“Oh yes, my goal in life,” Justin said, “winning the approval of the rich and shallow. I’m just as rich and shallow as any of them, and they know it. I have nothing to prove.”
“Let me get you a drink,” Miguel said.
“Tempting as it is to spend this evening in a haze of alcohol, getting drunk in front of my boss—who is heresomewhere—would be even less helpful to my career than skipping this party,” Justin said. “Oh, look, there’s Allen Mortimer, whose embezzlement trial recently ended in a hung jury, I simplymustsay hello…”
Miguel followed Justin around the party, listening in fascination to his seemingly endless supply of cruel and cutting witticisms, both behind the subjects’ backs and to their faces. No foible was forgiven; no flaw went unobserved. How Justin even knew some of these things was a mystery to Miguel. Nor did Miguel himself escape unscathed; Justin once introduced him as, “Sean’s idiot friend, who is hoping to get into my pants,” and another time as, “My hired escort; the muscles were extra.” This last was given, fortunately, to people Miguel already knew, who found it uproariously funny.
Every remark—except for the escort one—was both clever and true, and most were hilarious. Justin was obviously brilliant, and also a remarkably hateful little snot.
“You must be a terror in the courtroom,” Miguel said.
“I’m sure you are, as well,” Justin replied. “Such slow-witted obstinacy is hard to combat. Like trying to sword fight a glacier.” He looked up from the wineglass he’d bullied a server into filling with apple cider. “I’m not going to sleep with you. Why do you keep following me around?”
Before Miguel could formulate an answer, a ruckus at a side-window drew his attention. Several people were gathered at the glass, pointing and exclaiming at something on the other side. Snow suddenly spattered against the glass. A snowball?
He and Justin reached the window at the same time, pushing their way to the front until they could see what was happening.
A gray tabby cat was tangled in the Christmas lights on the fire escape, thrashing in panic. Some kids, barely visible on the ground below, were hopping around excitedly and throwingsnowballs at the cat.
Justin hissed under his breath, a startling and furious sound, and bodily shoved two people aside to yank the window open. It didn’t want to move at first; Miguel pulled at the other side, and up it came. Justin scrambled through onto the fire escape.
“Get away from here or I will make you regret it!” he shouted down at the kids, his voice clear and crisp and incensed.
“Up yours,” a boy shouted back.
Justin scraped snow off the railing of the fire escape, packed a ball, and pegged that boy in the face hard enough to knock him on his butt—all in less than a second.
Miguel was cautiously approaching the cat, making soft shushing noises. It stopped thrashing and stared at him, ears pinned and teeth bared, making the weirdest, scariest bubbling growl he had ever heard.
Below, the kids were laughing at their downed friend, sounds that changed tenor as they noticed Justin packing another snowball. Their voices and footsteps trailed away as they chose the better part of valor—still laughing, but leaving.
“The lights are around his hips and back leg,” Miguel said as Justin turned his attention to the cat. “He’s gonna bite me sure as the world if I try to touch him. Maybe if you distract him…”
Justin made a thoughtful noise and took off his tuxedo jacket. It was already cold as, well, as a late-December night, fire escape open to the wind and snow, and neither of them were wearing coats, but Justin showed no sign of discomfort. A minute ago, Miguel would have said it was because he was carved of ice himself. A little harder to think that now.
“Wrap this around her front half,” Justin said, tossing the jacket to Miguel, “and I’ll disentangle the back half. Don’t let her get away; she’s pulled that back leg out of joint. Needs a vet.”
Miguel looked at the cat’s freaked-out dilated eyes and glittering claws. “I’ll…try,” he said. “One, two, three!”
He leaped forward and tackled the cat, throwing the jacket over her head. She screamed pitiably, and her claws went right through the jacket into his arms, but he’d resigned himself to that much. At least the jacket did keep her from biting him.
Justin had the harder job, trying to hold down her injured leg while she kicked for all she was worth. He swore a blue streak and came out of it with a score of scratches of his own, but finally the cat was free of the Christmas lights. Justin shoved the rest of her up into the jacket; Miguel did his best to wrap her up.
“Where’s the nearest emergency vet?” Justin called—to someone behind them, Miguel realized, and turned his head to see Sean staring through the open window. “Or her owner—do you know her owner?”
Sean shook his head. “She’s a stray; me and the neighbors have been feeding her.”
“Right. Well, we need to get her in out of the cold and get her to the vet.” Justin’s voice brooked no argument. “Clear us a path to a warm, quiet room, and call a cab.”
* * * *
Miguel ended up taking a bit more damage to the skin of his arms, wrestling the cat into a cat-carrier Sean borrowed from the neighbor. They’d taken over the bathroom, he and Justin and the cat, and Justin used the antiseptic he found in its cabinets to clean Miguel’s scratches, silent and expressionless as the cat screamed bloody murder inside the carrier.
“Yowch!” Miguel couldn’t keep himself from flinching from the sting.
“Baby,” Justin muttered, cleaning his own scratches without a flicker of discomfort. “Her leg hurts a lot worse thanyour arms.”
“I’m sure,” Miguel muttered, watching the cat clawing at the door to the carrier. “Poor thing is so scared.”
