The Cat, The Devil And Lee Fontana

18

When Morgan Blake was mustered out of the navy, the minute he got home he had floated a loan to make the down payment on the old Wilson gas station. Working from early dawn through the evenings, it didn’t take him long to convert the building into a spacious automotive shop. He kept one gas pump, removed the other three, turned the remainder of the open, roofed area into parking for his repair customers. The shop itself was a white frame building with two bays and two hydraulic lifts. There was an office attached, a storeroom behind that, and a small bathroom. The little office, with its plate-glass window looking out under the overhang held an old metal desk, three wooden chairs, and a small wooden table cluttered with automotive catalogs. Both the shop and the office smelled comfortably of grease, metal, and the sharp scent left by the arc-welding equipment.

Now as he moved away from the raised lift where he had been greasing a forty-two Plymouth, a white delivery van pulled into the drive and parked to the left of the bay entrance, emitting the scent of fresh bread and pastries that traveled with it. He watched his mother-in-law step out of the cab, waving and smiling in at him. He grinned and waved, and lowered the Plymouth to the concrete, as she went on into the office. Caroline Tanner was a handsome woman, tall like Becky, her dark hair peppered with white, her Levi’s fitting her lean body easily, her white shirt freshly starched. She carried a white bakery box, she set it on the table, balanced on a stack of papers. It was just noon, she had obviously come to share lunch, and he wondered why. She was more than welcome, but she didn’t do this often. He stepped into the little bathroom to wash up, and retrieved his lunch bag from a shelf among boxes of small automotive parts.

In the office he spread some paper towels on the desk as Caroline drew up another chair. They had exchanged no word, nor needed to. He laid his sandwiches out on the paper towels, one roast beef, one tomato and bacon. Caroline accepted half a roast beef sandwich, and poured coffee from his thermos into the two mugs he had rinsed out. He watched her with apprehension, and when she looked up at him, her gray eyes were filled with something so unpleasant that before she could speak he reached out, put this hand over hers. “Caroline, I already know.”

“Brad Falon’s back in town,” she said softly.

He nodded. “I heard he was out on the West Coast. L.A., I think. I wish he’d stayed there.”

“You haven’t told Becky?”

“No.” He sat looking at her, remembering the pain he had caused Caroline when he and Becky were going together in high school and he ran with Falon. In those days he wouldn’t listen to Caroline, any more than he’d listen to his own parents.

She looked at him steadily. “Brad’s mother was in the bakery yesterday, we sat back in the kitchen, had a cup of coffee. I don’t like the woman much, she’s so . . .”

“Righteous,” Morgan said.

Caroline smiled. “But she’s been through hell with Brad. And now, knowing Brad, it’ll start all over again.”

The Falon house stood three blocks from the house where Morgan had grown up, Morgan and his parents had gone to the same church as the Falons. Morgan’s mother had lost many nights’ sleep over his friendship with Brad, over the scrapes they got into, and there was a lot his parents had never known, the stolen car radios and batteries they had fenced outside of town. When Morgan went in the navy, Falon was already in jail, he had been in and out of jail ever since.

For Morgan, the trouble they got into had all been boyhood pranks. When he joined the navy, he was done with that. But for Falon, that early beginning had added up to more than pranks. Long before Falon went to jail as an adult for the first time, he did a hitch in Juvenile Hall for trying to kill a little girl’s puppy. He was stopped only just in time, but the judge said the intent was there. With Falon’s previous juvenile record, he wasn’t cut much slack.

That was when Morgan took his first honest look at Falon, saw Brad for what he was—and saw himself mirrored there. But even then, even in high school, he wouldn’t stop running with Falon.

Now he watched Caroline cut her homemade pie, the blueberries oozing juice. She had brought a container of whipped cream, which she spooned liberally onto the pie as he refilled their coffee mugs. Caroline had spent plenty of sleepless nights when he and Becky were kids. Becky wouldn’t stop seeing Morgan, and he wouldn’t stop associating with Falon. Caroline had told him, long before he would admit it to himself, that Brad Falon was an emotional cripple, that Falon had no conscience. Morgan hadn’t believed her, then, but of course she’d been right. Whatever it was inside a normal person that made them care about others, whatever it was that made them separate right from wrong, was missing in Brad Falon. Whatever made Morgan love Becky and Sammie so much he would die for them in an instant, had no meaning at all for Falon, love was a word without context, Falon could only pretend to love, just as he pretended to separate right from evil.

Caroline finished her pie and sat looking at Morgan, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. She didn’t believe he would go back with Falon, yet she was sick with fear that he might. She was thinking, Don’t start again. Please don’t let it start, and Morgan was ashamed that even now, even after all these years, Caroline had to assess him all over again.

“What you’re thinking hurts,” he said. “But I guess I have it coming.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll send him packing, you know I won’t hurt Becky and Sammie. I don’t want Falon around here, any more than you do.” But even as he said it, embarrassment twisted his gut almost as if he were sixteen again trying to con Caroline, and he felt his face burning.

When Brad Falon flew out of L.A., escaping before the law fingered him on a land scam, he was nicely set up to put into motion events that would destroy Morgan Blake and his family. Pleased with this scenario, already planning the moves, he had no notion that he would, as well, entrap in his web a second enemy, that he would find himself in the perfect position to bring down Lee Fontana. As far as Falon knew, Fontana wasn’t anywhere near Georgia or the East Coast, he knew no reason for Fontana to be there. After boarding a DC–4 in L.A., in his roomy seat Falon was soon enjoying the champagne and carefully prepared snacks including smoked salmon from Seattle and shrimp from Mexico. As he ate and drank, accepting seconds from the stewardess, he entertained himself by mentally undressing and imaginatively using the tall blonde in a variety of creative ways.

The stewardess didn’t like his looks. Even when her back was turned, tending to other passengers, she could feel him watching her. He was a wiry, sour man who looked as if he’d never been young, there was no hint anywhere in that grim countenance of the shadow of a happy youth, his muddy eyes were set too close together, his face unnaturally narrow, everything about him seemed somehow wrong, she didn’t like waiting on him, she drew back her hand when he touched her.

He had boarded the flight wearing Levi’s, in a day when Levi’s were worn only by cattlemen and horsemen, men easy in their wrinkled jeans and jackets that were softened by work and age. She was a Montana girl, she knew the difference, Falon’s stiff new Levi’s jacket still smelled of sizing, still sported the store creases. His snakeskin boots with red and blue flowers had never seen, or ever would see, honest cow or horse manure.

Falon watched the stewardess, wondering what she was thinking with that closed expression when she glanced at him; but then he put the hussy aside and he turned his thoughts to the action ahead, to his long-overdue homecoming. He intended, when home in Georgia again, to take care of the Blake family once and for all, in a way that would not only make Morgan suffer but would provide a lifetime of bitter payback for Becky’s disdain of him, as she well deserved.

He hadn’t seen Morgan since Blake went in the navy. But he’d seen Becky, all right. He’d see her again, and this time he’d make her glad to see him, real glad. Even if Morgan was home, Becky would need some excitement, Morgan was dull as mud, what could he offer a woman? By the time the plane touched ground at Chattanooga, the cabin was stifling hot. When the boarding door opened Falon pushed on through to the head of the line, he was the first to step out onto the rolling metal stair—into waves of heat radiating up from the steel grid and from the black macadam below. He’d forgotten how heavily the Southern heat pressed down on a person. Even a summer in L.A. could not be this oppressive, and it was still only spring. Ignoring the passengers crowding impatiently behind him, he stood looking down at the hot black tarmac and beyond at the three-story concrete terminal building, its outlines quivering with heat. Did those behind him have to fidget and grumble? What was their hurry? Some broad started carping about making a hurried connection, so it was all he could do not to turn and swing at her. He stood trying to get used to the heat, so damn hot he couldn’t tolerate the fidgeting and nagging. Another woman was going on about her family waiting for her in the hot sun. He didn’t move until the stewardess slipped by her passengers out onto the landing and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He turned, scowling, then licked his lips at her. Anger blazed in her eyes, but she said nothing. He turned away again and descended the hot metal steps, frowning back at the passengers pushing close behind him, then he crossed the tarmac and into the cooler terminal.

The stewardess watched Falon turn to survey the passengers crowding down behind him, an amused smile lifting the corner of his mouth. She was deeply relieved to see the last of the sour, thin man. There was something unhealthy and cold about him, she couldn’t really understand the fear he instilled in her. She turned back into the cabin feeling as violated as if he had physically assaulted her; she hoped he never flew with her again.

Falon carried his only piece of luggage, the leather valise containing an extra shirt, two pairs of shorts, two pairs of socks and a razor, stuffed in on top of ten packets of hundred-dollar bills, money he’d stashed long before the feds ever got on his tail, money they didn’t know he had. The afternoon time was 3:35 by the airport clock. Chattanooga temperature was ninety-seven degrees, the humidity 91 percent. As he crossed the hot paving, his hair felt sticky, his shirt and Levi’s were already clinging to him. He moved quickly through the terminal and out to the front sidewalk. He took the first cab in line, stepping in front of three old women dragging their bulky luggage. Pushing one of their suitcases out of the way, he stepped into the backseat, directed the driver to the center of town where the car lots would be lined up like Vegas gambling joints waiting for the suckers.

He left the cab, tipping exactly 5 percent, and wandered among the shiny vehicles, checking them out, moving from one car to the next, looking them over, then moving on up to the next lot. In the Ford lot he found a 1945 black Mustang that suited him just fine. He paid cash, peeling off twenties and fifties from a roll that he drew from his pocket. He filled out the registration certificate under the name of Lemuel Simms. When he had completed the deal he laid his suitcase in the passenger seat, drove six blocks to a gun shop he’d spotted from the taxi. He bought a Colt .45 automatic with an extra clip and eight boxes of ammunition. In the car, loading the clips, he shoved one into the gun. Dropping gun and extra clip in his pocket, he pushed the boxes of ammo under the seat, and drove three blocks to the Merchant’s Bank.

Removing a fourth of the cash from the valise, he deposited half under the name of James Halyer, opened a safe deposit box and put the rest in there. He repeated this operation at three more banks, using a different name for each, supplying the required identification for each. He finished with a thousand dollars on him. He hid the bankbooks in the double lining of his valise. As he headed the Mustang for the main highway that ran south toward Rome and his parents’ place, he knew he would do well with what he planned, as he always did when under pressure. He didn’t mean to stay in Rome long, just until he pulled this job and got what he wanted. Growing up in that hick town had been a downer, he’d thought he’d never get out of there. Nothing to do but boost hubcaps, steal auto parts and batteries. No bars, no liquor, no dance halls, and most of the girls were straight as nuns, only a couple that would give out, and they were used by most of the male population in high school. Morgan Blake was his only buddy, though Morgan left the girls alone. Morgan had eyes only for Becky Tanner, the snotty little bitch, too good for anyone but Morgan.

He had to laugh remembering when he was in eighth grade, remembering the white dog, even if he had been sent to reform school for that little bit of fun. He’d been walking down the empty hall while school was in session, passing the front door of the second-grade room and then glancing through the half glass of the back door, looking up to the front watching the little kids at their show-and-tell, some brat standing in front of the class holding up his pet hamster.

Just inside the back door stood a line of cardboard boxes and a wire mesh animal carrier awaiting their turn. He could see movement in the carrier, something white and fluffy, and he’d heard a beseeching whine. He had stood a moment feeling excited and hard, his hunger intense. Then he spun away, around the corner past the boys’ restroom to the tool room where the custodian kept his cleaning and repair equipment.

The room was usually unlocked, he had often prowled in there, and among the hanging tools was a large pair of hedge clippers, he’d watched the janitor use them on the box hedges that surrounded the school yard. Lifting them down, he’d released the catch letting the blades spring open sharp and gleaming in the glaring light from the hall.

Returning to the second-grade room, he’d slipped the back door open and pulled out the carrier with the fluffy white puppy inside. The class was so intent on a big dog doing simple tricks that no one noticed when he slid the cage to him. The puppy whined and licked his fingers through the wire, so touching. Kneeling, he opened the latch and let the puppy charge out licking and wriggling. He was rolling the pup over, rubbing its stomach to keep it still, holding its one leg up and holding the clippers ready when hands grabbed him from behind, jerked the clippers away and flung him backward. The man forced him to the floor, he looked up at the brawny school custodian, the big man’s face contorted with rage. Falon had laughed at him, had kept laughing when the guy hit him, laughing, thinking about what he might have done, what he’d wanted to do, what that bastard had stopped him from doing.

Even when he was sent away to reform school, the first kid in his class to go there, that hadn’t impressed Becky. The last time he saw her she’d scowled and turned away, hadn’t even spoken to him. All through school, all those years, all she cared about was Morgan, she never would give him, Falon, a tumble—and a tumble was all he thought about. Lord, he could have used her. But he knew if he ever touched her, Morgan would beat the hell out of him, could be furious enough to kill him. He might have wanted Becky real bad, but he valued his own neck more.

After he left Rome, headed for California, he’d pulled a couple of nice heists; and he’d stayed in touch with his mother now and then, getting all the dull town news. She told him when Morgan married Becky and settled down in a rented house, and the next year they had a baby. Some years later when the war heated up, Morgan the patriot joined the navy and went off to fight, all that crappy flag waving. About that time, he, Falon, headed back to Rome. The army didn’t want him, flat feet and a bad heart, they told him. What a crock, but that was fine with him. With Blake gone, he could hardly wait to claim what he wanted, he’d thought he’d have Becky then, easy. But the little bitch, even with Morgan gone she wouldn’t let him near her, wouldn’t speak to him on the street. Well, she’d talk to him now. He knew Morgan was home, but he’d soon take care of that. Morgan would be out of the picture soon enough and this time for good. Brad Falon wasn’t one to give up, to turn away from the wrongs that were done to him, not without a payback.