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Show But then the father was gone; he left a scrap of paper with the telephone number of an office on it. They boy called and asked for his father; a coddling voice said that he was in a meeting; but if it were an emergency of course he could be reached at once. "It's not an emergency," said the boy. During the day the boy went hunting around the building, though there was not much to see: carpeted hallways, numbered doors, a mirrored entranceway, oddly out of keeping with the oldness of the building. He found that the elevator also went to the basement, a dark, cavernous, musty place, much of which was fenced off into padlocked wire cages, where the residents of the building stored extra belongings. He had come to the basement two or three days in a row, just because there was not much else in the building to see, when he discovered the cats. There were at least two of them, he decided, maybe more, stalking silent as shadows in the darkness of the basement, staring out at him with luminous yellow eyes. He picked up a lump of coal from the floor of the basement, and took his slingshot from his back pocket. Just as he fits the piece of coal into the sling, the voice bellows out. "Don't hurt the cats!" It is a fierce voice, the voice of an old, strong man, and it comes from the dark area behind the furnace. The boy freezes; the lump of coal drops from his hand. He has not looked carefully in that part of the basement before, but now he can see the outline of a door, a little |
