I shut the Trans Am’s door with a viciousness it didn’t deserve and stomped up the three flights to my apartment. Fatigue mixed with bitterness dulled the sixth sense that usually warns me of danger. The man had me pinned against my front door with a gun at my throat before I knew he was there.
I held my shoulder bag out to him. “Be my guest. Then leave. I’ve had a long day and I don’t want to spend too much of it with you.”
He spat. “I don’t want your stupid little wallet.”
“You’re not going to rape me, so you might as well take my stupid little wallet.”
“I’m not interested in your body. Open your apartment. I want to search it.”
“Go to hell.” I kneed him in the stomach and swept my right arm up to knock his gun hand away. He gagged and bent over. I used my handbag as a clumsy bolas and whacked him on the back of the head. He slumped to the floor, unconscious.
I grabbed the gun from his flaccid hand. Feeling gingerly inside his coat, I found a wallet. His driver’s license identified him as Joel Sirop, living at a pricey address on Dearborn Parkway. He sported a high-end assortment of credit cards-Bonwit, Neiman Marcus, an American Express platinum-and a card that said he was a member in good standing of the Feline Breeders Association of North America. I slid the papers back into his billfold and returned it to his breast pocket.
He groaned and opened his eyes. After a few diffuse seconds he focused on me in outrage. “My head. You’ve broken my head. I’ll sue you.”
“Go ahead. I’ll hang on to your pistol for use in evidence at the trial. I’ve got your name and address, so if I see you near my place again I’ll know where to send the cops. Now leave.”
“Not until I’ve searched your apartment.” He was unarmed and sickly but stubborn.
I leaned against my door, out of reach but poised to stomp on him if he got cute. “What are you looking for, Mr. Sirop?”
“It was on the news, how you found Jade. If the cat was there, you must have taken it.”
“Rest your soul, there were no cats in that apartment when I got there. Had he stolen yours?”
He shut his eyes, apparently to commune with himself. When he opened them again he said he had no choice but to trust me. I smiled brightly and told him he could always leave so I could have dinner, but he insisted on confiding in me.
“Do you know cats, Ms. Warshawski?”
“Only in a manner of speaking. I have a dog and she knows cats.”
He scowled. “This is not a laughing matter. Have you heard of the Maltese?”
“Cat? I guess I’ve heard of them. They’re the ones without tails, right?”
He shuddered. “No. You are thinking of the Manx. The Maltese-they are usually a bluish gray. Very rarely will you see one that is almost blue. Brigitte LeBlanc has-or had-such a cat. Lady Iva of Cairo.”
“Great. I presume she got it to match her eyes.”
He waved aside my comment as another frivolity. “Her motives do not matter. What matters is that the cat has been very difficult to breed. She has now come into season for only the third time in her four-year life. Brigitte agreed to let me try to mate Lady Iva with my sire, Casper of Valletta. It is imperative that she be sent to stay with him, and soon. But she has disappeared.”
It was my turn to look disgusted. “I took a step down from my usual practice to look for a runaway teenager today. I’m damned if I’m going to hunt a missing cat through the streets of Chicago. Your sire will find her faster than I will. Matter of fact, that’s my advice. Drive around listening for the yowling of mighty sires and eventually you’ll find your Maltese.”
“This runaway teenager, this Corinne, it is probable that she took Lady Iva with her. The kittens, if they are born, if they are purebred, could fetch a thousand or more each. She is not ignorant of that fact. But if Lady Iva is out on the streets and some other sire finds her first, they would be half-breeds, not worth the price of their veterinary care.”
He spoke with the intense passion I usually reserve for discussing Cubs or Bears trades. Keeping myself turned toward him, I unlocked my front door. He flung himself at the opening with a ferocity that proved his long years with felines had rubbed off on him. I grabbed his jacket as he hurtled past me but he tore himself free.
“I am not leaving until I have searched your premises,” he panted.
I rubbed my head tiredly. “Go ahead, then.”
I could have called the cops while he hunted around for Lady Iva. Instead I poured myself a whiskey and watched him crawl on his hands and knees, making little whistling sounds-perhaps the mating call of the Maltese. He went through my cupboards, my stove, the refrigerator, even insisted, his eyes wide with fear, that I open the safe in my bedroom closet. I removed the Smith & Wesson I keep there before letting him look.
When he’d inspected the back landing he had to agree that no cats were on the premises. He tried to argue me into going downtown to check my office. At that point my patience ran out.
“I could have you arrested for attempted assault and criminal trespass. So get out now while the going’s good. Take your guy down to my office. If she’s in there and in heat, he’ll start carrying on and you can call the cops. Just don’t bother me.” I hustled him out the front door, ignoring his protests.
I carefully did up all the locks. I didn’t want some other deranged cat breeder sneaking up on me in the middle of the night.
IV
It was after midnight when I finally reached Brigitte. Yes, she’d gotten my message about Jade. She was terribly sorry, but since she couldn’t do anything to help him now that he was dead, she hadn’t bothered to try to reach me.
“We’re about to part company, Brigitte. If you didn’t know the guy was dead when you sent me up to Winthrop, you’re going to have to prove it. Not to me, but to the cops. I’m talking to Lieutenant Mallory at the Central District in the morning to tell him the rigmarole you spun me. They’ll also be able to figure out if you were more interested in finding Corinne or your cat.”
There was a long silence at the other end. When she finally spoke, the hint of Southern was pronounced. “Can we talk in the morning before you call the police? Maybe I haven’t been as frank as I should have. I’d like you to hear the whole story before you do anything rash.”
Just say no, just say no, I chanted to myself. “You be at the Belmont Diner at eight, Brigitte. You can lay it out for me but I’m not making any promises.”
I got up at seven, ran the dog over to Belmont Harbor and back and took a long shower. I figured even if I put a half hour into grooming myself I wasn’t going to look as good as Brigitte, so I just scrambled into jeans and a cotton sweater.
It was almost ten minutes after eight when I got to the diner, but Brigitte hadn’t arrived yet. I picked up a Herald-Star from the counter and took it over to a booth to read with a cup of coffee. The headline shook me to the bottom of my stomach.
FOOTBALL HERO SURVIVES FATE
WORSE THAN DEATH
Charles “Jade” Pierce, once the smoothest man on the Bears’ fearsome defense, eluded offensive blockers once again. This time the stakes were higher than a touchdown, though: the offensive lineman was Death.
I thought Jeremy Logan was overdoing it by a wide margin but I read the story to the end. The standard procedure with a body is to take it to a hospital for a death certificate before it goes to the morgue. The patrol team hauled Jade to Beth Israel for a perfunctory exam. There the intern, noticing a slight sweat on Jade’s neck and hands, dug deeper for a pulse than I’d been willing to go. She’d found faint but unmistakable signs of life buried deep in the mountain of flesh and had brought him back to consciousness.