Cat on the Edge by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

that you can speak and I can understand?”
    He was drowning with pure, insane joy. He pressed so close to her he could feel her heart beating against his heart. She sniffed his shoulder and mewled, her cry so soft it made his skin ripple. “What are we?” she said gently. “What are we, that is like no other?”
    Still he couldn’t reply. He could only stare at her.
    She said, “You were there in the alley that night, you saw that man die. I saw you—you ran from him.” Her green eyes narrowed. “He tried to kill you, he chased you. I wanted to help, but I was afraid. I thought about you—afterward. I prayed you were all right.”
    She had thought about him? His world tilted and spun.
    â€œThat man,” she said, hissing softly, “that man did not kill for food. He did not kill as a cat kills. Nor did he kill to protect himself. He killed,” she said, “not out of passion. He killed coldly. Not even a snake kills so coldly.”
    â€œYou were there. You saw him.”
    â€œYes, I saw him. And when he turned, he saw me. But he chased you—he couldn’t chase us both.” She laid her paw softly on his paw. “How can he know about us? But he must know, why else would he chase us, and follow us?”
    â€œHe’s chased you? Followed you?”
    â€œYes. How does he know about us? How can he know that we could tell what we saw? Oh yes, he’s followed me. He terrifies me. He almost caught me out on the cliff in the wind. He would have pushed me over. The smell of him makes me retch.
    â€œBut,” she said, purring, “now we are not alone. Now, neither of us is alone.
    â€œNow,” she said, laughing, showing sharp white teeth, “now, maybe that man should beware.”
    Joe’s purr shook him, reverberating uneven and wild. She made him feel as no other cat ever had. She made him feel not so much riven with lust, as turned inside out with joy. She smiled again and nuzzled him, her green eyes caressing him. And delicately she licked his whiskers. Life, all in an instant, had exploded from mere pleasure and excitement into a world of insane delight. Nothing that ever happened, from this instant forward, could mar this one delirious and perfect moment.

10
    Kate Osborne had no memory of entering the dim, smelly alley. She had no idea where she was, she had never seen this place. There were no alleys like this in Molena Point, alleys garbage-strewn and as filthy as some Los Angeles slum.
    A dirty brick building walled the alley on three sides. It was built in a U shape to nearly enclose the short, narrow strip of trash-strewn concrete in which she was trapped. At the far end, a solid wood fence blocked the only opening, its gate securely closed. She had no memory of pushing in through that heavy, latched gate though it seemed the only way in; unless she had climbed out into the alley through one of the closed, dirty windows.
    None of the first floor windows looked as if it had been opened since the building was erected. The small, dirty, first floor panes were shielded by an assortment of venetian and louvered blinds as might belong to various cheap business offices. The dirty windows above—there were three stories—looked equally immovable. Behind their limp, graying curtains, she guessed would be small, threadbare apartments.
    She stood in long shadow, as if the sun were low, but she couldn’t tell whether the time was early morning or late afternoon. Around her bare, dirty feet were piled heaps of trash, overflowing from five lidless, dented garbage cans. Smelly food containers, dirty wadded papers, rotting vegetables. The stink was terrible.
    She felt disheveled, dirty. Her mouth tasted sour, and she felt as if she had just waked from a terribly deep sleep and from a dream that she did not want to remember.
    She was breathing raggedly, as if she had been running. Her poor hands were filthy, and she had two