A Cat in the Wings: (InterMix) by Lydia Adamson Page B

railing. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Peter Dobrynin had been the Mother Theresa of the feline world just because he’d fed them expensive Russian cuisine. I don’t know why I felt that way. Maybe because stray cats who live in the park always do better than strays in abandoned buildings and alleys. It’s the latter whose existence is so sad and so problematical, so filled with terror and danger from vehicles and starvation—and heartless people. Those are the cats I wish he’d seen to first. There are countless numbers of them only a block outside the park. And they certainly don’t need gourmet food; all they need is commercial cat food.
    Thinking about all the strays made me depressed. Over the years I had spent hundreds of hours with various short-lived volunteer programs, trying to rescue stray cats. It’s hard to catch the poor things, even those who are hurt or emaciated. And once you catch them it’s harder still to find homes for them, unless they’re kittens. And if you can’t place them—what then? Give them to the animal-welfare agencies? That often means death. I finished my coffee and pushed the cup away. If I stayed in the bar I would begin to remember specific strays. And I didn’t want to do that.
    Tony and I walked uptown on Broadway, past the Columbia University campus, past the seminaries and music schools. We crossed under the elevated subway station on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, then turned west on One Hundred Twenty-sixth.
    It was a dingy street of squat factory buildings one right after the other. I looked searchingly up the block. Then I heard Tony say, “Well I’ll be damned.”
    We saw the blue building. At least, it had once been blue. The paint had come away from the brick in great hunks, and the structure was now a speckled blue-and-rust.
    We entered through double steel doors and found ourselves in the small lobby, aged marble all around. The old building directory indicated that there were only two tenants remaining in the place: a metal-spinning firm on the second floor, and an auto-parts wholesaler. It didn’t appear that anyone lived in the building, just those two industrial tenants.
    “What are you doing here?”
    Tony and I whirled to the right, where the voice had come from. A gray-haired man in taped-together spectacles stood inside the open fire door. He was holding a plumber’s snake and some other implement I couldn’t name.
    “Who are you?” he demanded, coming near us.
    “Who are
you
?” I retorted, sounding equally suspicious.
    “I’m the super,” he said, gripping the tools more tightly.
    Tony spoke then, pleasantly. “We’re Lenny’s friends.”
    At that the super relaxed, even treated us to a smile. Obviously, he liked Lenny.
    “Where’s he been?” the super asked. “Haven’t seen him in a while.” Then a worried look crossed his face. “Something happen to him?”
    Tony launched into essentially the same story he’d made up for Fay’s benefit. “Well . . . yes,” he answered, serious but not overly grave. “There was an accident. He’s in Beekman Hospital, downtown. But he’ll be okay.”
    “Oh. Sorry to hear that,” the man said. “Lenny’s the best tenant I ever had—except when he brings those bag people around sometimes.”
    “Yes,” Tony went on. “Lenny’s good people. He really cares, doesn’t he?”
    I decided it was time for me to jump in. “I’m so relieved we were able to find you. Lenny didn’t have a thing on him when he was hit. No keys, no money, or anything. He wanted us to pick up a few clothes and things for him. Could you . . .?”
    The super set his things on the floor, extracted an out-sized ring of keys from his back pocket, and led us up the stairs. When we’d reached the third floor we walked down a gloomy hallway, at the end of which there was a solitary door.
    “Right here,” the super said, trying one key and then another until he’d found the right