"Lawrence Watt - Evans - Something To Grin About" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

"Oh. Well, when she gets back, you tell her that I called, okay?"
"I'll do that, Mrs. Duke."
"All right, then. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye." The cat reached up with one paw and pressed down the hook.
Unfortunately, it had no way to hang the receiver back upтАФthat was more than mere paws could
handle. The result was a dial tone that was not particularly to the cat's liking, even before it changed to
the phone-left-off-the-hook warning. The cat eyed the noisy receiver with distaste. It decided a nap was
no longer practical; it hopped down from the counter and ambled into the living room.
The doorbell rang. The cat stopped, midway across the living room, and glared at it.
"Melody?" a male voice called.
At this new intrusion on its privacy the cat wondered whether perhaps this place was insufficiently
peaceful to be a suitable residenceтАФbut it was, as yet, unfamiliar with any better alternative in the area.
With a flick of its tail, it vanished.
A key scraped in the lock, and the apartment door opened; a young man stepped in.
"Melody? It's meтАФI came back for my stuff!"
The cat watched, unseen.
"Come on, bitch, I know you're here!" the young man shouted.
The cat considered that. It did not much like this loud, ill-mannered person. Furthermore, if this was
Todd, he was an obstacle to the cat's remaining comfortably settled here.
Something would have to be done about that. Ordinarily, the cat preferred to simply watch humans
going about their foolish little lives, but in this case intervention seemed appropriate.
"Is that anything to call her?" the cat asked.
The young manтАФTodd, the cat supposed him to beтАФ looked about, but was unable to locate a
source for the words he had just heard, and concluded that he had just imagined them, or perhaps
overheard something from another apartment.
"Damn," he said. He marched in, leaving the door standing wide open, and peered into the kitchen.
No Melody.
He tried the bedroomтАФalso vacant. The bathroom was dark and empty.
He returned to the bedroom and began collecting his belongings from the nightstand and dresser
into a laundry bagтАФand incidentally pocketing a few dollars Melody had left in the bedside drawer.
"Is that money yours?" the cat asked; its head had appeared, floating in midair just behind Todd's
ear.
He whirled, but the cat's head had vanished again.
"So you're a thief, as well as an exploitive scoundrel?" the cat asked from the other side.
"The bitch owes me!" Todd protested.
 "Oh? For what? For putting up with months of abuse? For apologizing when you demand it? For
cooking your supper and paying your rent?"
"What is this?" Todd demanded. "Is this place haunted or something? Is this someone's idea of a
joke?"
"I suppose it would be too much to suggest this is the voice of your conscience," the cat said
musingly.
"I don't have a goddamn conscience, Jiminy Cricket," Todd said sneeringly. "Who are you?"
Then he sneezed messily.
"Damn," he said, as he groped for the box of tissues on the dresser.
The cat chose that moment to rematerialize, back on the floor just behind Todd's right leg. It
stretched out one large, well-furred paw, extended its claws as far as it could, and then dug them firmly
through Todd's sweat sock into his ankle.
"Aaaaugh!" he screamed into the tissue he had been using to wipe his nose.
The cat retracted its claws and vanished.
"What theтАж" Todd's sentence was interrupted by another sneeze. As he bent over, the cat applied