Leslie lay beside Deirdre as she slept, his chest tight with longing. His body was corrupted by need for the girl. There was no pure bit left in him, clean of her. He imagined an automobile turned over. She was in it, unconscious, blood on her face. No: screaming, awake, pleading with him. He held the Jaws of Life in his hand, a great pair of scissors to open the car like a can. And she, inside, soft and vulnerable as her carapace was removed, reached her trembling arms out to him. The charge of the scene was overwhelming to him. He stood, ruffling his hair and passing his hand over his face. He looked down at Deirdre sleeping. She seemed inanimate, alien. He had no way to reach her. He walked to the window. The moon was full, fading against the tender blue dawn sky. Down on the lawn the orange cat, the interloper, was stretching himself. The two Senzatimore cats stalked around him in a peculiar servile fashion, tails up. Two more felines emerged from the shadows. Several were skulking down the street. Leslie’s lawn was filling up with cats. He stood and watched, incredulous. It was eerie. They all seemed to be swirling around the orange cat. Some were yowling. A fight broke out somewhere. He worried for his own cats. He should go out there and break this up.
He hurried downstairs in his slippers, pulling on his robe over his T-shirt and pajama bottoms. He walked into the teeming yard, looking for his pets. “Trix! Patty!” It was impossible to tell them apart from the other animals in this half-light. The cats moved with savage delicacy from one point to another with no apparent cause. Why were they here? Leslie tried to shoo them away, kicking out with his feet, clapping his hands. The cats would skitter away a few feet, then close in again. Leslie walked to the center of his lawn and looked around him. Cats were sniffing, mewling, stretching, yawning. Unsettled, he waded through the furry tangle of them and onto the sidewalk. He felt repelled from the house. Turning, he walked off in his pajamas and robe, meandering down a few streets in his slippers, until he found himself in front of Dennis Doyle’s house. Dennis’s squad car was parked in the garage. The kitchen light was on behind the shades. A paunchy silhouette crossed the plate-glass window. Dennis. Leslie walked up and knocked on the door. The birds were singing now. He could hear footsteps, shuffling. Dennis was arming himself, no doubt.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Leslie.”
Dennis opened the door. He was fully dressed in his tight uniform, gun in holster. “What’s up?” he asked, ready for an emergency.
“I have about sixty cats in my yard,” said Leslie.
“Come again?”
“I couldn’t sleep and I got up and looked out the window and there were all these cats,” said Leslie. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Nothing, I just thought you might want to see it.”
“I’m okay,” said Dennis, eyeing Leslie’s pajamas. “You want to come in and have a cup of coffee? I don’t have to leave for a few minutes.”
“Sure,” said Leslie. Dennis’s kitchen was done up in aqua, one of Marcie’s recent whims. Leslie sat at the gleaming table, his long legs splayed out.
“Why do you think that would happen—a convocation of cats like that?”
“No idea,” said Dennis. “Animals are weird. They get signals …” There was a pause. “I’ll take a look on my way out in the car,” he said.
“It’s a strange sight,” said Leslie.
“Everything okay?” asked Dennis. Leslie took a sip of coffee and grimaced.
“What?” asked Dennis.
“It’s like water.”
“That’s how I like it.”
Leslie put the cup down. “You come over to my house, I’ll make you a real cup of coffee.”
“Invite me, I’ll come over,” Dennis said.
“I am inviting you.”
“What—now? I have to go to work.”
“When do you start?” Leslie asked.
“Five-thirty.”
“I should leave you to it, then.”
“How’s Deirdre?” Dennis asked, a little too quickly. Dennis admired Deirdre. Always had.
“She’s all right. It’s hard with Stevie sometimes, but she’s fine. Life continues.” There was a silence between them. Leslie heard a car whoosh by. “How is it, with no kids?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Dennis asked.
“I just wonder what it’s like. As a couple.”
“To be honest, for the marriage, I think it’s good. Kids seem to get in the way of that. But … I think Marcie’s sad about it sometimes. I hear you’re working over at Ross Coe’s.”
“Yup. He has a Chris-Craft I’m refurbishing. Wants me to do it all there.”
“I was called to his house a couple of times over the years, when I was stationed out in the Hamptons,” said Dennis. “False alarms.”
“It’s a big paycheck,” said Leslie.
“I can imagine.”
Leslie stood up reluctantly. He didn’t want to leave. Why did he feel the need to be near Dennis, of all people, when he found him so irritating?
Dennis was the last of the kids who had been playing in the cul-de-sac, the day Leslie’s father died. Chuck Tolan was dead; the others had moved away. Dennis was the final witness. He and his parents had come by the house when they heard the news; Leslie could still see chubby, freckled little Dennis’s embarrassed expression as he hovered near the doorway. To have your old man die was a tragedy; to have him hang himself was humiliating. Leslie resented Dennis for having been there. Yet it made him feel close to him, too, this shared horrible thing. Neither of them had ever mentioned it.
Back at the house, the cats were gone. Leslie called his own animals, but they were nowhere to be seen. It was as if the whole thing had never happened. When he returned to the bedroom, Stevie was sleeping in the center of the bed beside Deirdre, his skinny arms flung wide. Leslie gingerly climbed under the covers and gathered the boy to him, cuddling him, kissing his warm, soft cheek. Stevie snuggled in, resting one small hand on Leslie’s shoulder. Without warning, Leslie’s chest quickened, tears sprang to his eyes. He buried his face in Stevie’s birdlike chest and sobbed. The boy stirred, but he didn’t wake.
Deirdre heard her husband crying. She put her hand on his shoulder, but he huddled in toward Stevie. Sliding her hand down his arm, she lay still, her eyes on the ceiling. Something bad was happening to him. She didn’t think it was just the girl.
An hour later, Stevie woke. Deirdre took him downstairs, then to school. When she came back home, Leslie was still in bed. His eyes were open. I was replaying the fire rescue of Masha over and over in his mind. And words too, injected into his brain with the needle precision of a mosquito: Get up. Go to her house. Tape open the door. Needs to happen soon. In and out in fifteen minutes. Rescue her.
“You want some coffee?” Deirdre asked him. He shook his head, but his eyes stared out the window, vacant. She sat down on the bed.
“What I said about you last night. It’s not what I think. You know that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. When she left the room, Leslie rose. He walked over to Deirdre’s purse and peered inside. A packet of Marlboro Golds were nestled amongst the debris of everyday life. He opened the pack and drew out one clean white cylinder.
Late that morning, Leslie drove to Masha’s Victorian wearing his navy fire department casual jacket and matching trousers. He knew her schedule: she was at the Coes’ at the moment, ironing out her accent with Doris van Hoff. Striding up to the front door, a clipboard cradled in his massive arm, he knocked on the door. A worker, a short young fellow with a scraggly blond beard, opened the door and let him into the basement without question. The respect in the man’s eyes shamed Leslie, but he stayed his course. He felt he had been supplanted by something else, a story spooling out of him. It was almost a relief to give in to it.
The basement was neater than he had imagined, swept clean and bare but for the washer and dryer set against the back wall, and two wicker laundry baskets tucked under a long table. Leslie walked over to the dryer, shimmied it away from the wall a few inches, and checked the gas feed pipe. He leaned down, took a small wrench from his jacket pocket, and loosened the lead to the dryer. Then he tightened it back up. He pushed the dryer back in place, walked over to the door leading to the outside. He took a roll of silver duct tape from his pocket, ripped a piece off with his teeth, and taped the door strike open. Then he walked back up the stairs into the front hall of the house. He could hear the workers in the living room.
“Thanks,” he called out to them.
That night, Leslie was on duty. He slept in the den, like always, in case his pager went off. Nothing strange about that. He stretched out on the couch and stared through the window. He told himself if he slept through the night, he would forget the whole thing.