Cat People (6 page)

"As of six o'clock this evening no cats had escaped from our zoo," Oliver said. "What kind is it?"

"It's big and it's black, and it looks mean as hell," Brant said. "That's as much as I could see, looking through a peephole into the room where it's holed up."

"Black leopard," Oliver said.

"Whatever."

"That's very strange," Oliver said, looking over at Alice.

"Oh, I don't know," said Brant. "That thing like to tore off a woman's foot, and I'm not about to go into that room, read him his rights, and snap the cuffs on him."

"No, I didn't mean that," Oliver said quickly. "I mean it's strange because the New Orleans Zoo doesn't have a black leopard. We're a pretty small operation, you know, compared to the Audubon."

"As far as I'm concerned, you get that cat out of the Pleasure Dome and your zoo has its leopard. I've got a feeling nobody's going to claim it."

"I'll be glad to do what I can," Oliver said. "Is this massage parlor on Bourbon Street?"

"Where else?"

"This is my assistant, Alice Moore. If you'll give me the address, we can be there in fifteen minutes."

"I've got a car right outside. I can run you down."

"I'll need my truck," Oliver said. "I have to pick up some equipment and another man. It shouldn't take me long."

The sergeant shrugged his massive shoulders. "Take your time. That pussycat isn't going anywhere, and I can guarantee you nobody is going in after him before you get there."

He wrote down the address of the Pleasure Dome on the back of one of his cards, handed it to Oliver, and walked back out to the waiting car.

A few minutes later Alice sat in the cab of Oliver's truck outside a peeling stucco apartment house. Oliver came out of the building, walked to the back of the truck, and rechecked the assortment of animal-handling equipment they had picked up at the zoo. He rattled the door on the sturdy steel cage they had brought along, then walked to the front and got in behind the wheel. His eyes shone with excitement.

"Is Joe coming?" Alice asked.

"He wasn't too happy about it, but he'll be along in a minute."

"I wish we didn't have to take him. I don't think he's really comfortable working with animals."

"Joe's still learning," Oliver said. "He's strong, and we might need his help in handling the leopard. I'd a lot rather have one man too many than one too few."

"I suppose so," Alice said, but she did not sound convinced.

The apartment door opened and Joe Creigh came out, tucking a plaid shirt into the waistband of a tight pair of Levis. His lank blond hair fell damply across his forehead.

He pulled open the truck door and climbed in on the other side of Alice. "This is a hell of a time to go out chasing some freaking cat. I hope there's going to be overtime."

"I'll turn in the request," Oliver said, "but don't start spending it yet. You know how they are about the budget."

"Don't I! Those freaking animals eat better than the help does."

Oliver shot the truck into gear and headed for the French Quarter.

A fair-sized crowd had gathered in the block of Bourbon Street where the Pleasure Dome was. Two police cars and a city emergency truck sat out in front with their lights blinking. Half a dozen uniformed policemen were busy steering the curious away from the entrance to the building. Up the street the musicians in the New Original Dixie Bar honked on.

As Oliver cruised up the block one of the policemen came over and put a hand on the window sill. "This street is blocked off. You'll have to go around."

"I'm Oliver Yates, from the New Orleans Zoo. Sergeant Brant asked me to come down."

"Oh, right." The policeman removed his hand. "Sergeant Brant is waiting for you upstairs."

Oliver left the truck with some satisfaction in a "No Parking" zone and crossed the sidewalk to the entrance. Alice and Joe followed. They climbed the stairs, now bright with police floodlights, to the lobby of the massage parlor. Eddie Mays was sitting in a chair, perspiring heavily, while he answered questions for policemen. Sergeant Brant saw Oliver and beckoned him over.

"Anything new?" Oliver asked.

Brant shook his head. "Status quo. The cat's still locked in the room, and the innkeeper, here, is having a little trouble trying to remember the events of the evening."

Eddie said, "I am telling you everything I know. It beats the shit out of me how that animal got in here."

"You're sure he didn't come up the stairs and slip past you?" said one of the policemen.

"Are you kidding? I may not have the eyes of an eagle, but there is no way,
no way
I am not going to see a fucking black panther stroll up my stairs, past my counter, and go into one of my rooms."

"Leopard," Oliver said.

Eddie looked at him for the first time. "What?"

"Black leopard is the correct name for the animal. Not black panther."

"Leopard, panther, what the fuck difference does it make? I know it ain't no chipmunk. Who are you?"

Oliver introduced himself. "Is there a back door to this place?"

"Yeah, but it's always double-locked. It was locked all night. I checked."

"Fire escape?"

"There isn't any." Eddie glanced nervously at Sergeant Brant. "I know I was supposed to put one in, but I was going to apply to the Safety Commission for an extension."

"I don't care about that," Brant told him.

Oliver said, "Do you suppose we could have a look at the cat?"

As though in response to his words, a rumbling growl sounded down the hall from behind the door to room 12.

"Jee
zus
!" Joe Creigh said. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Do you think
I
do?" Eddie complained. "And what about the john who was in the room? He must of been so shook up he took off stark-naked during all the uproar."

Eddie led the party down the hall to a narrow unnumbered room next to room 12. Along both side walls were rows of fish-eye peepholes, separated by shallow plywood partitions to give a semblance of privacy.

"What's this, the voyeur room?" Alice asked.

"It takes all kinds, lady. Some people get their rocks watching somebody else doing it. I make no judgments."

Oliver, Joe, Alice, and Sergeant Brant each put an eye to one of the peepholes on the wall adjacent to room 12. There was a splashy trail of blood in there, from the bed to the door, and some kind of mess on the bed. No animal was in sight.

"Where is he?" Joe asked.

"Under the bed, maybe," Eddie suggested.

"Is it possible he got out the window?" Oliver asked.

"No way. Them bars would hold King Kong."

"What's outside it?"

"Back alley."

Suddenly the bed seemed to explode into the air. A huge black shape sprang at the wall with the concealed viewers. The leopard slashed at it with bloody claws, as though he knew he was being watched from the other side. Reflexively all four of the people at the viewers jerked back from the wall.

"Holy ahit!" said Joe.

"He's enormous!" Alice said.

Eddie Mays stood back with his arms folded and looked smug. "What'd I tell you?"

Oliver and Sergeant Brant returned to the viewers.

"He must go hundred seventy, hundred eighty pounds," the detective said.

"Closer to two hundred," Oliver said. "He is a beauty. A real beauty."

"If you can call a nightmare beautiful," Alice remarked.

"So how about getting him the hell out of my place?" Eddie said.

Oliver turned to Alice and Joe. "I'll need some equipment from the truck."

"How about the Winchester twelve-gauge with Mag shells of double-0 pellets?" Joe suggested.

"I want to capture the cat, Joe," Oliver said patiently, "not blow him to pieces. Bring up the tranquilizer rifle."

"What kind of a load?" Alice asked.

"We'll go with the ketamine straight. Two thousand milligrams. That ought to knock him down fairly quickly so we can get him in the squeeze cage. Better be ready to intubate him too, to keep him breathing."

Alice and Joe hurried out of the room. Their footsteps could be heard clumping down the stairs to the street. Sergeant Brant took another look through the viewer and tumed to Oliver.

"Where do you plan to shoot him from?"

"I don't want any holes chopped in my walls," Eddie said. The detective gave him a heavy look, and he fell silent.

"I think the window is our best bet," Oliver said. "Have you got a ladder available?"

"They'll have one on the disaster wagon. You going to want some kind of backup?"

"There isn't much you can do, but thanks."

Oliver took a final look through the viewer to judge the angle his shot would have to take from the window. The leopard stared back at him.

"I have the creepiest feeling that he knows what I'm planning to do," Oliver said, stepping away from the wall.

"Tell you the truth, I'd rather face an armed bank robber," Brant said.

They went downstairs and walked around to the narrow alley that ran behind the building. Brant dispatched men to seal it off at both ends of the block.

The driver of the emergency truck came back with two men carrying an old wooden extension ladder.

"Sorry we haven't got an aluminum model," he aaid. "but the city cut our budget again."

"I know haw you feel," Oliver said.

The ladder was leaned up against the brick wall below the barred window. The two city employees held it steady at the base.

Oliver took the heavy tranquilizer rifle from Joe Creigh.

"Loaded?"

"Two darts," Alice said. "Two thousand mg's of ketamine in each one. From the looks of that animal, you'd better put the first dart in a good spot."

"I intend to," Oliver said. He started up the ladder, then turned back to give her a grin that showed more confidence than he felt.

As he climbed close to the window, Oliver looked down and saw the spear points of an iron fence directly below him. If he fell now, he'd be impaled like an anchovy on an hors d'oeuvres tray. He pushed the image out of his mind and inched upward.

He came even with the bottom of the grillwork and eased his head up over the sill. The accumulated grime on the glass was so thick he could not see into the room. He propped the hand holding the rifle against the brick wall for balance and dug into his pocket for a handkerchief. He reached in carefully through the bars and used the handkerchief to rub at the glass.

Gradually he wiped away enough of the dirt to give him a cloudy view of the interior of the room. He leaned closer to the glass to peer through.

Directly across the room from him the leopard rested on its haunches, looking back at him.

"You were waiting for me, weren't you, boy?" Oliver said. "You just be a good cat and sit right where you are, and this will all be over before you know it."

Moving slowly and awkwardly, careful to maintain his balance, Oliver brought the rifle around in front of him. Gripping it with both hands, he pulled it back so the muzzle was about a foot from the glass, then he thrust it forward. The gun barrel made a solid clunk against the pane, but the window did not break.

"Damn," Oliver muttered.

Inside the room the leopard crouched, tensing his muscles. Through the patch of glass he had cleared, Oliver could see the clear yellow eyes watching him.

"Just take it easy, big fella," he said. "Everything's going to be all right in a few minutes." As an afterthought he whispered, "I hope."

He shoved the muzzle of the rifle against the pane of glass again. Again it bounced off with no effect. Oliver teetered for a moment, pushed off balance by the rebound. Clutching the rifle with one hand, he hugged the wooden upright of the ladder with the other. Someone was shouting down below in the alley, but Oliver ignored it.

He ground his teeth and talked to himself under his breath. "Okay, Superman, all you have to do is break a pane of glass and put a dart into that cat. How will it look if you have to climb back down the ladder and ask for help?"

As he steeled himself to have another go at the window, the leopard sprang. Its two huge forepaws hit the window, and the glass exploded outward as though a bomb had gone off inside.

Oliver clung desperately to the quaking ladder as the leopard slashed at him through the bars. The beast's claws, like deadly curved daggers, gouged strips of wood effortlessly from the ladder. Oliver heard the tough denim of his pant leg rip away as a claw caught it at the knee. A horrified glance down told him that the flesh was not broken.

Again and again the leopard attacked the bars while Oliver struggled to stay out of the way while still holding onto the ladder. Unbelievably, the wrought-iron grillwork over the window began to bend under the aasault. The masonry bolts holding the bars to the wall of the building began to work loose. Brick and mortar dust sifted down into the night.

"Good Christ," Oliver thought, "he's coming through!"

"Come down!" a policeman shouted from below him in the alley.

Oliver looked back over his shoulder and saw that one of them was holding a deer rifle.

"Get out of the way and we'll kill him when he shows at the window," the policeman shouted.

"Like hell you will," Oliver said to himself.

He pulled himself back, directly in front of the window. Most of the glass was gone now, and the bars were bent, so he could see clearly into the room. Against the opposite wall the big cat tensed for another attack.

"It's now or never, my friend," Oliver muttered. He brought the tranquilizer gun into position, took hasty aim, and fired.

The recoil knocked him back on the ladder for a moment, but he quickly regained his handhold and leaned forward to look into the room. He saw the dart embedded in the leopard's flank, and breathed a silent prayer. It was a good placement. Lucky.

The cat did not go down at once. It snarled in rage, spinning in circles as it tried to bite at the dart. Then suddenly it stopped and glared at Oliver.

"Don't fight it, big fella," Oliver said. "Just lie down and take a nice little nap."

The leopard launched itself at the window again, but this time the impact lacked force. The animal's strength was ebbing fast as the powerful tranquilizer spread through its body.