He’d been on his knees, tapping a brick into place, when a very thin kitten landed in the impatiens by the wall. Frank was startled, and assumed the animal had jumped or fallen from an overhanging branch of his neighbor’s tree. Showing no fear, the kitten approached Frank and sat just out of reach. For an hour, it watched him work. When he went into the kitchen for a beer, the kitten followed.

The cat didn’t beg. It just sat, staring, beaming a telepathic command. Frank obediently opened a can of tuna.

The cat made himself at home. He had no collar. Frank put an ad in the lost and found. He watched for lost-cat flyers taped to Georgetown lampposts. The first week, he hoped an owner would show. The next week, he was afraid one might. One never did, and Monty took over as master of the small row house on Olive Street.

Food!

Frank saluted. “Right away, sir.” In the years with Monty, he’d come to the conclusion that if cats could talk to humans… they wouldn’t.

Monty had accumulated a variety of bowls from Kate, Jose, and a loose coalition of neighbors Frank had come to think of as “the Olive Street Gang.” From a cabinet, he picked out a bowl featuring a Delft-blue cat with a crown.

“This okay?”

Move it, move it.

Frank filled the bowl with dry food and put it down near Monty’s swinging door that led into the garden. Monty sniffed at the offering, then grudgingly tried a bite. Soon the food was disappearing, swept up by a furry vacuum cleaner. As he finished his coffee, Frank watched the big cat eat. Then, after stuffing the newspaper into a canvas briefcase, he went through the ritual of setting the alarm system and locking up the house.

On his front steps, Frank glanced up and down the street, taking a second or two to recall where he’d had to park the night before. He found his car on Thirtieth Street and said a silent thank-you prayer for no new dings and the still-intact side-view mirrors.