Cat Breaking Free Read Free

you?”
    â€œPut that way, you make me sound like a real wimp.”
    â€œAnyway,” Joe said, “Ryan and Charlie and Hanni have planned for that trip all year, getting their horses in shape, calling the blacksmith, checking their gear…”
    Clyde smiled. “I’m playing second fiddle to a couple of lady equestrians and a sorrel mare.”
    Joe yawned. “I’m surprised Chichi keeps pushing you, though, after seeing the chief of police over here two or three times a week.” Chief Harper and Clyde had grown up together. Max and one other friend were as close to family as Clyde had. “Unless,” Joe said, his yellow eyes narrowing, “unless that fits into her plan.”
    Clyde stared at him. “She’s going to pull a scam on Max Harper?”
    The tomcat licked his white paws. “Why not? That woman would try to scam anyone. She even tried to make up to Rube, just because he’s your dog. Just like she used to baby-talk me in San Francisco.”
    â€œShe backed off Rube fast enough,” Clyde said, smiling. Chichi had been mad as hell when Rube growled at her. In Joe’s opinion, the old black Lab was sometimes smarter than Clyde. He looked down at Rube, stretched out across the bricks, his aging black bulk soaking up the sunshine. “Rube knows his women. He should, he’s lived with you since he was a pup.” Joe watched the elderly Labrador roll over onto a warmer patch of paving.
    â€œSlowing down,” Clyde said sadly, setting down his coffee cup and kneeling beside Rube to stroke and talk to the old dog. Rube lifted his head to lick Clyde’s hand, his tail flopping on the bricks. But Clyde and the tomcat exchanged a look. Rube hadn’t been himself for some time; they were both worried about him. Dr. Firetti had prescribed a heart medication, but he hadn’t been encouraging.
    Joe was thinking it a blessing that the morning was quiet so the old dog could rest, a silky calm Saturday morning, when their peace was suddenly broken. Loud rock music shattered the silence, jolting all three of them, hard rock coming from next door where they heard a car pulling up the drive on the far side of the neighbors’ house. They could hear nothing but the car radio blasting. What ever happened to real music? the tomcat thought. In Clyde’s house, the old Basin Street jazz was king; and, since Clyde and Ryan started dating, a certain amount of classical music that even a tomcat could learn to like.
    The radio went silent. They heard two car doors slam, then two men’s voices, one speaking Spanish as they headed down the drive, to the entry to Chichi’s back bedroom. They heard the men knock, heard the door open, heard Chichi’s high giggle as the door closed again, then silence. Rising, his ears pressed back with annoyance, the tomcat leaped from the chaise to the barbecue to the top of the plastered wall, where he could see the door and the drive.
    An older brown Plymouth coupe stood in the drive. Stretching out along the top of the wall, Joe watched the one bedroom window he could see; the other was around the corner facing a strip of garden and the drive. Inside, Chichi was sitting on the bed facing the two men, who sat in straight chairs, their backs to Joe. The three had pulled the night table between them and were studying some kind of papers they had spread out. Frowning, the tomcat dropped from the wall down into the neighbors’ scruffy yard. Racing across the rough grass and around the corner, he leaped into the little lemon tree that stood just outside Chichi’s other window.
    Scorching up into its branches he tried to avoid the tree’s nasty little thorns, but one caught him in the paw. Pausing to lick the blood away, he tried to keep his white markings out of sight, hidden among the sparse foliage. What were they looking at? A map? He climbed higher, stretching out along a brittle limb, peering