Tuesday, November nineteenth. "Warmer today, with highs in the upper twenties. Some chance of snow this afternoon, with blizzard conditions developing Wednesday. Currently our temperature is nineteen."
"That's terrible!" Mrs. Cobb said. "Tomorrow's the auction, and it's way out in the country. They say the hotel's already full of out-of-town dealers. They came for the preview this afternoon."
"Don't worry. If they predict a blizzard, it'll be a nice day," Qwilleran said with the cynicism of a Moose County weather nut. "How will they handle an auction in a house like that? It's nothing but a series of small rooms."
"The actual auction will probably be in the barn. The posters and radio announcements said to dress warm. Foxy Fred is handling it, so everything will be done right. I'm going to the preview this afternoon to pick up a catalogue. What time is Miss Rice coming? The cats are hungry."
At Hixie's suggestion the Siamese had been given only a teaspoonful of food for breakfast — only enough to keep them from chewing ankles. The idea was that Koko should be ravenously hungry for his screen test, and Yum Yum had to suffer with him. They yowled constantly while Qwilleran ate his eggs Benedict. They paced the floor, got underfoot, and screeched when a foot accidentally came down upon a tail.
Koko evidently knew that Hixie was responsible for this outrage. Upon her arrival he greeted her with a button-eyed glare and a switching tail.
"Bonjour, Monsieur Koko," she said. He turned and walked stiff-legged into the laundry room, where he scratched the gravel in his commode.
"Here's my scenario," she explained to Qwilleran. "We start with a shot of the front door, which denotes elegance and wealth at a glance. Then we enter the foyer, and the camera pans from the French furniture to the grand staircase to the crystal chandelier."
"It sounds like prime-time soap opera."
"Next we zoom to the top of the staircase, where Koko is sitting, looking bored."
"Who's going to direct this?" Qwilleran wanted to know.
Hixie ignored the question. "Then the butler announces in a starchy voice that pork liver cupcakes are served. That's voice-over. You can do the voice-over, Qwill. Immediately Koko runs downstairs, flowing in that liquid way he has, and the camera follows him into the dining room."
"Dining room?" Qwilleran muttered doubtfully. The Siamese were accustomed to meals in the kitchen and were reluctant to eat in the wrong location.
Hixie went on with her usual confidence. "Quick shot of the twenty-foot dining table with three-foot silver candelabra and a single elegant porcelain plate. We can use one of the Klingenschoen service plates with the blue border and gold crest and K monogram... Then... cut to Koko devouring the pork liver cupcakes avidly. We may need to do several takes, so be prepared to grab him, Qwill. The trick is to avoid rear-end shots."
"That won't be easy. Cats are fond of mooning."
"Okay, you put him on the top stair."
Koko had been listening with an expression that could be described only as sour. When Qwilleran stooped to pick him up, he slipped from his grasp like a wet bar of soap, streaked down the foyer in a blur of movement, and sprang to the top of the Pennsylvania schrank. From this seven-foot perch he gazed down at his pursuers defiantly. He was sitting dangerously close to a large, rare majolica vase.
"I don't dare climb up and grab him," QwiIleran said. "He's taken a hostage. He probably knows it's worth ten thousand dollars."
"I didn't know he was so temperamental," Hixie said.
"Let's have a cup of coffee in the kitchen and see what happens when we ignore him. Siamese hate to be ignored."
In a few minutes Koko joined them, sauntering into the room with a swaggering show of nonchalance. He sat on his haunches like a kangaroo and innocently licked a small patch of fur on his underside. When this chore was finished he allowed himself to be carried to the top of the staircase.
Hixie directed from below. "Arrange him in a compact bundle on the top step, Qwill, facing the camera."
He lowered the cat gently to the carpeted stair, but Koko stiffened his body. His back humped, his tail curled into a corkscrew, and all four legs looked out-of-joint.
"Try it again," Hixie called up to them. "Tuck his legs under his body."
"You come up and tuck his legs under his body," Qwilleran said, "and I'll go down and take the pictures. Your scenario is good, Hixie, but it won't play."
"Well, bring him down, and we'll do a close-up with the catfood to see how he looks on camera."
Qwilleran lugged Koko into the dining room. By now the cat was a squirming, protesting, nasty, snarling bundle of flying fur.
"Ready, Mrs. Cobb!" Hixie shouted toward the kitchen. The housekeeper, who was standing by as prop-person, trotted from the kitchen carrying a plate heaped with gray pork paste. "Is this going to be in color?" she asked.
Carefully Qwilleran placed Koko in front of the plate — profile to the camera — while Hixie moved in with her telephoto lens. Koko looked down at the gray blob, with his ears and whiskers swept backward in loathing. He picked up one fastidious paw and shook it in distaste. Then he shook the other paw and slowly walked away, switching his tail.
Qwilleran said, "If you ever need a picture of a cat slowly walking away, Koko is your subject."
"It was all new and strange to him," said Hixie, undaunted. "We'll try it another day."
"I'm afraid Koko will always be his own cat. He cares nothing for fame and fortune and media exposure. The word cooperation has never been in his vocabulary. Whenever I try to take a snapshot, he rolls over on his haunches, points one leg to heaven in a pornographic pose, and licks his intimate parts... Let's go and finish our coffee."
Mrs. Cobb had a fresh pot waiting for them, and she served it in the library with it few of her apricot-almond crescents.
"What's new in the restaurant business?" Qwilleran asked Hixie.
"Not much. We've just hired a busboy named Derek Cuttlebrink. I love funny names. In school I knew a Betty Schipps, who married a man named Fisch, and they opened a seafood restaurant. Do you ever browse through the Moose County phone book? It's a panic! Fugtree, Mayfus, Inchpot, Hackpole ..."
"I know Hackpole," said Qwilleran. "He's in used cars and auto repair."
"Then let me tell you something amusing. When I first took this job I was trying to be ever so charming, remembering faces and greeting customers by name. I'd taken a course to improve my memory, and I was using the association technique. One day Mr. Hackpole came in with some frumpy woman that he was trying to impress, and I called him Mr. Chopstick. He didn't like it one bit."
"He has no sense of humor," Qwilleran said, lowering his voice, "and that 'frumpy woman' happens to be Mrs. Cobb, the housekeeper of my choice, whose apricot-almond crescents you're wolfing down."
"I'm sorry, but you have to admit she's frumpy," Hixie whispered.
"Not any frumpier than a certain advertising woman I used to know Down Below."
"Touché," she said. "Why don't you come to the Mill for lunch today?"
"What's the special?"
"Chili. Bring your own fire extinguisher."
Shortly before noon Qwilleran had another visitor. Nick Bamba, husband of his part-time secretary in Mooseville, dropped off a batch of letters to be signed. Nick was greeted effusively by two sniffing Siamese, who seemed to know that he shared living quarters with three cats and a person whose long braids were tied with dangling ribbons. The two men went into the library followed by two vertical brown tails, stiff with importance.
"Time for a drink?" Qwilleran asked. He welcomed the visits of the sharp-eyed young engineer who worked at the state prison and shared his interest in crime. "How's everything at the incarceration facility?"
"Quiet enough to have me worried," Nick said. "Make it bourbon. How do you like this weather?"
"It reached six below in Brrr the other night."
"Windchill factor was thirty-five below."
"How's the baby?" Qwilleran could never remember the name or sex of the Bamba offspring.
"He's fine. He's a good baby, and healthy, thank God!"
"That's good to know. Did you take Snuffles to the vet?"
"He says it's some kind of dermatitis that affects spayed cats. She's taking hormones now."
"I appreciated your report on the trespasser, Nick. I notified the sheriff as you suggested."
"I see you've got your property posted now."
"Mr. O'Dell hurried up there and covered all the bases: no trespassing, no hunting, no camping."
"He's a terrific guy," Nick said. "When I was in high school he bailed me out of some hairy scrapes."
"Anything new in Mooseville?"
"There's never anything new in Mooseville. But... you know that camper I spotted on your property last week? It was unusual for this area — sort of citified. Three shades of brown. Custom job. Since then I've seen it several times in the parking lot at the Old Stone Mill, back near the kitchen door. Just for the hell of it, I did a rundown on the plates. It's registered to someone by the name of Hixie Rice."
After Nick had left, Qwilleran reflected that Hixie was hardly the outdoor type; he had never seen her in heels lower than three inches.
He went to lunch early and ordered his bowl of chili. "Did Koko get over his snit?" Hixie asked.
"Apparently. As soon as you walked out the door, he gobbled the pork liver cupcake... Incidentally, who owns that good-looking camper on the parking lot?"
Hixie looked vague. “The brown one? Oh, it belongs to one of our cooks. Her husband works in Mooseville and has to commute sixty miles a day, so he drives their small car, and she drives the gas-guzzler to work."
What was she hiding? Qwilleran recalled that Hixie had always been a glib liar, though not necessarily a successful one, and she always managed to get involved with a certain fringe element in the romance department. What else had she invented? The invisible chef? His cookbook? His sick mother in Philadelphia?