“I thought I heard the seat fall down in the bathroom.”
“My fault. I left it up.” When Renny strove to impress, he could be the most courteous, thoughtful man on earth. Then, as he procured what he wanted, he let the courtesies slide. Like tonight: He’d left the seat up on purpose, a territorial assertion he knew she’d notice, yet tolerate. The brilliant trick of Renny’s life was that he made sure people always noticed him when he was being a swell guy, so there was less risk of him being singled out when he was being a turd of ethics. Voila—he was known far and wide for being fair, wise and trusty. No way he’d ever sleep with another man’s partner, or murder someone, or even think of doing the deed.
Even to someone already dead.
Renny could take blame artfully, too—whamming it back the way a tennis pro returns a smartass serve. Like the toilet seat thing.
“I admit I left the seat up, babe. Your house, your rules. But that fuzzy cover on the tank makes it fall down again, and—”
“Shh!”
He smoked in silence, having scored his point. Barb took the cigarette from between his lips, stole two quick puffs, and replaced it as though afraid of being caught tampering with the evidence at a murder scene.
Renny gave up and went to use the bathroom. He left the seat up.
“Barb, there’s water all over the bathroom floor. I think maybe your pipes are backing up. Roots, maybe.”
“Oh, no! Is it all—you know, messy?”
“Just water. Like a big splash, all over.”
“Renny!”
That brought him back quick enough. What a man.
As he skidded in barefoot, he caught Barb shrinking and pointing. Something had just moved near the juncture of wall and ceiling above her cosmetic table. Renny squinted. The something was low-slung, slid along lizard-fashion, and was now watching them both coldly from seven feet up.
“What the hell is it?” said Renny. “A rat?”
“You ever see a white rat with no hair, with eyes that big? Jeeezus, Renny!” Barb could see pretty well in the dark after all. “Where’s the bat?”
Renny almost chuckled. “I’ll get the damned thing. Whatever it is.”
She stopped him, open palm to naked chest. “No you won’t, either, Renny. Now, I’ve been doin some thinking, and you’re a nice guy and a good man and a good male protector and all that, and I haven’t been holding up my end on this deal, and like you said, this is my house…so let me do this. It’s my turn.”
When Barb let loose with stuff like that it stopped Renny deaf and dumb; how could he even consider dumping a woman this good?
She watched his cigarette glow near the bathroom door. “You just stay right there and hit the overhead lights when I tell you, okay?”
“Yes’m.”
“Go!”
The hundred-watter Barb kept in the ceiling fixture blinded them. The thing on the wall recoiled and dropped behind the mirror. Renny and Barb heard it hit the floor and scrabble into the shadows.
“See it?”
“I see it,” Barb lied. She shielded her eyes and groped around until she found the bat.
“I don’t see it.”
Renny could see the tail of Barb’s cat, poking from beneath the dresser. It was a miserable calico Renny felt was responsible for every one of his sneezes since he and Barb had linked up. When it wasn’t skulking around the kitchen trying to eat everything in sight, it was shedding pounds of hair and clawing the furniture to ribbons. It had some kind of inane cat name Renny could not retain. It didn’t listen when Barb told it no. It never had.
It had probably knocked the toilet seat over, numb little fart.
The tail twitched in that spastic way that announced the cat was revving up for the old chase-and-disembowel routine. Barb told the cat no, loudly. It didn’t listen.
She tried to block it with her foot, but the cat executed a tight dodge and zipped under the dresser, way ahead of her. There followed an un-seen, brief and violent encounter that sounded pretty awful, though neither Barb nor Renny could see any of it.
The cat’s tail whapped Barb in the chest. The cat was no longer connected to it. Tufts of calico fur followed, held together mostly by blood.
Barb began making cave-person noises and wedged herself into the combat zone, dealing short, blind strokes with the bat. The bureau be-gan to scoot with each hit, bunching the area rug.
The intruder darted out from the far side. It looked like a hand.
“Barb, it’s a hand.”
“What!” Barb backed off, frantic and hollow-eyed. “What! What! A hand? I don’t care! It hurt my cat!”
“Barb, it ran under the bed.” Renny stepped back from the edge, just in case Barb started swinging again.
Hot for combat, Barb spun. “It hurt Rumplecatskin!” The kill light was in her eyes.