Catopolis. Part 14

The Book of Apedemak is upstairs?" Spriggan asked, shocked. "On the cookbook shelf? We ran right by it?"

"Yes." Tenja began to wash a long scratch on her belly.

"Guardian, may I retrieve it and put it back in its place?" Spriggan asked. His tail flicked with enthusiasm.

"No," the Guardian said. Seeing Spriggan's disappointment, Tenja smiled. "You have proven yourself to be both brave and quick witted, Spriggan. The Lion G.o.d smiles upon you, I believe. One day when you are older, you may take a glimpse at its pages."

"One day seems very far away," Spriggan sighed. Sampson led his son up the steps and through the door.

Later, after Tenja had replaced the great books on their pedestals and bathed her wounds again, she sat on her favorite pillow.

"Now, where was I? Ah, yes. For you, my friend Fergus."

She started reading Ulalume.

AFTER TONY'S FALL.

by Jean Rabe.

Luigi had a dense, blue coat with silvery tips that gave it a l.u.s.trous sheen. Like all of his kind-Luigi was a Russian Blue-he had large, round eyes the shade of a just-misted philodendron. His head was broad, his rakish ears sharply tapered, and he was fine boned, yet powerfully built.

Luigi had the most regal appearance of any cat in my acquaintance.

Though I knew he could trace his ancestors back to the Royal Cat of the Russian Czars, he claimed to be Italian-and I'd never heard anyone argue the point.

Luigi spoke with a thick accent, sort of gravelly like Marlon Brando in the G.o.dfather movies. He lived in a s.p.a.cious apartment above an Italian restaurant in an Italian neighborhood that humans had dubbed "Little Italy."

"Don Luigi" the cats in the 'hood called him.

I just called him boss.

He'd named me Vincenzo the day I came to work for him-that was a wintry morning nearly three years past when he'd caught me nibbling on some Fettuccini Alfredo that had been tossed into the garbage behind the restaurant. He offered me a job, and I was quick to accept.

"You're very kind," I told him. Now I can say it in his preferred tongue: Sei molto gentile!

The boss never asked my real name. Probably, like T.S. Elliot, he figured it was only right that we cats have three-my original moniker, Vincenzo, and Vinnie the Mouser.

The latter is what I usually go by. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

I'm not really Italian either, being a Bombay, or Burmese, but I love the food. Lasagna, ravioli, gnocchi riplieni, cappellacci al vitello e spinaci, and tortellini campagnola are regular dishes on my menu.

Last night it was vitello barolo-oh-so-tender veal with portabello and s.h.i.take mushrooms in wine, with just a touch of cream. The night before that was my favorite-calamari riplieni, sweet squid stuffed with cheese and bread crumbs in a delicate tomato sauce.

Per questa sera... I've no idea what will be on the menu tonight. Per domani sera... or tomorrow night for that matter. But I'm certain I will find everything tasty. Mi piace l'italiano, after all.

It is a good life, being Don Luigi's number-one cat-his enforcer, confidant, and appropriator. In exchange for my loyalty and service, the boss makes sure that when I say, Sono affamato, I'm hungry, I am given something good to eat. Too, he has provided me a fine, dry place to sleep, on a thick velvet cushion in the attic above his apartment. From this lofty perch I can hear the boss's natterings with Guido, Nino, and Uberto, the Siamese triplets that collect the Don's take from the businesses in Little Italy. I can hear the pa.s.sionate yowls from his late-night trysts with Mariabella, the Himalayan madam from around the corner, and with Tessa Rosalie, the sleek orange tabby who recently moved into the flower shop across the street.

Best of all, I can hear the boss play.

I'd not heard a cat tickle the ivories before coming into the Don's employ. The boss's tail is muscular enough to join his paws and make chords on the keyboard of a 1920 walnut Italian Florentine baby grand. The boss only plays the music of Italian composers; he says playing anything else is a waste of time. He just finished the main theme from Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Before that he performed a piece from the unfinished Turandot and a few dozen bars from La Boheme.

It's like Heaven opening up when the boss plays, the rich notes swirling around the apartment and rising into my attic, consuming me and bringing tears to my eyes. No other sounds are so enchanting.

I live to hear the boss play.

He explained to me once that Italy gave the world the best composers and the best instruments, that piano is a short form of the Italian word pianoforte, which in turn comes from the original Italian term for the instrument-clavicembalo col piano e forte.

I couldn't care less what you call the thing... I just love the way it sounds when the boss sets his paws and tail tip to it.

In the back of my mind I can still hear the notes. I've set my pads in time to the imagined music as I head down the street, looking over my shoulder once to see him looking out the window... not looking at me, but surveying his domain.

"Buon compleanno!" I hear him call to the long-legged Bengal on the sidewalk. Happy birthday.

"Congratulazioni!" he shouts to the Persian outside the used book store. I'd heard she'd recently had kittens.

Imparo I'taliano... I've been learning Italian ever since ingratiating myself with the boss, and I'm pleased that I've gotten quite fluent. Mi piacerebbe visitare I'talia un giorno di questi! Yeah, I would like to stroll down the sidewalks of Italy with the Don someday and sit high in a balcony during a performance of Gaetano Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment. He promised to take me and Guido next year if things work out all right.

I hear a shrill call, and my head snaps around. It's Bianca, the beautiful bicolor Ragdoll I visit when I go to Madam Mariabella's. I know that Bianca shares her affections with whoever meets the madam's price at the cathouse, but she claims to have a special spot in her heart just for me. I'd love to take her to Italy with me and the boss, but I know it's going to be a business trip, and so dalliances won't be allowed.

I flick my tail at her in a friendly greeting and then pick up the pace. I'm not as fast as I used to be, but I can push my muscles when the need arises. You see, I've got quite a way to go on this particular mission, which is why I set out before sunset. It means I'll be eating late when I get back; I've done that numerous times before, and so far it hasn't upset my delicate digestive tract.

I smell things along the way-the trace of Bianca and the other females at the cathouse, some clearly in heat; the daily specials from the flower shop... so many scents I can't differentiate one kind of bloom from another; the sharp and bitter pong of soap from the laundry; and rotting fish from the alley off S'hang's Sushi Bar, which has no place being in Little Italy. The farther I get from the Italian restaurant, the worse things smell.

So I concentrate on the sights instead, the garish, clashing colors of window boxes and signs, the graffiti scrawled here and there, the freshest in day-glow green.

And I focus on the sounds... car horns blaring from blocks away, babies wailing, a boy hawking newspapers on a corner, the slam of a door. There's music spilling out of an upper floor window, some rapper spitting out hippity-hop words like they are pieces of bad meat-Lay-Z or Forty-Cents, I can't tell them apart. They're certainly not in the cla.s.s of the boss's pianoforte playing, and so I ignore the thumping racket.

I stick to the shadows whenever possible-being dark has its advantages when you're into a bit of skullduggery. And I continue on my way, remembering the boss's gravelly words: "Vada dritto! E poi giri a destra!"

Go straight-all the way down to the fire station-then turn right. It would be a whole lot of straight again after that-blocks and blocks and blocks of it.

The boss hadn't needed to give me directions, as I'd been to the museum once before when I had a fling some years back with an Angora who lived in the area. Wonder what's become of her? I shake my head to chase away the sweet memory.

I was proud that the boss had entrusted this very special a.s.signment to me. It deserves all my attention.

"You get this for me, Vinnie, this one precious thing, and I'll reward you well," he told me this afternoon. "I have the other three. I just need the fourth to complete the set."

I well knew that he had the other three; he'd shown them to me, taking them out of the chest and lovingly running his whiskers across the old paper before replacing them.

"I just need the fourth. The missing piece. You understand? It will complete the year." His large, round eyes didn't blink. This missing piece was terribly important to him.

I told him I understood.

"Buona fortuna, Vincenzo," he said.

I don't need luck, I'd mentally returned. I'd just need a big plate of pasta upon my return. Maybe I could order up something special-polpo alla griglia, octopus charcoal-broiled and dabbed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Yeah, that would hit the spot after a long mission like this.

The sun was all the way down by the time I'd left Little Italy behind and reached the museum. It was closing for the day, and I watched from behind a fir tree as the school groups and retired folks spilled out and down the steps. If I timed it right, I could snake my way between the young ones' feet and slip inside the lobby. A good plan, I decided, but then I quickly dismissed it when I noticed there were two guards at the entrance, and one of them had a gun at his waist. Better not to take the chance that one might scoop me up or shoot me.

I hacked up a furball that had been bothering me and shimmied around the side of the monstrous building. Well, truth be told, it wasn't that big a place, but it was the most imposing structure in this part of town, all cement and iron, ugly and drab. A monstrosity of a building would be a better term.

The sounds of the city intruded-more car horns, people shouting. I shuddered: There was a dog barking nearby. I hated dogs almost as much as I hated rap music. I heard a door slam, and then another, a van from the sound of it, and I poked my head around the back corner to see a cleaning crew getting out of a rust-dotted Chevy Econoline. There were four men, all dressed in gray coveralls, and after picking up buckets and boxes, and after the smallest perched a boombox on his shoulder, they headed across the employee parking lot and to the museum's backdoor.

Buona fortuna was mine indeed.

I hurried, as much as I could because the trip here had winded me, and was just able to dart inside before the door closed. Lights still glared from the ceiling and bounced off a tile floor that, as far as I was concerned, didn't need to be polished. No shadows to hide my furry sable self, I ducked into the first open doorway and discovered a janitor's closet. This hiding place would do until they turned off some of the lights and the museum staff filed out. I just had to make sure no one shut the door on me.

As I rested and waited, I dreamed about Bianca and her pretty spots and about what I might have for dinner. An appetizer of vongole gratinate, juicy clams, would stop my belly from growling. I also thought about Italy, the real Italy that the boss would take me to, not the Little Italy we lived in. I heard music, muted, more of that rap c.r.a.p, and the gentle shushing hum of what I guessed was a floor polisher or vacuum. The steady click of small heels in the hallway beyond this closet and the regular opening and closing of the back door told me the curators and secretaries and such were leaving.

Finally, all I could hear was the rap, and it was so soft now that I had to strain to pick it out. The cleaning crew had moved farther away, so I was relatively alone in the museum.

In a short while I would have the final piece to the boss's magnificent puzzle. He would be a very happy cat, and I would have my pick of anything off the menu.

I left the closet and hugged the wall, following it until a great room opened up before me, bathed in the soft glow of security lights. Suits of armor were s.p.a.ced here and there between gla.s.s cases holding weapons and pieces of jewelry. A glittering crown sat on a pillow that I thought might be comfortable. A scepter lay next to it. The object of my quest was nowhere to be seen... but my keen eyes lit on something that would help me find it. I padded toward a placard touting the rotating displays.

Not all cats can read, but I found it a necessary skill to acquire in the boss's employ, and so I had let Guido teach me two summers past. The placard read: Special Exhibit The Life, Times, and Works of Il Prete Rosso, the Red Priest Second Floor, Main Hall I pa.s.sed by the elevator and took the winding staircase, careful not to slip on its newly polished marble steps. Rap music drifted down from above-the cleaning crew had obviously preceded me.

One man was wielding a big floor buffer, moving it from side to side in time with the G.o.dawful beat. Two were dusting the wainscoting that ran around the room and down the hallways that led away to the north and the south. The third man was in the bathroom; I heard the toilet flush.

Occupied, they didn't notice me. I drifted from one display case to the next, slinking as much as possible. I looked through the gla.s.s of a low shelf, squinting in the dim light to see decorative red and white and green satin ribbons, and to make out the words on a card in front of a battered violin: IL PRETE ROSSO, THE RED PRIEST: A VENETIAN PRIEST AND BAROQUE MUSIC COMPOSER, ALSO A VIRTUOSO VIOLINIST. THIS VIOLIN WAS THE LAST INSTRUMENT HE PLAYED BEFORE HIS DEATH.

A card in the next case read: BORN MARCH 4, 1678, IN VENICE, THE DAY AN EARTHQUAKE SHOOK THE CITY. HE DIED JULY 27 OR 28, 1741. HIS FATHER, GIOVANI BATTISTA, WAS A PROFESSIONAL VIOLINIST AND FOUNDER OF A TRADE UNION FOR MUSICIANS, WHO TAUGHT HIM TO PLAY. HE BEGAN STUDYING FOR THE PRIESTHOOD AT AGE FIFTEEN, AND HE WAS ORDAINED TEN YEARS LATER. IT IS BELIEVED THAT HE WAS CALLED.

IL PRETE ROs...o...b..CAUSE OF HIS RED HAIR.

The next case, where a small painting was displayed: IN 1704 HE WAS GIVEN A SPECIAL DISPENSATION FROM CELEBRATING Ma.s.s BECAUSE HE WAS ILL. RECORDS SHOW HE SUFFERED FROM SOMETHING SIMILAR TO ASTHMA. TWO YEARS LATER, HE LEFT THE PRIESTHOOD AND CONCENTRATED ON COMPOSING MUSIC.

Music! That's what I was looking for. And not that d.a.m.nable rap c.r.a.p. One of the men had turned it up louder. I couldn't understand the words, and it was hurting my delicate ears.

I continued searching the room.

Another card, this in the largest case; I had to stand up on my back paws to read it: LE QUATTRO STAGIONI, THE FOUR SEASONS, IS HIS BEST KNOWN WORK. THE SET OF FOUR VIOLIN CONCERTI BY.

IL PRETE ROSSO, ANTONIO VIVALDI, WERE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1725, EACH IN THREE MOVEMENTS. ON DISPLAY HERE IS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL WORKS, BELIEVED TO BE PENNED BY VIVALDI HIMSELF, TRANSCRIBED FOR PIANO.

Concerto No. 3 in F major, L'autunno, Autumn.

That's it! I practically shouted out loud.

Tony's Fall.

The boss had sent me here to this ugly museum after Tony's Fall, and there it was in all of its tattered parchment movements-allegro, adagio molto, and allegro again, on the top shelf of the display... where I couldn't reach it.

The card went on to explain that the matching piano music for the other seasons-spring, summer, and winter-had been lost through the ages. But they weren't lost. They were safely kept in a chest in Don Luigi's apartment above the Italian restaurant that must be serving something absolutely delicious at this very moment.

My stomach rumbled, and the floor buffer sounded louder. The machine was sweeping closer.

"A kitty cat!" called the man gripping the handles of the infernal machine.

"A dark cat. A big one." This came from the one just emerging from the bathroom. "Don't let it cross your path. That'd be six years of bad luck."

"Seven," corrected one of the men dusting the wainscoting. "Seven years of bad luck, just like if you broke a mirror."

I summoned my strength and bolted toward the floor polisher, the pads of my feet slipping and sliding and threatening to send me sprawling. One leap and I was riding on the base of the thing, shushing back and forth as the man wielding it cursed in a language I could not fathom.

I reared up and hissed at him, digging my rear claws into a strip of rubber. I hissed and snarled, laid my ears back and appeared menacing. I well knew how to act menacing-after all, I am the boss's chief enforcer.

"It's crazy!" one of them shouted. I couldn't tell which one hollered. I was holding on for my proverbial dear life, as the buffer-wielder rammed the machine first one way and then another trying to dislodge me.

I hissed again, but it was a panicked hiss, not a mean one. Doubtless he could not tell the difference, though, as he jerked the machine forward and back, faster now, and then out of control, nearly causing me to lose what I'd eaten for lunch. One more jerk and the buffer-wielder slipped on a newly waxed patch of tile. The machine shot forward, humming and jostling and then colliding into the largest of the display cases in the hall. An alarm went off as the gla.s.s broke, a harsh claxon that drowned out the d.a.m.nable c.r.a.p-rap music and was punctuated by the sounds of thick gla.s.s shards. .h.i.tting the buffer and the floor.

I winced when a shard lanced my back, and I yowled shrilly in pain, adding to the cacophony.

The cleaning men were shouting, all in the harsh language I couldn't understand, and the buffer continued to whir, though now it was going nowhere. And faintly, from below, came the staccato barks of what I guessed were museum guards.

Despite the pain in my ears and my back, I was well aware of my buona fortuna. I pushed off the whirring contraption and landed inside the now-open display case, climbed up to the second shelf, and then the third, where my prize awaited. Gently using my teeth and front claws, I rolled up Tony's Fall and tied it with a piece of ribbon that had been a decorative touch in the case.

All the while the noises continued, the alarm accompanied by a second one that had started somewhere on the floor below. Feet pounded up the stairs, and my mind whirled with thoughts of escape. I hadn't given any thought to that notion as I'd waited in the janitor's closet. I'd been thinking too much about dinner.

Tony's Fall secured, and my teeth securely fastened to the ribbon around the parchment, I jumped from the shelf and onto the back of one of the wainscot dusters. I dug my claws in, finding flesh beneath the shirt, and discovering that the man could shout louder than the rapper who'd begun to sing about jacking fancy cars.

He called to his fellows in the foreign tongue and gestured wildly. In that moment, two guards reached the top of the stairs. Also in that moment, I leaped away and headed toward the bathroom. The door to it had been propped open, and I took full advantage.

I figured there would be a window in here, one that I could use my bulk to barrel through and find freedom. But there was no window, only mirrors and toilets and sinks and a floor that thankfully had not yet been polished. There was also a vent, and this I vaulted to by propelling myself off the register and onto a sink, then up to a pipe. It had been some time since I'd been involved in this much activity, and my sides heaved. But my prize was worth the effort.

Tony's Fall, the last piece to the boss's magnificent puzzle, would soon be his, and a wondrous culinary reward and more promises of a trip to Italy would be mine.

My front paws wrestled with the latch on the vent. They were a sable blur that clawed and tugged and finally met with success.

The rap music stopped just as I shot inside.

The hollering continued.

The alarms still blared.

I heard the sharp click of heels come into the bathroom, knowing this would be one of the security guards; the cleaning men wore tennis shoes.

Branzino alla griglia, Chilean sea ba.s.s grilled perfectly with oil and garlic and served warm with beans, might be mine when I deposit this musical ma.n.u.script at the boss's feet.

All I need do is shimmy through this duct.

Shimmy.