“Maria! Get your tail out here! Get us some breakfast.” Man was up all night, driving half the night, he needed to eat. Why didn’t she think of that!
Maria came into the kitchen sullenly, scowling at him. She jerked open the refrigerator, pulled out a box of eggs, a package of chorizo, pepper sauce, tortillas. As the frying pan heated and the kitchen filled with the spicy smell of frying chorizo, Luis counted the money.
On the floor beside the dresser under which the cats crouched was an overflowing wastebasket. Stuffed inside, among the crumpled candy and cigarette packs, was a wad of crocheted doilies that must have covered the dresser and vanity and chair arms. The cats pawed through these and through the trash but found no gas receipts, no receipts or bills of any kind. In the closet, jeans and shirts were tossed on the floor with a tangle of men’s shoes. The twin beds were unmade, the blankets half on the floor. Dulcie imagined the room as it must once have been, with the care that Maria’s abuela would have given it.
She had seen in Maria’s room photographs of several generations, from Abuela down to babies and small children. She imagined this house full of children and grandchildren. Maybe little Luis and his two brothers before they grew big and mean, and the child Maria still innocent. She imagined them growing up and drifting away. It seemed strange for a good Latino family to wander apart. Dulcie preferred the loud, quarreling, close and happy Latino families who lived around Molena Point. From beneath the dresser, the cats could see straight down the hall, the kitchen table in their direct line of sight.
Dulcie’s eyes widened as Luis removed a large bundle of greenbacks from his jacket pocket. “That’s some bundle,” she whispered to Joe. “How much has he got? There was no cash taken during the burglary.”
“You want a closer look? Ask him a few questions?” Joe whispered back dryly.
Maria stood at the stove cooking breakfast; the house was redolent of frying chorizo. She glanced at Luis several times, her eyes wide at the stash of money. As if she, too, was wondering.
“Fence,” Joe said softly. “I’ll bet he fenced the jewels. Maybe he just got home.”
Tommie emerged from the bathroom and went on down the hall to the kitchen. He looked unhappily at his plate of eggs and chorizo, ignored the tortillas, and took a slice of white bread from the package Maria handed him. Luis and Maria began to argue in Spanish. The cats knew only a few words, not enough to make sense of it. Tommie replied to Luis in Spanish; but he spoke the language without grace, with a flat American accent.
Dulcie didn’t like being in the house with these men. She didn’t see how they were going to get the key when it was in Luis’s pocket and then under his pillow. But they had to try, they had to free the caged cats. Luis was complaining about being up all night, so maybe theyhadbeen to a fence, maybe in the city. Maybe, tired and full of breakfast, they’d sleep.
And, yes! The next minute, when Maria asked Luis if he wanted more eggs, he snapped at her and rose, shoving back his chair. “I’m going to bed! Keep the damned house quiet.” Dulcie glanced at Joe, excited because they could get on with searching. But scared out of her paws to try for the key. When Luis went to bed, would he take his pants off? In the daytime?
No cat would be fool enough to slip a paw into Luis’s pocket when Luis was still in the pants.
Or would he? She looked at Joe, and wasn’t so sure.
They drew deeper under the dresser as Luis headed down the hall-and as another car pulled up the drive. They heard its door open, and then the click of high heels. The front door opened. A woman called out: “Luis? Maria? You home?” Chichi’s voice. The cats listened to her strident, whisker-wilting giggle as her high heels clicked across the entry. Luis, coming down the hall, quickly stuffed the roll of bills in his pocket and pulled his shirt out to hang loose. The implications of the blonde’s easy, familiar entrance, the affirmation that she was tight with this family-but not totally so-held Joe and Dulcie tense with interest.
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“Thelist is shaping up,” Chichisang out, waving a notebook at Luis and taking his arm to turn him back toward the kitchen. They sat down at the table across from Tommie; she dropped her purse on an empty chair. Silently Maria set a cup of coffee before her, then returned to shoving dishes into the ancient dishwasher. Their voices lowered, as if not wanting Abuela to hear, Luis and Tommie studied the notebook.
Listening, Joe slipped out from under the dresser, heading for the hall. Dulcie grabbed the skin of his rump in her teeth. “Let me,” she said through jaws clenched firmly onto his hide. “I don’t have white markings, I can fade into the carpet. And Chichi’s seen you. I could be any stray that wandered in.”
Joe looked at her doubtfully, but he drew back. His look said clearly that if anyone laid a hand on her, he’d skin them with his bare claws.
Creeping down the hall, Dulcie hugged the baseboard, her belly sliding along the faded runner. Just outside the kitchen she melted into the shadow cast by the partially closed door. The room smelled of chorizo and sour dishes. Luis sat with his elbows on the table where he had spread out a large sheet of paper that must be the map. As Chichi read off her notes, he repeated the names of several village streets and shops, which she helped him find. Dulcie peered up at the tall refrigerator, longing for a higher perch from which she could see.
Was this woman the brains of their burglaries, or only the messenger gathering information? Listening to Chichi’s detailed rundown of the times that the jewelry stores and other shops opened, of how many employees were there to both start and end the day, whether male or female and approximate age, Dulcie was soon so wired she could hardly be still. They were taking great care with their plans.
Chichi had run her surveillance both morning and evening, as if the thieves had not yet decided the best times for the burglaries.Werethey planning multiple burglaries all at one time? They were smug indeed to think they’d get away with that. With the information Dallas and Harper now had, and would soon have, these hoods would be in jail before they broke the first window.
“People will be coming in all week,” Chichi said. “Cluttering up the streets. And a jazz parade on Saturday. I don’t think�”
“Cops’ll be up to their ears,” Luis said, smiling with satisfaction. “Snarled traffic, a real mess. Their minds’ll be on tourists and crowd control.”
“You want traffic and crowds, why not wait until the big antique car show instead of this local yokel jazz festival. I don’t see�”
“That’s months away. I’ve got twenty idle guys about to go nuts. You think they’re going to wait all summer?”
“Give them something else to do. Take them up the coast, hit a few beach resorts.”
“You want to pay their gas and rent and food bills? Twenty guys? And that antique car show, they’ll bring in every cop on the coastandthe whole damn CHP. Those cars are worth a mint. Cops cluttering the streets everywhere. That’s the trouble, working with a woman!”
“I got the information, didn’t I? And I’ll tell you this, Luis,” she said sullenly. “You’re going to use the jazz festival, you better look at the early evening closings, when the town’s jammed. Some of those stores’ll stay open, but the jewelry stores won’t. And your cover’s no good, first thing in the morning. No one’ll be on thestreetsin the morning. All the mornings I’ve wasted getting up early�”