"You're in an ugly mood. What happened to live-and-let-live?"
Joe Grey shrugged.
"What you see down there," she told him, "is a lifetime of magnificent intentions. An incredible richness of human endeavor and imagination. You're looking at dreams down there-at the products of creative human energy. At happy, vital, and endlessly diverse moments in McLeary family history."
Joe Grey snorted, his ears and whiskers back in a derisive cat laugh.
She widened her green eyes, but kept her voice low. "I've never seen you so sour. Are things not good at home? What, Clyde's messed-up love life is making you cross? Or," she said, "is Clyde still thinking of selling the house? Is that what's eating you?"
"My mood has nothing to do with the house, or with Clyde's love life. I am not driven by Clyde Damen's vicissitudes. I am simply making an observation about the confusion of the human mind. You don't see a cat throwing out the living-room furniture every year and buying all new stuff. Look around you. Why would-"
"Cats don't have living-room furniture."
"I have an easy chair." His tone was so pompous that they both laughed. Joe's upholstered chair, which sat in the Damen living room by the front window, was so ragged and faded it resembled nothing as much as the hide of an ancient and molting pachyderm. "You don't see me tossing my good chair away at some yard sale."
"If that chair's a prototype of the quality of your life, that clawed-to-rags, fur-matted, stained and smelly horror, then you, my dear tomcat, are in trouble."
Joe nudged her playfully; but soon they peered down again, fascinated by the bargain hunters. The locals were dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, some folks freshly scrubbed, some still uncombed as if they'd just rolled out of bed. The conviviality of neighbors brightened the morning with friendly talk and wisecracks. Here and there a weekender wandered, just as eager for a bargain, a tourist dressed in brand-name shorts, starched shirt, and Gucci sandals, or golf or tennis attire. Some shoppers carried nonspill coffee mugs that they had brought from their cars. Two were munching on breakfast rolls, wrapped in squares of waxed paper, that they'd picked up at one of the bakeries on the way over. At events such as this, one saw a true cross-section of the village. Besides the rich and comfortable, and the famous, who "did" the yard sales for a lark, one saw clearly the Molena Point residents who lived on limited funds, people trying to stretch every dollar. The inveterate bargain hunters, rich or poor, showed up at every such event. The cats watched a portly, bleached blond lady in walking shorts, a blue sweatshirt, and red tennis shoes try to fit a six-foot wicker bookcase into a small Jaguar sports car. She had wrapped the bookcase carefully in blankets-whether to protect her ten-dollar bargain or protect the hundred-thousand-dollar Jag wasn't clear.
Nearer to the cats' oak tree, two women stood arguing over a glass-topped patio table that both claimed to have spoken for first. And directly below, a huge-bellied man, stripped to the waist, carried a ruffled, flowered chaise lounge over his head, in the direction of a battered pickup truck. The cats watched a tiny little old lady precariously juggle a glass punch bowl of such proportions that she could have used it for a sitz bath. Maybe that was her plan. Fill it with champagne, and voila, just like the old Harlow movies. The sight of her prompted Dulcie to quote to herself, When I am old, I will wear purple, and bathe in French champagne. She caught her breath when the lady nearly dropped her gleaming treasure, and before she thought, Dulcie reached down a paw as if to offer assistance-but drew back quickly, glancing at Joe with embarrassment.
No one looked up to wonder what that cat was doing. No one had seen the two cats in the tree or, if they had seen them, no one would imagine their conversation, or dream of the thoughts churning through those sleek feline heads. Their human neighbors would never imagine that cats might discuss human frailties-though they might allow that cats didn't give a damn about human foolishness.
Of the residents of Molena Point, only four people knew that Joe Grey and Dulcie could speak, that the two cats read the Molena Point Gazette far more perceptively than some human subscribers, that they liked to frequent the village news racks perusing the front page of the San Francisco Examiner, and that when there was nothing more interesting at hand, they watched prime-time TV Only four people knew that Joe Grey and Dulcie were not your ordinary, everyday kitties or that they had, during various criminal investigations by Molena Point PD, not only pointed a paw at their share of killers and thieves, supplying critical evidence to convict the miscreants, but that they had spied as well on any number of villagers, in the comfort of the villagers' own homes. No one knew that, posing as stray kitties, the two were adept at passing on sensitive information to police detectives. Not even Max Harper's own cops, nor Captain Harper himself, knew the identity of their best informants; Joe Grey and Dulcie were far too smooth to blow their own cover.
But the two cats had other human friends besides the four who shared their secrets. Peering down, they watched three of their favorite senior ladies making their yard sale selections with careful judgment-and with huge dreams. These three women weren't shopping for fun, they were searching out purchases to secure their own futures.
Mavity Flowers, small and sturdy in her threadbare maid's uniform, perused a display of china and crystal about which, through necessity, she had come to know quite a lot. Cora Lee French, a head taller than Mavity, a lovely, slim Creole woman with graying hair, slipped lithely among tables of needlework and linens, touching the stitching with gentle, experienced hands. And tall, blond Gabrielle Row checked over the clothes that hung on long metal racks, looking not only for resalable bargains, but for anything useful to the little theater costume department.
Gabrielle was still elegant, despite her sixty-some years. Her short-clipped gray hair was skillfully colored to ash blond, and the cut of her cream blazer was long and lean over her white slacks. Working full-time as seamstress in her own shop, she had for many years been wardrobe director as well for Molena Point Little Theater. And now, frequenting the yard sales, she was not only hunting for costume material but was planning, too, for a time when she would be less active.
Five ladies made up the Senior Survival Club: Mavity, Cora Lee, and Gabrielle. And Susan Brittain, who was not to be seen this morning, though Susan hardly ever missed a sale. Susan's garage was headquarters for wrapping and shipping the items the ladies sold on the Web. She handled, on her computer, all their eBay sales. The fifth member was Wilma Getz, Dulcie's housemate, retired parole officer, gray haired, in her late fifties. Wilma might be called a silent partner, agreeing with the women's plan, meaning to take part at some future time, but not totally committed.
The ladies were looking toward buying a communal dwelling that would accommodate them all plus a housekeeper and a caregiver when that time arrived. All of them had some savings, or home equity. And the cats were amazed at how much money they had set aside by hitting the yard sales and selling at auction. So far, it amounted to over ten thousand dollars.