The Burglar in Short Order Page 11

  “The world will beat a path to my door.”

  “What kind will you get, Bern? The kind with a powerful spring, that sooner or later you screw up while you’re setting it and it takes off the tip of your finger? The kind that breaks the mouse’s neck, and you open up the store and there’s this dead mouse with its neck broken, and you’ve got to deal with that first thing in the morning?”

  “Maybe one of those new glue traps. Like a Roach Motel, but for mice.”

  “Mice check in, but they can’t check out.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Great idea. There’s the poor little mousie with its feet caught, whining piteously for hours, maybe trying to gnaw off its own feet in a pathetic attempt to escape, like a fox in a leg-hold trap in one of those animal-rights commercials.”

  “Carolyn—”

  “It could happen. Who are you to say it couldn’t happen? Anyway, you come in and open the store and there’s the mouse, still alive, and then what do you do? Stomp on it? Get a gun and shoot it? Fill the sink and drown it?”

  “Suppose I just drop it in the garbage, trap and all.”

  “Now that’s humane,” she said. “Poor thing’s half-suffocated in the dark for days, and then the garbage men toss the bag into the hopper and it gets ground up into mouseburger. That’s terrific, Bern. While you’re at it, why not drop the trap into the incinerator? Why not burn the poor creature alive?”

  I remembered something. “You can release the mice from glue traps,” I said. “You pour a little baby oil on their feet and it acts as a solvent for the glue. The mouse just runs off, none the worse for wear.”

  “None the worse for wear?”

  “Well—”

  “Bern,” she said. “Don’t you realize what you’d be doing? You’d be releasing a psychotic mouse. Either it would find its way back into the store or it would get into one of the neighboring buildings, and who’s to say what it would do? Even if you let it go miles from here, even if you took it clear out to Flushing, you’d be unleashing a deranged rodent upon the unsuspecting public. Bern, forget traps. Forget poison. You don’t need any of that.” She tapped the side of the cat carrier. “You’ve got a friend,” she said.

  “You’re not talking friends. You’re talking cats.”

  “What have you got against cats?”

  “I haven’t got anything against cats. I haven’t got anything against elk, either, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep one in the store so I’ll have a place to hang my hat.”

  “I thought you liked cats.”

  “They’re okay.”

  “You’re always sweet to Archie and Ubi. I figured you were fond of them.”

  “I am fond of them,” I said. “I think they’re fine in their place, and their place happens to be your apartment. Carolyn, believe me, I don’t want a pet. I’m not the type. If I can’t even keep a steady girlfriend, how can I keep a pet?”

  “Pets are easier,” she said with feeling. “Believe me. Anyway, this cat’s not a pet.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “An employee,” she said. “A working cat. A companion animal by day, a solitary night watchman when you’re gone. A loyal, faithful, hard-working servant.”

  “Miaow,” the cat said.

  We both glanced at the cat carrier, and Carolyn bent down to unfasten its clasps. “He’s cooped up in there,” she said.

  “Don’t let him out.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said, doing just that. “We’re not talking Pandora’s Box here, Bern. I’m just letting him get some air.”

  “That’s what the air holes are for.”

  “He needs to stretch his legs,” she said, and the cat emerged and did just that, extending his front legs and stretching, then doing the same for his rear legs. You know how cats do, like they’re warming up for a dance class.

  “He,” I said. “It’s a male? Well, at least it won’t be having kittens all the time.”

  “Absolutely not,” she said. “He’s guaranteed not to have kittens.”

  “But won’t he run around peeing on things? Like books, for instance. Don’t male cats make a habit of that sort of thing?”

  “He’s post-op, Bern.”

  “Poor guy.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s missing. But he won’t have kittens, and he won’t father them, either, or go nuts yowling whenever there’s a female cat in heat somewhere between Thirty-fourth Street and the Battery. No, he’ll just do his job, guarding the store and keeping the mice down.”

  “And using the books for a scratching post. What’s the point of getting rid of mice if the books all wind up with claw marks?”

  “No claws, Bern.”

  “Oh.”

  “He doesn’t really need them, since there aren’t a lot of enemies to fend off in here. Or a whole lot of trees to climb.”

  “I guess.” I looked at him. There was something strange about him, but it took me a second or two to figure it out. “Carolyn,” I said, “what happened to his tail?”

  “He’s a Manx.”

  “So he was born tailless. But don’t Manx cats have a sort of hopping gait, almost like a rabbit? This guy just walks around like your ordinary garden-variety cat. He doesn’t look much like any Manx I ever saw.”

  “Well, maybe he’s only part Manx.”

  “Which part? The tail?”

  “Well—”

  “What do you figure happened? Did he get it caught in a door, or did the vet get carried away? I’ll tell you, Carolyn, he’s been neutered and declawed and his tail’s no more than a memory. When you come right down to it, there’s not a whole lot of the original cat left, is there? What we’ve got here is the stripped-down economy model. Is there anything else missing that I don’t know about?”

  “No.”

  “Did they leave the part that knows how to use a litter box? That’s going to be tons of fun, changing the litter every day. Does he at least know how to use a box?”

  “Even better, Bern. He uses the toilet.”

  “Like Archie and Ubi?” Carolyn had trained her own cats, first by keeping their litter pan on top of the toilet seat, then by cutting a hole in it, gradually enlarging the hole and finally getting rid of the pan altogether. “Well, that’s something,” I said. “I don’t suppose he’s figured out how to flush it.”

  “No. And don’t leave the seat up.”

  I sighed heavily. The animal was stalking around my store, poking his head into corners. Surgery or no surgery, I kept waiting for him to cock a leg at a shelf full of first editions. I admit it, I didn’t trust the little bastard.

  “I don’t know about this,” I said. “There must be a way to mouseproof a store like this. Maybe I should talk it over with an exterminator.”

  “Are you kidding? You want some weirdo skulking around the aisles, spraying toxic chemicals all over the place? Bern, you don’t have to call an exterminator. You’ve got a live-in exterminator, your own personal organic rodent control division. He’s had all his shots, he’s free of fleas and ticks, and if he ever needs grooming you’ve got a friend in the business. What more could you ask for?”

  I felt myself weakening, and I hated that. “He seems to like it here,” I admitted. “He acts as though he’s right at home.”

  “And why not? What could be more natural than a cat in a bookstore?”

  “He’s not bad-looking,” I said. “Once you get used to the absence of a tail. And that shouldn’t be too hard, given that I was already perfectly accustomed to the absence of an entire cat. What color would you say he was?”

  “Gray tabby.”

  “It’s a nice functional look,” I decided. “Nothing flashy about it, but it goes with everything, doesn’t it? Has he got a name?”

  “Bern, you can always change it.”

  “Oh, I bet it’s a pip.”

  “Well, it’s not horrendous, at least I don’t think it is, but he’s like most cats I’ve known. He doesn’t res
pond to his name. You know how Archie and Ubi are. Calling them by name is a waste of time. If I want them to come, I just run the electric can opener.”

  “What’s his name, Carolyn.”

  “Raffles,” she said. “But you can change it to anything you want. Feel free.”

  “Raffles,” I said.

  “If you hate it—”

  “Hate it?” I stared at her. “Are you kidding? It’s got to be the perfect name for him.”

  “How do you figure that, Bern?”

  “Don’t you know who Raffles was? In the books by E. W. Hornung back around the turn of the century, and in the stories Barry Perowne’s been doing recently? Raffles the amateur cracksman? World-class cricket player and gentleman burglar? I can’t believe you never heard of the celebrated A. J. Raffles.”

  Her mouth fell open. “I never made the connection,” she said. “All I could think of was like raffling off a car to raise funds for a church. But now that you mention it—”

  “Raffles,” I said. “The quintessential burglar of fiction. And here he is, a cat in a bookstore, and the bookstore’s owned by a former burglar. I’ll tell you, if I were looking for a name for the cat I couldn’t possibly do better than the one he came with.”

  Her eyes met mine, “Bernie,” she said solemnly, “it was meant to be.”

  “Miaow,” said Raffles.

  At noon the following day it was my turn to pick up lunch. I stopped at the falafel stand on the way to the Poodle Factory. Carolyn asked how Raffles was doing.

  “He’s doing fine,” I said. “He drinks from his water bowl and eats out of his new blue cat dish, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t use the toilet just the way you said he did. Of course I have to remember to leave the door ajar, but when I forget he reminds me by standing in front of it and yowling.”

  “It sounds as though it’s working out.”

  “Oh, it’s working out marvelously,” I said. “Tell me something. What was his name before it was Raffles?”

  “I don’t follow you, Bern.”

  “‘I don’t follow you, Bern.’ That was the crowning touch, wasn’t it? You waited until you had me pretty well softened up, and then you tossed in the name as a sort of coup de foie gras. ‘His name’s Raffles, but you can always change it.’ Where did the cat come from?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? A customer of mine, he’s a fashion photographer, he has a really gorgeous Irish water spaniel, and he told me about a friend of his who developed asthma and was heartbroken because his allergist insisted he had to get rid of his cat.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Then you developed a mouse problem, so I went and picked up the cat, and—”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  I shook my head. “You’re leaving something out. All I had to do was mention the word mouse and you were out of here like a cat out of hell. You didn’t even have to think about it. And it couldn’t have taken you more than twenty minutes to go and get the cat and stick it in a carrying case and come back with it. How did you spend those twenty minutes? Let’s see—first you went back to the Poodle Factory to look up the number of your customer the fashion photographer, and then you called him and asked for the name and number of his friend with the allergies. Then I guess you called the friend and introduced yourself and arranged to meet him at his apartment and take a look at the animal, and then—”

  “Stop it.”

  “Well?”

  “The cat was at my apartment.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “He was living there, Bern.”

  I frowned. “I’ve met your cats,” I said. “I’ve known them for years. I’d recognize them, with or without tails. Archie’s a sable Burmese and Ubi’s a Russian Blue. Neither one of them could pass for a gray tabby, except maybe in a dark alley.”

  “He was living with Archie and Ubi,” she said.

  “Since when?”

  “Oh, just for a little while.”

  I thought for a moment. “Not for just a little while,” I said, “because he was there long enough to learn the toilet trick. You don’t learn something like that overnight. Look how long it takes with human beings. That’s how he learned, right? He picked it up from your cats, didn’t he?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And he didn’t pick it up overnight, either. Did he?”

  “I feel like a suspect,” she said. “I feel as though I’m being grilled.”

  “Grilled? You ought to be char-broiled. You set me up and euchred me, for heaven’s sake. How long has Raffles been living with you?”

  “Two and a half months.”

  “Two and a half months!”

  “Well, maybe it’s more like three.”

  “Three months! That’s unbelievable. How many times have I been over to your place in the past three months? It’s got to be eight or ten at the very least. Are you telling me I looked at the cat and didn’t even notice him?”

  “When you came over,” she said, “I used to put him in the other room.”

  “What other room? You live in one room.”

  “I put him in the closet.”

  “In the closet?”

  “Uh-huh. So you wouldn’t see him.”

  “But why?”

  “The same reason I never mentioned him.”

  “Why’s that? I don’t get it. Were you ashamed of him? What’s wrong with him, anyway?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

  “Because if there’s something shameful about the animal, I don’t know that I want him hanging around my store.”

  “There’s nothing shameful about him,” she said. “He’s a perfectly fine cat. He’s trustworthy, he’s loyal, he’s helpful and friendly—”

  “Courteous, kind,” I said. “Obedient, cheerful, thrifty. He’s a regular Boy Scout, isn’t he? So why the hell were you keeping him a secret from me?”

  “It wasn’t just you, Bern. Honest. I was keeping him a secret from everybody.”

  “But why, Carolyn?”

  “I don’t even want to say it.”

  “Come on, for God’s sake.”

  She took a breath. “Because,” she said darkly, “he was the Third Cat.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Oh, God. This is impossible to explain. Bernie, there’s something you have to understand. Cats can be very dangerous for a woman.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You start with one,” she said, “and that’s fine, no problem, nothing wrong with that. And then you get a second one and that’s even better, as a matter of fact, because they keep each other company. It’s a curious thing, but it’s actually easier to have two cats than one.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Then you get a third, and that’s all right, it’s still manageable, but before you know it you take in a fourth, and then you’ve gone and done it.”

  “Done what?”

  “You’ve crossed the line.”

  “What line, and how have you crossed it?”

  “You’ve become a Woman With Cats.” I nodded. Light was beginning to dawn. “You know the kind of woman I mean,” she went on. “They’re all over the place. They don’t have any friends, and they hardly ever set foot outdoors, and when they die people discover thirty or forty cats in the house. Or they’re cooped up in an apartment with thirty or forty cats and the neighbors take them to court to evict them because of the filth and the smell. Or they seem perfectly normal, and then there’s a fire or a break-in or something, and the world finds them out for what they are. They’re Women With Cats, Bernie, and that’s not what I want to be.”

  “No,” I said, “and I can see why. But—”

  “It doesn’t seem to be a problem for men,” she said. “There are lots of men with two cats, and probably plenty with three or four, but when did you ever hear anything about a Man With Cats? When it comes to cats, men don’t seem to have tr
ouble knowing when to stop.” She frowned. “Funny, isn’t it? In every other area of their lives—”

  “Let’s stick to cats,” I suggested. “How did you happen to wind up with Raffles hanging out in your closet? And what was his name before it was Raffles?”

  She shook her head. “Forget it, Bern. It was a real pussy name, if you ask me. Not right for the cat at all. As far as how I got him, well, it happened pretty much the way I said, except there were a few things I left out. George Brill is a customer of mine. I groom his Irish water spaniel.”

  “And his friend is allergic to cats.”

  “No, George is the one who’s allergic. And when Felipe moved in with George, the cat had to go. The dog and cat got along fine, but George was wheezing and red-eyed all the time, so Felipe had to give up either George or the cat.”

  “And that was it for Raffles.”

  “Well, Felipe wasn’t all that attached to the cat. It wasn’t his cat in the first place. It was Patrick’s.”

  “Where did Patrick come from?”

  “Ireland, and he couldn’t get a green card and he didn’t like it here that much anyway, so when he went back home he left the cat with Felipe, because he couldn’t take him through Immigration. Felipe was willing to give the cat a home, but when he and George got together, well, the cat had to go.”

  “And how come you were elected to take him?”

  “George tricked me into it.”

  “What did he do, tell you the Poodle Factory was infested with mice?”

  “No, he used some pretty outrageous emotional blackmail on me. Anyway, it worked. The next thing I knew I had a Third Cat.”

  “How did Archie and Ubi feel about it?”

  “They didn’t actually say anything, but their body language translated into something along the lines of, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’ I don’t think it broke their hearts yesterday when I packed him up and took him out of there.”

  “But in the meantime he spent three months in your apartment and you never said a word.”

  “I was planning on telling you, Bern.”

  “When?”

  “Sooner or later. But I was afraid.”

  “Of what I would think?”

  “Not only that. Afraid of what the Third Cat signified.” She heaved a sigh. “All those Women With Cats,” she said. “They didn’t plan on it, Bern. They got a first cat, they got a second cat, they got a third cat, and all of a sudden they were gone.”