Janet Jeannot's studio had been replaced in a way Janet might not like if she were alive to see it. It was now a second-floor apartment, an inoffensive cedar structure without any of the excitement of an artist's studio. To the east of Janet's house, up beyond the highest homes, he could see where the drainage culvert emerged from the hills, the place where he and Dulcie had discovered the final key to Janet's killer.
Dulcie had disappeared. He leaped to the highest hillock to look for her. Gazing down the rolling hills, he thought how they must have been a century ago, before there were ever houses. A wild land, all open, alive with animals far larger than the creatures he and Dulcie hunted, a land of cougars, of wolves and bear, a land belonging to beasts that would send Felis domesticus scooting for cover.
And though the wolves and bears were gone, still sometimes the cougars and coyotes came down out of the mountains, driven by thirst or hunger, and by encroaching civilization-where tracts of new houses covered their hunting territories-wild animals moving closer each year to human dwellings. Now sometimes in the small hours, a lone coyote wandered the street of a coastal town, hunting domestic cats and small dogs. And already two humans had died at the claws of attacking cougars. He was gripped with amazement that a shy, totally wild creature would dare enter the world of houses and concrete and fast cars.
But the animals, if they were starving, had little choice. He was no philosopher; the only conclusion he could draw was that if humans kept pushing the animals off the land they needed to survive, then humans had better sharpen their own teeth and claws.
Rearing above the grass, still he did not see Dulcie, saw no thrashing where she sped through, only a faint susurration all across the grass tops where the breeze fingered. He heard no sound above the hush of wind and the churr of the buzzing insects.
But suddenly he knew where she was headed, and a chill of fear touched him.
High above the last houses, an ancient barn stood rotting and half-fallen in, its silvered boards leaning inward, its roof torn open to the sky. Dulcie would be there, he'd bet on it. Hunting the rats that ruled that dim, cavernous ruin.
Someday the remains of the old barn would collapse and rot to nothing, but now it belonged to wharf rats. Having long ago cleaned out the last kernel of grain in the feed bins, they subsisted on roots and on mice and lizards, and on whatever smaller creature ventured into their domain.
Some of the rats had migrated down to the boatyards again, but the biggest and boldest had remained to challenge whatever predator invaded their dark and rotting home. Raccoons did not bring their kits to hunt there. A fox had to be full-grown before it would face those beasts.
A stupid place for Dulcie to go, insane to go alone. Terrified for her, he raced across the hills, hoping he was wrong, but knowing she was there. That rat-infested mass of timbers was exactly the place she would go to work off frustration from their night of confinement. He wished she wasn't so damned volatile.
Ahead, the old barn towered drunkenly, its timbers balanced precariously against one another. He was on the crest of the hill some ten feet above when he saw Dulcie, crouched in shadow among the fallen walls. She seemed, at first, a part of the shadows. She moved slowly, slinking beneath the timbers, her belly hugging the ground. She was poised to leap, but he could not see her quarry. He watched her swing her head from side to side, sorting out some tiny sound that he could not yet hear.
He sped down soundlessly, but he did not approach close enough to spoil her attack. He waited, ready to leap, every muscle and nerve jacked into high voltage, watching her creep deeper into the blackness.
She froze, remained still, the tip of her tail flicking.
She was gone in a sudden blur, flashing through shadows into the blackness.
Silence. No sound, no movement. He could see nothing within that dark, rotting world. He crept swiftly closer.
A scream jarred him, the enraged scream of a rat. A board fell, thundering. Dulcie yowled. He dived for the blackness, charging in, storming in beneath fallen boards.
She screamed again, then another rat scream. He saw its eyes red in the blackness. The two were thrashing; it was a huge rat, a monster. Joe piled into the thudding squealing flailing bodies, grabbing at rat fur. He found the rat's face and bit deep. Pain burned him. Dulcie twisted and shook the rat so violently she shook him, too. His ears rang with rat screams and with the thuds of his own body. The three of them slammed into timbers, into the earth. His blood pounded, he felt teeth in his leg.
And then, silence.
His mouth was filled with the bitter taste of rat. The beast lay between them, unmoving, their fangs in it, Dulcie's in its throat, his seeking its heart, its ribs crushed against his tongue. It was a huge, grizzled beast, its body as long as Dulcie, its coat rough with age, its pointed muzzle knobby with old scars. Its eyes even in death were cold and mean.
They rose, spit out rat hair.
But they did not turn away from the kill in the usual ritual to wander aimlessly, cooling down and letting off steam. They remained watching, one on either side of the rat, staring at that giant kill.
It was the biggest rat Joe had ever seen. He wanted to yell at Dulcie for having attacked such a beast, for having been so damned stupid. And he wanted to cheer her and lick her face and laugh. His lady had killed the monster, had killed the king of rats.
She gave him a green-eyed grin of triumph and leaped up. She spun, clawing at the timbers. She leaped over the rat, racing and whirling among the fallen boards, careening in circles; she laughed a human laugh; she spun and danced, driving out the built-up tension, ridding herself of that last terrible violence and rage. She careened into him broadside, pummeled him.
"We killed the king-king of rats-we killed it." She was insane, rolling and spinning and chasing her lashing tail. "The king, we killed the rat king." She was crazy with victory and release.
She collapsed at last and lay still. He sat beside her, washing himself. They licked the blood and cobwebs from each other's faces and ears, licked the deep wounds that would, too soon, begin to hurt like hell.
Joe's paw and leg were torn, and his cheek ripped. There was a gash across Dulcie's pale throat, another up her shoulder. They cleaned each other's wounds carefully, though they would be tended again at home. Joe could hear Clyde now, ragging him about how septic rat bites were. And Wilma would pitch a fit.
But they had demolished the great-great-granddaddy of wharf rats.
The midmorning sun warmed them. Dulcie rubbed against him sweetly and smiled. A gleam of sunlight picked out the shingles and boards of the old barn, the rusted nails, and the rat's mangled body. Joe supposed that some possum coming on the rat in a week or two would be thrilled, would maybe drag the moldering rat away to its babies. Possums would eat anything, even the blood-spattered cobwebs.
He watched Dulcie stretch out limp across the grass, her green eyes closed to long slits, her purr rumbling with little dips and high notes. Life had turned out better than he'd ever imagined. If a cat really did have nine lives, he hoped he and Dulcie would be together in all the lives yet to come.
Last summer, his alarm when he found himself able to speak human words had nearly undone him. He knew himself to be a freak, an abnormal beast fit only for a side show. He hadn't dreamed there was, anywhere in the world, another like himself.
But then he'd found Dulcie, and he was no longer alone in his strangeness. She was the most fascinating creature he had ever met; their love had changed his very cat soul. Lovely Dulcie of the dark, marbled fur, her pale peach paws and peach-tinted nose so delicate, her green eyes watching him, laughing, scolding, emerald eyes set off by the dark stripes perfectly drawn, like the eyes of an Egyptian goddess.
Only a master artist of greatest talent could have composed his lady. And she was not only beautiful and intelligent, she'd beaten the hell out of that rat.
She rolled over, her green eyes wide. "I'm starved. Too bad rats are so bitter."
"How about a nice fat rabbit?"
She flipped to her feet and stood up on her hind legs, looking away across the grass to where the hills rose in a high, flat meadow bright with sun, a meadow so riddled with rabbit burrows that any human, walking there, would fall through to his arse pockets. And within minutes, high on the sun-baked field, they were working a rabbit, creeping low and silent, each from a different angle, toward a shiver of movement within the dense grass.
No normal house cat hunted as these two; ordinary Felis domesticus hunted only as a loner. But Joe and Dulcie had developed a teamwork as intricate and beautifully coordinated as any team of skilled African lions. Now they crept some six yards apart, moving blindly through the grass forest, rearing up at intervals to check the quarry's position. They froze, listening. Slipped ahead again swift as darting birds.
Joe stood up, twitched an ear at her.
She sped, a blur so fast she burst at the cottontail before it had any clue. It spun, was gone inches from her claws. Joe cut it off. It doubled back. Dulcie leaped. It swerved again, angling away. They worked together hazing, doubling, then closed for the kill.
The blow was fast, Joe's killing bite clean. The rabbit screamed and died.
They crouched side by side, ripping open its belly, stripping off fur and flinging it away. Joe ate as he plucked the warm carcass, snatching sweet rabbit flesh in great gulps. But Dulcie devoured not one bite until she had cleaned her share of the kill, stripped away all fur. When the warm meat lay before her as neat as a filet presented for her inspection by a favorite butcher, she dined.
They cleaned the rabbit to the bone. They washed. They cleaned one another's wounds again, then climbed an oak tree and curled together where five big limbs, joining, formed a comfortable nest. The breeze teased at them, and, above the oak's dark leaves, the blue sky swept away free and clean. Below them, down the falling hills, where the village lay toy-sized, their own homes waited snug and welcoming. Home was there, for that moment when they chose, again, to seek human company.
But at that moment the cats needed no one. They tucked their chins under and slept. Joe dreamed he was a hawk soaring, snatching songbirds from the wind and needing never to touch the earth. Dulcie dreamed of gold dresses and of music, and, sleeping, she smiled, and her whiskers twitched with pleasure.
They woke at darkfall. Below them the lights of the village were beginning to blink on, bright sudden pricks like stars flashing out. The smell of cooking suppers rose on the salty wind, a warm and comforting breath of domesticity reaching up to enfold them.
Galloping swiftly down the hills, within minutes they were trotting along the grassy center median of Ocean Avenue beneath its canopy of eucalyptus trees, their noses filled with the familiar and comforting aromas of Binnie's Italian and an assortment of village restaurants, and with the lingering scent of the greengrocer's and the fish market; how comforting it was, when home smells embraced them. Their wounds were beginning to burn and ache.
They parted at Dolores Street, Dulcie trotting away toward the main portion of the village, where, beyond the shops and galleries, her stone cottage waited. Joe turned left, crossed the eastbound lane of Ocean, and soon could see his own cat door, his own shabby white cottage. He pictured Clyde getting supper, pictured the kitchen, the two dogs greeting him licking and wagging.
He stopped, sickened.
Only Rube was there. Barney would never again greet him. He approached the steps slowly, riven with sadness.
His plastic cat door was lit from within, where the living-room lights burned, and he heard the rumble of voices. Looking back over his shoulder toward the curb, he realized that he knew the two cars parked there- both belonged to Molena Point police officers.
Turning back across the little scraggly yard, he leaped up onto the hood of the brown Mercury. It was only faintly warm; Max Harper had been here a while. Sitting on Harper's dusty hood studying the house, he tried to decide-did he want to spend an evening with the law?
He didn't relish Harper's cigarette smoke. But he might pick up some useful information. And it amused him to hassle Harper, and to spy on the police captain, to lie on the table among the poker chips, listening. Learning things that Harper wouldn't dream would go beyond those walls. And even if his eavesdropping didn't prove useful, it was guaranteed to drive Clyde nuts.
Flicking an ear, he leaped down and trotted on inside.