I tried to catch my breath-a difficult thing to do considering my chest felt tight and on fire, my mind remembering the security’s guard hands squeezing my well-padded ribs. Someone was running a vacuum cleaner. I couldn’t see it, but I saw a long, red cord plugged into the wall that meandered like an old snake down a corridor. There was wainscoting along that hall, and a man was polishing it. That left two unaccounted for. But they had to be nearby, that jarring hip-hop refrain was echoing off a wall, a woman’s voice this time. Her rhythmic wail felt like pins against my sensitive ears.

Once more I thought of that lethal needle.

I flexed my claws nervously, unsure of what course I should take. Then indecision was ripped from me; the security guards were coming down the stairs.

I summoned all the strength remaining in my fatigued muscles and sprinted across the floor, slipping and sliding over the fresh wax and nearly caroming into a suit of samurai dragon armor. One of the guards must have spotted me, my original captor, I’ll wager. I barely heard his shout above the woman rapper.

“That cat!”

My chest and legs burned, my heart hammered even faster, and my paws somehow found just enough purchase so I could speed down the hall and past the hated janitor’s closet… and then through the back door that one of the cleaning men was opening. I thought he smiled at me as I galumphed past.

I didn’t wait to see if anyone else spotted me, though I knew I should have. I took a risk heading straight back to Little Italy with my hard-won prize. What if one of the security guards had followed me? What if I had led someone straight to the Italian restaurant and to the wooden stairs at the back that led up to Luigi’s spacious apartment? What if they’d discovered the rest of Tony’s Seasons hidden there and confiscated all of them?

But that didn’t happen. I was “free and clear,” as they say.

Sitting outside the door, I closed my eyes and thanked God and Bast that this fat cat burglar had escaped unscathed. I must have dozed or dropped off from sheer exhaustion, as when I opened my eyes the sky was lightening and full of birds. I heard a car horn, and then another.

I scratched at the door, still holding the ribbons in my teeth. After a moment, the boss let me in. I deposited the sheet music at his feet in much the same manner as one might drop a treasure at the toes of a human.

He grinned.

“Come, Vinnie,” he said. “Let me order you something fine to eat. I will play this for you while you decide what you want.”

He reverently carried the music to the piano and unrolled it, settled himself on the bench, and looked at me.

“An Italian tomato salad,” I said, having already made up my mind. “With a few diced peppers, lots of celery, and a little basil. A small salad, Boss, and have them hold the anchovies.”

Don Luigi was into his fourth playing of

Tony’s Fall before my scant meal arrived. The sweet notes were worth everything I’d been through.

I climbed the stairs to the attic and gacked up a hairball, curled on my cushion, and listened.

The boss was just starting in on

Tony’s Spring.

I told you earlier that it’s like Heaven opening up when the boss plays, the melody swirling around his apartment and rising into my attic, consuming me and bringing tears to my eyes. No other sounds are so enchanting.

I live to hear the boss play.

INK AND NEWSPRINT by Marc Tassin

Sophocles paced in front of the rack of newspapers, his fluffy gray tail swishing back and forth with the precision of a drum major’s baton. Ears back, he padded across the shop’s asphalt tile floor, turned at the comic book circular, and headed back the other way. Passing the counter, he glared at the big round clock on the newsstand’s wall, its plexiglas casing coated with dust.

Ten after nine.

Ten after nine and still no sign of Coffee Man. For three years, Coffee Man had arrived at 8:50 AM every day. Coffee Man always carried a fresh cup of coffee from the diner next door, always of the exact same variety, some sort of cheap Colombian blend Sophocles deduced from the aroma, and always black. He purchased a

New York Times, and he always paid for it in coins. But for the past two months, no sign of him, and Sophocles found this pointedly disturbing.

It wasn’t the man’s absence alone that bothered the old gray British Shorthair. Customers came and went at the little newsstand. It was all part of life. In his fifteen years, he’d learned that much at least. Rather, it was Coffee Man’s absence combined with the absence of Too-Much-Perfume Woman, Guy-Who-Doesn’t-Bathe, Muddy-Boot-Man, and countless others. (Although to be honest, Sophocles didn’t miss Muddy-Boot-Man, who made a terrible mess every time he came in to the store.)

The disappearances were all part of a growing trend, one that slowly materialized over the past five years. Where once the shop was a bustle of activity in the morning, now the little bell over the door had fallen almost silent, ringing just a few times each hour.

Sophocles twitched his nose and narrowed his eyes. With the exception of Herbert, the old man who worked the store’s counter, Sophocles didn’t trust humans. They were notorious for their inability to maintain a regular schedule. Things always “came up,” as they liked to put it, and interrupted proper and respectable routines.

He stopped his pacing to survey the newspaper rack. Publications from around the country and the far corners of the world shared space.

The London Times, the Detroit Free Press, the San Francisco Chronicle-Ehgleman’s Newsstand had it all. At Ehgleman’s, customers weren’t limited to the one-sided, local point of view. The expatriate wasn’t reduced to getting irregular, and certainly inaccurate, information by phone or letter from friends across the sea. Certainly not.

No, at Ehgleman’s the customer could find the facts, plain and simple, printed in a sharp 7.5 point Nimrod Cyrillic font, on sensible yellow-white newsprint. That was, after all, what the news was all about. The facts, clearly stated, in a form you can sink your claws into.

And yet, Sophocles thought, the people no longer came.

Checking the clock, he saw that it was quarter-past nine. Sophocles sighed and plodded over to the big plateglass windows at the front of the store. With a bit of effort, he hopped onto the wide sill. The east facing windows made for excellent morning sunning, something Sophocles did daily at 9:15 AM sharp. He stepped onto the little cushion Herbert had placed there for him, turned a few circles to loosen the stuffing, and then settled in.

Sophocles watched the crowds passing by, rushing off to their jobs, towing children to daycare, balancing steaming cups of coffee while negotiating the sea of people moving along the sidewalk. No one even glanced at the wooden bench in front of the shop, the paint on its slats faded and chipping. Herbert had placed it there years ago, back when people actually sat and read their papers right after buying them. On most days, the bench remained empty. People just pushed past, using the bench, at most, as place to set a briefcase while negotiating the removal of a phone from a pocket.

As Sophocles sat gazing out the window, mulling over his troubles, a strange thing happened. Someone did sit on the bench, a young man wearing jeans and a t-shirt. No more than thirty, Sophocles estimated, although he was never very good at guessing their ages. Like the others, he had a coffee, a rather large one at that, but he didn’t carry a briefcase.

Sitting there on the bench, the man reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a hand-sized device. A phone, Sophocles thought at first. He’d seen these little devices proliferate like fleas on an alley cat over the past few years. He could appreciate the desire to remain in contact with others, but voice communication was seldom as efficient as the printed word. It all seemed rather silly.