Cat's Pajamas by James Morrow Read Free Book Online Page B

in my abandoned rucksack, the dispatcher was willing to hold it for me. Before Bruno emerged from the bedroom, I managed to feed my cat, Leni, an affectionate calico with a strong sense of protocol, and prepare hot tea for the artist and myself. The instant he appeared in the kitchen, I handed him a steaming mug of oolong, seeking thereby to elevate his spirits and raise his core temperature.
    â€œI had a college professor once, Nikolai Vertankowski, your most devoted fan,” I told him as, tea mugs in hand, we moved from my cramped kitchen to my correspondingly miniscule parlor. “We spent most of Aesthetics 101 watching Bruno and Mina tapes, especially the Boston Common concerts.”
    He settled into my wing chair, fluted his lips, and at long last drew a measure of liquid warmth into his body. He frowned. “Mina and I never authorized any recordings,” he muttered, acknowledging his identity for the first time. “Your professor trafficked in contraband.”
    â€œHe knew that,” I replied. “The man was obsessed. Probably still is.”
    Leni jumped into Bruno’s lap, tucked her forelegs beneath her chest, and purred. “Obsessed,” he echoed, taking a second swallow of tea. He brushed Leni’s spine, his palm smoothing her fur like a spatula spreading frosting on a cake. “Obsession is something I can understand—obsession with thanatos, obsession with the élan vital. Speaking of life, I owe you mine. In return, I shall grant you any favor within my capabilities.”
    â€œTalk to me.”
    â€œA great sex artist is celebrated for his conversation,” he said, nodding.
    â€œTalk to me, Bruno Pearl. Tell me the truth about yourself”
    â€œThere was a bullet,” he said.
    There was a bullet. But before the bullet, there was a triumphant performance in Philadelphia. On only two previous occasions had Mina and Bruno succeeded in accomplishing both Fleur de Lis and Holy Fools in a single afternoon. The Fairmount Park concert had elicited raucous cheers, rapturous sighs, and thunderous applause.
    To celebrate their success, the artists treated themselves to a lobster dinner in their hotel room, followed by a stroll along the Delaware. At some undefined moment they crossed an indeterminate boundary, moving beyond the rehabilitated sector of Front Street, with its well-lighted walkways and quaint restaurants, and entering the warehouse district, domain of illegal transactions in flesh and pharmaceuticals. Under normal conditions the artists might have noted their seedy surroundings, spun around in a flurry of self-preservation, and headed south, but they were too intoxicated by their recent success, too high on Aphrodite. Fleur de Lis and Holy Fools, both in the same concert.
    The bullet came from above, flying through a window on the second floor of a gutted factory and subsequently following its evil and inexorable trajectory downward. Bruno would later remember that the shot was actually the first in a series. A heroin deal gone wrong, he later surmised, or possibly a violent altercation between a prostitute and her pimp.
    Spiraling toward Mina, the bullet drilled through the left side of her head, drove bits of skull into her cerebral cortex, entered her midbrain, and lodged in her cerebellum.
    â€œOh my God,” I said.
    â€œThose were my exact words,” Bruno said. “‘Oh my God,’ I screamed.”
    â€œDid she die?”
    Bruno pleasured my cat with his long delicate fingers. “The odds were against her,” he replied cryptically.
    Mina, delirious, collapsed in Bruno’s arms, blood geysering from the wound. He laid her on the asphalt. It was surprisingly warm. Somehow he remained sane enough to administer first-aid, tearing off his shirt and bandaging her leaking head. He carried her one block west and hailed a cab. The driver, a Mexican, ten years behind the wheel, had seen worse, much worse, and without a