Unplugged (7 page)

I searched on, and eventually found a small article about Hilary and cats. Show cats. Abyssinians, to be precise. They looked exactly like the litter of kittens I had found snuggled between the hay bales on my uncle’s farm. Cousin Kevin and I had stood for hours at the livestock auction in Edgeley, North Dakota, giving them away for free. Pershing’s kittens weren’t quite such a stellar value. They started at nine hundred dollars a pop.

You know what I really needed? A cat. And information about Solberg.

H
ilary Pershing lived in a developing development in Mission Hills, where they were carving space out of the scrubby, inhospitable hills for a dozen or so new upper-income homes. I stood dressed for success on her front stoop. Nothing says “I can afford a nine-hundred-dollar farm cat” like a buttercream angora sweater, herringbone tweed slacks, and chocolate leather wedge heels.

“Hello,” I said when the door opened a crack and one eyeball peered through at me. It didn’t strike me as unusual behavior. Not for L.A. Most Angelites won’t invite you in unless you’re blood kin and come with a signed affidavit from your mother.

But a moment later the door was thrust wide and I was motioned in. I stepped inside with broad misgivings. A woman I assumed was Hilary Pershing locked the door behind me. I clasped my chic handbag to my chest and examined her. There was a ballpoint pen nestled into mousy-colored hair that had been permed to frizzle. A roundish nose overlooked a doughy face and multiplying chins, and a cable-knit cardigan was buttoned up tight from good-sized bosom to charitable hips. In short, she was perfect for Solberg.

“You must be Ms. Harmony,” she said.

“Yes.” I know my conversation with Teri Solberg should have taught me I’m not bright enough to remember an alias, but sometimes the most hard-learned lessons are the ones most easily forgotten. “I’m sorry to bother you on such short notice. I was just so excited when I found your website and realized you were right here in town,” I said.

“Do you show Abbies?” she asked, peering over her shoulder at me as she led the way inside. She was a good four inches shorter than me, but she had a commanding air about her. If Solberg liked strong women, he should have been in weenie heaven. On the other hand, if he liked hetero-sexual women . . .

“Show? Oh, no,” I said, as if breathless at the thought that I, too, could be among the honored few. “I mean, I’d love to, but for right now I’m just looking for a pet. And maybe, you know, to have a few kittens eventually.”

“Kittens?” She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Umm . . . yes?” I ventured.

She turned slowly toward me, her lips pursed and her voice absolutely monotone. “Raising kittens is not for amateurs, Ms. Harmony.” In retrospect, I have no idea why I chose that name. I was not feeling particularly harmonious. And she didn’t look exactly peaceable, either. Her face had gone cold. “These cats are the direct descendants of the sacred companions to the pharaohs.”

“Oh, well . . .”

“I don’t sell my cats for indiscriminate breeding purposes. You can’t simply toss ’em together and let ’em mate willy-nilly like animals.”

But . . . they were animals. “No.” I shook my head. Holy shit. “Of course not.”

“If you were to adopt one of my feline friends I would have to insist that you sign a waiver giving up all breeding rights.”

“Certainly.” I nodded, not wanting to send her into cardiac arrest at the thought of unauthorized mating. Geez, what kind of pedigreed stud muffin did
she
take to bed? “I can understand that.”

She stared at me. Apparently, I passed the litmus test. “Good, then,” she said, and gave me a smile that suggested the storm had passed. “Would you like to meet the little ones?” She said it like she was about to introduce me to a magical coven of fairies.

“I can’t wait.”

She led me past a kitchen that boasted a handsome bay window but no curtains. By NeoTech standards, her house was fairly modest. Maybe she spent her money feeding filet mignon to Pharaoh’s cats, or maybe, for inexplicable reasons, Solberg made twice her salary and she was pissed about it. Pissed enough to forgo buying curtains for her untreated living room windows and take out a contract on the Geekster’s pathetic life. Or—

“Here they are.”

Four kittens lay snuggled together in a basket on the couch in front of a gas fireplace. They blinked and stretched, equally as cute as the litter I’d given away at the livestock auction when I was a kid.

“Ohh . . .” I made the sounds I thought were appropriate, although honestly, if a pet can’t fetch your slippers and refuses to bring you a beer after work, he’s never been very welcome in the McMullen clan. “They’re beautiful.”

“Yes, they are,” she said, and picked them up, one after the other, spouting mumbo jumbo about lineage and colors.

I uh-huhed like I cared and wondered when to launch into my reason for being there. I hoped it would be before my allergies kicked in. My eyes were already beginning to itch. I could only assume the pharaohs weren’t sensitive to feline dander.

“Would you like to see the sire?” she asked.

“Well—”

“You can’t legitimately judge a kitten without assessing his heritage,” she said, and hurried toward what seemed to be a bedroom. She opened the door a hair, shimmied in, and reappeared carrying a tom, who flipped his tail and looked generally pissed at the world.

“This is Silver Ra Jamael. Best of Color three years running at the Mid-Pacific.”

I stared at him. His color was gray. I swear it was. “Amazing.”

“Yes, and the mother—” she began, but suddenly the bedroom door creaked ominously open behind me. I swung toward it, breath held, but there was nothing more sinister than a cat slinking through.

I gave a sigh of relief, but Hilary was already lurching toward the door and pulling it shut tight.

She turned back, giving me a sticky smile. “That’s Cinnamon Obanya,” she said, indicating the escapee. “Seventh-best shorthair in 2004.”

“Beautiful.” My throat was starting to close up. And Pershing was weirder than shit. What was in the bedroom? More cats. That much was obvious. But what else?

“Maybe I should get an adult,” I said, mind spinning. “Could I see your grown-ups?”

She scowled at me. “I’ve only got a couple,” she said, “and they’re not for sale.”

“Oh. I guess I misunderstood. I thought J.D. said you had more.”

The house went absolutely silent.

“J. D. Solberg?” she asked.

“Yes.” I kept my expression casual, but frantically searched hers for clues. “He said you’re the one to come to for Abyssinians.”

Her mouth was tight. “I thought you said you found me on the Internet.”

“Well, J.D. mentioned you first, then I hopped on the Net and learned more about you. Your site was very impressive.”

“Where did you say you were from?” she asked.

“Just south of here. In Baldwin,” I lied.

“And Solberg told you to stop by?”

“Well, no. Not exactly. I mean, I haven’t spoken to him in weeks. I think he had . . . didn’t he have a big convention in Reno or something?”

“I wouldn’t know. Listen . . .” She suddenly paced toward the front door, her short strides determined. “I just remembered a previous engagement. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“Now?” I asked.

“Immediately.”

I blinked at her. “But what about the kittens?” And Solberg. Where the hell was Solberg? And why was she so eager to get me out of her house? A minute ago, she’d been quoting cat lineage back to King Tut.

“These cats are my family, Ms. Harmony. I don’t let any of ’em go without references.”

“References?” I echoed.

“And a cashier’s check.”

“You don’t take cash?”

Her face froze. “I think you’d better leave,” she said, and whipping open the front door, all but tossed me onto the sidewalk.

I gathered the shreds of my dignity around me and strolled off to my Saturn. Once there, I drove around Hilary’s block, parked down the street, and watched her house for half an hour. No one came or left.

My mind spun in ever-widening circles. Why was she suddenly in such a rush to get rid of me? Had she and Solberg been an item at one time? Was she the jealous ex?

Or was she his current fling? Maybe that’s why he hadn’t called Elaine. Maybe he had a thing for freaky cat ladies with faces like hot cross buns. I had to admit it was possible. There are, after all, boy bands and sea anemones to remind us that weird shit happens.

But maybe I was on the wrong track entirely. Maybe she had Solberg bound and gagged in her cat room.

I scowled. It was almost dark, so I drove around the block again, slowly, casing the neighborhood. As is the L.A. way, the houses were packed together like copulating pickles on the dusty hill. I parked on Dayside Avenue and waited another fifteen minutes. The sun sank with lethargic slowness. I exited the car, took a deep breath, and cut across the first lawn like a golfer surveying the eighteenth hole.

Nobody’s dog ran out to chew off my leg. No one zapped me with a stun gun.

All was well. Still, by the time I had reached Pershing’s house I was experiencing chest pains and blurred vision.

In the end, though, neither my medical problems nor my brave expedition did me a bit of good. Unlike her kitchen and living room, the window to her cat room was completely shuttered, except for a narrow track well above my head.

I drove home with a thousand errant thoughts floating like confetti in my mind, but the prevailing one was that I was either mentally ill—or a really kick-ass best friend.

5

A friend is someone who’ll bike to the ice cream shop with you, even when you don’t look so great.

—Brainy Laney Butterfield,
shortly after getting her orthodontic headgear

B
Y SUNDAY NIGHT I
felt like my brain had been squeezed through a ringer washer.

My phone was on the fritz. I’d gained one and a half pounds, and my bathroom was beginning to smell like it was organizing a rebellion. So I called the phone company, ate a carrot stick, and prayed, since there was no way I could afford a new septic system.

Frustrated and nervous, I graduated to eating Doritos by the handful and considered everything I knew about Solberg: He was short, he was irritating, and he laughed like a jackass.

I slowed down on the Doritos and dug a little deeper; oh, all right, he was smart, he was rich, and he was obsessed with computers. That seemed to be a recurring theme. So where was he getting his techno fix if not at his own domicile? Maybe he was hiding out at a friend’s house, lying low until whatever troubles were blowing blew over. But, according to everyone who knew him, that friend had better have a computer powerful enough to blast Solberg into the next millennium, or the Geek God would never be happy. And what were the chances of Solberg having a friend anyway?

Feeling crazy and alone, I finally phoned Elaine and invited her to a movie. She agreed. Apparently, she didn’t have more than a couple other offers to turn down since Solberg had become her main squeeze. I shuddered at the thought and eyed her across the table.

We were in Fosselman’s, my post-theater feeding grounds, and my favorite ice cream parlor in the universe. The little brick structure had been built in 1919 when Alhambra was probably a cow town instead of a squished annex of West Coast insanity. I’d like to think it’s the stained-glass lights and historic ambience that draws me to it, but it might just be the butterfat content of its desserts.

“So what’d you think of the movie?” I asked. Hugh Jackman had been the box office draw. He’d taken off his shirt on more than one occasion. It had been something of a spiritual experience for me.

“I don’t know.” Elaine shrugged and fiddled with her lemon sorbet. Its calorie content probably ran into the negatives. “I thought the supporting characters were a little lackluster.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, and wondered what the hell supporting characters had to do with Hugh Jackman’s naked chest.

“And some of Hugh’s lines were a little flat. For a hundred and ten million, you’d think he could have given a more inspired performance.”

“A hundred and ten mil,” I said, masticating thoughtfully. “For that kind of money he should have been able to take off his pants, too.”

She gave me a smile. I almost winced at the pathetic effort—talk about a lackluster performance.

I didn’t want to broach the topic, but I couldn’t avoid it any longer. “About Solberg, Elaine, I—”

She glanced up suddenly. “Hey. Did I tell you I’m going out with the ice cream guy?”

I shifted gears rustily. “The ice cream guy?” I echoed.

She bobbed her head. A young man stood behind the glass counter. He couldn’t have yet reached his twenty-third birthday, but he wore the expression typical of every male who wanders across Laney Butterfield’s path—a twisted meld of wistful hope and goofy adoration.

“You know the ice cream guy?” I asked.

“I think his name is Andy.” She didn’t bother to glance his way. He shuffled from foot to foot, studiously ignoring his patrons. I’d seen the syndrome a hundred times, but it never failed to fascinate me.

“And you met Andy . . . ?”

“Couple minutes ago,” she said, “while you were ordering.”

“Uh-huh.” I shoveled in the last of the whipped cream and reminded myself I did not hate her, even though I was pretty sure young Andy would have the kind of stamina that would put Secretariat to shame. “Approximately how old do you think Andy is?”

She shrugged. “Age only matters if you’re a perishable food product.”