Cat People by Gary Brandner Page B

going to cost us?"
    "Who knows?" Oliver said. "That's your department. You're the money man, I'm the animal man."
    "Damn it, Oliver, you know the trouble we've been having getting any funds out of the city. They want to close this place down and give all the money to Audubon. How am I supposed to justify the expense of bringing a cat doctor all the way out here from California?"
    "Don't tell them what it's for. Juggle the accounts around to absorb the expense somewhere else."
    Judson shook his head sadly. "Oliver, Oliver, you just don't understand the fiscal problems in running a zoo today. Or the politics involved either, for that matter."
    "I understand this much—flying Fritch out here will cost us a whole lot less than buying our own leopard would."
    "Who says we need a leopard? We've done just fine without a black leopard so far. Why do we want one now?"
    "Because he's here, Bronte," Oliver said patiently. "Whether we want a black leopard or not, we've got one, and it's our responsibility to take care of him. Have you any other suggestions?"
    Judson seemed to look at something off in a corner. We could euthanize it."
    "Kill him? Are you serious?"
    Judson forced his gaze back up to meet Oliver's. "It might be the best solution all around."
    'Tell me how it's best for the leopard."
    The administrator pursed his lips. "I think you're getting a Dr. Doolittle complex. Let me remind you that this is a zoo, not a shelter for homeless animals. The city expects us to turn a profit here, however small, and your salary and mine depend on that. The animals are, in a sense, our product. They are not our family."
    "I will not consider euthanasia of the leopard," Oliver said adamantly.
    "Can't we at least discuss it?"
    "No, we cannot. These animals are not television sets or boxes of oatmeal. They are living, breathing creatures." Oliver's voice rose as he warmed to his subject. "We brought them here, we have a responsibility to them. It's because of men that they aren't living free in their natural surroundings. Men destroy their environment, then bring them here and put them in cages for other men to look at. It's up to people like you and me to make it as comfortable for these captive creatures as we possibly can. If one of them doesn't act just exactly the way we think he should, we don't shoot him full of poison, we try to find out what's bothering him, and help him."
    "Oliver, I—" Judson began.
    Oliver ignored him and plowed on. "What the hell do you think I do this for? The money? I've got offers from four universities in this country and one in Mexico City. Any one of them would start me out at twice what I'm making here. I'll tell you why I stay at this relic of a zoo, I stay because the animal here need somebody who cares about them. I care about them. That's my job."
    Bronte Judson held up his hands in surrender. "All right, Oliver, enough. You've made your point. Go ahead and bring out this California doctor for your leopard. I'll see what I can do about squeezing a few more dollars out of the city fathers. After all, that's my job."
    Oliver relaxed slowly and grinned at the administrator. "Bronte, underneath that skinflint exterior, I believe you might have a heart after all."
    "Don't count on it," Judson said. "I just know when I've been out-talked."
    The door to the laboratory burst open, startling both men, and Joe Creigh stumbled in. His face was a mask of disgust. He held his hands awkwardly away from his body. The T-shirt and jeans he wore were covered with a thick fluid full of pulpy lumps. A sickly, sour odor came into the lab with him.
    "What happened to you?" Oliver said.
    "The sonofabitch puked on me."
    "The leopard?"
    "Who the hell do you think?"
    "What were you doing in the cage?"
    "He looked half asleep. I was just trying to get a vitamin pill down him and the sonofabitch puked all over me."
    "I told you to let me handle the medication on that cat," Oliver said.
    "Believe me, you can handle it from now on,"