“Well, Mr Q,” she began, “you missed a good chinfest this afternoon. Everybody’s excited about the movie star comin’ to town. Do you think she’ll come in here to eat?”
Still suspecting a Lockmaster trick, he replied evasively, “Just because she’s lived in Hollywood for fifty years, it doesn’t make her a movie star. She could be a bookkeeper or policewoman or bank president.”
Whatever she is, he thought, she must be loaded—to buy a house on Pleasant Street.
Lois shouted at the pass-through, “Effie! Don’t forget to thaw the cranberry sauce!... Funny thing, though, Mr Q—nobody remembers a Thackeray family in these parts.”
Facetiously he said, “It would be interesting to know if she’s related to William Makepeace Thackeray.”
“Don’t know anybody of that name. Who is he?”
“A writer, but he hasn’t done anything recently.”
She yelled, “And, Effie! Throw some garlic powder in the mashed potatoes!”
Qwilleran said, “Sounds delicious. I'd like to take a turkey dinner home in a box.”
Lois yelled, “Effie! Fix a box for Mr Q—and put in some dark meat for his kitties.”
“By the way,” he said, “what’s all the action in the next block? All those trucks coming and going.”
“They’re movin’ out!” she said. “Good riddance! It don’t make sense to have a place like that downtown.”
He waited for his ‘box’ and walked to the corner of Church and Pine streets, where large cartons were being loaded into trucks and carted away. According to the logos on the cartons they were refrigerators, washers and dryers, kitchen ranges, and television sets.
He said to the man directing the loading, “Either you’re moving out, or you’ve sold a lot of appliances this week.”
“We got a new building on Sandpit Road—steel barn with real loading dock. Plenty of room for trucks”
The edifice they were vacating was a huge stone hulk, wedged between storefronts of more recent vintage. That meant it was more than a century old, dating back to the days when the county’s quarries were going full blast and Pickax was being built as the City of Stone. It was the first time he had scrutinized it. There were no windows in the side walls, and the front entrance had been boarded up. Qwilleran crossed the street and appreciated the design for the first time: Four columns were part of the architecture, topped by a pediment and the simple words inscribed in the stone: OPERA HOUSE.
Then he realized that the smaller buildings on either side had been vacated also. Something was happening in downtown Pickax!
Qwilleran went home to his converted apple barn, which was as old as the opera house. It occupied a wooded area on the outskirts of town—octagonal, forty feet high, with fieldstone foundation and weathered wood shingles for siding. As he drove into the barnyard two alert cats were watching excitedly in the kitchen window. They were sleek Siamese with pale fawn bodies and seal-brown masks and ears, long slender legs, and whiplike tails. And they had startlingly blue eyes.
Yum Yum was a flirtatious little female who purred, rubbed ankles, and gazed at Qwilleran beseechingly with violet-tinged eyes. She knew how to get what she wanted; she was all cat... Koko was a cat-and-a-half. Besides being long, lithe, and muscular, he had the bluest of blue eyes, brimming with intelligence and something beyond that—an uncanny intuition. There were times when the cat knew the answers before Qwilleran had even thought of the questions. Kao K'o Kung was his real name.
When Qwilleran walked into the barn, Yum Yum was excited about the turkey, but Koko was excited about the answering machine; there was a message waiting.
A woman’s voice said, “Qwill, I'm leaving the library early and going to the dinner meeting of the bird club. It’s all about chickadees tonight. I'll call you when I get home and we can talk about Thelma Thackeray.
She left no name, and none was needed. Polly Duncan was the chief woman in his life. She was his own age and shared his interest in literature, being director of the Pickax public library. It was her musical voice that had first attracted him. Even now, when she talked, he felt a frisson of pleasure that almost overshadowed what she was saying.
Qwilleran thanked Koko for drawing his attention to the message and asked Yum Yum if she had found any treasures in the wastebasket. Talking to cats, he believed, raised their consciousness.
The dark meat of turkey was minced and arranged on two plates under the kitchen table, where they gobbled it up with rapture. Afterwards it took them a long time to wash up. The tastier the treat, the longer the ablutions, Qwilleran had observed.
Then he announced loudly, “Gazebo Express now leaving for all points east!” Yum Yum and Koko jumped into a canvas tote bag that had been purchased from the Pickax public library. It was the right size for ten books or two cats who are good friends.
