The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

23

It was the same afternoon that Brad Falon came to Morgan’s shop asking him to look at his stalled Mustang, that Sammie became sick at school. She grew lethargic and cranky in class, and when she started falling asleep at her desk, the school nurse called Becky. When Becky picked her up, Sammie crawled into the car yawning and dull. Becky felt her face for fever but Sammie was ice-cold, her skin pale and clammy. “Does your head hurt?”

“No,” Sammie said drowsily.

“Do you hurt anywhere?”

“No.” Sammie sighed and snuggled closer. By the time they got home she was sound asleep. Becky managed to wake her, and half carried her inside. She got her settled on the couch, pulled off Sammie’s skirt and blouse, and examined her carefully all over for spider bites or bee or wasp stings. She could find no blemish. She parted Sammie’s hair with her fingers, searching for a bite there, feeling for any painful area. Sammie complained of the cold, her whole body was chilled through, though the day was hot. When Becky took her temperature, it was lower than it had been at school, a full degree below normal. She covered Sammie with a warm blanket, thinking she’d wait just a little while before calling the doctor, to see what developed. The nurse had said they had five children out with the flu. She made a glass of hot lemonade, and went to fetch the aspirin. When she returned, Sammie was asleep again.

But it seemed to be a normal sleep, she was breathing easily. Becky set the glass on the coffee table, stood watching Sammie for a few minutes and then, straightening the cover over her, she left her sleeping. She stayed near to Sammie, working at the dining table on the dry-goods books, looking up often at Sammie, and rising to feel her face. The child slept deeply; Becky woke her at suppertime but she wasn’t hungry or thirsty. She didn’t want to eat, didn’t want the thermometer in her mouth again but Becky managed to persuade her. Her temperature was lower, 96.4. Sammie was still so groggy she turned away from Becky’s hug and was asleep again. It was then, turning away to the phone, that Becky called the doctor. When she gave Dr. Bates Sammie’s symptoms and temperature, he said it sounded like the bug that was going around. He said to keep her warm, not to give her any more aspirin, to get plenty of liquids down her, and to call him back in an hour.

In less than an hour she woke Sammie. She had to cajole her to hold the thermometer between closed lips. The minute she removed the little glass vial, Sammie was asleep again. The gauge read 96.0. When she finally reached Dr. Bates he was at the hospital with an urgent stroke case, he said he’d be there as soon as he could.

James Bates had been their family physician for three generations, he still took care of Becky’s mother, took care of all of them. He listened again to Sammie’s symptoms, said again that there was some kind of summer flu going around, said if Sammie got worse, to bring her to him at the hospital.

Looking at the clock, Becky realized it was way past time for Morgan to be home. Usually he called when he was late, so she figured he’d be along soon. She set the chicken and rice casserole on the back of the stove, and examined Sammie again for insect bites, even more carefully this time. The child didn’t want to wake, didn’t want to be bothered. When she did speak, her voice was so blurred it was nearly incoherent. The time was past seven, and still Morgan wasn’t home.

Morgan did sometimes work late when a customer was in a hurry for his car, but he always called to let her know. Sharply concerned now, she phoned the shop. The phone rang eight times, ten, but no answer. Ten minutes later she called again, in between pacing with worry. Again, no answer. When it was fully dark and Morgan still wasn’t home, she phoned again, let it ring and ring and then she borrowed her neighbors’ car, bundled Sammie up, called Dr. Bates to tell him where she’d be. Sammie was only half conscious as she carried her to the car, covered her well, and drove first to the shop.

The office and bays were dark, the bay doors closed and locked tight, the parking area dark and empty, both Morgan and Albert Weiss, the new mechanic, were gone. She cruised a ten-block area looking for Morgan’s car. When she didn’t find it she drove home again but Morgan wasn’t there. She carried Sammie inside, tucked her up on the couch again, and looked in the phone book for Albert’s number.

There was no Albert Weiss listed. She called the operator, told her it was an emergency, but she had no listing for him, either. Becky sat at the dining table, her hands trembling. She phoned her neighbors. They said they wouldn’t need the car until morning, that she could keep it all night if she needed to. The Parkers were an elderly couple, both in ill health, and she couldn’t ask them to keep Sammie. She bundled Sammie back in the car and headed for her mother’s, she meant to leave Sammie with Caroline, the doctor could see her there. Or if Sammie got worse, Caroline would take her to the hospital. Both Becky and Caroline preferred to keep her at home, both were a little wary of hospitals, though for no particular reason. Once Sammie was settled, Becky intended to go look for Morgan, to drive every street in Rome and every surrounding farm road until she found his car. She didn’t imagine that he was out drinking or with another woman, she knew him better than that. Something had happened to him, and when she thought about Brad Falon newly back in town, a sick, almost prophetic fear touched her.

Approaching her mother’s sprawling white house, she was eased by Caroline’s welcoming lights. Maybe Morgan was here, maybe he had stopped by for something. Her own birthday was only a few weeks away, maybe they were planning a surprise and had lost track of the time.

But Morgan’s car wasn’t there. She parked in the drive, got out, carried Sammie across the lawn and up the front steps. When Caroline answered the bell and saw Becky’s face, she took Sammie from her. Settling the child on the couch, she sat close beside her easing Sammie onto her lap as Becky described Sammie’s sleepiness, her low temperature, and then her worry over Morgan. Caroline took charge as she always did, and soon Becky was out the door again, shaky with concern for Sammie, and frightened for Morgan, driving the dark streets of the small town looking for him, looking for their old blue Dodge.

Lee, alone in the pickup following the drilling truck, was pleased by the silence after the noisy, busy day. The sun was gone behind the western hills, the glaring desert softened, now, into deeper shades, the dry gulches and low mountains catching streaks of gold in the last light. He spotted a coyote slipping along a wash, just its ears, a flash of its back, and the tip of its tail, maybe hunting alone, or maybe not. In the quiet he thought about James Dawson, and smiled. Both Lee and Dawson born the same year, Dawson with no one nearby to tend his grave or to care about him, maybe no one to know he was dead, a lonely old man lying in that little cemetery just waiting for someone to come along and take notice of him, to revive and resurrect him.

When, ahead, he saw Ellson’s truck buck into low gear for a long incline, Lee slowed to keep the distance, noting the gravel road that led off to the right following the slope of the rock-strewn mountain, marked with a faded wooden sign that read JAMESFARM. Somewhere down that road, not too far, should be the airstrip. Beyond a scraggly patch of tamarisk trees, he glimpsed an old barn, lopsided and about ready to collapse; but maybe it would hold up for a while longer.

He was going to need a car or truck and, as he scanned the upper slopes of the mountain, he knew he’d need a horse; that meant a trailer, too. And he sure as hell needed a gun. Easing his foot on the pedal, he swallowed back a tickle in his chest. He’d better not screw up this time or they’d lock the door on him for good. He followed Ellson’s taillights, heated with the growing excitement that a new job always stirred.

As evening settled in around them, Jake’s headlights came on and Lee switched on his own lights, their beams driving the last desert shadows into falling night, then soon into blackness. And, in the shadowed cab of the truck, Lee knew suddenly that he was not alone, he felt a cold presence nothing like the comforting nearness of the ghost cat. In the dark cab he turned to look at the seat beside him, and his hands tensed on the wheel. A woman sat beside him, her full, dark skirt swirled around silk-clad ankles, her black hair blending into the shadows, her face unseen. For an instant he thought it was Lucita, then knew that it was not. This was a thin-faced woman, a hard and lethal beauty. Watching her, Lee swerved the truck so badly that he had to fight frantically to right it, jerking the wheel, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

“Relax, Fontana,” she said softly, “I did not mean to frighten you.”

“What the hell did you think you’d do?” The timbre of that voice, even in the tones of a woman, resonated with the cold chill Lee knew too well. “Why would you appear as a woman? How do you do that, turn yourself into a woman?” If the dark spirit had to torment him he’d rather it did so as a man, or what would pass for a man.

She smiled. “You have a new project, Fontana, and that is good. Very good.”

“What the hell do you want? Get out and leave me alone.”

When she touched his arm, he shivered. “But in choosing this new plan, Lee, you have abandoned the Delgado undertaking.” She waited, watching him. “Think about this. Why not take on both challenges? That would be a real triumph.”

“Get the hell out of here, go haunt someone else.”

“You could do that, Lee, you could lift both the post office money and the Delgado payroll. Think of what they’d add up to. A real fortune, a success that would make you famous across the country, you’d be in more history books than your grandpappy.”

“Why the hell would I want to be famous, and have every cop in the U.S. after me?” The truck went into a rut again, too near the edge, and he gave his attention to his driving.

“It would be so easy, Lee,” she said, rubbing his thigh with an elegant, thin hand. “So easy to pull off both jobs, to make a really big splash in the world.”

But then as she spoke, suddenly he knew the cat was there, he could feel Misto rubbing against his neck, winding back and forth along the back of his seat, could hear him hissing softly. When Lee looked for the ghost cat in his rearview mirror he saw only the black empty glass of the back window, there was no moving reflection, nothing visible—but the woman was visible enough, her pale, long face cold and evil. And the wraith knew the cat was there and she drew back.

Lee said, “What do you want from me?”

She laughed. “I want the same thing from you, Fontana, that I wanted from Russell Dobbs.” She reached out her slim hand and began again to stroke his thigh. When he knocked her hand away, she laughed. “I admire the way you go about your work, Fontana. You never have to build yourself up to a job as some men do. You lay it all out, you are all courage and you do what is needed.”

Well, that was a lot of bull.

“You’re quick, Fontana, and efficient—most of the time. But now—I don’t like to see you turn fearful, as you have with the Delgado payroll, I expected better of you.”

He said nothing.

“You could take down the payroll and then double back for the post office money, you’re famous for your timing. You could pull off a smart, sophisticated operation that would totally confuse the feds.” Again she laid her hand on his leg, again he brushed it away, gripping the wheel tighter.

“Why go to all the trouble of two jobs,” he said, “when one haul is enough. I only have so many years to spend the damn money.”

“For the fame, Lee, for the prestige. For the challenge,” she said softly. “The biggest job you ever accomplished, bigger than anything Russell ever pulled off.”

Lee wondered what would happen if he stopped the truck, opened her door, and shoved her out of there, wondered if he could do that. But of course she would only vanish, turn to smoke in his hands, disappear laughing at him.

“Your time on earth is so fleeting, Lee, you should really plan further than that, you should plan not just for this short mortal life. In a few more moments, as I measure time, all of this world that you see around you now will be dust and forgotten, and you will be forgotten, too—unless,” she said softly, “unless you grasp the eternity I offer you. Unless you’re bold enough to let yourself live forever.

“It would be so easy,” she said, “to go on forever creating new . . . enterprises with your special talent, so easy to work with me, to step into eternity beside me carrying out plans bigger and more rewarding than any you can even imagine.”

Lee stared ahead at Jake’s twin taillights.

“This is your last job on earth, Lee, it should be the wildest and most audacious, the biggest haul you’ve ever made, should leave behind you fame and admiration.”

Behind him the cat had begun to growl. The woman didn’t turn, she made no sign. “I can guarantee the success of both jobs, the entire farming and mining payrolls of this whole area, all the cash in the post office on that particular evening, and the full Delgado payroll. Enough cash to buy you a whole state in Mexico, to buy you the most beautiful women, the finest home, the most elegant horses.”

“And what the hell do you get out of that?” But he knew what she’d get, she’d own his soul, and he wanted no part of it.

“Under my guidance, Lee, when you die at a venerable age you will possess powers you never dreamed of, you will know eternal life, eternal adventure, you will never be bored or sick or old again, your every moment will be an even more . . . prurient and visceral challenge than you have ever yet known.”

He wanted to stop the truck and haul her ass out of there.

“My proposition appeals to you,” she said softly. She ran her hand too close between his legs, then reached to touch his cheek, drew her finger across his lips. He flinched at her touch, let the truck hit a rut that sent it skidding sideways toward the soft desert sand, he spun the wheel, got it straightened out just before it hit the sucking dunes. Screeching the brakes, he pulled over.

“Get out! Get the hell out! If I burn in hell for what I do, I’ll get there on my own, not because of you.”

But already she had vanished, the seat beside him was empty.

Shaken, he jammed his foot hard on the accelerator, racing to catch up with Jake. He wished he was up there riding beside Jake and not alone on the dark, empty road. Even the cat seemed to be gone, he spoke to it and felt around the seat and behind him but could feel nothing. Had the cat helped drive her off, with its snarling anger? But then where had he gone, where was Misto now?

Could the devil have hurt the cat?

But that couldn’t happen—something in Lee believed in the power of that good spirit, even more than he believed in Satan’s evil force. Maybe he and the cat together had driven away the dark wraith, maybe their combined rage had liberated them both for the moment—and even as that thought brought a smile to Lee, Misto appeared beside him, smiling, too. Sitting tall beside him, twitching the tip of his yellow tail, laying a big, possessive paw on Lee’s arm, Misto smiled up at him highly amused at their combined power against the eternal and destructive forces, against the despair that roamed, like slavering beasts, the vast and endless universe.