Ulrich and Thelma had removed the safe’s contents, they were laying out thick envelopes and packets on the worktable. Thelma was removing packs of money from each, counting it on a little hand computer, recording it in a ledger and putting it back in the envelope. At first Courtney hardly knew Thelma, she was dressed like a man, dark jeans, black shirt, heavy-shouldered black jacket, her hair tucked under a black knitted cap pulled low in front, even a man’s thick shoes. She had removed her thin black gloves to be able to count the cash. Adding up each packet, she wrote the total on a list with a name written at the top, and put the envelope back in the safe. When they were turned away Courtney crept closer, under a buffet carved in gold and red. A cloth lay beneath, a dust cloth that Bert must have dropped. Using one front paw, then the other, she managed to drape it over her back and shoulders, covering her bright colors, all but a few smears of blood on her paws.
With the two thus occupied jotting down numbers she ducked her head, tucked her tail under her belly, and crept behind their backs through the workroom like a pale ghost; there she eased among some packing boxes into a draft of cold air coming from the open door—but just as she started to dart out, a small noise from above, a creak in the upstairs floor, made Thelma glance around the storeroom then look up at the top of the stairs. But that door was shut tight. Maybe Fay had gotten up for a moment.
“No worries,” Ulrich said. “It’s just the cat.” He laughed. “It can’t get out, no cat would think to turn a doorknob, not when she couldn’t even jump through a hoop last night.” Then in low voices, they began arguing.
In that instant the dust rag flew behind the two of them like a gray ghost and Courtney was gone into the alley. The two thieves were after her as she headed for the street, racing through the shadows into the bushes, losing her dusty cloth on thorns and tangles, panting at the sound of their pounding footsteps. She didn’t hear Joe Grey bolting over the rooftops, she didn’t hear Pan leap from his cold nest against the apartment wall and race to join him, she only ran.
22
Shortly before Courtney fought the apartment door open and followed Ulrich down the stairs and across the shop to the storeroom, across the village Joe Grey leaped from his tower racing after Thelma’s car. A cold flash of fear had awakened him, almost a vision—though he’d never believed in visions. He had imagined bloody pawprints going down the Seavers’ stairs, more bloody prints leading behind the fancy furniture, then a gray rag draped over Courtney. What the hell was the matter with him, what was he seeing? Back there in the tower, had he had some crazy premonition? The scene was still with him as he raced across the wet shingles and peaks following Thelma, he was so uneasy he could feel his belly churn. He’d heard enough of Thelma’s “. . . I won’t need the safe number,” Varney’s indecipherable mumble then Thelma’s “I already called . . .”
Now, not seeing Thelma’s car parked before the antiques shop he galloped along the front and side looking in through the big display windows. He didn’t see Courtney. When he climbed to the roof and padded along the edge peering into the second-floor apartment, into the bedroom and living room, he didn’t find her. Fay was sound asleep. He crossed the roof and looked down, and there was Thelma’s car backed into the alley; leaning down right over it, he could feel the engine still breathing warm air. Why had she backed in? Lying flat on his belly just above the outer door to the storeroom, his head cocked over the edge, he saw that the alley door was open—and the inner door open wider. Had Ulrich shut Courtney upstairs knowing she couldn’t get out, that she wouldn’t know how to turn the knob?
Right. His vision, that impossible dream-picture that only Kit might have seen, had shown him bloody pawprints on the knob and on the stairs. Well,she’s sure as hell out now, he thought, smiling. At least she’s out of the apartment.
He heard Thelma Luther’s voice from the workroom beneath him, and then Ulrich; sounded like they were counting money. He could just see the door to the safe standing open. “Nine hundred and eighty-two,” she said. “That’s a total.” Then the faint sound of clicking, like an adding machine. “Five thousand, ninety-six. Next column?” It was then that he saw the faintest movement among the shadows behind the two figures.
Leaning so far over the gutter he had to claw hard not to fall, he prayed that was Courtney, that she was positioning herself for escape. Even from the roof he caught a whiff of her, faint but fresh. Was she waiting for a chance to bolt into the alley and be gone?
Maybe he should climb down the ivy vine to the alley and make a great yowling and scuffling like a giant cat fight, bring the two crooks racing out to see what was going on, and Courtney could dart away behind them?
Would that work, or would it only screw up her own plan? He almost jumped out of his skin when Pan, making no sound, appeared out of nowhere pushing against him. The yellow tom must have dozed on his watch at the window where he was supposed to be alert. Had he seen or heard any of what went on? Pan eased down beside Joe. It had started to rain again, a shower of small, sharp needles. Below them, Thelma and Ulrich were arguing, Thelma’s voice coldly angry. “Nevin was stupid to do that! Stupid and just asking for prison—and putting me in a hell of a fix.” The outside door opened wider, the tomcats ducked back, and Thelma hurried out, angrily pulling on her jacket against the blowing shower . . .
In that instant, the dust rag flew out the door behind her and Courtney fled for the alley, followed by her bloody pawprints, a streak vanishing in the rain, Ulrich and Thelma after her at a dead run. Ulrich grabbed at her, missed her, grabbed again and caught her tail. She swung around slashing him, she raked down his arm and leaped into the ivy vine; she was halfway up when Ulrich jumped, reaching for her—and Joe and Pan exploded onto him from the roof so hard they knocked him to the asphalt; the tomcats were all over him scratching his head and shoulders, he tried to get up and they knocked him hard against the alley wall—while Courtney flew to the top of Thelma’s car and from there to the stone pine that crept up the neighboring building.
She leaped from the pine to the next-door roof and ran, she vanished among the peaks that rose around her. Ulrich ran along the alley looking up where Courtney had disappeared. From the shadows the calico heard Ulrich swearing, calling her names she had never heard before. She knew that if she moved again, they would hear her running on the wet gravel. Ulrich paused frequently, listening for the sound of scrabbling paws or the occasional flip of tiny pebbles. Courtney crept along as quiet as a frightened rabbit until her footfalls grew silent on the wet wood shingles of the steeper roofs.
When they couldn’t hear her anymore, Thelma returned for her car; but even circling the block peering up at the rooftops, circling the next block and the next, she could see nothing, no distant flash of bright calico, no flying streak of color. Neither Thelma nor Ulrich glimpsed the racing tomcats following Courtney at a distance, hidden in shadows or around corners so as not to lead her pursuers to her. It had stopped raining but the air was heavy and damp.