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I Called Her Cat

By: mbeemann



I called her Cat. I don't know what her name was, and I never heard her speak or for that matter make a sound, not even when she burnt herself on the stove one day. She was probably in her mid thirties, blonde in a washed out kind of way and neither particularly pretty nor exceptionally ugly. In fact you wouldn't even have noticed her, quiet as she moved, if it weren't for one little quirk.

She hated clothing. I had tried on a couple of occasions to get her to wear at least panties and an apron, but no dice. She would stand patiently while I put them on her and then remove them equally as calmly. There was no indication of distress or dislike beyond the faintest look of scorn in her pale blue eyes. So for the past few months, I had stopped trying to get her to wear clothes, and she had padded about the apartment without making a sound.

She was clean enough, even tidying my mess once in a while, and she would generally stay out of sight if I was occupied with my work, but if I decided on a night of TV and Pizza, she would enter the room and silently sit in the corner by the door, and watch. It became a calming influence on my life, for the most part. And although we never touched, beyond an accidental brush in a doorway, I came to feel very close and protective of her.

I would generally talk to her, the way you would a cat, about what a bad day it had been or the neat things outside the window, but, like a cat, there was no response that I could discern. I have no idea where she had come from and I doubt I would ever find out where she was going when she decided to leave. She slept in the utility room, (her choice), ate when she was hungry, and once in a while showed that she had at one time had SOME semblance of an education – she could cook! When she decided to. I have no idea how she got the groceries, but about once a week I would come in and find a full course meal awaiting me.

I guess I had better get back to the beginning. I was out of town last September at my cousin Cheryl's wedding – she married one of those stockbroker types – all smarm and charm and little substance. I made a long weekend of it, and returned tired and dirty and broke about eleven o'clock one Tuesday night, and there was Cat, squatting by the door to my top floor apartment. I thought maybe she was hiding from someone – this building was an old one, and when the owner cut up the Penthouse into two suites, for some reason he placed my door in a niche so that it wasn't obvious that there was a door there. I have had some of the neighbourhood junkies hide there before, and usually a simple "Excuse me!" was sufficient to move them to the stairs again.

Cat was different right from the start. She looked hungry – who on those streets does not – but her clothes were good quality and obviously chosen with care. She stood immediately upon my arrival and instead of sidling for the stairs in that apologetic, fearful way, to which I had become accustomed, she looked me in the eye, said nothing and waited for me to open the door. 

Amused and not a little intrigued, I figured "what the hell?" I could manage a slight girl with no obvious weapons, and opened the door. She glided silently in ahead of me.... I wonder to this day how she managed to be so quiet in heels on a wooden floor... and proceeded to give the apartment a thorough inspection, me behind her all the way. I asked a couple of times what she wanted and who she was looking for, but when I got no answer, I decided that she would tell me in her own good time, got a beer for each of us and motioned to the living room.

She took the beer, still expressionless, and moved into the living room, removed her coat and before she was completely settled on the couch, had finished the beer. 

Then she looked up at me. And handed me the empty bottle. And fell over. Dead asleep or dead drunk or stoned beyond the ability to help it – or faking it better than anyone I had ever seen do before. It didn't matter at all. I Always am a sucker for a lady in distress, so instead of bundling her unconscious form out to the garbage chute I rustled up a spare blanket, covered her and went to bed, knowing I would be up early enough to make sure she was out of the place before I went to work. 

I awoke sometime in the night to pee, and her bundled form on the couch reassured me that she hadn't made off with the TV or the computer, the only things of value in the apartment. I noticed obliquely that she had kicked off her shoes and went back to bed. I awoke to the usual annoying DJ at 5:00, and opened my eyes to see her standing in my doorway, totally nude, with a cup of (really bad!) coffee in her hand. As I said, she was a washed out blond and the sparse pubic thatch at the juncture of her thighs showed that it was her natural hair colour. She was trim, high breasted and her stance and movements showed a high level of fitness. She had been, or was still, a dancer or gymnast.

When she saw me awake, she walked over to the bedside and put the coffee on the nightstand. Thinking that opportunities like this don't happen every morning I reached out and stroked her flank.

She went completely rigid, and without a move or expression, save for tears starting in her eye and the faint involuntary tremor that terror lends to hands and eyelids, she waited until I removed my hand, and then calmly walked out of the room. I felt so bad about her obvious, if repressed fear, that I never tried that or anything sexually overt again., loathe to force my attentions where they were not wanted in the first place, and my upbringing was such that I was constantly forced to do and say things that were utterly repugnant to me, and at an early age had left home, vowing that I would never force my opinions or actions on another. 

Cat's reaction to my rather gentle advance was such that it was obvious to me that she would have permitted anything I offered – and hated both the act and the person committing that act. From then on, any touching I did was because it was necessary, accidental, or in the case of the panties and apron, an attempt to make the girl feel more at home. Those actions were done with lots of explanation, slow gentle approaches and an instant backing off if I saw her become the least distressed.

I went to work that morning a little apprehensive about my goods and chattels, but feeling that if I had offended her so much that morning with my touch, she would have left. In fact it was a mystery to me why she had not screamed, thrown a punch or run like hell at the time. Nonetheless, I felt badly enough about my gauche behaviour, that I hadn't the heart to throw her out on the street. I told her only that I was going out for a while, and left, half certain that I would return to a gutted apartment. When I did come home from work, everything was as it had been that morning, no sign of Cat, nothing missing. She shyly popped out of the kitchen a moment later, still naked and that was that. A routine had begun.

It was the second night when I got up to pee that I noticed that she wasn't on the couch, and checking the appliances and small valuables, discovered her curled up in her blanket on the floor of the utility room next to the drier. Over her head her clothes were neatly hung on a nail. Even her underwear had been cleaned, ironed and hung with the rest. I went out that week and got a small futon mattress and placed it without fanfare in "her" corner, and although she never gave any indication that she had even noticed the gift, I got a feeling of gratitude. Maybe it was all in my mind, but it made me feel better, didn't hurt her, so who cares?

Of course it took a while for me to discern distress, or for that matter any emotion, in one whose face was an almost perfect mask of indifference.... Over the course of the next two or three weeks I tried actively to get a reaction out of her. And as far as she was willing to evince a reaction, I got some. I discovered that she didn't like being touched even in the most impersonal way, didn't like shouting, if I reacted in a typically male manner to some football game on the TV she left the room in a hurry, and wouldn't return, sometimes for hours. She also adored flowers, would spend hours arranging them, and would make herself scarce whenever the telephone or the doorbell rang. 

I have few friends of the variety that like to "drop in" and sit for a time "visiting", but when they did show up, Cat was scarce. Only once had a man who was introduced as the boyfriend of a girl who would occasionally come over to watch football, (her current husband didn't like televised sports), came into the kitchen where I was getting a couple of snacks together, and said that he thought he had seen a naked woman coming out of the bathroom in the hall. I simply raised an eyebrow, and embarrassed, he went back to the TV. And once I had bought a large bouquet of flowers for a co-worker to celebrate the arrival of her second child, and while I was changing prior to going to the hospital to present my gift, Cat had them out of the wrapping, in a vase and arranged in a way that was subtle and pleasing. I picked up some more flowers on my way to the hospital, and began making a habit of bringing the odd bouquet home when I thought about it. 

She didn't seem to be a real nuisance, didn't ask for anything, kept out of sight when I had friends over and cooked once in a while. I stopped worrying and wondering, and we became housemates. The grocery bill was a little higher, but that was the only noticeable impact of her arrival, and in very short order she became a sort of housecat.

Until Jane.

II Jane was a girl from this city I met and subtly lusted after, at my cousin's wedding, and we had been going out for coffee or drinks in a desultory way since; until her boyfriend left her in one of those dish-smashing-say-things-you-can-never-take-back scenes, and she washed up at my door at two in the morning, drunk and not a little horny and in need of sympathy and reassurance as to her desirability. I was loathe to turn her from the door, even in that defenceless state.

So I took her to bed. It was one of those nights with a drunk that I do not remember with any great pleasure. She was willing, but uncoordinated, I was not completely sure that this was a good thing, but my libido, as usual took over. So we bumped each other, hands and lips went to the wrong place, or to the right place in the wrong way... accidentally or not. She placed an elbow in my eye at the same time as she rather forcefully slammed a knee into my belly, and I left an unintentional bite mark on one of her breasts... but eventually we managed to stumble into that ageless position and complete that most primal of acts. It was probably the worst sex I had ever taken part in. It was glorious! But I forgot about Cat and her habit of bringing me coffee in the morning. 

At five she showed up with the coffee, looked only very mildly surprised at the sight of Jane, placed the coffee on the nightstand and started to leave. All would have been fine if Jane had not decided at that moment to wake up, take in the sight of Cat in all her naked glory, and scream.

Now personally I would have thought that a cry of surprise would have been sufficient, but she grabbed her temples and moaned then proceeded to curse me out in no uncertain terms. This litany of low intense unrepeated vilification, more than the scream seemed to fascinate Cat and for the first time I saw some overt reaction on her face. It could only have been called a smile by the most charitable, but there was a definite lessening of the unrelieved indifference, a slight almost microscopic lifting of the corner of her mouth and she stood in obvious fascination until Jane had to take a breath, then calmly turned and walked out the door. 

"Just who was THAT? And why are you bedding me when your girlfriend is still here? And why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend?"

I am sure she would have gone on but the effects of too many drinks got her in both the head and the stomach, and grabbing the sheet, she bolted for the ensuite bathroom. I needed to get ready for work, so took my clothes to the main bathroom for my shower. When I came out it was to see Jane and Cat sitting calmly drinking coffee at the kitchen table in utter silence. Cat as usual in her birthday suit, and Jane with the sheet loosely wrapped about her waist. 

She, Jane, looked up at me and asked for an explanation, claiming, not surprisingly, not to be able to get an answer out of Cat. Grabbing a second cup of coffee, I sat at the table and told her the whole story.

"So she isn't your girlfriend? You expect me to believe that you have this blonde wandering about your apartment naked and you haven't even thought about it?" Jane's voice went from tense to practically screaming. There were of course more innuendo, vilification and outright insult, but that is all I can remember from that painful scene.

For the second time I saw a visible reaction from Cat. She frowned very darkly and stood so fast that she spilled the cup she had been drinking from. It hit the floor and shattered, sending coffee and china shards all over the legs of my suit. She also left the room in a REAL hurry! I didn't know what to do for her, she seemed to be really terrified of being touched or coddled, and I had gotten into the habit of leaving her alone when she evinced distress, so I continued to sit, and glancing over at Jane and was astonished to see her crying!

"That poor girl! So terrified of even the thought of sex!" She picked up the sheet and wrapped it more tightly about her, covering what was truly a pleasant sight, crossed her arms in front of the sheet, and glared at me, "You've been hurting her! That's why she isn't talking! You've been taking advantage of that tortured soul! [I think her favourite novels were Bodice-Ripper romances!] That's what you do to women!" One moment she was giving me hell for having a naked sex-slave in the apartment, the next for being the worst kind of man. I could see this relationship blossoming sweetly!

"Done that to you, have I?" I asked in a mild tone, more amused by these accusations and truth be told, more than a little worried about Cat, "I don't know whether or not she is scared of sex; the matter hasn't come up, but she is terrified of loud voices and angry confrontation."

"Oh! That poor girl!" And with that third volte-face, Jane got up and rushed from the room, towards the utility room. Knowing that Cat would feel trapped in there with someone she felt was trying to touch her, I too got up and went that way. When I got there I saw the two of them, both naked, hugging in the puddle of Jane's sheet, Jane weeping, and Cat as usual, without expression of any kind. Including her usual faint distaste at being touched. She seemed to be accepting, if not actively a participant in the hug. Assuming that the two of them were better off without me, I went to work.

And that was that. Sort of. Well, Jane kept coming over to the house, and over the course of the next three or four weeks, she spent more time there than at her apartment. Normally I would have thought this a good thing, but she was more into her Florence Nightingale mode, seeming to think she could help Cat. She spent literally hours, trying to get Cat to talk, cry, show some reaction. She continually broke down, and murmurs of a teary "You poor girl" would waft from the kitchen or the utility room. For her part, Cat didn't repulse her, accept her or in any other way show that she really even noticed Jane's attempts. The only difference I noticed was that she never seemed to mind Jane's occasional hugs. And for her part and to her credit, Jane didn't seem to be too badly daunted by her obvious failure.

She was still sleeping in my bed, but it had become a kind of frustrating platonic thing. She slept in my bed. No repeat of that first night. Not that I didn't try and initiate things once in a while, but the response was lacklustre – as though she was willing to allow me to do what I wanted, but seemed to be waiting for it to be over before it even began. Serious turn-off. So we slept. Cat got into the habit of bringing coffee for both of us at five. Cat never did learn to make a decent cup of coffee, but the ritual had set in, and any coffee at that time of the day is at the least acceptable. And Jane continued to sit with Cat while I got ready for work. The two of them sitting at the kitchen table. Silent. Unmoving. Bonding in some primitive secret females-only way.

As I said, that was for a few weeks. Then Jane had to go out of town for her company and would be gone for a while, (odd... I still didn't know precisely what she did. She claimed to be a troubleshooter, but other than that never spoke about her work.). She was going to Winnipeg, one of those Prairie Cities which are charming in the summer, pure hell in the winter, and utterly baffling to me - and would call me and would miss me and all the usual things lovers say when they are going to be apart for a while. I was beginning to think there was more than one strange woman in my life, but as things were getting hectic at work, I didn't press her, and she went. 

III Jane didn't call, nor did I hear from or of her for the better part of a month, then one day I got a call at work from her. For the first two minutes I couldn't understand a word she was saying, she was so excited. She was bellowing into the receiver, and was in such a hurry that all her words became one incomprehensible jumble of sound. All I got from the first minute of her conversation was "...I found her!...My purse... " I waited until she had to take a breath and said calmly,

"Who is this?" 

She got very nearly hysterical, and shouted louder and more incoherently into the telephone at her end. Then taking a very deep breath, she laughed and said a lot more quietly, "It's Jane, and I found her! I know who she is!"

"Who, Jane? Whom have you found?"

"Cat, silly! I found out who she is, and wait till I tell you! You won't believe it!. Can you come get me? I don't have enough for a cab."

"I thought you were in ---?"

She started to get excited again. "I told you. I'm at the airport, and I need a ride!"

I sighed, "Jane darling, I am at work, and antediluvian as it sounds, the bosses here kind of get miffed if I walk out in the middle of the day. Seems they have this old fashioned notion that a day's pay means a day's work. I have tried and tried to talk them out of –"

"Idiot!" a lot less vociferous and not a little affectionate now, "I know you're at work, but I had hoped after I told you about my purse and that I didn't have any money you'd find a way to come and get me." Can you at least pay for a cab if I come by your office?"

"Purse? No money? You told me this? Oh never mind. I'll be there in an hour!". I sighed again, arranged to meet her in one of the concourse bars, hung up and went to talk to Jim about taking off the afternoon. He didn't seem to mind, beyond reminding me of a deadline rapidly approaching, told me that I had several days coming to me and if I could get the Wentworth Project in on time, I could have all the time I wanted. Good guy.

I went to the Airport, with a feeling of playing hooky. That feeling persisted when I met Jane, who was at a minimum six inches off the floor with good cheer, so we had a couple of drinks. When she started to tell me her astounding and incredible and fantastic news, [her adjectives], I stopped her, and told her it would keep, that I didn't really care who Cat was, and that she would tell me in her own good time, when she felt I needed to know.

Jane took it, with a little bad grace, but she took it and even ordered the next round. Then suddenly it was closing time, we were in a loud honky-tonk on the South Side, my car was still at the airport, we were both smashed, and the previous eight or nine hours a hazy recollection of poor music, bad food and worse whisky. In the parking lot, waiting for a cab, we hugged and kissed and stroked a bit, then it got a little more sensual. We weren't alone either. There were about five other couples in various states of inebriation equally romantic, and equally indifferent to the carnal laws of that city. Mercifully the cab came before we got totally embarrassing, and we snuggled and necked until we reached my place. 


I Called Her Cat



Cat was as usual, scarce when we walked, (stumbled!) in, giggling at something inane, and I don't think we even made it all the way to the couch before we were naked and groping and gasping. This time it was far better than the first time – we were a lot more comfortable with each other. Good thing too, because sex when I am drunk is not something I have ever been successful at. I passed out very soon after, and when I awoke freezing, shaking and seriously hung over, to go pee, I discovered that I was naked, on the couch and alone. Mostly. Cat was sitting with her back to the other end of the couch, knees drawn up, staring off into space in the general direction of the TV. The closest she had sat to me in the whole time she had lived there.

She slowly swung her head in my direction as I staggered with a groan to my feet, rose with that feline grace of hers and looking over her shoulder at me, started off in the direction of the hall. The pounding in my head meant that I was unable to match her glide, her silence or her co-ordination. I bounced off the wall of the hallway to see her standing in front of the bathroom door, staring in. When I got there, I could see what had held her attention. Naked, unhappy and noisy about it, Jane, body taught as a piece of spring steel, was curled over the bowl, retching and crying. Well. It had been a wild afternoon and evening. I slowly moved into the bathroom, and sat on the floor beside her and began to stroke her hair. Cat quietly went back to her futon, her duty done. Amazing what an expressionless and silent woman can communicate when she wants to.

I sat with a sick and unhappy Jane for the rest of the night. The silence companionable and comforting, in spite of her distress, then as the dawn crept up the window, we became somewhat more animated. Discussion of the really important things, the critical things discovered between new lovers. Like what her favourite band was and who she went to Europe with when she was seventeen, and why Broccoli made her feel sick, and where she found her lost dog on her fifth birthday making it the best birthday ever.  

From time to time, I felt Cat coming to the door and looking at the two of us wrapped in a bath sheet, leaning on our elbows over the toilet and quietly talking. I had my back to the door, but something, maybe the difference in air pressure, or the primal hairs on the back of my neck, would let me know that she had arrived and again that she had left. Not once in the few hours we sat there did I actually hear Cat. It was a nice feeling, though, to know that she cared enough to keep tabs on us. 

When I heard the clock radio go off in the bedroom, I creaked and groaned my way to my feet, helped Jane to hers and we staggered off, neither of us totally sober, to the bed where I placed that fragile and unhappy girl, covered her, then went into the kitchen to have my customary coffee. Cat was at the stove, making her perennially terrible coffee, and looking so familiar, that without conscious though I stepped beside her and draped my left arm around her shoulders, without considering or even remembering her distaste for being touched. I gave a gentle squeeze of gratitude, and as I did so she tensed up. In the time it took for a gentle hug and release, I felt the muscles of her upper back and shoulders like cords and bands of steel! There was a lot more to this classy-looking lady than met the eye, (and there wasn't really a lot that didn't meet the eye).

I took a cup of coffee, apologizing to Cat and sat at the table. It took her a couple of minutes to regain whatever composure she had lost, and when she turned with her own cup and sat across from me, there wasn't any discernable change in her demeanour. She sat, casually erect as always, looked me in the eye with total indifference written on her face, and waited for whatever she had already been waiting for ... for eight months!

I sat a little stunned as I realised that she had been silently there in my life for eight months and all I knew about her was that her hair colour was natural, there was a small mole in the centre of her back and she didn't much like being touched. I said something about my astonishment that the time had passed all unknowingly, and there came once again that tiny frown. Interpreting it as I had become wont to do, I quickly assured her that it was not only no trouble, but indeed my distinct pleasure to have a naked beautiful woman about the house. I went on for so long a time telling her of my appreciation of her company that I managed to embarrass my self. She didn't seem to even notice, went back to staring off into space and I was effectively left alone again

IV I finished my coffee, telephoned the night man at work and left a message with him that I wouldn't be in that day, and that I would be working from home, sending in my completed portion of the Wentworth project by the end of the day. (It sure felt good to be well ahead of a deadline for once!). I put on some shorts and a t-shirt, got another cup of coffee and flashed up the computer. First thing I did, as usual was check my e-mail. There were the usual advertisements for cheap computer parts, really unique dirty-picture sites and something from a company that was selling, as far as I could decipher the fractured English, genuine Peruvian Lamas. There was also an odd message from an anonymous server – one of those places that will disguise your sending address and re-send it on so that the original sender can't possibly be traced.

Return-Path:  Received: from Anon.98672.cache2.ReSend.net ([24.21.232.27]) Date: Sat, 03 May 1999 16:52:29 "GMT" X-MSMail-Priority: High X-mailer: AnonMail 0.9.31 (WilsonSoft & OtherWares)

There are some really bad men looking for you and your new roommate. Be warned.

A friend

I read it three times. I didn't have a roommate, new or otherwise. Unless the sender meant Jane, but then she wasn't really a roommate, simply at my place a lot...Unless there was someone watching her, who had seen her coming to my place for a while on a regular basis. Then it hit me! CAT could be considered a roommate. I didn't think of her as an active member of the household, just a warm comforting silent presence in the apartment. Like a housecat. I didn't think that there could be anyone who knew she was there. I didn't think she went out during the day, although when I was at work she managed to bathe herself, clean the apartment and collect the groceries she needed, those nights she cooked. Nonetheless somehow I had the distinct impression that she hadn't been out of the apartment since the night she arrived. I had other things that needed to occupy my attention, so I saved it to my wierdities file and began to work on my project. 

The project wasn't complicated or anything other than time consuming, and it was several hours before I raised my eyes from the screen, and going into the kitchen to get another cup of coffee, noticed that Jane was stirring. I grabbed a cup for her and took it into the bedroom. Sitting quietly beside her was pleasant, as she sipped and woke up, (a lot happier than she had been earlier that morning!). I remember thinking that this was something I could get very comfortable with in a hurry. 

After a while, She looked at me, smiled and said thanks. Then she cleared her throat and began to look a little worried. "I know you said you didn't want to know, but it is really important that you, me and Cat have a talk. Right now. Very important."

"I can't speak for Cat, but I'm more than willing to listen. What's up?" I was not a little intrigued at something that was so important that Jane was willing to forgo the usual moaning about her head, which, if the experience of the night was any indicator, must have felt like a construction site behind schedule.

"Cat has to be there. This is about her."

"Jane, I told you I don't push Cat. If she wants us to know who she is and why she is here, she'll tell us if she can. I don't even know if she is able to speak. All I am reasonably certain of is that she is fairly familiar with English, and so far hasn't shown the slightest interest in telling me anything."

"Aren't you even a little bit curious? How can you have lived here with her for so long and not even tried to find out about her? Aren't you human?"

"Sure," I sighed, this was going to be tough to explain – most people don't understand the concept of 'leave well enough alone'. "I have just enough humanity in me to be a little curious. I am also aware that for most people, it is uncomfortable to have their past or present actions questioned. I am of the firm belief that an adult is capable of reaching their own lifestyle decisions, and having done so, willing to abide with the consequences – good or bad. Have I asked you anything about you? I don't even know what it is you do or who you work for or if you have any other gentlemen friends or..." 

I smiled and she frowned a little.

"That's true. You don't ask even the usual questions. Maybe that's why I feel so comfortable here. You make it so that I don't have to prove anything, and you accept me for being me, you don't try to change or mould me into something I am not willing to become. What kind of man are you anyway?" This last with an impish look in her eye. "All my previous boyfriends have wanted me to be something between a Playboy model, a servant and a mother. You just let me be me. Thanks." The logistics of trying to balance a cup of coffee without spilling it, and give me a heartfelt hug soon had us giggling like a couple of kids. Or new lovers.

"Is that what we are, now? Boyfriend – girlfriend?"

"Does that bother you? I gotta tell you I kind of like it..." She searched my face for some reaction, but not being sure just what I was feeling, I kept my face pleasant and noncommittal.

"I'll have to think about that. I have nothing against it per se, but I don't like being categorised, placed into a slot and then forgotten. I'll let you know if I am willing to be your boyfriend in a little while. I am also not certain whether or not I like being classified as a boy at my advanced age..." 

She slugged me with a pillow, got out of bed while calling me all sorts of interesting things not usually associated with the loving nature of a boyfriend, and went into the bathroom. I took the now empty cups back to the kitchen. There I found Cat standing in the doorway to the utility room, looking if anything a little apprehensive. I quietly said that Jane wanted all of us to talk, and she actually nodded, walked silently to the table and sat down. This was perhaps the first solid indication I had that she understood English. The thought had sporadically crossed my mind in the past few months that perhaps her silence was due to unfamiliarity with the language, but several times she seemed to understand what I was saying, and anyway, with the relationship that we had developed, it really didn't matter. 

Jane came in, wearing one of my old shirts, sat at the table and I came over with three fresh cups of coffee, and sat too. Jane started by telling Cat that she had been in Winnipeg recently, and she had managed to discover whom she was and could guess why she was in my city and my apartment. Cat got seriously agitated – for Cat. The tremors started, and she tensed up like she was on the starting blocks of a sprinter's match. As she started to rise from the table, Jane reached out and placed her index finger on the back of Cat's hand which stopped Cat's precipitous flight to the utility room. I had to say something, as it was becoming very obvious to me that Cat was panicked at the thought that someone knew who she was.

"Cat, Jane hasn't told me anything about what she seems to know about you. And I haven't asked. I don't want to know, unless you are willing to tell me, when you are ready and comfortable with it. Your presence here is a welcome one, regardless of who you might be or what you might have done." Cat looked directly at me, not something I was accustomed to from her. I sensed that she wasn't totally convinced either that I hadn't asked Jane to tell all, or that her past was her business, or that I was willing to let her stay without some explanation. "Regardless, Cat. Your past isn't of much concern to me and I like getting coffee in bed first thing in the mornings."

Jane, like most people, not happy with being the possessor of information without being able to tell it, looked at Cat, but she spoke to me. "You don't understand. It's not that she did anything bad, but that there are still some pretty rough people actively looking for her, and she is in some danger, and because she is here, so are you."

"Well! That's a pretty dramatic statement, Jane. Cat? Do you feel that you and I are in some kind of danger?" A lone tear crawled down Cat's face, and after searching my face for a long time she nodded slightly. Then she got up and walked silently into the utility room. Jane kicked my shin with her bare foot and started to get up to go to Cat, who came out of the utility room dressed as I had first seen her. Dressed for the first time in eight months. I admit to being a little startled, and just sat there with a stunned look on my face, I am sure. She was a totally different looking woman. Whereas before this moment, she had always walked about erect, shoulders back and proud, now that she was dressed in her street clothes, she seemed to have shrunk a little, almost as if she was cringing inside from the touch of the cloth.

I was inanely thinking that this had to be some kind of record for a woman getting dressed, when I realised that Jane was standing in front of Cat barring her exit from the room and hurriedly babbling about how she and I were more than willing to help, and that she was safer here than on the streets and other stuff of a similar nature. I too arose and added my voice. Cat looked at us both, then looked at me, a slight return to her old proud self. I quickly assured her that whatever trouble she was in, we were both there to aid her through it in whatever way we could. She peered for the longest time at us in turn, and seeing that we were quite serious, she began to remove her clothes, a genuine smile on her face. 

It lit up her whole face. What was an unremarkable countenance became in that instant truly beautiful. When she had undressed entirely, she placed all the clothes on the kitchen table, reached into the junk drawer and put a box of wooden matches (kept for power failures) on top of the pile of expensive clothes. I looked at the matches for a moment, and then to Cat.

"You want me to burn them?" She nodded emphatically once, turned and walked into the utility room, closing the door behind her. Jane looking at me for a moment, said, "You'd better do it. This is really important, and I think she just got over a very large hurdle. I'll help. Just let me get some clothes on."

V While Jane was dressing, I went to the door of the utility room, and speaking through the closed panel. I told Cat that I was going out for a bit, but I would be back shortly. Then Jane and I went to the basement of the building, found an old washtub and taking it out to the laneway behind the building, burnt Cat's clothes. It took the entire box of matches and the dregs of a bottle of barbecue starter. What a stink!

While we were waiting for the cloth to reduce itself to anonymous ash, Jane said,

"I think those were all tied up with – well her past, somehow. I suppose that getting you to burn them, she is showing that she trusts you a lot, and I don't want you to hurt her any more than she already has been. You have to get her some clothes so that she won't feel trapped. Try to get something basic, that will be OK in just about any situation."

"Ummm. Actually, I hadn't noticed in the past eight months that Cat really felt the need for clothing. And, talented as I am my dear Jane, I suspect that you would be better at buying women's clothing than I would, as I so seldom wear them! Especially the er.. foundation garments."

"Foundation garments? What...Oh! You mean bra and underpants? Hmm you could be right, and I suppose you have NO idea as to sizes or colours or anything. Typical man. And you haven't really thought this through, have you? She hasn't been wearing those clothes because I think that they meant something awful to her, but the fact is, that if she doesn't get some clothes of her own she is going to feel like a prisoner in your apartment." I banged the heel of my hand on my forehead and grimaced. She grinned. "I didn't think so! Well I suppose I will have to come along, but you are still going to have to buy them, I had my purse stolen at the airport, remember? And I should go by my place and get something to change into, the stuff in my suitcase is so dirty, it has a life of it's own and is starting to form it's own counter revolutionary army."

There wasn't any reason to go back upstairs, so once Cat's clothes were little more than warm ash, I washed out the tub, put it back and we got into a cab for the airport, to collect Jane's small suitcase, my car and to report the theft of her purse. The car and Jane's suitcase were the easy parts. Airport Security was a typical bureaucratic nightmare. It seems that anything stolen on Federal Property is done so at the express request of the victim, and Jane's permitting it to happen was the commission of a crime. So we had to sit and await the pleasure of several petty bureaucrats. So we had to answer a lot of idiot questions. So we had to fill out a myriad of forms as punishment: especially me, because I hadn't been there when the crime took place. Then there were the forms needed to describe the forms we had just filled out. Then the ones explaining the errors on the previous forms. 

About three hours later we got to her apartment, and after opening the door, Jane took one step inside, shrieked a little and stopped cold. Jane's normal housekeeping skills wouldn't have won her any awards: she was generally a neat person, but there were always magazines out and the odd sweater or something draped over a chair. You could come in and see the dregs of wine in the bottom of a wineglass hidden from immediate view on a bookshelf or the clothes hamper in the bathroom would be overflowing. Now it was a little different. 

Nothing was left on a shelf, and all the furniture was overturned, cushions slashed and pictures out of frames on the floor. There was a pile of clothes, books and other detritus of normal daily life in a small mountain atop the overturned loveseat, whose entrails were intermingled with the pile and snaked across the floor in three or four directions. There were fairly large holes knocked in the walls at regular intervals, and that was just the living room. Whoever had searched the place hadn't worried about the careful handling of another person's precious belongings, nor, as the holes were a testament, noise. 

It had to have happened in the past day or so, the ketchup mingled with the other foodstuffs spilling haphazardly over the counter and onto the floor (and the dishes, pots and frozen food melted there) was still fairly fresh. The bathroom was a disaster with all the potions; crèmes and powders of a woman's regimen mixed together and tread into the carpet there and in the hall leading to the bedroom. It was the bedroom that was the worst. This was obviously the last room searched and the searchers evidently had taken out all their frustrations on that room. Not only was the mattress and box spring slashed, but also the dresser had been systematically disassembled using an axe or some similarly destructive tool. And in the midst of it all, there were Jane's clothes, each slashed into ribbons: even her underpants.

Atop this particular pile, was her purse, emptied but intact. Amongst the ruined clothing we found her wallet, credit cards, (all cut up) and fifty dollars in bills. Nothing else from her purse was found. It was while we were discovering this and Jane, understandably in a bit of shock, had finally begun to repeat herself as she cursed to eternal damnation the perpetrators, that I heard a noise in the front room. I grabbed a chunk of the shattered dresser and crept down the hall to the living room. I don't quite know what it was I was going to do once I got there, but I remember vague feelings of protecting Jane and avenging this rape of her home. I leapt around the corner, piece of wood held over my head and shouted some primal cry of anger and frustration. And stopped cold. Before me was a woman in her fifties, in curlers, a muumuu and bunny slippers. Even in my red rage, I could tell that this was probably not one of the apartment ravagers returned. 




I Called Her Cat



For her part, she gave a small cry of terror, rolled her eyes so far I suspected that she could discern the folds and whorls of her brain and then sank to the ground in an oddly graceful manner. I felt more than a little foolish, when Jane's voice, dripping sarcasm, came from right behind my left ear, startling me into another leap to attack.

"First you keep a poor naked, terrified woman in your apartment, then you go and kill my landlady, and now you're threatening me with grievous bodily harm.. I'm not sure that I want to know a man who has such a deleterious effect on the women in his life." She looked down at the woman on the floor with little more than clinical interest. I vowed, in one small part of my mind not occupied with getting my heart rate to slow enough to be able to breath that I would have to find out a lot more about this lady who could look at inert bodies on the floor with such dispassion. "What did you do, bash her on the head? I hated the cranky bitch, but I didn't seriously want to have her killed."

Then I felt really foolish. The landlady groaning and shaking herself saved me trying to explain that the woman on the floor was alive and untouched by my hand. She took one look at me and scrambled to her feet, losing one of the bunny slippers in the process and then galloped from the apartment screaming for the police at the top of her not inconsiderable lungs. I picked up the slipper, and following Jane's lead left that apartment in the wake of the shrieking landlady. Doors had popped open and heads were peering into the hall looking a little uncertain and afraid. 

As each person saw Jane and I walking towards them heads withdrew at a speed that would make a turtle proud, and doors slammed. Jane looked wryly at me, and allowed as how she appreciated the need in men for a weapon, but that it would be better if I either concealed it or got rid of it entirely. I looked foolishly at my hand and realised that I still carried the broken bit of wood that so recently had been an integral part of a lady's dresser. I dropped it with some feeling of relief, and realised that my other hand held Jane's empty purse and the bunny slipper. I had been examining the purse when I heard the noise in the living room of her apartment. I solemnly handed it to her and she equally solemnly accepted it, and slung it over her shoulder.

VI When we reached the ground floor, there was a uniformed cop there, and the landlady was speaking at a high rate of speed to him. She caught sight of us, and pointing a finger at me shrieked, "That's HIM!! The man who attacked me!" The cop, obviously having dealt with hysterical women before, glanced at Jane and then me, asking sardonically, "Did you jump out and try to beat this woman on the head with a club?"

Gallantly bowing to the landlady I handed her the bunny slipper and turning to the cop, I smiled slightly, and replied, "Hmm, yes that about sums it up in a nutshell. I am guilty as accused. Do your worst."

He looked at me a little more sharply, "That's an interesting response. I'd like to hear your story."

The landlady continued to shriek in the poor cop's face about how I was a rapist-dope-fiend-communist-mad-bomber and that he should avoid the trouble of arresting me by simply killing me like the mad dog I obviously was, and why wasn't he doing something to protect the virtue and safety of a good woman. There was a lot more, but most of it was a variation on the same theme.

"Mrs. Ardusky, ya gotta be quiet now and let me handle this. You called the cops, and now I'm here to keep you safe. Lemme do my job, OK?" he turned back to me and I could see that he was tense, his right hand, although not actually touching it, carefully near to his pistol. "Y'wanna tell me some more?"

"Certainly. I am of the firm opinion that a person has the right to attack any intruder or trespasser, and that is what I was doing to Mrs. Ardusky. Of course I didn't know it was an overweight old lady with a bad mouth when I came into the room."

OLD!!! Why! I'll..." here Mrs. Ardusky had so many things to scream at me that she couldn't get them all out at once, so fell to grinding her teeth and turning red.

Jane stepped in then and calmly informed the cop that there had been a break-in in her apartment, that she and I had discovered it, and when we heard some furtive padding in the living room, I had gallantly leapt to her defence: that there was no way to know who had snuck so scurrilously into her home, and that at the moment I realised it was not a return of the original burglars, I had desisted at once and that Mrs Ardusky, while certainly in the wrong for silently sneaking into someone else's apartment, was also guilty of simply making a mistake.

For the second time that day we were embroiled in the clutches of the bureaucracy. We all four trooped back up to Jane's apartment, and the cop summoned assistance. For four hours, we answered questions, denied having any part in the act in spite of the landlady's assertion that Jane had been entertaining other dope-fiends who had got a little out of hand. Other dope fiends than me: she still contended that I was a bad'un. I did nothing to dissuade the cranky old woman. I just smiled enigmatically and kept silent. Which had the delightful effect of satisfying a childish whim of mine. She was so livid by the time Jane and I left that I was beginning to seriously wonder about her heart. Even the cops admitted that the place had become uninhabitable, and with the landlady we returned to the ground floor, where she told Jane to give her the keys, that she was tossed out as of that moment, that she didn't tolerate tenants who were so sleazy or who had such evil companions and that she was going to sue Jane for all damages. When she ran out of breath I smiled and wished her a good evening, at which she literally hissed, and slammed into her suite.

VII Jane and I got into my car, and I offered her a drink. She was surprisingly calm throughout the whole day's ordeals, but I was sure that she felt devastated. She accepted then said,

"Wait! We forgot to get Cat some clothes!" looking at her watch, "I think that department store over on Bay is still open, and it looks as though you are going to be buying a few things for me too. I can get an advance Monday or Tuesday from work, and pay you back then, but I will still need some clean underwear and a toothbrush." So we went shopping. It had been a number of years since I had gone shopping for women's clothing and I had blessedly forgotten the time it seems to take. Actually, I remembered it being a lot more torturous than it turned out to be with Jane. She seemed to have a pretty good idea of the things Cat would need to be inconspicuously dressed, (there was no way she could be considered inconspicuous in her normal state), but it still took us quite a while and by the time I had paid for three complete changes of clothes, (one for Jane), I was more than ready for a soothingly dark lounge somewhere with quiet jazz and a sympathetic bartender. 

We had settled our order in just such a place and began to relive the events of the day. 

"I suppose that your purse was stolen to find out where you lived." I said at one point, and Jane nodded, and then said in a quiet voice, "I guess I wasn't as discreet finding out about Cat as I thought I was. Someone followed me or phoned ahead to have me met at the Airport. Thank God they didn't get my laptop! That has the whole thing on it."

"They didn't?" I was a little mystified. I hadn't seen it at the apartment, nor had she carried it or stored it the night before at the airport. "Why didn't they get that? I didn't notice you carrying it yesterday."

"No. There were three of us who went to Winnipeg and his wife was meeting Joe, one of my co-workers. He took all the computers, because he was going into the office today, and there is other stuff on them that needs to be dumped into the mainframe as soon as possible. Georgia and I decided to take today off and make it a long weekend." She got this look of consternation on her face "HEY! We have to get to your place RIGHT NOW!" 

She literally leapt to her feet, actually leaving the ground by an inch or so and landed running for the door. I quickly threw a couple of bills on the table and took off after her. I caught up with her dancing on one foot by the driver's side of the car, and yelling at me to hurry up, that she was driving. She was so urgent that unthinkingly, I tossed her the keys and ran to the passenger side door. By the time I had one foot in the car she was accelerating madly down the street. The door swung closed on my shin with excruciating results. It was two or three moments before I could say anything and by that time I was less interested in talking than praying that the Goddess of fast drivers was watching over her!.

There wasn't a great deal of traffic on the roads she took, but they might as well not have been there for all the notice that Jane took. Actually, it very quickly began to be obvious that although she was incredibly fast behind the wheel, she was totally in control. I calmed down a bit, got my seatbelt on, and taking a deep breath, asked what the hurry was. Jane shifted gears a couple of times, skidded around a delivery truck parked in the road, and then cryptically barked, 

"My address book."

It took me a moment to figure out what she was saying, and then I too began to panic. We had seen no sign of that book, and I know she had my address in it. And that meant that Cat was in danger. And naked. And incapable or disinclined to cry out for help. It took a very short time to get to my building, not more than a century or two, and Jane's driving had certainly turned my hair white, my liver yellow and my heart into a jackhammer. We ran up all the stairs to my place and saw the door wide open. I started to gallop into the apartment, ready to call out for Cat, but Jane grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip, and shushing me, began to retreat to the stairwell. As we ran back down she whispered that they were probably still in there, and we needed to get to a phone. I leapt into the corridor on the floor below mine and ran to a neighbour's place. I knew him vaguely; we picked up each other's mail and watered plants when one of us was out of town. 

Bruce answered my frantic knocking and leaving Jane to explain as best she could I barked, "phone" and ran into his kitchen. While I was dialling 911, she told him that my place was burglarized and I was telephoning the cops. Who arrived in their own good time. The arrest report claims it was three minutes from the time I called until they got there, but I know it was at least a week. Two of the biggest uniforms I have ever seen showed up soon enough, I suppose, as events would prove, and those giant uniforms were strained to confine the monsters inside. We went back up to the penthouse, this time by the elevator. Which was on a work-to-rule strike. It crept up the floors so slowly; I thought I would be dead of old age before it arrived.

Cops being cops, we were asked a lot of questions as we rode that snail. When we arrived, we were cautioned to stay back, and drawing their pistols the cops entered my apartment. My first thought was relief that we had been rescued from a nasty situation. My next was what reaction Cat was going to get if she was alive, being naked and silent. Then I wondered if she was even alive. I sweated enough to lubricate a small truck, and we waited. The cops were gone quite a while, and then there were suddenly shouts and the sounds of an intense, though very brief struggle. Eventually one of the cops came to the hall and beckoned us inside.

VIII Sitting on the floor in front of my couch, hands bound behind him, was a slight, rather diminutive but dapper gentleman of some substance. His suit alone was worth more than I made in a month, and his shoes were even more expensive looking. He wore a topcoat, although it was not all that cold out. Even with the evidence of a roughhouse, he wasn't all that mussed up. He had a thick swelling under one eye, and his suit jacket was folded up under the topcoat, exposing a shoulder harness for an automatic pistol. Other than television, this was the first such harness I had ever seen, and I took a moment to examine it. 

I began to take in the rest of the room. The monster cop standing guard over this paragon of the tailor's art was in pretty rough shape himself. One sleeve of his uniform shirt was dangling from the cuff, having been torn off in the evident struggle, and he too was sporting several bruises and abrasions. The room itself looked a little the worse for the brawl, but no serious damage. The coffee table and the television would have to be scrapped, but everything else looked OK. I was a little worried about Cat, but could see absolutely no evidence that she was anywhere about, from the living room. I could tell that Jane was equally wondering: she kept fidgeting and making quickly aborted moves as though to run into the kitchen and the utility room.

The battered cop asked me something while I was taking stock, and assessing a situation that was new to me. I lifted an eyebrow at him and he said again, "Ever seen this person before, sir?"

Once again I looked to the small man on my floor. He was quite harmless looking, but if the evidence of the huge cop's wounds were an example of his harmlessness, he was a master of understatement!. He was darker than I, with a full rich head of black hair, very few of which were out of place in spite of his recent activity. On his face was an expression of interest, as though hanging on my response with bated breath. I continued to watch him as I replied that as far as I was aware, I had never seen him before. Jane surprised both of us when she stated in a flat emotionless voice that she not only had seen him, but also had been forced to have him arrested in a recent business trip, for assaulting her in a parking lot. 

Jane was beginning to pique my usually repressed curiosity. She calmly told the cop that the burglar had jumped her as she and a friend were leaving a restaurant, that the friend had suffered a broken collarbone, and she had been forced to subdue him. This from my gentle lover. Had subdued a man who had very nearly bested a 150Kg or better experienced brawler like that cop. I was not the only one who was startled by this revelation. The dapper man on the floor got for the briefest moment, an expression as near to total hate as any I have ever seen on a man's face. The cop snorted in derision, and actually said, "That one nearly tore my arm off with some kind of Kung Fu or sumpin' and you subdued him in a parking lot? What'd you use? A Mack truck?"

The other cop laughed a little, but Jane had her dander up. She can look at supposedly dead landladies with equanimity, but riding her would cause a little consternation. "Mr. Delgado's discipline is Karate, and I happen to be a better black belt. I also got lucky; his concentration was a bit off that night. So I would appreciate it if you could keep the snide comments to yourself." Her patient voice belied her obvious anger at being doubted. Her voice turned all sweetness and light. "I am going to make coffee. Can I make you gentlemen some?" she walked with dignity and without awaiting an answer into the kitchen. 

The battered cop, sighing, asked me if I was prepared to prefer charges, and with my assent, asked me to come down to the station. I agreed, stating that I would follow him; I wanted to check out my place first. That seemed to satisfy them both, and taking the elegant Mr. Delgado, soundlessly slung between them like a sack of meal, they departed. I rushed into the kitchen to see Jane calmly making coffee, and told her that the cops had gone, that I was to follow them and asked if she had found any sign of Cat. She silently beckoned me with her head to the utility room, and opened the drier as though she was presenting the crown jewels.

There, all scrunched into that tiny drum was Cat. Not a big woman, to be sure, but it had to be a terrible fit. We both, with some wincing from Cat as her only protest, managed to extricate her from her makeshift hiding place. Once out, she looked at us both with a glimmer of a smile, and silently went into the bathroom. I stood there, an astonished look on my face until I was slapped on the shoulder by Jane who asked, "What did you think she was supposed to do with no clothes and no time to try to escape? I think she was brilliant! What man would even look at a washer or drier?"

Jane stalked back into the Kitchen while I slowly made my way out to the hall, nursing a small hurt that I was so badly treated by one who was supposed to be my new love and my joy. That lasted all of the thirty or so seconds it took to get to the hall and spy the packages of clothing we had bought lying by the stairwell entrance. Returning to the living room, I saw that Cat was coming out of the bathroom, and called to her that I had bought her some clothes, which she could wear or not as she chose. She came a little more eagerly than I had seen her move to date, and taking the bags from me, went into the kitchen. I went to the police station for my third bout of form filling. IX I came back in the dark, weary to the point of exhaustion from an almost constant barrage of bureaucrats, shocks to the system and more strenuous physical effort than was my customary wont. I was literally dreaming of my bed, silence and peace. It was not to be. When I entered the apartment, the lights were out in the living room. But there was a soft glow from the bedroom, and a sharper light spilling from the kitchen doorway. I had barely closed the door, when Jane came from the bedroom, and looking at me with a peculiar expression on her face, beckoned me into the bedroom. When I got there, she whispered to me that I was to be nice and supportive and then grabbing my wrist in a soft hand, tugged me into the kitchen.

Where Cat was sitting at the table. Apprehension was all over her face, as though she expected me to be angry with her. I didn't care why she was feeling nervous, at the moment she could have stood and opened fire with an automatic weapon, and my only reaction would have been one of gratitude for the peace offered by the flying bullets. I sat at the table, took the proffered glass of chilled white wine from Jane, and said nothing. These two, whatever they had cooked up, had prepared with some care. The kitchen looked brighter somehow, and I realised that the table held a vase I didn't know I possessed full of primary-coloured flowers. The wine being chilled showed a little forethought, and there was something on the stove that smelled quite good.

Cat, still looking like a kid waiting in the principal's office, reached out and for the first time in the whole eight months she had been resident in my utility room, touched me. More, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the first three fingers of my left hand and squeezed. I couldn't have been more shocked than if she had actually had an automatic weapon. My weariness sloughed off instantly, and looking close, I saw that Cat was still nervous as she rapidly returned her hand to her side. Solemnly I thanked her for the squeeze. A tear formed in her eye, and she quickly left the kitchen. Turning to Jane, I raised an eyebrow.

"She still hasn't said a word, but I think she feels grateful, for the sanctuary you have provided, for not taking advantage of her, you have kept your distance haven't you?" I smiled a little and nodded. Regardless of how close we had become in the past few weeks, she still didn't completely know me. "And I think mostly for not wanting to know about her past. When she comes back, I am going to tell you about that." 

She held up a hand, forestalling any protest, and said that she had told Cat that it was time and Cat had agreed. I realised that although Cat was being a little, (very little) more expressive in her facial reactions to me, she must have been far more open with Jane. Jane had no doubts that she had communicated her desire and that Cat had acquiesced. At that point Cat returned to the room, still looking scared. I had the distinct impression that she was scared of me! I had gone out of my way to insure that Cat felt as comfortable as any incommunicative, naked woman in the apartment of a single male could feel, yet she was still scared. Obviously I hadn't managed as well as I had thought.




I Called Her Cat



I rose, and telling Jane that Cat didn't seem to be ready for this, started to go to bed. Jane said a firm "no" and Cat's expression became one of even more distress, much like the look she had put on her face that first morning. I sat again, and looking at Cat asked her point blank if this was all right with her. She nodded that curt once that I had seen only one other time, and I said to Jane that maybe it would be better if we got it over with quickly. Cat looked, if anything a little bit relieved, but the usual mask of indifference swept over her features too fast for me to be sure.

Jane began speaking in a flat voice like a news reporter. Devoid of emotion, she related her experience in Winnipeg and what she had found out about Cat. Cat sat stone still, her eyes on my face the whole time. What she was hoping to see on my face wasn't evident in any corresponding reaction on hers. She sat there throughout the whole recitation as though she were simply waiting for it to be over. Which I suppose on sober reflection, was precisely the case.

"There was a bad picture of Cat on a telephone pole outside one of the offices where we were meeting, with a headline stating that this woman was missing, and a telephone number. Something about the poster, the fact that there was no personal information about her, and the bad printing, made me hesitant to telephone and tell all. I have been in and out of Winnipeg the last few years to have made a couple of useful contacts, so I called one of them in ManitobaTel and got her to give me a name and address for the phone number. The fact that it was a cell phone was even more suspicious, so I tucked it away and went to another meeting.

It was later that night that I saw the second picture of Cat. It was in the back of one of those entertainment blurbs left in hotel rooms, and it was a far better picture. In an area devoted to escort services, Cat's picture was prominent, offering sophisticated company at reasonable rates with 'Heather'. It bothered me a lot, that you had a prostitute in your house and despite your protestations of innocence, I knew that you were bedding her regularly. I thought about it for a little bit, and realised that I had been in the company of the two of you for a while and nothing Cat had done indicated even a hint of the prostitute. I got curious enough to call and ask for Heather.

The woman who answered the phone stated that Heather was out on a call then got real curious. She became very insistent on knowing why I asked for Heather in particular, and wasn't satisfied when I told her that I had seen her ad in the entertainment magazine. When she began to demand my address in more and more strident terms, I hung up, got my shoes back on and went down the hall to Georgia's room. We had tentative plans to go to dinner, and that's what we did. When I got back to my hotel, I had a message to call a Mr. Delgado and the telephone number was the same as the one on the bad poster I had seen earlier.

"In my room, I had the distinct impression that someone had been there while I was out, but assuming it was the maid, I put the message on the desk, and had a shower. When I got out of the shower, the telephone rang, and answering it, I heard a cultured foreign male voice asking if he could come up to my room. His addressing me by name without identifying himself set off alarm bells, and I told him that I would meet him in the bar downstairs. I got dressed, phoned Joe, telling him I could use a little back up and went to the lobby. Just inside the doorway to the lounge, was the man you saw here earlier, sitting alone, dressed as though he had just come from the opera."

At this point Jane got up and dished out whatever was on the stove. I don't remember it in any detail, only that as she placed the dish in front of me, I was surprised at how hungry I was. I dug in silently, waiting for Jane to finish her story. Cat was still staring at my face, and I felt a slight pride that I had shown no reaction whatsoever to the revelation of her past career. Once we were all served and the wine glasses refreshed, Jane continued. 

"He stood as soon as he saw me and asked me to sit down. At the next table was a man as out of place in a hotel lounge as I would have been at a cockfight. It was obvious that this man was the dapper gentleman's bodyguard, by the way he never looked anyone in the eye, but was watching the whole room all the time and the doorway to the lobby in particular. Joe came in at that point, and without looking at me went over to the bar and sat on a stool in a position so that he could see us without seeming to watch us. Joe is particularly good at that.

"The foreign gentleman introduced himself as Mr. Delgado, and he offered me a drink. After some small talk, he got to the point. He claimed that I intrigued him, an obviously sophisticated woman calling an escort service for a woman. I didn't look like a lesbian, and the fact that I worked for as conservative a company as I did made it unlikely that I would be willing to jeopardise my job by being caught with a female escort. At that point, he leaned forward and placed a sweating palm on my thigh.

"Removing his hand, I informed him that this was the nineties, . that That women were as entitled to make fools of themselves in strange cities as our male counterparts had been able to for centuries, and that my not looking like a lesbian was meaningless. He smirked at me and re-stated that he didn't believe me. He thought that I knew Heather and the nature of my work made him think that I was fishing for information more than looking for a night of bliss. The depth of this man's information about me was increasingly disquieting. Especially as he had managed to find out so much in a couple of hours after a phone call to an escort service where I had left neither name nor address.

"Once again he started to grope my thigh, and this time as I removed his hand I told him that if it returned to my leg, I would break a couple of fingers. He smiled that charming smile of his, (he could after all be a real gentleman when it suited his interest), and again asked what my interest in Heather was. I grabbed one of the entertainment magazines that was lying on an adjacent table and showed him the ad. Then I asked just who he was. He looked suddenly bored by the whole thing, once he saw the ad, stated that it was an old one, and that he owned the escort service. Nodding to the bodyguard, he rose, and leaving, stated that it would be far healthier for me to just get on with my work, and get my companionship at home. Smiling, he left the bar.

"Not trusting his sudden disinterest, I signalled Joe to stay back, and went out to the lobby elevator's. Just as the door to the elevator was closing, Delgado and his bodyguard stopped the doors, and got in. Joe did the same thing a moment or two later, and ignoring the dirty look from the bodyguard, pushed the button for the floor above ours. We rode up in silence, and getting off on my floor, I wasn't the least surprised by being followed by Delgado. At my door, the bodyguard smoothly took the card from my hand, and swiping the door, pushed me roughly into the room. Before the door could completely close, he had checked out the room, and stood silently by the door again. Delgado said that he thought I was lying about Heather, and proposed to search my room. If I was a good girl, Earl, (obviously the bodyguard had a name. Seemed superfluous, like naming your car or any other dumb machine), wouldn't have to break any bones. He had just begun going through the drawers in the dresser when there was a sharp knock on the door, and Joe's voice called out for me to open up. Both men looked a little surprised, and then, whispering to me to "be good", indicated that I should open the door.

"Outside the door were Joe and three biggish bellboys. I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life! He and the bellboys pushed past me, and suggested that Delgado and friend should leave, that the hotel didn't appreciate people like him manhandling the guests. Delgado didn't hesitate for more than a moment, smiled at Joe, and saying that he thought Joe was mistaking his intentions, he and Earl left. Joe paid off the hotel staff, and they too left. Joe stayed that night, to protect me, (he is a really sweet man!), the two of us sitting up most of the rest of the night. I told Joe a little bit about what was going on, and although he knew there was more to the story, when he realised that it had nothing to do with the job we were in Winnipeg to do, didn't push too hard for the rest of the story." She glanced at Cat. "Nothing I did in Winnipeg should have jeopardised you here."

"I heard nothing from Delgado for the next three days, which should have made me suspicious, but the work we had gone to Winnipeg to do was getting a little intense, and if I thought about his absence from my life at all, it was probably with relief. Three days later, we had finished, more successful than anticipated, so we three, and four or five of the client's people went out to celebrate. The client's head of security was leaving about 11:30, and feeling tired, I bummed a ride back to the hotel from her. As we were leaving the restaurant, Delgado appeared with three of his automatons, several guns and a limousine. When he politely insisted that we travel with him, Carol, the security chief, proved why she had been picked for her post. She took out the two closest goons so fast that neither Delgado nor I was able to react before the two were moaning on the ground. I have been in a couple of karate competitions, and never seen anyone so fast or so focussed!

"The third goon started to go for Carol, and I suddenly snapped out of my stunned inaction. I kicked off my heels, and hiking up my skirt, jumped Delgado. Three things were instantly apparent: Delgado was very nearly as good at karate as I was, cheap pantyhose were never designed with street fighting in mind and the goon that Carol was occupied with was better than average himself. I noticed as Delgado got in a couple of good hits, that Carol's opponent was down, obviously in pain, but that she would be no help to me at all. While she was on hands and knees, shaking her head, I managed to keep Delgado from getting the upper hand but it was tough. He was good!

"One of my kicks to his chest made him stumble back, and while I was taking a moment to get a breath, he noticed that Carol was getting up, ready to get back into the fight. A vicious kick from him, and Carol went down hard with a crack of bone that made me sick for a moment – long enough for Delgado to get in several hits. I was on the defensive, hampered by my clothes and the steps to the restaurant behind me, and I knew I was beat. That made me mad. I haven't lost in years. In fact, I suspect that if the police hadn't shown up at that point, Delgado would have seriously hurt me. As it was, the arrival of several shouting policemen distracted him long enough for me to get in a really good hit, and he was down, hurting and looking up the barrels of several guns. 

"It took a week before I was able to get out of the clutches of the cops and the Winnipeg courts. Joe's story about finding Delgado in my room a few days before, and a continuing interest by the Winnipeg law in Delgado insured, I thought, that he would be in jail for some time. Never the less, I heard nothing about or from him for the rest of the time I was there. While I was twiddling my thumbs, I managed to get the rest of the story on Cat, or Heather as she was known in Winnipeg. Joe kindly ordered an escort from Delgado's service, and when she came, he, Georgia and I surprised her and questioned her. She was really scared of Delgado, and wouldn't talk until Joe assured her that we wouldn't say anything as we were leaving town the next day, and until she had been paid for the night.

"It seems that Cat was married or something once to a man that owed Delgado a lot of money. When he couldn't pay, he sold Delgado his wife, and disappeared. Whether or not he vanished under his own steam is unclear. Delgado apparently has a reputation for ruthlessness. Anyway, he gave her the name Heather and put her to work. About a year later, she was with a client who died in a mysterious way, and the police questioned her for a while. Delgado didn't like that, and beat her so badly she was unable to escort anyone for a couple of months. While she was recuperating, word was she managed to contact her husband. Whether or not she had, Delgado believed it, and this time Cat was in hospital for a long while. Delgado wanted more information about her husband, and the client who died had, according to the news, been carrying a small fortune in jewellery. Delgado wanted that too. So he went to visit her in hospital only to discover her missing. 

"That was in July of last year. Where she was before she arrived here in September is something only she can tell you, and I promised that I wouldn't tell you her real name. Cat suits her better, don't you think?"

I looked at Cat, and saw that although there had been no overt reaction to Jane's tale, she was obviously tense awaiting my reaction. I grabbed Jane's hand and looking Cat squarely in the eye, told her that it still didn't matter who she had been, what she had done or where she had come from. I was no less happy to have her there as long as she wanted to stay. Then exhaustion took over, and I went to bed. As I was leaving, I saw that Cat had tears streaming down her otherwise expressionless face, and Jane moved over to her and they began to hug and rock the way a mother does a child who is desperately unhappy.

X It had been a long, tiring day, and I suspect that the emotional purging done at midnight had something to do with it, but Cat didn't show up with my coffee and I slept through the alarm at five. What woke me at 5:25 I wasn't sure of at first, only that there was considerable anxiety, and a definite feeling of danger. I sat straight up and popped eyes open, to see a large man in a rumpled suit sitting in the chair at the foot of my bed. He wasn't threatening in any overt manner, but his mere presence was in itself an implied threat.

"Mornin'. I was just about to wake you guys, but I thought I'd first take a peek around. Hope you don't mind. Y'know, you're a lucky guy. You got the most beautiful private detective in the city in your bed, and another naked babe in the laundry room. What'ya do? Switch 'em off according to religious holidays?" A baritone, not unpleasant or coarse, and the accent said something about an upper class English Boarding School education. Or the distinct lack thereof. I gaped at him..

I am normally a quick waker, not one of those who spend half an hour getting the mental engines warmed up, but the double shock of his presence, unheard by me, (or apparently Jane, she slept on, bared to the waist when I sat up: I covered her), and the revelation that the corporation girl I was sleeping beside was revealed to be a private investigator, had definitely put a chock under the wheels. As I continued to try to process all of this on too little sleep, and not enough coffee, he continued

"I see you're awake now. Good. We gotta talk some. I am Detective-Inspector Goodall. And you and your ménage are beginning to intrigue me. What's with the babe in the back? I can't seem to get anything out of her, not even her name. And what's Miss Robson doing sleeping here? Last I heard she was in a fight with her landlady, but I figured she would be at her boyfriend's or her mother's place. – Well?? You gonna talk or you gonna sit there looking like a fish out of water?"

"I would be delighted to talk to you, Mr. Goodall, but as you can see I have just awoken, am in need of the biffy," I replied, deciding on the instant that outraged homeowner wouldn't get me very far, but maybe mild mannered milquetoast might, "and I haven't yet had my customary morning coffee. Permit me to rise, don some clothing and I'll meet you in the living room in a few moments."

"My don't you talk fancy! Well, see, it's like this. I gotta see that you don't do something stupid like grab for your guns or try to commit suicide, now that I have caught you with your drawers down, so to speak." He grinned a 'nice-doggy' kind of grin, "Don't let me stop you getting' out of bed or getting' dressed. Coffee's already made. We bin here for a while, but the quiet chick was already makin' coffee when we dropped in."

I rose and slipping into last night's jeans, went to the bathroom, and into the kitchen. Where I saw Cat sitting rigid with terror on one of the chairs, and another obvious policeman sitting right beside her. Grabbing a couple of mugs, I got Cat and I a coffee, and when she looked up at me as I placed it in front of her, I winked. The tension of her body didn't lessen one whit, but there did seem to be a lightening of the fear in her eyes. With Cat it is sometimes hard to tell.

The second policeman looked at me in expectation, and Goodall said,

"What about us, can we have some of this mud too? It's been a very long night. No – no. You just sit tight, I'll get them." He got the coffees and when sitting looked at the other cop, "Burt, look at that poor girl, y'got her so she's shittin' herself. Go into the bedroom, and wake up your favourite private eye, and when she's up, keep her in the living room. I think she's gonna have some real interesting stuff to tell us." 

The second cop got up silently and went out of the room. Goodall turned to Cat and told her that Burt was a rough-at-the-edges kind of guy, but he didn't mean any harm, and as long as she hadn't done anything in the past while to attract the interest of the police, he didn't really want to scare her too badly. Cat didn't seem to be reassured, but she began to drink her coffee. He then suggested that she might want to go get some clothes on, as he wanted to talk to me.

Cat slowly shook her head once, and locking her eyes to his, continued to sip her coffee. I said, "She doesn't seem to like wearing clothes, so unless you have some reason why she should, I don't think you're going to convince her to do so. And unless you have a compelling reason for her to leave, I think she would feel safer here."

"Nope!" he really did look like a harmless puppy when he grinned, except for the eyes. The smile stopped there with the suddenness of a bridge abutment. This was a man of whom I would be wise to be wary. "I haven't the slightest objection to looking at naked women as long as they don't mind my looking. And I don't have any reason yet to want her not to feel safe." He scrabbled his chair around slightly so it was facing me more squarely, "Now I need some answers about all the goings on yesterday. Seems you showed up on three police reports all in the same day, and that makes people like me sit up and take notice. Especially when the person mentioned in the reports is someone we know absolutely nothing about."

"Well, before we do, Mr. Goodall, can I ask why you broke into my home in the middle of the night?"

Right then, I could here some scuffling in the living room, and Jane's voice, being less than the polite hostess, seemed to come from the middle of it. I started to rise, but Goodall placed a surprisingly strong hand on my arm, and sat me back down, "Don't worry about Miss Robson, sir, Burt won't be too rough on her. The last two times they tangled, it was pretty much a draw."

Jane, wrapped in my dressing gown, now torn at sleeve and hem, stomped into the room, took one scornful look at Goodall, and went to the coffee maker. "Arthur, Ddon't you know better than to bring Burt to guard me? I was beating the stuffing out of him when we were kids, and he hasn't learned anything yet! If you want me out of here, just say so. Don't get my big brother to try to force me. It never worked before and it isn't about to start now!"




I Called Her Cat



"Burt's your brother?" I must have looked comical. Jane started to grin herself. This woman was getting more interesting at every turn!

"Not much of a family resemblance is there? He's my step-brotherstepbrother. His father married my mom when I was five. Burt was seven then, and fancied himself a tough guy. So I learned how to defend myself." She took her coffee out to the living room. I looked at Goodall.

"Are you related to Jane as well?"

He got a sheepish expression on his face. "Well, not precisely. Burt's daddy was my best friend, and when Burt joined the Force, I sortta took him under my wing. And since his father passed away a couple of years ago, I have been kind of spooning Janie's mom."

"Sorry, you're going to have to give me a moment. All of this has been a bit of a shock!"

"Yeah. I kind of know what you mean about shocks. I certainly didn't expect to see her here when I dropped in. Which brings me back to your question. Sir, I would appreciate it if you could agree to agree that your door was open when we came here. What with a multiple homicide over on the South Side, and the paper work on the jailbreak, it has been a long night. And since Delgado is on the loose, I took it upon myself to come here to look for him and to sort of look out for you in case he came back."

At the mention of Delgado's being on the loose, I straightened in my chair, and Cat disappeared into the Utility room rather quickly. My mind in a whirl;. Jane a private eye.; Jane had a brother;. Delgado on the loose, presumably through the efforts of the previously mentioned jailbreak. But that didn't stop me going into the utility room after Cat.

Where sShe was sitting on her futon, trembling and weeping., Ssoundlessly, just like she had been all along. I sat on the other end of the futon, glanced up at the door to see Goodall standing there, coffee in hand and an interested expression on his face. I motioned for him to leave, but he just grinned again and shook his head. I said to Cat again that she was as near to family as she could get, and with the addition of the police, she would be safer here than anywhere.

"Y'know, he's right miss, Burt ain't much in the brains department, but he's a Holy Terror when he's protecting someone. Been censured by the department for that a few times, and I ain't no slouch, either. Whatever your status here, and I'll work that out as we go along, if your're part of this household, then you're part of our protection. I didn't mean to scare you, but I have always been of the opinion that it is better to know the bad news, than hide from it"

I glanced at Goodall gratefully, and then back to Cat. Who did the most astonishing thing. She reached out and took my hand, and when I squeezed hers gently, she nearly incapacitated that hand with her return squeeze. There was also a definite smile on her face, watery and tentative, but the most expressive positive reflection I had seen to date. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, and she let go my hand a moment, looking a little abashed, wiped some tears, and grabbed my hand again. Looking pointedly at Goodall, she let a brief expression of scorn cross her face before the indifference once again slammed down over her eyes.

Not letting go of my hand, she let me gently raise her to her feet, and followed me into the kitchen again. The three of us sat again, drank our coffee, and sat in companionable silence for a few moments. Then I looked at Goodall.

XI "I don't know why you are really here, and I don't much care. With that burglar out again, I am grateful for your presence. I am not much of a fighter, and I doubt, despite her boasting, that Jane could manage to keep him at bay if he really wanted to do some damage. So. There are a couple of things you need to know while you're here. Cat here is silent. She doesn't speak, and although she seems to be fairly comfortable with English, she hasn't made a sound in all the time she's been here. Under any circumstances. She seems to be terrified of men, and I have pledged that while she is here she will not be frightened or harmed.

"And Jane is as much a resident of this place as I or Cat are. Regardless of the fact that she has her own place, she will be treated at all times with courtesy and tact. I have already stated that I am not a violent man, but if these conditions are breached by either you or the goon in the front room, I shall do everything I can to make your lives a misery."

Goodall, grinning, sat there for a moment, then, "Sir, I am not one of the old-time cops, with my brains in my fists. Both your conditions will be met, and with pleasure. I can do and learn a lot more by being congenial. than argumentative." hI was a little amused at the sudden change from Country Boy to Cop. He looked Cat squarely in the eye, matching her indifference with a smile, genuine this time, and said to her, "Miss, I am not here to make you uncomfortable. I am here to get some information, to make sure that you are safe in your home, and to the extent that I am able, to stop a bad guy from getting in here."

He then walked out to the living room. I extracted my hand from Cat's, wiped my forehead, and asked her if she was Ok, did she want or need anything. Usually, I can interpret whatever Cat wishes me to know, but this time whatever she was indicating was a mystery. Whatever it was it dealt with fear, uncertainty and something else, equally not good. We sat, fairly nervous both, for what seemed like forever. Cat continued to hang onto the first three fingers of my left hand as though it were a life preserver. And seeing her reaction to the big cop, I could appreciate that she felt as though she were drowning. Whatever else, she was thoroughly miserable, and having taken her in and gotten used to her presence, her misery made me uncomfortable.

Goodall came back in and asked Cat if it would be OK to ask questions. She squeezed my hand again, and nodded once. He told her that he needed to know a couple of things before Jane came back, and that he would take no response as her unwillingness to answer. She nodded again. The same curt nod that she had evinced the few times she had shown any response at all. Whatever this poor woman had been through, she was more willing than ever before to try to communicate with someone, but it was obvious that she felt it a hard task.

"I guess the first thing I need to know is do you understand English? Well enough to be able to communicate in it if you were able to talk?"

She smiled at that but there was some hesitation in her nod. Then she raised her other hand, (not the one trying desperately to fuse all my fingers into one), and waggled it to and fro, indicating a 'maybe'.

"English is not your mother tongue?"

A definite no.

"You're from the Winnipeg area. Is your first language French or Ukrainian?"

Nothing. It took him a moment.

"Sorry. Is your first language Ukrainian?"

No.

"French?"

A tentative nod. 

"errr, Does that mean that French is your mother tongue, but not the patois of Manitoba?"

Another nod, accompanied this time with an ironic smile. Well at least I knew something about this woman's origins. Of course, there were a couple of thousand questions bouncing around the interior of my head, but it was important to me that she continue to trust me, and really it wasn't at all necessary that I satisfy what was after all, mere prurient curiosity.

"Would you prefer me to ask questions in English?" a nod. "Or fracture French so badly that I will be sure that you have confessed to the formation of a Neo-Nazi Bund?" A grin from him and a tiny shake of the head accompanied by a tinier smile from her.

"Jane has told me some of your story, and I am sure there is more. I know that you will not speak, some form of Selective Mutism, as I understand it, but do you understand how important it is that I have as much information as possible in order to help and protect you guys?"

Nothing, that question was met with her customary indifference. Maybe a touch defiant, it was hard to tell.

"Can you type?"

A tentative nod this time. 

"Ok. It is probably becoming real important that we get to know part of your story. The part that deals with these people looking for you." Again that look and tension of fear. My hand was never going to work again. "No, Miss, I don't care what it is, but I think that to defend you properly, we will need to know a few simple things that can't be answered with "Yes/No" type answers in the time we probably have. Could you operate the computer?"

No. 

"Could you type the answers to some questions on the computer if I asked them and had him set it up so that all you had to do was type the answers?"

A definite no, now. 

She wasn't going to answer anything about her past. Well, that was that, and to tell the truth, I was a little relieved. There is something intriguing about a woman whose whole being is wrapped in mystery; and regardless of the answers, I would have been somewhat less enamoured of my housecat.

Goodall looked a little consternated, then said, "Well, we're gonna have to do this the hard way." Looking directly at me, he asked several questions about the various break-ins, and when I protested that Jane was far better able to answer, he smiled sleepily, and said that he wanted my slant on things. I answered for what seemed to be an hour, but was more likely only a quarter of that time. Then he got to Jane's story about her activities in Winnipeg. Here I balked completely. Jane was the only one who could answer those questions, and anything I said would be conjecture.

"Yes, sir, I understand that. But you got a girl here, who seems to be seriously involved with a man the Winnipeg police tell me is a real bad man, and who won't answer any questions about him, or her involvement. I need to know what Janie has told you, so that I can decide what you need to know, and more important, what questions to ask – you call her Cat? – Cat here."

Cat showed no reaction on her face, but my hand was beginning to ache from the increasing pressure. I told Goodall to just ask his questions, and get whatever he needed quickly, as I had things to do and so did everyone else. I also stated firmly once again that I didn't need to know any of this, and that the questioning would stop the moment that Cat got uncomfortable. He nodded, soberly, then turned to Cat,

"Is your name Marie Solange DuChamps?"

Cat showed no response whatsoever.

"Won't answer that one, eh? Well never mind. Does the name Marc Jean Gerard mean anything to you?"

A quiet nod, but this time the head remained lowered. She was staring at the table for the next question,

"Is that the man you were living with?"

A tiny nod.

"Well, honey, I got some bad news. He was found in a silo just outside of Brandon. All I can tell you is that he was probably killed quickly, a bullet in the back of his head. I'm sorry."

Cat didn't show a lot of reaction to that, but her hand squeezed mine once more, then dropped into her lap, where she began to squeeze her other hand with as much pressure as she had so recently been squeezing memine.

Goodall gave her a moment, and then asked if she knew why Delgado was looking for her. She looked up at that point, and nodded. He then asked if she knew where the package was. She didn't offer anything, so Hhe asked her if the package was in this city. A tiny movement in her eyes gave us both the answer.

"I guess I had better know a little bit more about all this, " I said to Goodall, " Like what is this "package" and why is it so important to Delgado?"

From what I have been able to determine since, Goodall was more than a simple detective-inspector. Looking back, and having gotten to know him a little better, it was ridiculous that he would be investigating a burglary. Even at the time I think I had the impression that he was a more powerful cop than one usually meets.

I don't think he would have told us anything at all, were it not for Cat's unwillingness to speak, her total refusal to be in the same room as a cop without me, or Goodall's willingness to go beyond the bounds of his training to get the answers he wanted. As it was, I noted that as he was telling us as much as he was willing for us to know, that he kept a sharp eye on Cat, and was noting her infinitesimal facial reactions. 

Delgado, it seems was a medium-sized link in an international operation whose primary item of trade was cocaine. As a cover for this activity in the Winnipeg area, among other things, he had a legitimate Escort Service, operating out of the downtown core, and offering it's services to up-scale hotels and businesses there. Another was a Casino. The Gerard man, mentioned earlier, had been first a casino client, then something a little more shadowy in the lower echelons of the organization. Apparently, he was a man who didn't know when to leave the table, and Delgado soon had his hooks into him. When Gerard couldn't, or wouldn't pay off his debt in a suitable time frame, Delgado had him severely beaten. When he once again was unable to satisfy Delgado's demands, he offered to sell his wife to Delgado in exchange for having the debt wiped out. So the wife, Helene, went to work in Delgado's Escort service: - for a while. One night, a client beat her to death, and Delgado told Gerard that the wife hadn't worked off the debt, so Gerard was once again liable for the whole sum.

Gerard, not being willing or able to pay, (Goodall wasn't at all sure about whether or not Gerard was able and merely unwilling) he offered Delgado the wife's sister. Cat. She was taken into the escort service, and put to work. Delgado had a reputation as a vicious man when crossed, but Cat was unwilling to simply fall into the life of a prostitute, no matter the wealth of the clients, and it took several beatings before she became tractable.

Delgado was in the habit of sending cash in sizable quantities out of the country using a variety of methods, but most often by a trusted courier. Gerard eventually became one of these couriers. While Goodall didn't say specifically, I got the impression that Gerard had made only a few trips to foreign parts, when greed got the better of him. Instead of going to his destination, he took the bundle of cash to a friend's house in the Winnipeg area, and then disappeared. 

This put Delgado in a very precarious position with his bosses. They were as poor at tolerating errors in his actions as he was in those of his employees. Delgado got mean.

Delgado, sure that Cat knew everything about this, started to pressure her to tell him where the package of money was and where Gerard had gone. When she hadn't the right answers, he started to put her with clients whose taste ran to the violent and bizarre. Eventually, word reached Delgado that Cat had been in contact with Gerard, and Delgado lost no time in questioning her. 

The Winnipeg police, well aware of Delgado's habits, placed a guard on her hospital room for the next few weeks, while she healed from the questioning, so Delgado couldn't get to her. She had been tortured so badly that it took more than a week before the Winnipeg cops could even question her. At that point, Cat had become silent;, to ask her anything, was to get a look of indifference as her answer.

Eighteen days after she was admitted to the hospital, she disappeared. Delgado was apparently beside himself. The friend of Gerard in whose hands he had reportedly left the money, died when his house exploded. Several of the city's prostitutes and call girls were found in a variety of noisome venues, dead or dying from torture. And so it remained for nearly a year, until Jane called the Escort Service. 

XII It took Goodall more than an hour to tell us this, and then he once again asked Cat where the package was. Cat wouldn't answer, of course, and I was confused a little about a cop looking more for a package of cash than a real baddy like Delgado, and I said so.

He grinned that sleepy grin and replied, "As you've probably guessed, I am a little more than a regular city cop. In fact I am with CSIS." I must have looked a little more confused, "Oh! I am indeed a Detective Inspector, but mine is a national beat, more to the point I am in the Sensitive Cases Department. What that is precisely you don't want to know, but it means that I am a trained cop, doctor of Psychology and Sociology, and am primarily responsible for either getting information from people who don't know they have it, or talking someone out of doing something stupid, after they already have done something stupid."

"Like Hostage Negotiation?" I asked, even more baffled at the presence of someone this big in my apartment on a simple burglary.

"Yeah. If I happen to be in an area where my expertise is better than the local guys. Happens occasionally. More often I am called to try to get something from someone who is unaware that they have it, or are reluctant to give it up. In this case, your Cat has a package with a great deal of money in it." He looked at cat intensely, "Cat, you don't know or trust me, but you think you could believe me if I told you something?"

Cat seemed to ponder that for a moment, thenand then gave a tentative nod.

"OK!", he sighed a little, "Well we're not really interested in the money, and I guess it's yours now. Did you look inside the bag?"

Cat looked indifferent, but the tiny narrowing of her eyes seemed to scream assent.

"And did you see a diskette for a computer in there with the money" He didn't wait for what would be another silent stonewalling for an answer, "Gerard was in Ottawa just before he disappeared, and he managed to get hold of that diskette. Doesn't matter how or what's on it, that is what we are so desperate to get our hands on. Believe me, Cat, when I say the money is yours. We can put Delgado away for life if we can recover that diskette."

Cat seemed to be made of stone. The sheShe slowly took the hand that had been so recently gripping mine like a lifeline, and bringing it above the table, held up three fingers.

Goodall looked a little surprised, the first time that morning I realised, that he had shown a real reaction to anything we said. "You mean there were three diskettes in there, Honey?"

"Hooboy! Someone is gonna get his nose tweaked. Listen Cat, would you be willing to lead us to that bag? Today?"

Cat gave another of those sharp shakes of her head, and reaching out, once again grabbed my fingers, cutting off any hope I might have held for a return of circulation.

XIII Just then he got a telephone call on his cell-phone. Delgado had been found. And captured. Goodall left with Burt, after asking me very politely if I would stick around until he could get back. Jane came into the kitchen, and grabbing a coffee, sat with us in silence for a few moments. It had been a morning of shocks and coming on top of the previous day's activities and revelations, none of us was in the mood for light banter or conversation. For the first time I thought Cat's way of dealing with her world had a great deal to offer.

I looked at her in a new light. We had something starting which seemed to be a good thing, and I knew I wanted it to become something even better. I knew before she had slipped into my bed that she was a strong woman with definite ideas about life, but these revelations from Goodall had left me a little in awe of her. I looked over and could see that she was troubled about something.

After a while Jane reached out and grasping my free hand, said, "You know I value our friendship, but Burt was telling me that George, (her most recent ex-boyfriend), needed to talk to me. It seems that he is willing to give it another try."

I must have shown something of my sense of loss at this statement, for she laughed a little in an embarrassed way, "Well, it's not as if we were lovers or anything like that. I mean we only made love when I was drunk, and that doesn't count! I want to be your friend, maybe a lot more than just a friend."