Read Online Cat in the Dark by Shirley Rousseau Murphy - Free Book Online

snapped, swinging the saucepan. “You learn some manners or you’ll be snarling at the dogcatcher.” He stood glaring until Azrael backed away switching his tail, his head high, and turned and swaggered off up the alley—until the formidable Death Angel vanished into the night.
    Joe and Dulcie did not see Azrael again until some hours later as they prowled the rooftops. Pale clouds had gathered across the moon, and there was no sound; the bats had gone to roost or perch or whatever bats did hanging upside down in their pokey little niches beneath the eaves. Who knew why bats would hunt one night and not the next? Presumably, Joe thought, it had to do with how bright the sky was—yet why would bats care, when they hunted by radar? On the roofs around them, the shadows were marbled by moonlight. Above them they heard a barn owl call, sending shivers. Even Joe Grey respected the claws and beak of the barn owl.
    When the clouds parted and the full moon brightened the rooftops, across the moon’s face the owl came winging. He swooped low and silent. The cats crouched to run. Screaming a booming cry, he dove, heading for the shadows beyond them.
    They heard the boom of his wings beating against the roof, and heard screaming—the owl’s scream and a cat’s scream, then the frantic flurrying of feathers, the thud of bodies…
    The owl exploded into the sky and was gone.
    And in the moon’s gleam the black cat sauntered out swaggering and spitting feathers.
    Unaware of them, he slipped along seeming none the worse for his encounter. Pausing as before at each window and skylight, looking in, he lingered at a thin dormer window. He reared suddenly, clawing at the frame.
    A wrenching creak slashed the night as the casement banged open.
    Below on the street the cats heard footsteps, and when they fled over the roofs to look, they saw Azrael’s human partner pacing, peering impatiently in through aglass door below a liquor store sign, his gray hair tangled around the collar of his wrinkled leather jacket, his boots, when he fidgeted, chuffing softly on the concrete.
    The instant the door opened from inside, the old man slipped in. The cats, dropping down onto the hanging sign then to the sidewalk, crouched beneath a car where they could see through the plate glass.
    Within, a faint, swinging light shone as the old man shielded his flashlight behind his hand, directing its beam along rows of bottles where Azrael paced, his tail lashing against the rich labels.
    At the cash register, the old man bent over the lock and inserted a metal pick, his thin face lined and intent.
    Within minutes he had the drawer open and was snatching out stacks of bills. Cleaning out the shallow tray, he lifted it, spilling loose change onto the floor as he grabbed at the larger bills that lay beneath; the night was so still they heard every coin drop.
    â€œWhy do shopkeepers do that?” Dulcie whispered. “Why do they leave money in the register?”
    â€œBecause the village has never had that much trouble. Don’t you wonder if this old boy knew that—if he knew what an easy mark Molena Point is? Yet he has to be a stranger—I’d remember that old man.”
    They watched him stuff wads of bills into his pockets while, behind him, Azrael wound back and forth along the liquor shelf smiling and rubbing against the bottles.
    â€œCut the purring!” the old man snapped. “You sound like a spavined outboard. And don’t leave cat hair stuck to everything.”
    â€œI never leave cat hair. Have you ever seen me shed?”
    â€œOf course you shed. Everything I own is covered with black fur.”
    Azrael leaned from the shelf, peering over his partner’s shoulder. “Get those tens—they can’t trace tens so easy.”
    â€œWho’s going to trace anything? No one marks their money in this burg. You’re talking like some big-assed bank