead for sleep."

"We're almost done," Jimmie said. "You sure you didn't miss any? We'll leave the cars in the yard-Clyde's expecting a delivery."

She laughed.

"A legit delivery. Come on, Wark can stash the bundles, we'll get some breakfast and grab a couple hours' sleep."

"I don't want to go to my place. I can just feel the neighbors staring, and it's broad daylight." She had a whiney voice, as annoying as sand between a cat's claws.

Jimmie mumbled something the cats couldn't hear; and Sheril giggled.

Wark was unlocking the small gate. As he swung it back, he looked up toward the roof. The cats sucked down as flat as frogs mashed on a highway. He seemed to be staring straight at them.

But he hadn't seen them. He moved on away, through the gate into the narrow alley between the stores that faced Highway One. "Where's he going?" Dulcie said, creeping forward. "What's he up to?"

Joe stared down at the tow car parked below them, and leaped. Dulcie followed, they made two soft thumps on the metal top, and hit the concrete running. Wark had disappeared but he had left the gate ajar, maybe for a quick getaway.

"Hurry," Dulcie breathed, glancing toward the two figures beside Corvette, and they slid through the open gate into the alley.

They were facing an open door, a side door into the restaurant; they could smell stale grease and cigarette smoke. The room was dark, but large and chilly. Behind them in the yard they heard the big driveway gate being rolled back, and heard one of the cars start and head out. They slipped inside, to Mom's Burgers.

The restaurant was so black they couldn't see Wark. And they couldn't hear him, not a sound. Moving in away from the square of light provided by the open door, they hunched in the blackness against the wall.

Before them loomed an army of tables, their legs standing at attention on the dirty carpet. Chairs had been piled up on top, a second row of mute soldiers waiting for the carpet to be vacuumed. At the far end of the room near the floor, a faint light shone. It seemed to come from around a corner, and they heard a soft thud, then a door suck closed with a pneumatic wheeze.

They trotted on back between the table legs to a short hall where, halfway down, a strip of light shone beneath a closed door. "Men's room," Joe said. They could hear from inside, metal rubbing against metal. As they pressed against the door they heard a thunk. Then silence. Then, in a few minutes, a metallic click like the turn of a lock.

The light under the door went out. The hall dropped into blackness. They leaped away as the swinging door opened, emitting a suck of air.

Wark passed so close to them that they could have clawed his ankles to shreds. He was carrying the canvas bag, a pale smear against his dark pants; even in the blackness they could see that it hung limp and empty.

He swung out of the hall and across the restaurant. In a moment they heard the outer door close and the lock slide home. They were locked in.

They heard the wire gate slam, the click of the padlock. Dulcie shivered.

"So he locked the door. So let's see what he was doing in there."

They shouldered open the heavy pneumatic door. As they pushed into the dark room, a chill hit them. Their paws hit cold tile. The room echoed with the sound of the door closing behind them.

Joe leaped up the wall, and leaped again. On his third try his groping paw found the light switch and grabbed it, clawing.

Light blazed, shattering against the white tile walls, reflecting back and forth from the slick surfaces, nearly blinding them.

The small, white tiled room had one booth, a sink, and a urinal. It smelled of human bodily functions and of Lysol.

Though the room was cold, an even colder chill emanated from the ceiling, where a black hole gaped.

Above them in the white ceiling, two acoustical tiles had been removed, leaving a rectangular space maybe three feet across, and black as the inside of a locked car trunk. The missing tiles were not anywhere in the small bathroom. Looking up into the hole, they could see in its dark interior only the edge of a wooden beam, and a few taut metal rods, maybe part of the grid that held the ceiling tiles. Joe thought that an attic must run the full length of the store complex. It would be the logical place to hide something.

But Wark would have had to stand on the toilet, then hoist himself up onto the thin partition of the booth. And even if the partition would hold his weight, Joe could find no footprint on the toilet seat or on the top of the tank. There was no strong scent of Wark around those fixtures. "He sure didn't use the facilities."

Dulcie reared up to stare with curiosity at the urinal, then grimaced, realizing what it was. "He used this," she said with disgust. She leaped to the sink and dabbled her paws in the few drops of water that clung around the drain, then examined the rectangular mirror.

The glass was fixed solidly to the wall-it was not like the medicine cabinet at home. In fact, nothing in the room seemed movable, except the toilet tank top, and what could you hide there? The tank would be full of water.

Dulcie said, "I know I heard a key in a lock." But there was no lock. They were still standing on the sink, pawing at the mirror, when the door swung open behind them.

24

The swinging door slammed open; the cats had no time to leap off the sink. Wark stood staring in, into the bright white glare of the men's room. His muddy eyes glinted with rage. As he lunged at them, they exploded apart. Joe hit the floor. Dulcie leaped straight to the top of the booth, brushing past Wark's face; but she moved too late, the Welshman grabbed her. As he fought the brindle cat, Joe leaped at his head raking and snarling. This allowed Dulcie to twist free from Wark's hands; with one last rake of her claws she sprang away into the attic and disappeared within the black hole.

When she appeared again looking over, Wark had scrambled up onto the toilet seat. But Joe still clung to his neck; as the Welshman fought Joe with one hand he grabbed for Dulcie with the other. She fled again. Joe propelled off Wark's shoulder into the dark behind her but he was off-balance. He hit the side of the hole, scrabbling into the soft tiles, felt them tear under his weight. Wark's fingers closed on his leg. Joe twisted, bit the offending hand, and leaped upward with a force that carried him up into the blackness.

They fled away through the cavernous dark along the wooden beams, dodging the thin metal struts. They heard him climbing, heard the clang of the porcelain tank as his weight hit it, then a dry, tearing sound as tiles gave way beneath him.

Then a loud crack, a sharp indecipherable word, and the clattering of dislodged porcelain as Wark fell.

Cheered by Wark's mishap, they turned to look back and in the darkness, Dulcie smiled. "Good for him. I hope he broke a leg."

But in a moment they heard him step on the toilet seat again, and climb. They moved away quickly.

The attic was vast, its low, sloped roof receding into an endless tunnel of unrelenting night, the tangles of metal struts hindering any swift flight.

"This can't just be the attic over the stores," Joe said. "It's too big, it has to go on over those open sheds." And why not? The buildings were all attached.