Norton, Andre - Anthology (15 page)

 
          
 
"You can get some food, right?" Key
said. "There's a market in the mall."

 
          
 
"Cat's filthy, too,” the cat thought.
He'd lashed his tail once when the jinn had said it. And I'd keep lashing my
tail, if I felt like it. But I don't. It tastes so bad to lick now, and then
the fur freezes and I get colder. I should leave you guys. And I will when I
want to. I don't need anyone to take care of me. He watched one jinn send the
other out to hunt, though, and wondered what it would bring back.

 
          
 
Kip returned to the nibbling of weather she
couldn't feel, although by now the sun had made significant progress. She
hurried in search of food, managing to slip into the locked store using her
credit card, though not the same way she had used it to enter the bank. She
wandered the aisles until she found bags with cat faces on them, and from there
she looked for cat food, a big bag of pigeons, for example, or mice. What she
found confused her—she didn't remember ever seeing a pack of cats run down a
cow in the wild—but finally she settled on one can because she liked the color.
She put the can in her pocket, then left her change on the manager's desk.
After a second thought, she left the whistle, too.

 
          
 
When Kip got back to the bank, she found Key
crouched over a box. "This blew by outside," she said, "so I
filled it with newspapers." Key had scooped up the cat and laid him in the
box, but the cat didn't move. "You've got the food?"

 
          
 
They had enough time to open the can. Sunlight
had penetrated the glass enclosure of the bank by now, and that light made an
exaggerated shadow of the cat's labored breathing. He sniffed the food, gave
one lick, and then flopped onto the papers.

 
          
 
Kip and Key stared at one another. Key looked
at her hands and could see the cat through them.

 
          
 
Finally, the cat felt a little warm. But he
tingled—the paws, the ears, the nose. No water, the cat thought, although now
there's food. And someone else, watching me. I hope they don't kick me. Not
that I care. I can leave when I feel like it. The cat stood unsteadily, raised
a head that felt too heavy for his neck, and sat as his hind legs folded unexpectedly.
I just don't feel like it right now.

 
          
 
Andrew hunted through the closet his wife had
left nearly empty three weeks ago. He remembered wishing his clothes had more
room last month, room to hold their own form, but now the closet looked too sparse
with only his wardrobe, as if clothes could be lonely. A stupid thought. He
pushed the door shut without getting his shoes, then went in again to grab
them.

 
          
 
Looking in the mirror, Andrew found himself
checking for cat hair. He shook his head. Julie had taken that monstrous
Siamese with her—a welcome departure, actually. Let them complain at each
other. He wondered which would be the first to feel she couldn't get a word in
edgewise. The cat could win any competition based on volume, but for constant
complaining, the pair were a pretty close match.

 
          
 
Taking the day off might help more than his
health, Andrew realized. With Julie's stuff gone, he could spread out a bit,
use more than half the apartment. Maybe he'd throw out that scratching post the
Siamese never used, preferring the drapes and the couch, possibly frightened by
the radioactive pink Julie had insisted they buy.

 
          
 
For now, though, he could take his time
rearranging the book shelves. Or maybe he'd go first to buy the reading chair
Julie had insisted didn't match the decor. Something you could sit and read in
without feeling you lived in a restored house from the 1700's, complete with
roped-off areas and do-not-touch signs.

 
          
 
Andrew ate breakfast with the TV on behind
him, the familiar sounds of a news anchor reading off a tele-prompter.

 
          
 
Traffic hummed by more frequently as rush hour
began. A few people stepped into the bank to use the ATM machines, but other
than a quick glance, the suited men and women paid no heed. Kip and Key pleaded,
unheard and unseeable; their words grew softer as the morning drew on. Now when
they touched the cat, he didn't even hiss. Key thought the cat had gotten used
to them; Kip worried more.

 
          
 
Key stood up at
ten o'clock
. By now the traffic had waned to a throb,
the red and green lights for a heartbeat, and people had ceased their
pre-commute cash runs.

 
          
 
'The cat won't make it to tonight," Key
said, and left the bank.

 
          
 
Kip chased her. "What are you
doing?"

 
          
 
"I'm getting someone to help us."

 
          
 
Key already had an arrow on her bow, but Kip
snatched it. "We'll get in trouble!"

 
          
 
"An angel will come for us," Key
said, "and when he scolds us, we'll show him the cat."

 
          
 
Key loosed her arrow across the avenue. It
landed in the engine of someone's car.

 
          
 
"Terrific," Kip said. "Now
you've done it."

 
          
 
They ran through traffic to the car and poked
their heads through the hood to stare at the arrow sticking from one of the rectangular
pieces of the engine.

 
          
 
"You had to hit something
mechanical."

 
          
 
"Is that the gas tank?" Key said.

 
          
 
"That's in the back. Maybe it's a muffler
or transmission."

 
          
 
"Mufflers go underneath." Key
touched the arrow, then yanked back her hand as a crumpling sensation struck
her body. The arrow had gotten hot. i'm afraid to pull it out. You do it."

 
          
 
"I didn't shoot it there."

 
          
 
Because the arrow was as immaterial as the two
jinn, the owner of the car wouldn't see it, so he'd never know its energy had
caused the damage. Still, Kip and Key returned to the bank in dejection. The
cat lay panting. Even though the sun warmed the cat, he hadn't washed yet.

 
          
 
"I want to go away," Key said.
"There's nothing we can do."

 
          
 
"We can't," Kip said. "When the
sun goes down, we'll bring the cat to a vet or something. We'll leave him on a
doorstep and ring the bell. That's only about seven hours."

 
          
 
Key played with the ATM machines for a while.
Outside, the wind had picked up.

 
          
 
Kip had rummaged again through her belt pack
and found no more money, but she did tempt the cat with a piece of string he
staunchly refused to bat.

 
          
 
"Oh, no," Key said, looking out the
window, and then, "oh, dear heaven, no."

 
          
 
"An angel?"

 
          
 
"Worse." The owner of the car had
come out to start it, and now he crossed to their side of the street.

 
          
 
"We're going to get scolded again,"
Key said. "I can't believe I did that. We shouldn't have shot another
arrow. You should have stopped me."

 
          
 
"He can't scold us, can he?" Kip
said. "He doesn't know we're here."

           
 
They shrank into a corner as the man hauled
open the door to the bank. He moved straight for a cash machine, and only then
did the jinn move away from the wall.

 
          
 
Kip stood uneasily and looked under the man's
elbow at the terminal. His name appeared on his bank card— Andrew? Kip didn't
have time to sound out the second name before he replaced the card in his
wallet.

 
          
 
Kip turned around, then gave a shriek.

 
          
 
"It's not for you," Key said of the
arrow she had ready.

 
          
 
"He's not going to scold us. You'll
really get us in trouble if you hurt a person!"

 
          
 
The man turned away from the ATM and while
turning, saw the cat.

 
          
 
Key fired.

 
          
 
The arrow passed through him, and Kip leaped
to catch it before it hit the terminal. The man hesitated.

 
          
 
"Are you nuts?"

 
          
 
"This has to work." Key nodded.
"Watch him!"

 
          
 
The man walked out of the bank.

 
          
 
Key sat heavily on the heater, her shoulders
slumped. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

 
          
 
"You thought you were Cupid?" Kip
shook the other jinn. "What did you think you would accomplish?"

 
          
 
"I'm sorry—but I know he got a pain in
his heart when he saw the cat. You couldn't see his face. But it wasn't
enough." Key shook her head. "Can't you just get money out of the
machines like they do?"

 
          
 
"We have to put money in first," Kip
said. "I found the card in the bushes, anyway."

 
          
 
Key left the bank again, Kip following her.
They caught up with the man lathis car.

 
          
 
"Don't you love the cat?" Key said.
"Please, sir?"

 
          
 
"Good thing it's daylight." Kip
rolled her eyes. "He'd tell you he didn't love the cat, then clobber you
for wrecking his car."

 
          
 
"He's got to help the cat—or the cat's
going to die." Key sat on the roof of the car, then grinned. "I know.
Watch."

 
          
 
Key ran near the bushes at the side of the
road. She called the wind and brought it to a bunch of dead leaves from last
fall touching them in the air so for a moment they would form a pointy-eared
cat's face.

 
          
 
"And look!" Key had found a dark
yellow slip from the bank and made it blow onto the car's antenna. 'The color
of the cat's eyes!"

 
          
 
The man had opened the hood to look into the
engine. Kip swallowed uneasily, glancing at the arrow sticking into the box at
the front of the engine. The man cleared the skeletons of old leaves from the
engine block, and Kip said, "Like cat whiskers."

 
          
 
Silence, then, as the man examined the engine.
Finally, he sighed. "God, if I don't have to call a tow-truck, I'll take
that cat in."

 
          
 
Key clasped her hands. "Quick! Pull out
the arrow!"

 
          
 
"Think about it," Kip said. "We
might do more harm. We can't pull the arrowhead out backward—it's got to be
pushed forward out the other side. It's in machinery, not a brick. And it might
still be hot."