Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 11 Who Lived High

"A private elevator for the owner of the building. Bye-bye, kitties! Glad to have you here, Mr. Qwilleran." The Siamese had not uttered a sound. He picked up the roaster and the carrier and moved to the elevator bank, accompanied by Napoleon and Kitty-Baby. Two doors, one painted red and one painted green, were closed, displaying an abstract design of scratches and gouges made by impatient tenants carrying doorkeys. He pressed the button, and noises in the shaft indicated that Old Red was descending... slowly... very slowly. When the car finally arrived, it could be heard bouncing and leveling. Then the door opened with a convulsive jerk, and a tiny Asian woman with two small, doll- like children stepped out and scurried away as if glad to escape safely.

Qwilleran boarded, signaled for the fourteenth floor, and waited for the door to close, while Napoleon and Kitty- Baby stayed in the lobby staring into the car as if they would not be caught dead in Old Red. The Siamese were still ominously silent.

There was a bulletin board on the rear wall of the elevator, where manager and tenants had posted notices, and Qwilleran amused himself while waiting for the door to close by reading the messages. Two signs were neatly lettered with a felt marker and signed "Mrs. T." IF DOOR IS OPEN, DO NOT JUMP! ATTENTION ALL CATS! MONDAY IS SPRAY DAY!

There was also a handwritten message on a note card with an embossed W, offering a baby grand piano for sale in apartment -F. Scribbled on a scrap of brown paper was an ad for a tennis racquet for twenty-five dollars, spelled T-E-N- I-S R-A-C-K-E-T. Qwilleran was a born proofreader.

Mystified by the first two notices and questioning the market for baby grands in such a building, he failed to notice that the elevator door was still standing open. It was hardly the latest model in automatic equipment, and he looked for a suitable button to press. There was one labeled OPEN and a red button labeled HELP; that was all. The red button, he observed, showed signs of wear. Out in the lobby all was quiet. Mrs. Tuttle had left her post behind the bulletproof window, and the only signs of life were Napoleon and Kitty-Baby.

In Qwilleran's lean and hungry days, when he lived for a brief time at the decrepit Medford Manor, there was a stubborn elevator door that responded to a vigorous kick. He tried it, but Old Red only shuddered. Then he heard running footsteps approaching from the front door and a voice calling "Hold it!" A short man in a yellow satin jacket, with the name "Valdez" on the back, slid into view like a base runner approaching first.

"No hurry," Qwilleran told him. "The door won't close." The fellow gave him a scornful glance and jumped up and down on the elevator floor. The door immediately closed, and the car proceeded slowly upward, clanking and shuddering as it passed each floor. Valdez got off at Five, and as he left the car he turned and said, "You jump." Qwilleran jumped, the door closed, and Old Red ascended at the same snail-like pace, with groaning and scraping added to the clanking and shuddering. The Siamese had been patient, but suddenly Yum Yum emitted her earsplitting screech, and immediately the car stopped dead. According to the floor indicator over the door they were not yet at Fourteen. According to the floor indicator they were not anywhere.

"Now what have you done?" Qwilleran scolded.

He pressed the button for his floor, but the car did not budge. He jumped, Valdez-style, and nothing happened.

He pressed the button labeled OPEN, and the door slowly obliged, revealing the black brick wall of the elevator shaft.

"Ye gods!" Qwilleran shouted. "We're trapped between floors!"

3

THE SIAMESE, who had been more or less uncommunicative for four hundred miles, became vociferous when told they were trapped between floors in the Casablanca elevator shaft. Qwilleran pressed the HELP button and could hear a bell like a fire alarm ringing in some remote precinct of the old building, but the longer he leaned on the red button and the longer the bell pealed, the louder Koko howled and Yum Yum yodeled.

"Quiet!" Qwilleran commanded, and gave the bell another prolonged ring, but in Siamese cat language "quiet" means "louder." "Shhhh!" he scolded.

Somewhere an elevator door was being forced open; somewhere a distant voice was shouting.

Qwilleran shouted back, "We're stuck between floors!" "Where y'at?" came the faint query.

"YOW!" Koko replied.

"Quiet, you dumbbell! I can't hear what he's saying... We're stuck between floors!" "What floor?" The voice sounded hollow, suggesting that hands were being cupped for a megaphone effect.

"YOW!" "I can't hear you!" Qwilleran shouted.

"What floor?" The voice was coming from overhead.

"YOW!" "Shut up!" "What you say down there?" "We're between floors! I don't know where!" Qwilleran bellowed at his loudest.

There was the sound of a heavy door closing, followed by a long period of silence and inactivity.