9. Chapter 9

After a couple days at Georgia's, I'm ready to move back into my mostly mice-free apartment. Her exterminator can't come for at least a week, which gives me the perfect excuse to call in some reinforcements before then. Thursday morning, I put the word out on the local Facebook page that the shop has a mice problem, and I need some mousers.

I thought I'd have to wait at least a day or two to get an answer.

I way underestimated Paradise's hospitality.

Within the hour, I have two people offering to bring their "extra" barn cats.

I tell them to meet me at the shop tomorrow morning, then delete the post. The last thing I need is the whole town showing up with their extra cats. At most, I only need two, maybe three.

Just enough to annoy Bear. Or, if he is allergic—and Georgia didn't say he is, only that he doesn't like cats—enough to leave some dander in the Mustang. Maybe get him sneezing a little and get rid of a few mice before the exterminator shows up.

The first person who answered my post shows up shortly after I get back from Britta's with coffee. The petite woman climbs out of her car, holding a small black and white cat.

I walk from my car to hers, ready to take the adorable kitten from her—maybe forever, if she'll let me. "Is this the cat you're loaning me?"

I reach to pet the cat's head, but the lady turns her back to me before I can. "No, this one's an indoor cat." She opens her back car door and two cats jump from the seat to the ground, one after the other. "These are your mousers. Keep ‘em as long as you need. They'll make their way home, eventually."

The cats are already sniffing around the shop door, as the lady climbs back into her front seat, still holding the kitten.

So, apparently she would mind if I kept him.

I open the shop door to let the cats in, and by the time I come back out, another car is pulling into the alley. This person leaves me with two more cats and a sense of foreboding.

Four cats is mostly manageable. I should be able to catch and release them into the wild if their owners don't come back for them. But I pray they do. What if they don't just disappear after their work here is done? I'm not really sure how barn cats work, and suddenly cat ownership doesn't sound so appealing.

I let the second set of cats loose in the shop, then set bowls of milk outside the door to lure all four back out. Hopefully, with whatever prey they catch. I hadn't really thought through the part of my plan where mouse remains would show up.

While they hunt, I dial Georgia to clarify whether Bear is anti-cat because he's a terrible human being or because he's allergic. It's one thing to spring surprise cats on him if it's the first reason, which—based on my experience with him—I suspect it is. But it would be another thing altogether to spring four cats and an allergy attack on him.

Before I can push call, someone knocks at my door. When I open it, a man in overalls and a hat with I'm Here. You're Welcome scrawled across the front stands there, a cat carrier under each arm.

"These two are for in here." He nods toward the studio.

"Excuse me?"

I barely have the words out before he sets the carriers down, opens the wire doors and lets the cats loose. They dart between my legs, straight inside my apartment.

"They smell something in there!" The man grins, so pleased I don't know what to say.

Also, I want whatever they smell gone. So maybe six cats is manageable.

"The others are in the shop," he says.

I'm trying to make sense of what he's saying when he adds, "I'll pick ‘em up in a couple days. That's all it'll take."

He talks to me over his shoulder while I follow him toward an old station wagon backed up to the shop door. That's when I see the stacks of cat carriers in the back of the car.

"How many others?" I rush to catch up to him as he slides into the driver's seat.

"'Bout a dozen." He shuts his door and starts the car while I try to process whether "'bout a dozen" means more or less than twelve.

Maybe if I knew his name, I could come up with something to say, or some way to stop him. The only words that come to mind emerge as he drives away.

"Cat hoarding is against the law." The rumbling of his station wagon, which is missing its exhaust pipe, drowns out my voice.

The only thing I can do is go inside to assess the cat count and hope the dozen carriers I saw weren't full when he arrived.

That hope shatters the minute I open the door.

The whole place resembles a pet store that only sells cats. Not their food, toys, beds or scratching posts. Just cats. If I were still in LA, I'd have the beginnings of one of those ridiculous cat cafes where people pay to pet cats.

Somehow, I think the people of Paradise would laugh me out of town if I tried that here.

I attempt to count the cats, but they don't hold still long enough to get an accurate count. I guesstimate thirteen before two run outside, throwing off my numbers. For half a second, I consider whether to catch the escapees, or just shoo the rest outside with them.

Then I remember Catman is coming back for his.

Would he miss them if he didn't get them back? Or does he have more where they came from? Surely they don't live inside. They're barn cats, not pets… right?

In the middle of my internal debate about the ethical responsibility of returning cats to someone who already has too many—while also pointing out to myself I'd crossed the ethics line when I'd put out a revenge call for cats—one cat dashes into a corner with something—a mouse… it's a mouse—in its mouth.

So that's fun.

Then I notice a second one with prey dangling from its jaws jump into the Mustang. Other cats are in various stages of hunting. Some crouching, ready to pounce. Others running back and forth across the shop. Still others curled on workspaces, licking their paws.

But it's the four circling and hissing at each other that have me most worried.

One swipes at another. He swipes back. The other two join in, and within seconds there's a writhing ball of yowling fur spinning toward me.

I jump out of the way at the same time the full impact of what I've done—and how terribly wrong it's gone—hits me. I can't let them stay in here.

I spend the next hour shooing cats outside and cleaning up mouse guts, both unsuccessfully. Every time I open the door to let one cat out, another darts back in. And forget about the supposedly dead mice. Half the time I'm about to sweep them up, they dash away, leaving tiny drops of blood behind.

The whole time I'm trying to clean up—and hide—the giant mess I've made, I plead with every power in the universe to please not let any Thomsens show up at the shop.

Especially Bear.