He glanced back at his intended offering, to make sure it was safe, then began maneuvering the take-out container so he could lick its interior.

He was in a secluded place where he wasn’t in any rush to finish his meal. The trophy he was transporting could wait until he was good and ready to continue his journey back to where he’d come from. What was the hurry? It wasn’t as if he had an appointment; and if he had one, he might not bother to keep it. He was, after all, a cat.

And a handsome one at that.

May 8, 2:02 p.m.

Quinn decided that to mollify Jody he’d go with Pearl for an initial interview concerning the missing cat. That they would do this should send the right parental message.

“You reported your cat missing?” Quinn asked Craig Clairmont. At least he assumed it was Craig Clairmont. The guy fit the description Fedderman had given him, but Quinn was to the point where he was taking nothing for granted. If he were a cat, he’d find something jarringly wrong with Clairmont. As it was, he felt only a vague unease.

Quinn was standing. Pearl was seated in a stiffly upholstered chair that looked as if it should be behind a desk rather than in a living room. The apartment was furnished that way, mismatched and mostly functional. An interior decorator would puke.

“We only rent here,” Clairmont said, as if reading Quinn’s mind.

Quinn found that disconcerting. “Your cat,” he reminded Ida French.

“Boomerang,” she said.

Pearl smiled. “Because he always comes back?”

“Yeah. Only this time he didn’t,” Ida French said. She was a sleek dishwater blonde, almost beautiful. But there was something about her blue eyes, an intensity that was unbecoming.

Clairmont seemed embarrassed. “I guess you think it’s foolish, contacting a private investigation agency to search for a missing cat.”

“They can be like part of the family,” Pearl said.

As if on cue, a small child with hair exactly the color of her mother’s sidled into the room. She was wearing blue shorts and a color-keyed blue and white blouse. Blue socks and jogging shoes. About nine years old, Pearl estimated. Cute, cute, cute.

“This is Eloise,” Ida French said. “My daughter.” The girl went to her and clung. She completely ignored Clairmont.

“About nine?” Pearl asked.

“Eight.”

Pearl smiled at Eloise. “A big girl for eight. And so pretty!”

Eloise smiled back.

“Now I understand the urgency about getting Boomerang back,” Quinn said. But he wondered. How many kids must there be in this city with missing cats, and nobody was phoning detective agencies about them?

Pearl must have been thinking the same thing. “If you give us a better description,” she said, “we can put out an ACB.”

The Clairmont-French family appeared puzzled.

“All Cat Bulletin,” Pearl explained, with not a trace of a smile.

Quinn felt like twisting her nose. Maybe he would, in the elevator.

Nobody else seemed to think Pearl was less than serious.

“He’s black with three white boots,” Ida French said to Pearl. “A good-sized cat. Likes to roam, but always returns. Only not this time. And, oh, yeah, he’s wearing a cheap kind of bangle collar. Looks like jewels.”

Pearl thought, Huh?

“You like to dress up your cat?” she asked Eloise.

“Not much,” Eloise said.

“The collar was a gift,” Ida French explained.

Craig Clairmont spread his hands hopelessly. “That’s about all we can give you by way of description.”

“He’s a handsome cat,” Eloise said defensively.

Ida French patted her daughter’s head. “No one says otherwise, dear.”

Quinn pretended to write it down in his notebook. “Handsome cat . . .” Then he looked more seriously at Clairmont and Ida French. “We’ll do what we can, send some people around the neighborhood to talk with folks, keep an eye out for Boomerang.”

“Cats don’t usually go far from home,” Pearl said.

Quinn wondered how she could know. Or if she really did know. He wanted to get out of there before she mouthed off.

“We’ll be getting busy,” he said, and moved toward the door.

Pearl stood up and moved with him.

The Clairmont French family stirred. Craig Clairmont and Ida French thanked them. Eloise said good-bye.

In the elevator Pearl said, “Jesus H. Christ!”

Quinn reached for her nose, but the elevator stopped its descent on the second floor and a woman walking with a metal cane entered.

Pearl started to say something else, but Quinn raised a finger to his lips, cautioning her.

“Renz must have his reasons,” he said.

Pearl said, softly, “And Clairmont must have his reasons for wanting Boomerang back.”

“Jeweled collar,” Quinn said. Or maybe a bracelet.

“See it all the time in New York,” Pearl said. “Cats decked out like fashion plates. Accessories aren’t just for people.”

The elevator lurched and continued its controlled fall.

“World like a puzzle,” Quinn said.

The woman with the cane ignored them.

When they got back to the office, Quinn phoned Renz to try to find out more about who and what they were investigating. What was the motivation for this concern about a missing cat?

“I’ve got my reasons,” Commissioner Harley Renz said, when Quinn had finally gotten through on the phone. He recognized Renz’s clipped, official voice.

“I need to know those reasons,” Quinn said, “if I’m going to waste valuable hours and shoe leather because of a missing cat. Even if he is handsome.”

“You need to take this seriously, Quinn. I certainly do.”

“I need to have a reason. Probably it would be the same as yours.”

“No, no . . .”

“Try me, Harley. I do understand that you place some importance in this. It would make it seem more worthwhile if you’d condescend to share.” Quinn also understood that Harley Renz valued information as the currency that bought power. Not to mention more actual currency. “I don’t need to know it all, Harley. Just some of it.”

There was a long silence on the phone. Quinn thought at first that the call had been dropped. Then Renz said, “Craig Clairmont has a sheet. He’s a jewel thief.”

Big surprise.

“And Ida French?”

“Nothing on her. But that just means she hasn’t been caught yet.”

“Eloise?”

“Who the hell is that?”

“Their eight-year-old daughter.”

“Oh, yeah. Ida’s kid.”

“Is Clairmont the father?”

“It’s possible,” Renz said. “Conjugal visits and such.”

“Jewels . . .” Quinn said thoughtfully.

“And we both know some jewels have been stolen,” Renz said.

“Belonging to Alexis Hoffermuth. The Alexis Hoffermuth.”

“What are you getting at, Quinn?”

“The missing cat, Boomerang, was wearing a cheap jeweled collar when he disappeared.”

There was silence except for the gears in Renz’s brain meshing.

“You’re shittin’ me!” he said.

“No,” Quinn said, “and a cat might slip a loose collar off, even back on again. Over and over. They like to play around with things.”

“Like certain people. Mostly of the female persuasion.”

“We got some kinda connection,” Quinn asked, “between Alexis Hoffermuth and Clairmont-French?”

“It looks like we do,” Renz said. “A half-million-dollar jeweled bracelet. And of course, little old me. It’s a connection, but it isn’t proof. You receiving the message?”

“Received,” Quinn said, and hung up the phone.

He wondered if Renz had already known about the cat wearing the bracelet around its neck. Maybe even Alexis Hoffermuth had known. Maybe she’d pressured Renz into using NYPD resources to search for a missing cat, even while she wanted him to pull out all the stops trying to recover a bracelet. Money could addle people’s thinking.