LUCKY MOLLY'S IN THE LAP OF LUXURY
By MARK BULLIET and HEIDI SINGER
April 16, 2006 -- After two weeks trapped in the wall of a Greenwich Village grocery store, Molly the cat is enjoying a pampered weekend with family.
Molly, who never gave up me owing for help as rescuers worked feverishly to find her, has been eating and drinking up a storm since her dramatic rescue Fri day night.
She dined on chicken- flavored baby food and Fancy Feast, and got to nap on her owner's sweater yesterday.
"We're glad to have [her] back," said Peter Myers, who used Molly to chase mice in his British goods store, Myers of Kes wick. "[She's] on holiday now."
The only bummer for the spunky, 11-month-old cat was a trip to the dreaded vet to have a micro chip ID tag in stalled under her skin.
That's because relatives worried furious feline fans would follow through on their threats to kitty-nap the friendly cat.
"We've gotten hate mail, threaten ing to take her," said Jennifer Myers, whose father owns the Greenwich Vil lage store. "Be cause she was in the wall, people are saying she wasn't treated correctly. We're terrified to bring her to the store, not because of holes and construction, but because of people."
Molly has been keeping a low profile - she's staying at Jennifer's nearby apartment.
The angry letters and phone calls began arriving at the store after the pretty black cat was rescued late Friday with high-tech equipment that pinpointed her location by tracking her meowing.
Mike Pastore, of the city's Animal Care and Control, says the agency comes across cases of cats getting stuck behind walls about once a month, and that in very rare cases, owners won't allow rescuers to rip into their walls. Twice in a dozen years, he's had to kill a cat with a poison needle, then yank its carcass out.
In Molly's case, rescuers drilled dozens of holes, probed behind the walls with tiny cameras, tempted her with raw meat, and even listened to an animal psychic predict where she was hiding.
But they were looking in the wrong place. Acoustics expert Alan Fierstein finally saved the day when he dropped by with his sound-detecting equipment at 6 p.m., which was the time that Molly habitually started meowing like clockwork. He found she was stuck behind the first-floor wall, trapped in a tube that made her invisible from most angles.
Peter Myers, who had been reluctant to allow workers to tear up his walls, permitted them to drill one hole inside his store, Pastore said.
They picked right - Molly was finally spotted. Myers let workers drill another hole, higher up, to get her out.
"Merry Christmas - you're going home, Molly," said Kevin Clifford, the volunteer who pulled her out by her tail. "My dogs wouldn't be too happy hearing what I did."
mark.bulliet@nypost.com
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