Cat People (12 page)

"Then if you stay here any length of time it's bound to cheer up."

"That's a sweet thing to say." Impulsively Irena leaned across the seat and kissed him on the cheek. As she started to draw back, Oliver took hold of her shoulders and pulled her against him. He kissed her firmly on the mouth. After a momentary resistance, she relaxed in his arms and responded to the kiss. Oliver felt an almost unbearable desire for this woman building inside him. Without warning she pulled away and fumbled for the door handle.

"I've got to go in."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, I just ... it's late, that's all."

He reached across her and held the door closed. "No, tell me, did I do something wrong?"

"Oh, no," she said earnestly. "You did everything right. That's the trouble."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Please let me go in."

Oliver released his grip on the door. Irena pushed it open but made no move to get out.

"Sure you're not angry?" he said.

She gave him the smile again, the one that made him tighten up around the diaphragm. "Don't be silly. I had a marvelous evening. Good dinner, good talk, good company. And I even found a job. If the offer still holds."

"The offer stands," he said. "Come by about ten tomorrow morning."

She pulled his head down and kissed him with surprising vigor. "I'll be there." She stepped out of the cab and hurried up the walk to the gloomy old house.

Oliver sat there until he heard the jingle of her keys, then the opening and closing of the heavy door. He started the engine but stayed where he was for another minute. Quite a woman, this Irena Gallier, he thought. Flirtatious as a kitten one minute, standoffish the next. A familiar pattern with some women, but he didn't think it was calculated with Irena. She was special. She might even be the woman he had been looking for, without even knowing he was looking.

He put the truck in gear and drove away, singing along with an old Beach Boys record on the radio.

The morning was hot. And humid. It was the kind of a day that happened all too frequently in New Orleans but was not mentioned in the brochures sent out by the tourist bureau.

Even the zoo animals seemed affected by the enervating heat. The usual morning creatures like the birds and the deer sat listlessly regarding the few tourists who had dragged themselves away from their air-conditioned hotel rooms.

One of the few animals unaffected by the weather was the black leopard in the quarantine cage. He prowled restlessly from one side of the cage to the other, glaring all the while at the three people standing outside the bars, talking about him.

Oliver Yates held a clipboard to which was fastened a list of foods, with quantities and frequency of feeding in matching vertical columns. Oliver ticked off the items one by one to Alice Moore, who listened attentively. Behind them Joe Creigh slouched against a tree, hands in his pockets, a cigarette smoldering between his thin lips.

"He's ready to start on a regular feeding schedule now," Oliver said. "One fast day, one light day, then five days' regular food. We want to vary the diet but keep it balanced. You know the usual mix—some viscera, some muscle meat—"

Alice picked it up. "With a few bones now and then, along with the vitamin supplements. Maybe a regular diet will mellow him out."

"Not this one," Joe said, talking around his cigarette. "He's plain mean."

"If an animal is mean," Oliver told him, "you can bet some man is responsible."

Joe took the cigarette out of his mouth, examined the end of it, said nothing.

"I don't suppose I have to tell you," Oliver went on, "that I don't want you in the cage with him again."

"Not freaking likely," Joe said.

"Remember it. You've got a lot to learn about working with animals, Joe, and I think it's too late for you to start with this one."

"That is cool with me. I got a perfectly good T-shirt and a pair of jeans ruined by panther puke."

"I'll see if we can pay for cleaning your clothes out of the budget," Oliver said. "In the meantime, stay away from the cat."

"I heard you the first time," Joe said.

Oliver stared at him for a moment, then turned to Alice. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a zip-locked plastic bag. Inside was a dead rat, freshly thawed from the freezer.

"Here's a little treat you can give him. A little extra protein never hurts."

Alice took the bag from him and gazed at it with large green eyes. "Gosh, chief, for a minute I thought it was for me."

"Play your cards right, and I might find another one." Oliver's bantering tone faltered as his eyes strayed up the slope toward the administration building.

Alice and Joe followed his gaze. A slim girl with short brown hair, looking fresh and crisp despite the weather, was just entering the building.

"I'll talk to you later," Oliver said. He tossed the plastic bag containing the dead rat to Alice and strode off along the path toward the administration building.

Alice caught the bag with one hand. "Thanks a lot," she said to Oliver's retreating back. She shaded her eyes against the sun and peered up the slope.

"Who's that girl?" she asked Joe.

"Never aaw her before. Maybe she's going to be a new exhibit."

"Very funny." Alice zipped open the bag and took out the rat. There was no squeamishness in the way she handled the dead rodent.

"Here, pussycat," she said, and tossed the rat neatly between the bars into the leopard's cage.

The leopard moved his head swiftly and caught the rat in his mouth the way a dog catches a ball. With the rat's head protruding from one side of his mouth and the tail drooping from the other, the big cat looked at Alice. Then he closed his powerful jaws and pulverized the rat like a peanut.

Oliver was foolishly glad to see the dark-eyed girl. He slowed down and reminded himself to use restraint. After all, they had been together only once, and then not really
together.

"I'm glad you came," he said.

"I told you I would."

"Do you always do what you say?"

She smiled coquettishly. "Not always."

Oliver laughed. "I'm glad you did this time. Shall we walk over to the gift shop?"

"I wonder ..." Irena hesitated.

"What?"

"Would it be possible for me to see the leopard?"

"You really like that cat, don't you?"

She nodded.

"His cage is being cleaned right now, it wouldn't be a good time. I'll take you down later, if you like."

"Whatever you say, boss."

Oliver took her arm and they walked together around the long way to the gift shop, by the zoo's main entrance. On the way, Irena asked insightful questions about the animals they passed. Oliver answered with enthusiasm, delighted to find his own interests shared by this girl, who stirred him so deeply in other ways.

Business in the gift shop was slow, as it was everywhere on this soggy day. Oliver led Irena back to a motherly-looking woman who stood by the cash register.

"Irena, this is Mrs. Deever. She manages the place."

"I'm surely glad to have you for as long as you can stay," Mrs. Deever said. "I've been running the place alone since my last girl up and got married on me. You're not planning on getting married, are you?"

"Not right away," Irena said.

She glanced over at Oliver, who blushed like a happy schoolboy.

Although he had other things to do, Oliver walked around the shop with the women as Mrs. Deever showed Irena where the stock was, and how to write up orders and work the cash register. He pretended an interest in all the cups and ashtrays and pennants and other souvenirs bearing the name of the New Orleans Zoo. He watched with pleasure Irena's obvious delight as she handled the cuddly stuffed animals and the ceramic figurines. She only grew serious when she came upon a statuette of a black leopard, jaws wide, teeth bared for attack. She stroked the smooth black head with a forefinger and whispered something only she could hear.

At the quarantine cage Alice completed her daily collection of stool samples. She wondered, not for the first time, if this was any kind of work for a reasonably attractive woman of marriageable age to be doing. It seemed worthwhile when she and Oliver were together, but lately they weren't together nearly enough.

She turned to Joe Creigh. "You can hose out the cage now, but keep the stream of water off the cat. He'll move out of the way if you give him a chance."

"I know the drill," Joe said.

"And I don't have to tell you to stay clear of the bars."

"That's right, you don't have to tell me."

Alice walked down the path toward the patch of woods. Joe stood admiring her rear view until she was out of sight. Damn nice-looking ass. He wondered if Mr. College Man Oliver Yates was getting any of that. Probably. Joe wouldn't mind dipping into it himself. Some time when the two of them were alone he'd make a play. There were plenty of hidden places in the zoo where you could rip off a piece in broad daylight and nobody would ever know.

Joe felt a hard-on growing. He rubbed at it through the rough denim of his pants. There was no two ways about it, he wasn't getting enough gash lately. He wasn't even scoring in the crummy bare where anybody could make out. It was probably the animal stink that he carried home with him from the zoo that was keeping the women away.

He twisted the water-spigot handle and directed a powerful stream from the hose into the leopard's cage. The big cat stood pressed against the bars at the far side of the cage, watching apprehensively as the water sluiced over the floor toward him.

"You've really got it made, you black bastard," Joe told the cat. "You get petted and pampered and taken care of, all you want to eat, a comfortable place to flop, and you never have to do an hour's work."

He moved the stream of water across the floor, inching closer to the leopard.

"They'll probably even find you a she-cat to stick your big black pecker into. You never had it so good."

The leopard eased away from the advancing water along the back wall of the cage, stepping daintily where the cage floor was already wet. Joe gave the hose nozzle a flip, spattering a few drops across the cat's paws.

The sudden thundering roar startled Joe into stumbling backwards, even though the leopard was standing well away from the bars on the near side. The cat raised a paw in Joe's direction and let the deadly claws slide out of their sheaths.

"Don't roar at me, you sonofabitch!" Joe used the stream of water like a whip and lashed it across the broad chest of the leopard.

The big cat reacted with shocking ferocity. With a piercing snarl he sprang across the cage and hit the bars that faced Joe Creigh. Jungle hatred glowed in the hot yellow eyes.

"Don't like the water? Well, that's tough shit, kitty cat, that is plain tough shit."

Joe adjusted the nozzle for the most powerful stream and aimed it directly into the cat's face. The animal shook his big head back and forth, trying to escape the cold water. Joe followed him with the hose.

"Puke on me, will you? Show me your claws? Well, how do you like this, sonofabitch? Maybe from now on you'll show a little respect for Joe Creigh."

The leopard spun frantically, trying to get away from the bedeviling blast of water, but Joe held it on him mercilessly. The cat backed against the rear wall and roared in tormented protest.

In the gift shop Mrs. Deever finished her rundown of the stock for Irena. Oliver was beginning to feel conspicuous hanging around.

He said, "Well, I suppose I'd better be getting back to the office."

Irena walked with him to the door. "I can't thank you enough, Oliver, for getting me the job. And for being so nice to me."

"It doesn't pay a whole lot," he said, "but it's clean work."

"The important thing is I can be near the animals."

From off in the direction of the big cats they heard a wailing roar. Irena turned to Oliver with a look of alarm.

"One of the cats exercising his tonsils." he said.

"No, it's the leopard. He's in some kind of trouble."

Oliver stared at her. "Don't tell me you can already tell the roar of one cat from another."

"The leopard needs help," she said. "I'd better go to him."

It was time to be firm, Oliver decided. He said, "Irena, your job is here in the gift shop. Mine is looking after the animals."

Her gaze flicked beyond him, out the door. "I know, but ... something is happening to the black leopard."

"I'll go and have a look at him, okay?"

"Yes, please do. And you'll tell me if there's anything wrong?"

"Sure."

A couple with two active children entered the gift shop.

"You have customers," Oliver said. "I'll talk to you later."

As he walked away Irena stood for a moment in the doorway, looking off toward the quarantine cage. When she heard Mrs. Deever clear her throat, she turned reluctantly and went into the shop.

When Oliver had walked down the path to the quarantine cage and found Joe Creigh tormenting the leopard with the hose, his impulse was to strangle the young man on the spot. However, he got a grip on himself and merely shut off the water. He told Joe to report to his office at noon the next day. That, he reasoned, should give him time to cool off so he would not feel guilty about firing Joe in the heat of the moment.

Now Joe was an hour late, and Oliver was wishing he had thrown him out yesterday when he wanted to. He slumped behind his desk and stared up at a framed print showing a pride of lions majestically taking their ease on a vast African plain. That, he thought, is where animals belong. Free. People too, for that matter.

Another five minutes went by before the door opened and Joe Creigh slouched in. He needed a shave, and he smelled worse than the monkey cage.

"You wanted to see me?" There was an unevenness in the tone of his voice.

"Have you been drinking?" Oliver demanded.

"No," Joe said quickly, but his eyes shifted away from Oliver's.

"Ordinarily that would be enough to finish you here," Oliver said, "but it really doesn't matter, because I'm letting you go anyway."