Cat Fear No Evil (19 page)

C
rossing the sidewalk quickly to the passenger side
of her car, Kate unlocked the door meaning to slide across to the driver's side, hoping she wouldn't be noticed from across the street. Turning to thank Nancy, who had been more than kind to help her, Kate caught her breath.

Nancy came at her fast, pushed her hard across the console to the driver's seat, bruising her leg, and swung in behind her. “Move it! He's coming!”

Kate stared at the girl.

“He's coming. Let me out in a block or two. Give me the coat, maybe I can mislead him.”

Kate started the car. For a second, the look in Nancy's dark eyes iced her blood, but then she saw him; he came running from between two buildings. She revved the engine and burned rubber, skidding away from the curb. As he ran beneath a streetlight she saw his face, but at an angle that startled her.

He looked like the waiter who had died in the gallery.

Oh, but she must be wrong. Driving as fast as she dared, she was too busy dodging cars to look again. As she maneuvered past other traffic, the two faces shone in her mind like two portraits flashed on a screen. The same high sloping forehead, the same large nose and thin face.

When she had seen the waiter that night, his looks had startled her. She hadn't known why. She even then must have seen his resemblance to the man who had followed her. Swerving around a corner heading home, she glanced at Nancy.

The woman was shrugging into the coat Kate had shed, pulling the hat down over her face. When Kate was some ten blocks from the restaurant, when she was sure that no car was following, she stopped at a well-lit corner beside an open grocery where Nancy might take shelter and call a cab. Kate had started to thank her when the girl shoved a gun in her ribs.

Her voice was less cultured now, quick and forceful. “He won't follow you now. Move it. Get rolling.” The gun was a black automatic. Kate didn't know much about guns. She had no idea whether the safety was on or off, no idea how to tell if it was loaded, though she thought that the clip was in place.

“Where's the jewelry?”

“In…in my apartment.”

“Try again. We already tossed your apartment. If we go there now and you can't produce the jewelry, I'll kill you.”

“There's a ruby choker in my apartment. I can give you that.”

“I have the choker. Where's the rest, the other nine pieces?”

Kate studied the traffic, wanting to jam her foot hard on the gas and swerve into an oncoming car, to cause such a wreck the police would be called and a crowd would gather. Stopping at a signal, staring at the gun, she was afraid to jump out of the car and try to run, afraid the woman would shoot. Warily Kate watched her. What was it about her face, something strangely familiar and unsettling?

The day Nancy Westervelt came to her office, wanting a designer for her new apartment, she had been waiting for Kate not in the reception area but in Kate's private office. Kate had come in to find her standing at the window looking out at the street, not four feet from Kate's desk and file cabinet. Had she been searching the desk?

She looked over defiantly into the woman's dark eyes, trying to imagine Nancy Westervelt's smoothly coiffed hair frizzled in a black cloud, imagine her eyes heavily lined with black, and thick, nearly black lipstick. When the light changed, Kate nearly ran into the car ahead: she was looking at the young woman from the village, at the woman who had come here to rob her.

Turning onto Stockton, where she had to stop for a cable car, she looked over at her passenger, trying to ignore the gun pointed at her. Surely, above the gun barrel, Consuela Benton looked back at her.

She should have known. Kate remembered cloying perfume, heavy, cheap jewelry, a low-cut tank top tight across her breasts—she should have known at once, there in her office or certainly the minute the woman walked into the restaurant. But this woman was a master of change. From a frowzy teenager to this sophisti
cate. Who would guess? Moving belatedly ahead with the traffic, she felt as if she was in some sadistic fun house, felt so off balance she nearly did wreck the car, skidding sideways into the next lane.

“Watch your driving! Answer me! Are they in your office?” Her voice was shriller, harsh with impatience.

“I rented another safe deposit box. After you stole my key and check carbon. Do you think the bank doesn't have your fingerprints? Do you think the police won't—”

“I wore gloves. You did not rent a new deposit box, not in that bank or any bank in this city.”

Kate laughed. “That bank knows the story. You won't learn where from them; you won't get into that box.”

Consuela poked her hard with the gun. “I'll ask you one last time. Where is the jewelry? You answer me or our friend will take over. He's directly behind us, in the gray car. Are the jewels in your office?”

“You're welcome to look if you like.” Ignoring honking horns and skidding brakes Kate swung a U-turn in the middle of the block and headed across town for her office. Her head was pounding. She felt ice cold, then the next moment hot and flushed. She wondered if she could swerve the car hard and wrest the gun away. She wished she knew more about firearms. Driving in silence, trying to think of a plan, then at last pulling up beside the darkened office building, she felt totally defeated. She knew nothing about how to defend herself. As the woman instructed, Kate turned down into the underground parking garage.

In the greasy yellow glow of the vapor bulbs, the
garage was empty of all but a few cars. Consuela made her slide back across and get out the passenger side. The woman walked so close to her they could have been joined at the hip, the gun under her coat pressed against Kate like a scene from some gangster movie. Kate tried to imagine kneeing her in the groin, jabbing the heel of her hand to the girl's chin or nose, hurting her bad enough to crumple her. Imagined herself grabbing the gun—imagined herself, untrained and uncertain, making a mess of it and ending up shot, maybe dead. Inadequate did not half describe her sense of frustration; she hated her ineptitude and cowardliness. Ringing for the elevator and moving inside it with Consuela, she punched the fifth floor.

Unlocking the outer office door and switching on the lights, Kate crossed the reception area, with its pale, deeply carved carpet and its mix of antique and contemporary furnishings, its handsome potted plants and rich oil paintings. When she didn't move fast enough, the gun barrel poked her in the back. Unlocking the door to her office, she stepped directly to the file cabinet and unlocked that. There was no point in pretending the jewels weren't there. Opening the bottom drawer, she reached to the back, drawing out the plain little cardboard box.

“Open it. Pull the tape off.”

Reaching for her desk scissors, Kate imagined stabbing Consuela more quickly than Consuela could pull the trigger, but instead, of course, she obeyed, cutting the tape and opening the lid, removing the little suede evening bag. Opening its clasp, she tipped out the nine pieces of jewelry onto the blotter. The silver and topaz choker she had worn to Charlie's party. A ruby pen
dant, two diamond bracelets, a gold and onyx necklace, two rings, one set with diamonds, one with a sapphire, and an emerald bracelet and choker, the jewels and heavy gold settings flashing in the overhead lights, the strange medieval design fascinating Kate even now.

“Put them back in the box. Tape it up.”

Kate put the pieces back into the blue suede bag, lay that in the box, and fetched tape from her desk drawer. When it was sealed she watched the girl work the box into her raincoat pocket, never turning the gun or her gaze from Kate. Did Consuela mean to kill her now, and leave her body to be found by the janitor?

Consuela forced her back through the reception room and into the elevator, shoving her out again into the parking garage. “Unlock the car.”

Kate unlocked it.

“Give me the keys.”

Did she mean to shoot her here?

“The keys! And get in the driver's seat.”

“You have the jewelry. What do you want now?”

“Give me the keys and get in the car.”

Kate did as she was told.

Consuela got in, slammed the door, then handed her the keys. “Drive directly to your apartment.”

Kate swallowed.

If she were shot at home, as if she had walked in on a burglar, she might lie there for a very long time before anyone thought to look for her. She often didn't call in in the morning but went directly out on house calls.

Turning on Van Ness, she watched a gray hatchback staying close behind her. Turning onto Stockton, she glanced at Consuela. “Are you connected to Emerson Bristol?”

The girl just looked at her. “Who's that?”

“The…an appraiser.”

Consuela gave her a blank look. Neither spoke again until they reached Kate's parking garage, where Consuela gestured for her to pull in.

Parking, Kate had her hand on the door when Consuela stopped her. “Give me your keys.”

Kate's heart sank.

Consuela opened the passenger side window and threw the keys as hard as she could among the darkest, farthest rows of parked cars.

“Stay here inside the car. You will sit here for ten minutes after I leave, facing straight ahead. If you look around or get out you will be shot.”

Kate glanced past her, to see the gray car waiting at the curb.

Getting out, Consuela moved quickly through the garage to the street and slid in beside the driver. Kate caught a quick glimpse of high forehead and prominent nose. And then they were gone, driving quietly up the dark street. The minute they were past her building Kate slid out, snatching her flashlight from the glove compartment, and moved into the blackness among the parked cars searching for her keys.

Why had Consuela left her alive? Because she didn't want to face a murder charge in case they were caught? But why had she bothered to bring her home? Did the woman think she would be less likely to call the cops if she were returned to her own apartment? That maybe she would run upstairs, collapse in tears, and that would be the end of it? Or at least if she did call the cops, they had a little time while she retrieved her keys—maybe a lot of time, if the keys had gone
down through one of the storm grates in the garage floor.

She found them at last; it took her nearly half an hour. They were lodged on the hood of a big Buick, where the black grid of air ducts met the windshield, the keys half hidden beneath the edge of the hood. Retrieving them and hurrying up the closed stairway to her apartment, she flinched at every imagined shifting of the shadows above her, at every hint of sound from the upper landing. At her own door she fumbled with her key, pushing nervously inside. Slamming and locking the door, she leaned against it, her heart pounding.

When she looked up at her apartment, she felt her heart skip, and she went sick.

It appeared as if a tornado had touched down, flinging and smashing furniture, spewing the contents of every drawer in its violent tantrum of destruction. The couch and chairs lay upside down, the upholstery ripped, cotton and foam stuffing pulled out in hunks, even the dust covers shredded off the bottoms, revealing springs and webbing.

Numbly she moved through the mess feeling physically bruised. Along nearly every wall the carpet and pad had been ripped away to reveal the old wooden floors beneath. The kitchen looked like a garbage dump. She stood looking in, and did not want to enter. Every cupboard had been flung open, the contents thrown to the floor, spilled food mixed with broken china. A cold draft hit her, though she had left no window open.

Certainly not the kitchen window, which now stood open, letting in the damp breeze.

She wanted to race for the front door, fling it wide,
and run. Backing away from the kitchen, she crossed to the fireplace and picked up the poker that lay incising its black soot across a satin pillow. Clutching the poker, she moved again to the kitchen, shaking with shock and rage. She crossed to the sink and window, glancing behind her to watch the kitchen door, wading through debris that crunched under her shoes.

The window had been jimmied open four inches. That was as far as the second, newer lock would allow. Not wide enough for human entry. Examining the older lock, she could see where it was broken, the metal cracked through. Looking out at the adjoining rooftops, she shut the window and jammed a long carving knife between the end of the sliding glass and the wall.

She stood looking at the broken dishes and scattered rice and cereal. Every container had been emptied, flour and sugar bags lay atop the mess, along with a coffee can. Had the thieves thought she'd keep the jewels in such places? With every new example of their thoroughness, the monetary value of the jewels became more certain in her mind. They were not paste. Why her parents or grandfather would leave such a fortune, taped into a cardboard box at the back of a safe, for a child who might never see that fortune, was a mystery she might never solve.

Moving back through the grisly mess, clutching the poker, she ventured toward the rest of the apartment, turning first to her study.

The two file cabinets were open, the drawers gutted, files and papers flung everywhere. Books were toppled from their shelves and were lying open, the spines awry, pages ripped out as if in their search Consuela
and her friend had had, as well, a high good time. This was not searching; this was destruction. Maybe with people like this, it took only opportunity. Time and place invited, they seized the moment as hungrily as an addict would seize drugs. She was so angry that if she had her hands on Consuela now, gun or not, she would lay her out cold or die trying.

Picking up her office phone, she heard no dial tone. She hit the button, listened. Nothing; again the line was dead. Why did the phone company have to string its wires up the side of the building, prey to every prowler?

She had dropped her purse on the table by the front door. During the time Consuela had the gun on her she had toyed with the thought of trying to slip the phone from her purse and dial 911, but there was never a second when Consuela glanced away.