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Streaking past Chichi up the stairs, Dulcie fled for Abuela’s bedroom, which rang with Joe’s yowls and Luis’s screams. She burst through the open door into a storm of swinging arms, flying fur, and Spanish swearing. Pausing for only an instant to sort out the action, she leaped straight into Luis’s face, clawing, clamping her teeth on his ear, trying to make him drop Joe.
Luis tried to pull Joe off his arm, but the enraged tomcat clung and slashed and bit. As Luis fought to knock him loose, Dulcie glimpsed the cage door where the three cats pressed frantically. It was unlocked, the padlock was gone, but the hasp was still in place, held tight by the swivel eye where the lock had hung.
The three cats were so close to the swivel eye, just inches from it. But they could not reach through, no paw could fit between those tight bars. She was crouched to leap to the table when the old lady joined the fray. Estrella Nava, with a cry of dismay, rose from her rocker and flew into action, beating at Luis with her cane, shouting Spanish expletives that sounded as vile as those Luis was yelling. Luis turned on her, lunging against the cage so it rattled and slid, and Dulcie and Joe clung to him raking flesh, bloodying Luis with claws and teeth-until the bedroom door banged open, hitting the wall, and Tommie burst into the room.
He grabbed Dulcie, tore Joe off Luis, making Luis scream with pain. Jerking open the cage door, Tommie shoved Joe and Dulcie in, forcing the captives back against the bars.
Slamming the door, Tommie turned the swivel, effectively locking it. The five of them were jammed inside like kippers in a sealed can.
But Tommie couldn’t find the lock. He searched the floor and under the table and in the corners, swearing; then he ripped off his belt and stuffed it through the swivel eye.
Standing back, he smiled. Not his carefree Irish grin, but a cold leer, his red hair on end, his freckles hardly visible in his red, excited face. Tommie stared at Luis, and turned to look at Abuela.
Estrella Nava had slipped back to her rocking chair; she sat glaring at the two men, her eyes, defiant and angry, reflecting passions Dulcie wished she could read. But as the old woman turned in her chair to look out the window-as if dismissing the two men-Dulcie glimpsed a flash of metal in her hand. She saw it for only a second, then it was gone.
“Where’s the lock?” Luis was shouting, crawling beneath the table. “Where’s the lock and key?” He was so covered with blood he could hardly see; he looked like butcher’s meat. Backing out from under the table, he swung up to face Tommie. “Where’s the damn lock? Where’s thekey}Who took my key?”
“I don’t have it!” Tommie snapped. “Look under the bed, maybe it got kicked away� Wait!” He spied the padlock underneath Abuela’s chair.
Following his gaze, Luis snatched it up. The key wasn’t in it. He stood holding the lock, staring angrily at Abuela. “Where’s the key! Give me the key!”
“I don’t have your key, Luis. Leave me alone.” Her voice was quiet, cold and disdainful. From within the cage, Dulcie watched her with interest. Abuela Nava was, despite her frail age, a woman of strength and dignity. Her eyes on Luis showed plainly her hatred of her grandson. “Why would I want your key? I don’t want it, or you, in my house, Luis.”
Luis was snapping the lock on the cage door when Chichi appeared behind him. Stepping into the bedroom, she took in the scene with disgust. “Get yourself cleaned up, Luis. You have bandages? Get some, and a towel and a wet washcloth.” She saw Abuela then, and went across to the old woman. “What did they do to you? Did they hurt you?”
“They hurt only the cats,” Abuela whispered. “They hurt the cats.”
Chichi’s eyes widened at the sight of more cats in the cage. She stared hard at Joe-at Clyde Damen’s cat-but said nothing. She laid a hand on the old woman’s arm. “Maria will be back soon. I�”
“Quit messing with her!” Luis screamed. “Where’s the damnkey!”
“Idon’t have your key! I just came in! How could I have it! Get some stuff to clean yourself up!”
Luis hit her a glancing blow across the face. She didn’t flinch, didn’t step back. Stood staring at him until he backed off, then she turned and stormed out of the room. They heard the front door open and slam. Dulcie wondered if Chichi would wait outside for Maria, for her car. Or if she was so mad she’d go off without it, and come for it later. She stared at the bars trapping them, and out at the two men. Joe looked sick, his ears down, his short tail tucked under, his whiskers limp. She couldn’t bear the pain and defeat in his eyes, she wanted to nuzzle him, but she would make no such show of emotion in front of this human scum. The five cats were pressed so hard against one another that Coyote and Cotton were pushed into the dirty sandbox, and Willow stood with three paws in the water dish. It wouldn’t be long, they’d be hissing and striking each other, frantic with their confinement. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself, to get centered, to not give herself to defeat. She was so miserable she hardly heard the sound of a car in the drive, or Chichi and Maria’s voices, or the car pull away again. All she could think of was their frantic need to be out of there, to be free.
It was noon when Charlie finished looking over the new job, near where she’d seen the brown pickup. She had reset the hinges on the sagging gate, checked on the work of the two new cleaning girls, and told them she was pleased. One of the girls had horses and needed to work to take care of them. She was a lean, strong young woman, more than used to hard work. An employee Charlie would like to keep. The young man who was doing the yard was a musician, a bass player working to support his music, which was not yet supporting him. He did the gardening wearing heavy gloves to protect his hands. He’d last until he got a regular gig, then he’d leave her. That was the trouble with owning this kind of company-or maybe any small business, these days. That, and all the forms she had to fill out, all the details and red tape. To say nothing of the insurance rates! She thought again about selling the business.
Her best, most dependable employees were, like Mavity Flowers, past middle age. Up in their years and settled in; but the sort of folk who truly liked cleaning houses. There were not many of those anymore. All the young people wanted top-flight jobs the minute they were out of school; no climbing the ladder for them, they deserved to start at the top-or thought they did.
She hadn’t grown up like that, she’d done all kinds of odd jobs to get through art school. Had come out of school glad to find any beginning art job. Her first year, she’d washed brushes in a small commercial-art studio, then done rough layouts for wastebasket designs and frozen-lemonade cans, work far more tedious than scrubbing floors. She’d had no chance to design anything. When she was “promoted” to painting finished art for a set of willow-ware canisters and metal kitchen items, that was the most tedious of all. All those tiny Crosshatch lines and little details nearly drove her mad. She still couldn’t stand willow ware. But she’d paid the rent, that was what mattered. Today, a kid coming out of art school expected to step right in doing layouts for major magazine advertising, or to be offered a top position with some prestigious interior design studio in New York or San Francisco. Few got the chance. If those kids, when they were still in grammar school or high school, had had to work at menial jobs every summer, they’d take a different view. And that made her smile. Opinions like that, bemoaning the lack of work ethic in the young, sure as heck showed her age.
Well, maybe not being a kid anymore wasn’t a bad thing, maybe what she knew now, about the world, served her better than the feel-good illogic of her youth. Turning into the courthouse parking lot, she swung into the red zone before the glass doors of the police station to wait for Max. Strange that he’d called her to have lunch, he seldom had time to do that. He’d said only that he and Dallas needed to get away from the shop.