Don’t Let Me Go(48)

“Wait!” he shouted, pulling himself to his feet, against odds. “Maybe Mrs. Hinman would take the cat. You know. Just for tonight.”

Rayleen stood still in the hallway for a time, looking disoriented. As if she couldn’t pull her head around to such trivial considerations.

“I guess I could ask her,” she said, finally.

Billy sighed with relief.

More fingernails, barely grown out to the quick line as it stood, fell victim.

Rayleen came back downstairs not two minutes later. A long two minutes all the same.

“Sorry, no,” she said. “Mrs. Hinman hates cats.”

“So do I!” he wailed, much more pathetically than intended.

“Well. If Mrs. Hinman had the cat right now and wanted you to take him, you might win with that argument. But you have him. So it’s that possession thing. You know. Possession being…I forget. Most of the law.”

“Nine-tenths,” Billy said, miserably. “Tell me as soon as you hear from Felipe.”

“I will.”

“I still need that litter box. And food.”

“Oh, yeah,” Rayleen said. “I think Felipe has them. I’ll look into that.”

Billy closed and locked the door, then looked at Mr. Lafferty the Cat, who was still staring at him.

“Stop staring at me,” he said. “I’m not that fascinating.”

Predictably, the cat continued to stare.

“This is all your fault,” he said.

Mr. Lafferty the Cat flicked his ears back briefly, but didn’t do much more.

? ? ?

Felipe fed him a progress report through the door about half an hour later.

“The Lafferty guy doesn’t have her,” Felipe said. “I really think he’s OK. She must be with her mom…I hope.”

“Thank you,” Billy called through the door. “I still need the litter box and the cat food.”

“Oh, yeah. I gave them to Rayleen. I’ll tell her.”

“Thank you,” he called again.

Then he began to cry uncontrollably.

Mr. Lafferty the Cat came closer to investigate his tears, but Billy shooed him away with a startling sound, and the cat ran and hid under the couch.

? ? ?

It was nearly halfway through the movie Moonstruck, on late-night TV, when Billy heard the series of taps. He picked up the remote, stinging his bloodied and swollen fingertips, and muted the sound. He leaned over the couch and listened carefully.

One, two, three…pause…four.

But it wasn’t Rayleen knocking on Billy’s door. It wasn’t anyone knocking on Billy’s door. This was someone knocking on Billy’s floor. From underneath. From the basement apartment.

He released an enormous sound, somewhere between a breath and a shout, and Mr. Lafferty the Cat, who had been sleeping on Billy’s stuffed chair, ran and hid under the couch again.

Billy held still and listened. And he heard it again. One, two, three…pause…four.

He ran to his front door and undid the locks with sore and shaky fingers. Throwing the door open wide, he ran across the hall, planning to knock on Rayleen’s door. Instead he ran into Rayleen, literally, in the middle of the hall between their apartments.

“Did you hear that?” he shouted, radiating joy and relief.

“I did!”

“She’s downstairs.”

“She must have waited till her mom fell asleep. To signal us.”

“Smart girl,” Billy said.

“Such a smart girl!” Rayleen crowed. “I’ll tell Felipe.”

“Maybe I can even get some sleep now.”

Much to Billy’s surprise, she threw her arms around him. And they held each other. For a remarkably long time.

“Careful, don’t let the cat out,” Rayleen said as she let go.

“Oh. Right.”

“By the way…Billy…you do know you’re out in the hall, right?”

“Oops,” he said, and scrambled back inside.

? ? ?

In the night, Billy felt the presence of someone or something in the bedroom with him. He opened his eyes, and found himself staring right into the face of Mr. Lafferty the Cat, whose gold eyes gleamed in the glow from the kitchen night light.

He screamed.

The cat ran and hid under the bed.

“Shit,” Billy said.

He understood now that the proper move would have been to have closed his bedroom door with the cat still on the living room chair or couch. And it’s not that he hadn’t thought of it. More that he hadn’t been sure about sleeping without the usual glow of light. And he hadn’t anticipated quite such a rude awakening.

He turned on his bedside light and lay awake for several hours, feeling an exhaustion of emotion, in his gut, at a level that could only be described as pain.

In time, without meaning to, he fell back asleep.

When he woke, it was due to a strange, muffled sound in his right ear. A kind of vibration and noise, but also the feeling that something was blocking his hearing on that side.

It was light. He was sleeping on his back, which he never did. He always curled up on his side, in a fetal position, in preparation for sleep. But this had been a sleep for which he’d been unprepared.

When he tried to turn his head, only then did he understand that Mr. Lafferty the Cat was curled against the right side of his face, purring vigorously.