But he had interrupted my pleasantly nasty chain of thought. What the devil could I do about Pete?
You can’t give away a cat the way you can a dog; they won’t stand for it. Sometimes they go with the house, but not in Pete’s case; to him I had been the one stable thing in a changing world ever since he was taken from his mother nine years earlier. . . I had even managed to keep him near me in the Army and that takes real wangling.
He was in good health and likely to stay that way even though he was held together with scar tissue. If he could just correct a tendency to lead with his right he would be winning battles and siring kittens for another five years at least.
I could pay to have him kept in a kennel until he died (unthinkable!) or I could have him chloroformed (equally unthinkable)-or I could abandon him. That is what it boils down to with a cat: you either carry out the Chinese obligation you have assumed-or you abandon the poor thing, let him go wild, destroy its faith in the eternal rightness.
The way Belle had destroyed mine.
So, Danny Boy, you might as well forget it. Your own life may have gone as sour as dill pickles; that did not excuse you in the slightest from your obligation to carry out your contract to this super-spoiled cat.
Just as I reached that philosophical truth Pete sneezed; the bubbles had gone up his nose. “Gesundheit,” I answered, “and quit trying to drink it so fast.”
Pete ignored me. His table manners averaged better than mine and he knew it. Our waiter had been hanging around the cash register, talking with the cashier. It was the after-lunch slump and the only other customers were at the bar. The waiter looked up when I said “Gesundheit,” and spoke to the cashier. They both looked our way, then the cashier lifted the flap gate in the bar and headed toward us.
I said quietly, “MPs, Pete.”
He glanced around and ducked down into the bag; I pushed the top together. The cashier came over and leaned on my table, giving the seats on both sides of the booth a quick double-O. “Sony, friend,” he said flatly, “but you’ll have to get that cat out of here.”
“What cat?”
“The one you were feeding out of that saucer.”
“I don’t see any cat.”
This time he bent down and looked under the table. “You’ve got him in that bag,” he accused.
“Bag? Cat?” I said wonderingly. “My friend, I think you’ve come down with an acute figure of speech.”
“Huh? Don’t give me any fancy language. You’ve got a cat in that bag. Open it up.”
“Do you have a search warrant?”
“What? Don’t be silly.”
“You’re the one talking silly, demanding to see the inside of my bag without a search warrant. Fourth Amendment-and the war has been over for years. Now that we’ve settled that, please tell my waiter to make it the same all around-or fetch it yourself.”
He looked pained. “Brother, this isn’t anything personal, but I’ve got a license to consider. `No dogs, no cats-it says so right up there on the wall. We aim to run a sanitary establishment.”
“Then your aim is poor.” I picked up my glass. “See the lipstick marks? You ought to be checking your dishwasher, not searching your customers.”
“I don’t see no lipstick.”
“I wiped most of it off. But let’s take it down to the Board of Health and get the bacteria count checked.”
He sighed. “You got a badge?”
“No.”
“Then we’re even. I don’t search your bag and you don’t take me down to the Board of Health. Now if you want another drink, step up to the bar and have it. . . on the house. But not here.” He turned and headed up front.
I shrugged. “We were just leaving anyhow.”
As I started to pass the cashier’s desk on my way out he looked up. “No hard feelings?”
“Nope. But I was planning to bring my horse in here for a drink later. Now I won’t.”