“But you saw the cat. Animal welfare is your department,” Audrey said. I wondered why she didn’t come over, but she stood by where the cars were parked. I wanted her to play with us!
“This is costing me money while everyone stands around! I expect the police to do their job and get these people the hell out of here!” the man with the smoky meat smell said angrily.
Police—people who wore dark clothes and had objects on their hips were police. Both of them stiffened. “Sir,” the woman said to Lucas, “would you please take your dog and move to the sidewalk?”
“Not if he is going to pull a house down on top of a bunch of helpless cats,” Lucas responded stubbornly.
“Jesus Christ!” the smoky-meat man shouted.
The man and the woman in dark clothes looked at each other. “Lucas. If I have to ask you again I’m going to cuff you and put you in the back of our unit,” the woman police said.
Lucas stood quietly for a moment, and then he and I went over so that Audrey could pet me. I was so happy to see her! And I was glad, too, that smoky-meat man and the police followed so we could all be together.
Smoky-meat man took a deep breath. “There were a couple dozen cats here, but not anymore. The cat we just saw could have been in there checking things out—it doesn’t mean it lives there.”
“I see her every day,” Lucas told them. A piece of paper fluttered past in the wind and I strained to get at it, but the leash held me back. “She does so live there. A couple others, too.”
“About all those cats. What shelter did you take them to? I can’t find them in the system anywhere,” Audrey asked pointedly.
“Okay, first, this guy Lucas has been cutting my fence, officers. He’s been feeding the cats! And second, she’s right, we brought in an outside company to humanely trap them. I don’t know what they did with them. Probably found them all good homes.”
“So he’s been feeding the cats that you say aren’t here anymore.” The woman in dark clothing nodded.
Everyone stood quietly for a moment. I yawned.
“Hey, Gunter!” one of the dusty men called. “I got Mandy on the phone. She says it’s about your permit.”
*
Eventually most of the people left. Audrey knelt and played with me in the sparse grass while her friend put the thing with the light back in her car.
“That was genius, showing up with a news camera,” Lucas said.
Audrey laughed. “That was a complete accident. I was driving my brother around shooting B roll. He’s in film school at CU Boulder. When your mom called we came right over and we thought it would be a great idea to make it look like Fox 31 or something.” She picked me up and kissed my nose and I licked her. “You are such a sweetie.” She put me back down.
“Her name is Bella.”
I looked up at Lucas at the sound of my name.
“Bella!” Audrey said happily. I put my paws on her knees, trying to climb up to her face. “You are going to be such a big doggie when you grow up!”
“Hey, uh, Audrey?” Lucas made a small coughing sound in his throat, and I glanced up, sensing a rising tension. Audrey smiled up at him. “I was thinking it would be fun if you and I went out. And look, Bella agrees.”
“Oh.” Audrey stood up abruptly. I wandered over to attack Lucas’s shoes. “That’s sweet, Lucas. Actually, though, I just moved in with my boyfriend. It’s pretty serious. We’re serious, I mean.”
“Sure. No, of course.”
“Hey, Audrey! Can we get going? I want to get out to Golden before magic hour,” the man yelled out the car window. Sleepy, I yawned and spread out on the grass, thinking it was a good time for a nap. I closed my eyes and didn’t open them when Lucas picked me up.
*
Later I was playing with Lucas on the soft floor of the big room of the house, what they called the living room. He was pulling a string and I would jump on it and run away with it, but it would slip out of my mouth and, laughing, he would pull it along the floor again until I could pounce. I was so content to be with him, so happy to hear his laughter, that I could have played that game all night.
There was a knock at the door and Lucas became still for a moment, and then went over to it. I followed him. He put his eye to the door while I smelled the scent of a man on the colder air seeping through the bottom crack. It was the man from before, the one who smelled like smoke and meat.
Lucas went rigid. The man knocked again. Finally Lucas opened the door, sweeping me away with his foot as he did so.
“You and me need to talk,” the man said to Lucas.
Four
“Talk about what?” Lucas asked.
“Can I come in, or do you want to stand here in the doorway?”
“You can come in.” Lucas backed away from the door and the man entered, glancing around. Lucas shut the door even though it meant choking off the glorious wave of outdoor odors that had been flooding in.
The man sat down on the couch. “Cute puppy.” He extended his fingers for me to sniff. “He a pit bull?”
“It’s a she. We don’t know. She was living under the house across the street.”
The man went still for a moment and I watched him curiously. Then he sat back. “Yeah, about that. So am I right about you feeding the cat over there?”
“That was me.”
“Okay, so that’s the irony here, don’t you think? I got a problem you caused. You put out bowls of cat food, you get cats. It’s a law of nature. And I’m right about you cutting my fence as well, aren’t I?”
Lucas didn’t reply.
“Look, I came here to talk reason with you. There’s a bigger picture I don’t think you get.”
I was impatient with them just sitting around. I attacked a fuzzy squeaky ball that was lying out on the floor. I couldn’t get my mouth around it, and when I tried it rolled away, so I dove on it, wrestling it into submission. I growled, feeling fierce and triumphant.
“I’m sorry Mr. uh…”
“Just call me Gunter. I’m trying to be friendly here.”
“Okay, Gunter,” Lucas agreed.
The smoky-meat man was Gunter.
“Well, I’m sorry, but no one on your crew cared when I told them there were cats under the house,” Lucas continued. “They were just going to tear the place down, even if it killed innocent animals.”
“Right, and then you called the animal revenge squad and they called the county and now my permit’s suspended. Which means it could be a couple of weeks before it is reinstated. Weeks, hell, they don’t do anything that doesn’t take more than a month—we’re looking at the end of the summer, now, probably longer. So I’m paying interest on my loan and I’m paying my crew and I’ve got equipment and it’s all costing me a ton. All of this for a damn cat. Which you know there’s no law says I can’t shoot the thing if I want.”