"Waiting to see what happens," Azrael said cooly. "To see where this little adventure leads." He licked his paw, smug and self-assured. "Sometimes it pays to hold back a little something from Greeley."
He rose, lashing his tail. "Greeley's blind when it comes to Dora. He'd never believe that Dora lied to him. When it comes to Dora, he wouldn't believe even me." And for a moment, the black torn looked almost pitiful.
"Greeley didn't believe that Dora nearly killed me with that damned frying pan," he hissed. "The minute he leaves the house she starts throwing stuff-but he says I'm lying."
"When is this fancy dinner?" Joe said. "And why are you telling us?"
Azrael's face became a sleek black mask. "I told you-that night on the rooftops, I told you. I sense death." He looked at Joe almost helplessly. "This dinner… Visions of death. I do not want it to touch Greeley."
The black torn shook himself. "If I spy on Dora and Ralph, if they see me prowling the restaurant, Dora'll pitch a fit, have the whole place down on me." He looked at Joe a long time. "She'd pay no attention to you-you'd be just a neighborhood cat lurking. You can slip under the tables. Try the terrace first. She seemed impressed that they might sit on the upstairs terrace, with a view down on the village." Azrael gave a toothy laugh. "What's the big deal about rooftops?" He fixed Joe with another level look. "You can find out what Dora and Ralph are up to-find out if it will harm Greeley."
"Why would his own daughter do something to hurt him?" Dulcie asked.
"Maybe she wouldn't mean to harm him. Maybe she wouldn't understand the implications."
"You're making too much…"Joe began.
"I sense death around Greeley," the cat yowled. "I see death."
"Even if you do, why should we get involved?" Joe asked coldly. "What's in it for us?"
The black torn gave Joe a deep and knowing look. "You will do it. You dance to curiosity as some cats dance to catnip. You two are riven with inquisitiveness.
"And with righteousness," Azrael continued smugly. "If you think the law will be broken, that there's a crime, that a human will be harmed, you little cats will do it."
Joe crouched to rake him again, but the torn ignored him, twitching a long black whisker.
"You nosed into every possession Dora and Ralph have. You left your scent on every smallest bit of clothing. If you thirst for knowledge and justice, if you stalk after lawbreakers, how could you not run surveillance-as your Captain Harper would say-on this intriguing little meeting?"
They watched him intently, Joe angrily, Dulcie with increasing interest.
"Tonight," Azrael said softly, narrowing his flame-golden eyes. "Seven-thirty. They're to take a cab." And he slipped away, vanishing among the shadows.
Dulcie looked after him with speculation.
Joe said, "What's he trying to pull? There's no crime, nothing has happened. What a lot of…"
She kept looking where Azrael had vanished, and an eager, hotly curious expression gleamed like fire in her wide green eyes.
"He's setting us up, Dulcie."
"Why would he set us up? I don't think so. Did you see his eyes when he talked about Greeley? That was-that was a plea for help."
"Come on, Dulcie. A plea for help from the likes of him? That cat cares about no one."
"He cares about Greeley." She gave Joe a deep green look. "He loves Greeley. I'm going over there to Pander's."
"Come on, Dulcie. You let him sucker you right in."
"Into what? What could he do? What harm can come of it?"
"Dulcie…"
"Do as you please," she hissed. "I want to know what this is about." And she trotted away, switching her tail, heading for Pander's.
Joe galloped after her, leaned down and licked her ear. "Totally stubborn," he said, laughing.
She paused, widened her eyes at him, purring.
"Hardheaded." He licked her whiskers. "And totally fascinating."
She gave him a green-eyed dazzle and a whisker kiss.
"So what the hell?" Joe purred. "So we slip into Pander's, maybe cadge a scrap of fillet. So what could happen?"
16
CROUCHING close together beneath a red convertible, the cats licked their whiskers at the delicious smells from Pander's, the aroma of roast lamb and wine-basted venison and, Dulcie thought, scallops simmered in a light sherry. But the elegant scents were the only hints of Pander's delights, for the building itself was not inviting. From the street it looked as stark as a slum-district police precinct.
The brick face of the plain, two-story structure rose directly from the sidewalk with no architectural grace, not even a window through which to glimpse the restaurant's elegantly clad diners. The closed door was painfully austere, with no potted tree or flower or vine beside it, in the usual Molena Point style, to break the severity. Only the expensive cars parked at the curb and the delicious aromas wafting out hinted at the pleasures of Pander's as the cats waited for Dora and Ralph Sleuder to appear.
Despite the gourmet allure, Joe would just as soon be home catching a nap as spying in that rarified environ, dodging the sharp eyes and hard shoes of unsympathetic waiters.
"What if we can't get in?" Dulcie said softly, studying the blank, closed facade.
"Should have phoned for a reservation. We'd like two cushions laid on a corner table, my good man. We'll have the venison-you can dispense with the silverware."
She just looked at him.
"We'll go over the roof," he said more gently. "Drop down onto the terrace." The second-floor dining terrace, at the back, boasted no outer access, only the stairs from within the main dining room.
"But, Joe, the minute we look over the edge of the roof and the terrace lights hit us, we're like ducks in a shooting gallery."
"Who's going to look up at the roof? They'll all be busy with their menus and drinks and impressing each other." He looked hard at her. "I still say it's a setup. I don't trust anything that lying alley cat tells us."
"He looked really worried. I think he truly wanted our help. Maybe his prediction of murder isn't all imagination, maybe Greeley is in danger, and we can find out why."
Joe shrugged. "Maybe Jergen found out that Greeley's stealing. Maybe he's going to hit Dora for blackmail-she forks over or he turns in her father."
"That sounds flimsy. How would he even know Greeley? For that matter, how does he know Dora and Ralph?" Her green eyes narrowed. "Why this dinner so soon after Dora and Ralph copied Mavity's financial statements?"
"As to that, what about Pearl Ann snooping into Jergen's computer? Is there some connection? And," he said, "need I point out again that there's been no crime committed? That this is all simply conjecture?"
She gave him that don't-be-stupid look, her eyes round and dark. "When people start prying into other people's business, copying their personal papers, accessing their computer files, either a crime's been committed or one's about to be. Someone's up to no good. We just don't know who." And she settled closer to Joe beneath the convertible to await Jergen's little dinner party.
The Sleuders had not yet made an appearance when Pander's door opened, a middle-aged couple came out, and the cats glimpsed, within, a tuxedoed maitre d' of such rigid stance that one had to assume, should he discover a trespassing cat, he would snatch it up by its tail and call the dog-catcher. They had been waiting for some time when they realized they were not the only observers lingering near Pander's closed door.