“This is Arnold Templeton. I teach at UCSC. We have a mutual friend. Joe Travis.”
“Sure Joe,” said Danny.
“Joe said you do some writing and you’re kicking around Santa Cruz picking up atmosphere.”
“You know,” Danny said expansively.
“Sure, well, about the good old days, when the ravines were full of bodies. I know this retired county sheriff’s deputy-Harold Wicks-I’ve had him in to talk to a few classes. He’s a sound guy. He was on the job then, with Kemper and Mullin. He said he’d meet if you buy the drinks.”
“That’s great”-his memory spun without traction for a beat, then caught-“Arnold.”
He took the name and number and called the man immediately. Wicks was the only person left in America who didn’t have an answering machine. The phone rang nine times until a gruff voice, slightly breathless, picked up.
“Hold on, hold on,” said Harold Wicks.
And then. “Yeah sure, Arnie Templeton over at the college talked to me. Writer huh? Okay. How’s tomorrow. Say two.
You want atmosphere? There’s this place called the Jury Box Bar on Ocean Street. Across from the court- house. That’s where Ed Kemper used to hang out with the cops. You know.
Him buying the drinks and asking us how the investigation was going.”
“Sounds great.”
58
Dead acorn husks and rain dripped on the flat roof. Danny had slept a full eight hours and had not dreamed. It was too foggy to run, so he showered, shaved, and fooled in front of the mirror with the hair drier, fluffing his new haircut.
When he emerged from the bathroom, the new coffeemaker he’d bought had his coffee waiting, and he took a cup to his computer on the screened porch overlooking the backyard.
Coastal fog basted the foliage, drifting like a cloud through the screens; he had to wipe down the computer. First day in his new office. A little rustic, but that would improve.
His video monitor cut a crisp black rectangle in the morning mist. The screen saver was a flowing star scene that created the sensation of traveling through deep space-the view from Captain Picard’s command chair on the
He sat down, sipped his coffee, and logged into the net.
The whole world just a click away. Cruising.
Old habits. He’d started the
When the page was intact, he selected the weather icon and waited for the display to come on-screen. The familiar forecast symbols marched across the page. White dots sprinkled from a cloud on a blue field. Snow today. High 31. Low 13. Snow turning to sleet tomorrow…sounded ugly.
Through the screened mist he heard Ruby’s voice, “Here kitty, kitty.”
Danny grinned. The voice came again. “Dan…can I come over. I’m missing a cat.”
“Sure,” yelled Danny back. “I’m on the back porch.” He clicked off the site.
She materialized out of the vapor in shorts and a blouse tied in a loose square knot above her navel. No shoes. Flossy white hairs coated her brown stomach. The idea of touching her was as sexually appealing as hugging a bundle of cotton sheets fresh off the wash line.
Looking at her. What? Nothing happened.
“Hi, Ruby. Want some coffee?” he said pleasantly.
“Thanks,” she said. “You haven’t seen any of the cats have you?”
“Nope.” He got up and went into the kitchen. As he poured a cup he called out, “You take anything?”
“Some two percent if you have it. You’ve really been fixing this place up. Pentium. Nice box,” she added.
He poured in a dollop of half-and-half and returned to the porch. Ruby took the cup and sat in a wicker chair he’d brought in from the deck. Her smooth thighs would feel like tennis balls if you squeezed them. Or if you got squeezed by them. He pictured Terra, her butchy partner, whom he’d only glimpsed, caught in a choke hold between those thighs. Fat zapper tongue, he bet-like the frog in the Budweiser commercial.
“Cats are independent. It’ll come back,” sympathized Danny.
“It’s not that simple around here,” she said.
“Why’s that?” Curious.
“Do you believe in precursor events?” she asked seriously.
Danny gnawed his lip. Hmmm. Some New Age mumbo jumbo?
Seeing his lost expression, she explained, “I mean to earthquakes.”
“Oh.” He leaned back to listen. As he did, he discovered that if he looked at Ruby and thought about Ida Rain, he started to get excited.
“Dan, you’re living in the footprint of Loma Prieta,” she announced in hushed tones. “I was in downtown Santa Cruz, at work, when it hit. And I never want to go through that again.”
“What’s that got to do with cats?”
“Well, that was before I…met Terra, and I only had one cat. And before the quake, my cat vanished. When I met Terra she told me she had two cats, and both of them ran away two days before it hit.”
“Cats,” said Danny, looking at her flawless delineation of inner thigh, remembering the clasp of Ida’s legs in the dark.
“Terra explained it to me. Abnormal animal behavior is common before seismic events. There are scientists who keep track of lost cats. When the cats run off, watch out.”
“Ah-huh.” Playfully, Danny moused into accessories, pulled up networking and dialed the 800 number for the St. Paul paper. It was about eight o’clock. Ten in Minnesota. Ida Rain ran on strict time. Sunday mornings, she went out to breakfast and then grocery shopped for the week. It was safe to assume she wasn’t logged on to her computer at home or in the newsroom.
Still thinking Ida, he watched Ruby cross her legs. Ow, that was nice.
The network marquee came on the screen. Under user name, he typed in Ida Rain. Password-one of the first things he had learned about Ida was her password. He’d just watched her type it in until he had the sequence of keys. It was Burgundy, her favorite color. He toyed with the notion of reading Ida’s e-mail, getting seriously kinky and voyeuristic as his eyes tracked south of Ruby’s belly button. The computer screen shivered, repixelated. He was in.
Ruby sipped her coffee and went on. “It’s something to do with their ears. There’s a mineral in a cat’s ear- magnetite? You ever hear of that?”
“Ah, no.” He opened Ida’s e-mail box.
“According to this theory, when the tectonic plates down in the earth grind together, the pressure on all that rock acts like a transmitter…”
Danny started to scroll down the menu of Ida Rain’s messages. Memory Lane. Going-away party for Howie Norell.
Bye, Howie. Internal memo about company cell phones.
United Way Appeal.
“…and the magnetite acts like a receiver for these low signals-like a dog whistle. It vibrates the magnetite in the cat’s ears, and they take off because they know…”
Danny’s eyes scanned past and then whipsawed back on the message tag;
