Undercover Cat

“Nothing.

“You saw something out there,” persisted Dr. Newhall. “Something that might have given him a jolt.”

Greg looked sheepish.“The neighbor across the street ? she had a tree taken out today. It was his favorite tree.”

Dr. Newhall smiled.“That could do it. Happens over and over, same as with people. That tree was his security, part of his life, his world.” He shook his head. “A frightful thing to have happen to you.” He added hurriedly, “That is, if you’re a doxy. Well, we’ll give him whirlpool baths and see if we canbring him out of it.”

His car had scarcely pulled away when Mrs. Macdougall waddled up.“Poor little fellow, we all loved him so. I’m going to miss him sitting in the window when I water my roses. I always looked over ? “

Greg broke in.“He’s going to be okay. He merely suffered a shock. Miss Randall cut down his favorite tree.”

“Oh, I’m so glad ? I mean, that he’s all right. My, what a start that gave me, seeing the doctor carry him out and him looking like he had passed on to his reward.”

All in the same breath, she asked,“And how is poor Miss Randall, is she feeling better? I saw you bringing her home, and with the doctor waiting in her bedroom, I didn’t want to barge in but I’m so concerned for the poor girl, her health never was any too good, too skinny, that kind they can go so fast, I had a cousin the spittin’ image of her

“

Greg left her standing in midsentence. Unmindful of traf­fic, he cut diagonally across the street. A neighbor passed and said hello but he neither saw nor heard her.

He knocked hard and repeatedly on Patti’s door, until Ingrid, out of breath, answered his summons. “I want to see your sister,” he said without preliminaries, his voice shaking.

Ingrid stared a moment before calling to the back recesses,“Patti, the monster’s here.” Turning to him, she said, “Greg, please, remember your image.”

“The heck with my image.”

“Oh, Greg, just when I thought

I’ve got a boy friend like you, but he carries tranquilizers and uses them when he’s about to go into orbit.”

“I don’t need any. I’m not excited. I’m going to keep perfectly calm.”

He continued hastily,“Poor old Blitzy. Did you see? The vet just carried him out. He’s going to give him whirlpool baths, and see if he can bring him out of shock.”

Patti appeared, and her eyes brightened at the sight of him. Ingrid put in hurriedly,“Blitzy’s sick.”

“Your apricot,” Greg said. “He watched them cut it down and went into shock. Something to do with his social security. But that’s not why I came over. Mrs. Macdougall heard a prowler in your bedroom, and since you and the kids are by yourselves

“

He brushed by Patti and Ingrid, saying,“I’d better take a look.”

“Greg!” Patti called so loudly that he stopped. “I just came from the bedroom. Nobody’s there.”

“Can’t be too careful these days,” he said, continuing dog­gedly.

“For heaven’s sake, Greg, if you don’t trust me, if you think I’m lying to you

‘

Ingrid said quickly,“Please, Greg, listen. You’re getting excited, and after you promised me

” She caught up with him in the hallway and grabbed him by the arm. “Come on into my room. I want you to hear a new Belafonte record I just got.”

Greg pulled away, but then Mike, emerging from his room, blocked his way.“Hi, Greg,” he said with an old-pal affableness note 12 that was unlike him, “you’re just in time to help me assemble my Telstar model.”

Mike stood his ground, bringing Greg to a quick, awkward halt. Behind him Patti asked,“Greg, how could you ? how could you let an old busybody wreck everything between us?”

Ingrid piped up,“Yes, how could you, Greg?” She added, “If you don’t believe my sis, I’ll swear to it, and you know I wouldn’t swear to anything and hope to die if I

“

Mike said,“This is the greatest model yet. You never saw anything like it.”

Greg shoved him aside and stepped into Patti’s bedroom.

At the pounding on the front door, and Ingrid’s call for Patti, Zeke anticipated trouble. He picked up his hat and coat and brief case, and stepped into the closet. He never could explain it afterwards but just as he was closing the door D.C. shot into the closet with him.

Zeke rid himself of a good sneeze to get into shape before Greg arrived. He heard the loud talking in the hallway, In-grid joining Patti in an effort to stop the onrushing Greg, and Mike making one last, brave stand.

Zeke reconnoitered in the small, dark closet. He remem­bered to switch off the radio. D.C. seemed quiet enough, rubbing against his trouser leg as if they were old friends.

Zeke heard Patti say,“I told you nobody was back here. I can’t understand you, Greg. I just don’t understand how you could believe that old gossip over me.”

Greg was walking about.“I didn’t believe her. But I got to thinking, what if somebody was hiding in your bedroom, and I didn’t do anything about it, and tomorrow I read in the newspapers

” ,

And then Zeke heard Ingrid,“I’m terribly disappointed in you.”

Near tears, Patti said,“You suspected me. You thought I had a man here.”

Ingrid said,“I think it’s all a mistake. Just a mistake. Let’s have a Coke and a good laugh about it.”

Zeke felt a sneeze approaching, and pressed a for efinger against the base of his nose to suppress it. So why don’t they get Greg Balter out? What in heaven’s name are they waiting for? He couldn’t stall the sneeze forever, not with the blasted cat brushing back and forth, back and forth, across his right calf.

He never knew exactly how it happened. All he remem­bered was that he pushed D.C. gently aside with one foot, and the next instant D.C. screamed murder in a shriek that must have rocked the neighborhood. Zeke’s blood shot through him like a drag race in progress, and thunder filled his head, and his body was paralyzed, until finally the little man at the controls of his shocked brain climbed out and ordered him to get off the cat’s tail. Great Caesar’s ghost, the little man repeated, get off the cat’s tail! And Zeke raised a foot. In the same instant he realized his hearing had been shattered along with his nerves and co-ordination.

The next moment the door was flung open, and Greg Balter stood before him, a portrait of magnificent outrage. Zeke emerged shaken to his toenails. His voice sputtered and died. He pushed the starter again, but the motor only spun a second, coughed, and gave up.

He heard Greg shouting, as if in a tunnel.“You ? an FBI agent! Taking advantage of a girl! Corrupting children! I’m going to report you to Washington . I’m going to get you fired. I’m going to have you cashiered out in disgrace. I’ll smear it over every newspaper in the country.”

Patti was crying.“Greg, Greg, please, Greg.” And Ingrid was shouting, “Greg! Listen to me. Greg! Listen to me.”

Only Mike, standing in the doorway, was as speechless as Zeke. His eyes had popped three sizes bigger than normal. This couldn’t be happening. He wasn’t seeing or hearing right. And when his folks got back, oh, brother

.

Greg continued,“But you’re not an FBI agent. You’re an impersonator. I knew the first time I saw you that you were a phony.” He added maliciously, “And that’s a prison sen­tence. You’ll get twenty years for this.”

He turned on Patti,“How could you? How could you?”

“How could you?” she asked.

He hurried down the hallway, pursued by Patti, Ingrid, and Mike. He was saying,“First your cat, and then Blitzy’s at death’s door because of you, and now this. And that routine you gave me this afternoon, I took it hook, line, and sinker.” He mimicked her, ” ‘Now, Greg, don’t get excited. Don’t be so suspicious

. Surely you don’t think I had a man in my bedroom

I can’t understand you, Greg, how you could believe that old busybody.’ “

He banged the door so hard the last Mohican almost leaped off the wall. Patti clenched her jaw in anger against the tears. Ingrid said,“You liked him, didn’t you, sis?” And Mike came up and squeezed her hand. “I’ll have a talk with him next time I mow the grass.”

In the background Zeke stood shaking his head, a fighter who had just gotten to his feet after the count of ten. Patti turned on him and flared in anger,“Did you have to step on his tail?”

“Yes,” Mike put in, “what kind of an FBI agent are you?”

Zeke said quietly,“I’m sorry, terribly sorry, but I’m sure Mr. Balter will understand when this is all over and I ex plain everything to him. You won’t, of course, you just mustn’t tell him now, because it you do it would wreck ev­erything. You have to realize that so much depends on you, that the FBI is counting on you to continue to work with us no matter what comes up.”

He repeated,“I’m sure Mr. Balter will understand.”

“I doubt it,” Mike said. “I wouldn’t, if I had seen with my own eyes ? “

“He will,” Ingrid said with conviction, “because he’s a liv­ing doll. If I were a couple years older I’d throw myself at him.”

“You do now,” Mike said.

Zeke withdrew as gracefully as the circumstances would allow. He felt unexplainably guilty, as if what had happened was his fault. Yet, in backtracking, he didn’t believe he could have acted otherwise. He had taken every possible pre­caution. His guilt stemmed, he recognized finally, from the fact that he had permitted himself to become emotionally involved with the Randalls. He was hurt deeply because Patti was hurt, and Ingrid, too. He discovered he liked them immensely, more than he realized. It took a crisis to awaken a man to his feelings.

He busied himself with the radio.“All units, stand by. In­formant expected to begin operation at scheduled hour.”

D.C., who had been tending his wounded member, quit to stare at him. Zeke stared right back, muttering,“I get into gun battles for you, fight off police dogs, and keep you from getting run over ? and what do you do? Scream bloody mur­der the first time some little thing happens.”

22

The cuckoo was preparing to strike six when Patti went to the bedroom for a change of clothes. She guessed she should have called or knocked. She was always surprising Zeke. This time he had his shoes off, and began scrounging around for them.“They’re here someplace,” he said, casting a suspicious glance toward D.C.

“Are you a kicker offer, too?” she asked. It was surprising how much they had in common.

D.C. sat on the chest top and displayed unusual interest in what was transpiring. He had his moods. He might be bored and blas? note 13 one day, and the next, the scholar who was eager to learn all he could about his fellow man. Now his bright, full eyes followed first the one, then the other.

As she went to the clothes closet, she said,“I’m sorry I blew up.”

“I don’t blame you.” He was still searching for his shoes. “I would’ve, too.” He looked up from the floor, sending her a smile that warmed her all over. “I should’ve kept it from happening but I haven’t had much practice hiding in girls’ bedrooms. They don’t teach practical things like that in the Bureau. Oh, here they are.”

He was as elated as if he had trapped a bear. He found them where he had placed them, on an end‘table.

Patti said,“Ingrid talked with Mr. Balter. He promised her he’d keep quiet.”

“How’d she manage that?”

Patti left the closet with a red Italian knit.“She wouldn’t tell me but I can guess. She probably turned on the tears. If this gets out, she says, it will hurt her so for everyone to know her sister is a tramp, and it doesn’t happen very often, and there’s hope for her if she marries the right man. I can just hear her telling him what a sweet, dear person he is, and I can see him puffing up like a toad and ? darnit, where’re those earrings?”

Her fingers rummaged through a little green jewelry case on top of the chest alongside D.C. who dug in a paw to help.“No, thanks,” he said, removing the paw. “I remember putting them right here yesterday. They’re always running off and hiding.”

Zeke put on his coat.‘I?ve got a pair of cuff links I’m going to get out a wanted bulletin on if they don’t show up soon.”

He turned, toward D.C. and sneezed.“What about him? Is he going out tonight?”

Patti rubbed his ears, and he purred and stretched.“How about it, D.C?”

He meowed softly, and Patti translated,“He says sure, why not? Except he’s stricken Greg’s place from his route after what happened last night.”

The radio came alive, and Zeke stepped into the closet and began talking. She watched him covertly. Such a long, tall man with the grace of a cat in his walk and movements. He would be nice to have around, she thought, easygoing when a man should be, and firm when the occasion called for it. He would be gentle and thoughtful with the woman who was his wife, even if she might never know him too well. He would always conceal his thoughts behind those soft, blue eyes, a loner of the desert country. Not that he would ever have reason to hide anything, but only because he had lived like that from childhood, a boy spurring his mustang into the canyons or up on some mesa, and lying under a greasewood bush and talking to himself and dreaming his dreams.

Now Greg, he would want to share his life with his family. He would talk out his thoughts and expect others to do the same. He possessed such a terrific zest for living. He hungered for excitement, and fed on it, whether behind a 250-horsepower motor, or with a beautiful, unbroken woman, or fighting a court case, or storming across the street with a bedraggled begonia. And that temper. A woman could help so much, a wife who understood and was patient, who could reason with him, whose love would be such that he would do anything for her. He had lived too long alone, and in­dulged too often his feelings and whims.

She smiled inwardly. Ever since she first became in­terested in boys, she had projected herself into the future with this one and that one, imagining what it would be like to be his wife. And here she was doing it again, and at her age.

As Zeke put down the microphone, she asked,“Can I get you coffee, anything?”

She discovered she was standing close to him, so close he could have taken her into his arms, and suddenly she wanted that. She could see the same want reflected in his eyes, as no doubt he could in hers. Then the reflection clouded as a thought stole in, reminding him of a reason why he should not. He turned away with seeming effort, and a chill brushed the warmth from her. She broke the brief, telltale silence.“If there’s anything you want, let me know,” How many times in her life, she wondered, would such prosaic little sentences, spoken in a routine voice, cover up emotions that she must hide, because a woman dared not expose them to a man?

Now if he had been Greg, and seen the want in her eyes, he would have swept her up so fast

.

As she left the room, she surprised Ingrid in the hallway, eavesdropping. If there was a scent of romance about, Ingrid would catch it. She was an incorrigible romantic, almost a paradox in an age when novels and movies and television shows emphasized the sordid in the name of realism.

“Ingrid!” she said sharply. “How many times have I told you ? “

“I didn’t hear anything. Nothing at all.”

She continued to Ingrid’s bedroom to change clothes. “You heard nothing because there was nothing, but if there had been something, you would have written it down verbatim in that locked-up diary. I don’t care what secrets of yours you write down, but I don’t want any of mine showing up in court five years from now.”

Ingrid flopped on the bed while Patti changed.“Tommy asked me today. He was adorable. I like men who are adorable, don’t you, sis? He asked if I was going to the dance, and I said I hoped so, and he asked who was taking me, and I said Eddie had called up but Eddie wasn’t my type, and Tommy asked if he was ? my type, I mean ? and I toldhim I’d be ready at eight. So if it’s all right with you, I’ll tell Eddie you said I couldn’t go with him. Please, just this one time. I won’t ask you again.”

“Why won’t I let you go with him?”

“Because you don’t know Eddie and Tommy’s an old friend of yours.”

“He is?”

“You met him at the Cal game, remember?”

“Oh, the one with the big ears.”

Ingrid thought deeply for a moment.“Maybe you baby-sat with him and he’s just like your own boy.”

“Now wait a minute, Inky. Do you think Mother would okay this?”

“I was afraid you’d bring that up.”

“I’d like to help you. You know that. Only we all have to make our own decisions and live with them. Why don’t you tell Eddie you’re sorry, you like him a lot and admire him as a student, but you two have different interests, see things differently, and dating just wouldn’t work out.”

“I’ve got to grow up, huh?”

“It’s rough, I know.”

“Okay.” She rolled over on her back, stared at the ceiling, breathed heavily, and sighed.

Much later, as Patti was applying nail polish to halt a run in her nylons, Ingrid said quietly,“You know what, sis? He’s never broken the girl barrier.”

“Who’s never done what?”

“Mr. Kelso. He’s never broken the girl barrier. You know, it’s like the sound barrier. A boy’s got to want to break it, be­cause if he doesn’t he’s dead. There’s this boy at school ? some of us girls come down the hall and he ducks into a classroom.”

“I wouldn’t wonder,” Patti remarked.

Inky grew confidential.“I wouldn’t marry a fellow like that. He’d be the kind who’d gulp down his dinner and get out of the house fast to go bowling. His biological urge is too weak.”

“Inky!”

“That’s the trouble. You don’t face the facts. A boy’s no good as a husband if he doesn’t have it. And I’m not being shocking. I’m only recognizing facts which you older people never do, and look at all the divorces and broken homes.”

Patti said with finality,“I’m not marrying him or your be­loved Greg. So close your mouth, pull in your tongue, and get the body into the kitchen.”

“In that order?”

23

By seven o’clock the fact became apparent that Patti had inaccurately translated D.C.‘s intentions. He was sound asleep and no prodding could stir him. She talked with him, rubbed his ears, and even pulled the drapes aside so he could see that dusk was moving in. He gave her a scathing glance and rolled over, turning his back on her.

“It’s no use,” she said in the half-dark room. “He’s not going out.”

“He’s got to,” Zeke answered, standing close to her, staring at the cat. His arm brushed hers, and once again she was acutely conscious of the intimacy of the moment. She shrugged the feeling away. Still angry with Greg, she realized she might be experiencing an emotional recoil. And yet Zekemeshed so well with whatever she thought and did. It was as if he always had been a part of her life and this house. He was the most restful man she had ever been around.

Zeke crossed to the radio, picked up the microphone, and said,” Operations Center , Operations Center . Informant sound asleep. No indication he will awaken in the immediate future. Suggest you activate Plan A.”

Plan A was put into effect thirty minutes later with the ar­rival of Dr. Jason Faulkner, a noted Beverly Hills feline psychiatrist. Although Zeke considered the calling of Dr. Faulkner ridiculous, Supervisor Newton had recommended it in case D.C. failed to make his rounds. The Bureau op­erated on the policy that no possibility should be overlooked in an investigation, no matter how fantastic or slight the chance of its success. When a life or the apprehension of dangerous fugitives were at stake, no avenue could be ig­nored.

Dr. Faulkner was a tall, graying individual with a profes­sor’s manner. His clients included many famous movie stars and other wealthy people who attested to his skill in analyz­ing their cats’ neuroses and, in a high percentage of cases, eliminating them. He was one of four psychiatrists in Beverly Hills specializing in cats and dogs.

“I seldom have a cat of uncertain ancestry,” he told Zeke. “Most of my patients are Siamese, Manx ? the better fami­lies.”

Zeke glanced up sharply to determine if the doctor were being facetious but he was quite serious. Only Beverly Hills , Zeke? thought, could develop and bring to such a high de­gree of perfection such an unusual head shrinker.

The doctor conducted a cursory examination of D.C., which elicited a warning growl and finally a laying back of the ears. Dr. Faulkner asked numerous questions of Patti and Ingrid regarding D.C.‘s habits. “I need to know,” he ex­plained, “so that I may reach a proper evaluation and ad­judication of the problem ? that is to say, in order to rec­oncile the inner person with the outer person.”

Zeke stopped his flow of thought.“I don’t care about his inner person. We just want to get the outer one moving.”

Pointedly, Dr. Faulkner ignored him. The doctor held a high disdain for persons totally ignorant of the aims and methods of modern psychiatry.“I must know the emotional climate.” He looked straight at Zeke. “He may be suffering from an anti-authority attitude buried deep in the subconscious ? and ridden with anxieties. Deeply depressed.”

D.C. looked up as if to say, Who, me? Why, you old fool. Give me a dog to chase and I’ll show you how depressed I am.

Mike said from the doorway,“He’s anti-authority all right. Always has been.”

Zeke was growing weary of this nonsense.“Don’t all cats suffer from that, doctor?”

“Only when they feel the inner resentment of humans.”

Mike said, indicating Zeke,“Must be him. We all love him, don’t we, you old ham.” He shook D.C.‘s flabby stomach, and D.C. kicked with all four paws. They were always get­ting personal. How would they like it if he shook their gelati­nous parts?

“I love him, too,” Zeke said, rubbing his puffed eyes with his fists. He had to get out of the room, and soon. He was going blind. If the blasted cat would only get his big fat carcass into the outdoors, the allergy would recede.

Zeke admitted that he had been rather demanding. In fact, the things he had required of D.C. might, from a cat’s point of view, amount to indignities.

The doctor said a-a-h, as though the meaning of the uni­verse had just been unfolded to him. Finally, he ventured, “My preliminary observation would indicate he is not a psy­chotic masochist.”

Mike asked,“Isn’t that a dirty word?” In the same instant, Patti said with faint sarcasm, “I’m glad to hear that. Be terrible if we had a what-you-call-it on our hands.”

From the beginning she had been hurt that anyone would want to psychoanalyze D.C. since it was obvious he was perfectly normal. She had told Zeke,“He isn’t any more neu­rotic than I am, or Ingrid, or Mike.”

“That could be,” Zeke had commented wryly.

Now Dr. Faulkner said,“He has undergone a change in emotional climate that has caused a deep-seated aberration. He is fearful of the quiet that has fallen suddenly on his world, and seeks escape in sleep.”

“You mean I can set off my rocket?” Mike asked.

“If that is normal procedure, yes. I would advise that you restore this household to its customary routine.”

Zeke took another look at Dr. Faulkner and hastily revised his estimate of the psychiatrist. He might have a point there.

24

At eight o’clock, Helen Jenkins sat in the bedroom rocker where she had spent most of the day. Dan and Sammy had moved a card table in and were playing poker. They spoke only in weary monosyllables, and Dan, who faced her, swept her every few seconds with his eyes. Behind the men the air conditioner rumbled and groaned uncertainly, and on an end table by the bed a radio emitted a fairly high volume of talk and music.

Shortly after breakfast they had shoved her into the bed­room, first pulling the shades. She realized then that her earlier threat to scream was futile, what with the radio and air conditioner going. And besides, one of them would be upon her almost before the scream was out.

Twice that day Dan had left the room, at noon to bring in cold cuts, and in midafternoon when he had looked up the landlady. Returning, he told Sammy,“We’re okay. She asked where we were going, and I told her San Jose . She said she was sorry to see us go, after I paid her the extra month’s rent for running out on her. Said we’d been nice, quiet tenants.”

Sammy said to her,“You hear that, Jenkins? She’s sorry to see you go.”

She offered no answer. Her earlier bravado was gone, and a deep despondency had set in. Not that she was quite whipped yet. She still had three hours, perhaps four. She still might think of a way out, although she knew she was deluding herself. She was a condemned woman on Death Row, hoping and praying for a last-minute reprieve, and hear­ing the quiet ticking of time as it ran out on her.

How many times that day she had glanced at the alarm by her bed she would never know. But every few minutes her eyes had been drawn in that direction by a compelling force. Time was something to squander, almost to forget in life ex­cept for the routine of arriving on a job and leaving, going to church, watching a television program. It never bad any deep significance in itself except when one was about to die.

Sammy put down his cards and said,“What’re we waiting for? She gives me the willies sitting over there, rocking, rocking, saying nothing, doing nothing.”

‘Take it easy,” Dan answered. “She’s not hurting you/’

Sammy shouted at her,“Sit still, you hear me? Cut out that rocking.”

She quit. There was no point in antagonizing him and cut­ting short the three hours. Or rather, now, two hours and fifty minutes.

Sammy continued,“I don?t trust you, Jenkins. I’m going to put a gag on you and tie you up. Okay, Dan?”

Dan nodded.

25

The television blared full blast as Ingrid, sprawled on the floor, studied about the scrape Cromwell got into back in 1649. In one corner Mike worked with rapt concentration assembling his Telstar satellite model.

They both swung about as the front door burst open and Patti charged through it, simmering.“I just told Mrs. Macdougall in the kind of language the old hag could understand to train her interceptor ears on somebody else’s bedroom.”

She turned to Mike,“And don’t let me ever hear you call any woman an old hag, not even Mrs. Macdougall. You hear me?”

Stunned, Mike nodded.“What’d I do?” he asked Ingrid. He caught it even when he didn’t do anything. “It’s like pre­ventive medicine,” Ingrid had remarked once. “If you get told off before you do something, it helps you.”

Well, that was the way adults thought. Crazy, crazy.

At exactly nine thirty-seven, D.C. entered the living room and sat down. He pretended to wash an ear but was actually taking reconnaissance. The scene, he noted with satisfaction, was back to bedlam. He never could understand it. People made more racket than any other animal. Yet they would yell if a cat raised his voice during love-making, or if he ex­pressed himself during a fight, although no cat created nearly the ruckus that cars and trucks did, or television sets, planes, or squalling babies, or even the garbage disposal.

So naturally the strange quiet in the household these last two days had worried him. People were quiet only when they were sick or dying, or sometimes when they were leaving on a trip. He could always tell when they were going away. He didn’t know exactly how, but there was a different rhythm in the household.

He completed drying the ear and treaded lightly toward the front door, which he seldom used, principally because no one was usually about to provide doorman service. Tonight, though, Ingrid anticipated his wish, opened the door on cue, and even switched off the porch light. He stalked warily forth and sat on the top step, scouting the area. Slowly the night air revived him. The bedroom had been intolerably stuffy, partly due to that jerk who sneezed incessantly. He wondered how much longer he would have to put up with him. If the fellow stayed, he would move back in with Ingrid.

A couple of cars passed, and a girl hurrying home, and an old man rocking along on a cane. Satisfied, D.C. set forth, shopping once to sniff at a yellow rose that had burst into bloom only that day. He stepped gently around a snail since they messed up your feet when you squashed them, and skirted a wet spot on the grass where a leaky sprinkler dripped. After that he moved along an old trail he had blazed as a kitten, one that led mostly through two? and three-foot-high timber country.

From Patti’s bedroom window Zeke watched the front en­trance, and when D.C. appeared, Zeke notified all units. The temperature stood at sixty-eight degrees, and the likelihood of rain was zero. A fog, however, was expected to roll in around midnight.

Zeke hurried to the front door, which he opened a slit to watch D.C. sitting quietly on the top step. Terribly worried, Ingrid said above the television,“Please, Mr. Kelso, don’t let anything happen to him. If there’s any shooting

.”

Zeke nodded, afraid if he spoke he might alert D.C., who always reacted, and usually unfavorably, to the sound of Zeke’s voice, Mike sought to reassure Ingrid. “Don’t worry, Inky, old D.C. can get out of any kind of a scrape. There may be bodies all over the street but old D.C. will be up a tree looking down on the slaughter.”

“Mike!” Patti said in reprimand. She added softly to Zeke, “Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, “flowers cost a lot of money these days. Last time we sent a funeral bouquet, cost us ten dollars, and Dad said ? “

“Mike!”

“What’d I do?” Mike looked around in mystification. “What’d I say?”

Zeke motioned good-by and slipped out the door. He whis­pered hoarsely into the transistor microphone, “All units. Informant leaving house heading west toward unit sixteen. Come in sixteen when you sight informant.”

Throughout the area every agent tensed, ready to go into action? the men in the radio cars, the sound cone experts, and the scopers. At street intersections in a radius about the Ran­dall home, agents at roadblocks stopped cars entering the neighborhood to ask the drivers to hold their speed to twenty-five miles an hour, and anyone walking a dog was turned back. At a briefing session that afternoon, the SAC had said, “We learned last night that all we need to wreck this operation is one fast car or one dog. We’ve got to control every circumstance we possibly can.”

A sound cone unit reported.“Sixteen in. We’ve got him okay. He’s moving slowly. Now stopping.”

A scope unit reported,“Fourteen in. Informant parked under shrub.”

Following the movement of the white-tipped tail, Zeke paced slowly down the sidewalk and came to a halt some fifty feet from D.C. who hovered under a rosebush, his eyes bright in the reflection of a street light. Zeke lit a cigarette and glanced about anxiously. He knew from experience that if he stopped too long in one spot someone would notice him and think he was a prowler. There was always somebody looking out of a window? a little boy who had been put to bed for the night, a nice old lady whose eyesight was too weak for reading or television, a weary laborer sipping a can of beer in a dark room.

Zeke resumed walking when a young couple approached, and then turned back to retrace his steps. He never took his eyes from” the white tail that was so still, indicating that D.C. was at peace with the world. At the briefing session, the SAC had said, “According to the best information we have, a cat moves its tail when it is disturbed or angered. Hence, watch the informant’s tail carefully, and if there is excessive gesticulation, attempt to determine the cause, such as a dog, and remove the cause quickly so the informant will feel free to continue on his round of calls.”

The tail moved and unexpectedly became a streak, weav­ing in and out of the shrubbery. Alarmed, Zeke spoke rapidly into the mike, “Informant continuing due west at accelerated speed. Unit seventeen, attempt a fix.”

He hurried, half running, continuing to follow the flick of white, and then suddenly he stopped to reconnoiter, strain­ing to see far ahead into the darkness that was deeper at the shrubbery line. He listened intently for a bell sound, but there was none. “All units, all units. Have lost informant. Come in if you get him.”

His heartbeat quickened. He had never lost a subject on a surveillance. He was proud of his record, and so were his Bureau superiors who had written him several letters of commendation. And now, if this big, fat lummox ruined it

“Fourteen in. We’ve got him on scope. Continuing due west at fast clip.”

“Eleven in. Just picked him up on sound. Moving rapidly.”

And then, a few minutes later, seventeen reported in.

Seventeen was a radio car, parked in the darkness of a huge tree, manned by two agents who spotted D.C. moving sur­reptitiously up to a front door. “Informant scratching at front door of eight two six Randolph . Door opening. We sight woman in robe, brunette, possibly in thirties. Informant entering, door closing. Will hold surveillance from here. Sug­gest twelve take over rear door. That’s all. Out.”

Over every radio came instructions from Operations Cen­ter : “All units stand by for informant to leave. Residents of eight two six already checked out. All okay. Units fourteen and sixteen move to next position. Z will join seventeen in front-door surveillance.”

Zeke approached car seventeen and leaned against the driver’s door. The strain was beginning to tell. “Well, so far, so good.”

The agent behind the wheel nodded.“Never saw anything like it in my nineteen years with the Bureau.”

The other agent said,“When I tell my wife ? well, she never believes me anyway. Thinks I’m out tailing something looks like Jayne Mansfield every night.” He shook his head sadly, “Keep telling her, wish I were.”

In the police car a mile away, Officer Tracy shook his head.‘There’s that same informant ? under the shrubbery.”

“Drunk again.”

“But scratching on a door. Scratching, Al. What’ve they got, a monster?”

26

Inside 826 Randolph a woman of about thirty and her husband the same age, both high school teachers, welcomed D.C. He was an old, mysterious friend who dropped in fre­quently. Sometimes he would spend a couple hours with them, curling up in a chair and sleeping. Other times he came by merely for a perfunctory social visit, and once having satisfied the amenities, and licked up a handout, would indicate he had an extremely busy schedule and leave.

As an old friend, he was accustomed to making himself at home, and, after greeting them with a few soft meows, would make straight for the gleaming, huge white box in the kitchen from whence came all the good things of this world.

The woman, Anne Gilbert, who thought D.C. was about the sweetest thing on four paws, was putting down a small serving of salmon when the telephone rang. Her husband, Jimmy, a high school math instructor, took the call. She heard his voice raised to an exclamation mark, and, being curious, stepped into the living room.

He put his hand over the receiver.“The FBI.”

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know.” He said into the phone, “A cat?

Yes, a cat came in here a couple minutes ago

. Well, he’s licking up some fish right now

. Wait a minute, is this some kind of a joke?

Well, how do I know you’re the FBI? You call up and ask about a cat

. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Hold on a minute, please.”

He covered the speaker again and said to Anne,“They know the cat came in, and they offer as proof they’re the FBI the fact they know he has a white tail which they say they painted.”

“The FBI ? painted a cat’s tail?”

“Well, his tail is white tonight. You remarked about it yourself when he came in.”

“But the FBI, catching a cat and painting his tail. Why?”

He said into the phone,“What did you paint his tail for?

Yes, yes, I understand. Just a minute, please.”

He shook his head with disbelief as he turned to Anne.‘They say this concerns an important case and they can’t tell us anything now but they would appreciate it greatly if we would co-operate with them, and when the case is over they’ll send an agent by to thank us and explain everything.”

“What do they want?”

“That we put him out the front door as soon as he has eaten.”

“It’s some youngster. Somebody in one of our classes and this is going to be all over school tomorrow.”

He nodded, and said into the telephone,“I don’t know who you are but you should enroll in dramatics if you haven’t al ready. You’re too good an actor to be wasting all that talent. And we both think it’s a great gag, and we’ll go along with it. Good night.”

Nine minutes later, at ten-seventeen, the front door of 826 Randolph opened, and D.C. cautiously pushed his head out on the end of a stretched-out neck, and took a radar bear­ing. Though he had come this way a thousand times, and never been ambushed, he behaved like an old trapper deep in Indian country.

Parking himself under a bush, he proceeded to wash his face with loving care. He liked fish but not the after-taste. His tail swished a few times. He was a little put out be­cause the woman, who always slobbered over him, had picked him up bodily, when he had done nothing whatso­ever, and ejected him. He couldn’t tolerate females who rubbed their faces against him, which she always did. He liked sentiment as much as the next cat but too much was nauseating.

His facial finished, he strolled two houses down the street, hugging the shadows, and turned into an alley, one of the few in Sherman Oaks.

Keeping a distance of a hundred feet, Zeke followed him.“Informant proceeding to South Street . Suggest all units shift one block over but maintain same pattern.”

As Zeke slipped silently along, hugging the shadows him­self, he listened to reports from the units. D.C. passed off one scope and onto another. A sound cone unit turned him over to another. And radio cars rolled along streets parallel to the alley.

At the alley’s end, D.C. crossed the street and passed a couple locked in embrace in a car. They remained unaware of Zeke walking by them.

D.C. took a footpath that bisected a vacant yard. He walked boldly under a lighted window, through which could be heard a man and woman quarreling. He reached another alley, flanked with the ugly rear ends of decrepit apartment houses. The cry of a baby unhappy with his new world floated from a nearby window.

He proceeded more cautiously now, as if remembering an unfortunate experience suffered in this area. He flattened down to a belly crawl under a child’s wrecked wagon, and listened intently to the night’s sounds. At the same time his sharp eyes surveyed the layout ahead foot by foot. This was the kind of reconnaissance that would insure a cat a ripe old age.

Next he stole along a fence and up to a back door, and scratched hard. If he remembered correctly? and he always did ? this place should be good for a handout of liver. When no one answered he emitted a low, beseeching, pitiful meow, which, translated, said he was dying of hunger.

Zeke said into the transistor mike,“Informant at back kitchen door of apartment building due south of Minton Street, east of Anderson . Will seventeen ascertain exact ad­dress and stand by near front of building for further instruc­tions?”

“Seventeen proceeding as instructed.”

The determined scratching and persistent meowing pro­duced results. The door opened a few inches, and eyes pivoted about to determine whether D.C. had brought a friend. The door swung back, revealing a young man. He said, “Why, hello, kid, where you been? Come on in.” D.C. entered quickly, and the door closed just as quickly behind him.

Zeke said,“Informant entered apartment. Request ten take over stakeout at back entrance.”

He moved fast through the night, gaining the sidewalk, and once on it, ran to Anderson , turned right, and entered the building by the front entrance. He slipped down a long, narrow, dark corridor that led to rabbit-hutch apartments to determine the number of the one D.C. had entered. Return­ing to the foyer, he tapped softly on the manager’s door, and then a little louder. The time, he noted, was ten forty-two. His fingers worked nervously as he waited.

The door opened an inch to permit a battered, wrinkled character in her mid-sixties to stare at him out of eyes half-asleep. Zeke identified himself, showed his credentials, and, as she opened the door wider to study them, pushed his way in.

When the letters FBI dawned on her, she awoke as if slugged by a shot of whiskey, which was what she poured as Zeke asked about the people in apartment number ten. She offered him a drink in a water glass that had a nicked rim. When he refused, she dropped the weight from her feet into a historic armchair that was beginning to lose its stained innards.“Nice folks,” she said. “A married couple and her brother. Never gave me no trouble. But I keep it that way here. I tell ‘em I don’t care what they do but do it quiet.”

She finished off the whiskey.“They’re leavin’ tomorrow. The brother got a job up at San Jose , and I’m glad because I’ve been worryin’ ‘bout ‘em since the men couldn’t find no work and the woman’s been ailirt’.”

“What does she look like?”

“Never set eyes on her. Wouldn’t know her from Whistler’s mother if I was to see her. Husband said she’d taken to her bed, but now you ask me ‘bout ‘em, can’t recol­lect seein’ a doctor around, and I don’t miss much. But some people’s odd. Don’t like to call a doc. Had a brother once, just wanted to curl up like a dyin’ worm

.”

27

As Zeke knocked softly on the door to number ten, his right hand slipped by way of reassurance to the holster at his side under the unbuttoned coat. He had removed his tie, loosened his collar, and mussed his hair. He should have left off his coat, too, but he needed it to conceal the holster.

He stood at an awkward angle, so that he could see the door if it opened, and also the long, dark, tunnel-like cor­ridor he had come down. His eyes moved from point to point, checking the doors along the hallway. Each was a po­tential danger area. The fugitives inside number ten might have staked a guard along the route Zeke had traveled, ready to ambush him.

Zeke himself had posted a fellow agent at the far end of the corridor, out of sight. Other agents had taken up posi­tions on either side of the back kitchen door, and also under the windows to the bedroom.

Zeke repeated the knock, taking care that it produced the right volume, loud enough to be heard and yet not so loud it would seem that someone, perhaps an officer, was demand­ing entrance. He felt confident that one of the men would answer. Not to answer would create suspicion. But they would need a minute or two of preparation to check their weapons and for the second criminal to herd the woman, if she were still alive, into a back room and hold her at gun point. Zeke feared what the woman might do. By now she had been a prisoner nine days, and if she heard a voice at the door that promised help she might scream out, either in a desperation gamble or perhaps involuntarily, hys­terically.

He listened intently, hearing the muted grumbling of an air conditioner and the playing of a radio. Now the radio was turned up a little louder, and he felt a surge of relief. That could mean the woman was alive and they were using the radio to blot out any possible outcry. The number was Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance,” a frenetic piece that always set his nerves on edge.

Once again he knocked, this time hesitantly, like a man who hopes someone will answer but at the same time dislikes bothering a neighbor at this late hour. The carpeted floor on the other side replied softly as footsteps took their accus­tomed place preparatory to the opening of the door. He sensed a body there, listening, too, breathing ever so quietly, a mind wondering about this late caller, running swiftly over the possibilities of who it might be, a mind tense and fearful, as would be normal with a fugitive holed up for so long.

He was considering tapping once more when the door eased open a couple of inches, and two sharp, suspicious eyes peered out. The head was a young man’s, blunt in de­sign and faintly back-lighted. Behind him was a small living room with a tired, old Midwestern landscape on the far wall above a shabby divan. A closed door by the divan led probably to the kitchen, and another one at the left, to a bedroom. All of this he noted in a glance.

Quickly, before the nervous door could close, he said,“Say, mister, sorry to trouble you, but have you seen a black cat around ? about so high ? with a collar on? A boy out back said he saw a cat enter an apartment along in here.”

For an interminably long moment the fellow stared at him. My coat, Zeke thought, my coat’s out of place. No one looking for a cat at this hour of the night would be wearing a coat. A sweater perhaps, or a thin, old jacket, or a sport shirt.

The fellow opened the door a little wider, and said slowly, still studying Zeke,“Yeah, he’s in here. Friendly little cuss, isn’t he?”

Zeke took a step inside a room lighted by a weak bulb in an old-fashioned table lamp. The place reeked with stale cigarette smoke. He slouched deliberately in an attempt to give the impression he had nothing on his mind but to re­trieve the cat.

“Thank heaven,” he said, with what he hoped was proper relief. “My wife’s been about to go out of her head. He’s been missing since last night, and sometimes I think she loves him more’n she does me.”

The fellow called in the direction of the bedroom where the“Sabre Dance” was reaching a frenzied climax. “Hey, Sammy, bring the cat out.” He turned back to Zeke. “You live around here?”

“Down the street a couple of blocks.”

“What’s the address?”

“4820 Anderson . If you want a reward ? “

“He’s been here before. Two or three nights ago. But he didn’t have on a collar or a white tail then.”

“A white tail?”

“Yeah, looks like he’d dropped it in some paint. Only it isn’t paint. Can’t make out what it is. You didn’t know about it, huh?”

His sharp, penetrating eyes never left Zeke. And Zeke knew that the slightest hesitation would trap him.“He was all black last time we saw him.”

“What d’ya call him?”

“D.C. Stands for Darn Cat.”

“I don’t think that’s funny, to put a tag like that on a lit­tle guy. Sammy, what’s holding you?”

Sammy came through the bedroom door so swiftly that Zeke caught only a glimpse of a draped window. Sammy was carrying D.C. awkwardly, the way he had picked him up, with D.C.‘s hind legs pawing air. Seeing Zeke , D.C. stopped pawing and looked up in amazement, as if to say, “How’d you get here?”

“D.C.” Zeke said. “How’re you, old man?”

“Nice little fellow,” Sammy said, handing him over. Zeke put a hand under the rear legs to support them. Instantly, D.C. struggled to free himself of Zeke, who instinctively tightened his grip, whereupon D.C. lay back his ears and hissed. He did not like jerks squeezing him. He had squash-able innards the same as anyone. And besides, no man had a right under God to use force on another without just cause, and there was no cause, just or otherwise, for this stupid moron to compress him. He would show him. He hissed again. He didn’t understand the psychology of it, but a well-enunciated hiss terrified people and dogs. And he had a hiss he had worked on, and was proud of. He gave it a little something others didn’t.

Suspicion stole over Sammy.“He doesn’t seem to care much for you.”

Zeke loosened his hold and attempted to rub D.C.‘s back, the way he had seen Ingrid do. “Hi, old fellow,” he said be­tween sneezes, his vision becoming rapidly blurred. “Wait till Patti sees you.” And as far as he was concerned, Patti could have him till hell froze over.

D.C. cocked a fishy eye at him, and then lurched back when Zeke sneezed violently.

Dan said,“You sure, mister, this is your cat?”

“He’s my wife’s. To tell you the truth, we just tolerate each other. I’m allergic to cat fur. He makes me sneeze. I make him hiss.”

Dan began moving toward Zeke’s blind side, and Zeke knew he had only seconds left. In one swift, well-planned movement, thought out long before he knocked, Zeke tossed D.C. over his head and back of him, as if D.C. were a foot­ball. There was a swish as D.C. flew through space, and a horrendous outcry that shook the skeleton of everybody in the building right down to the last spinal digit. As D.C. landed, coming down on all fours, his low undercarriage mashed against the floor and a whoosh of air added a contrapuntal touch to the high C notes.

The two criminals stood stunned, shocked more by the sound effects than the actual development. Zeke held a gun, which had transferred itself as if by magic from the holster to his right hand. He said quietly,“Just get your hands up ? fasten them around your neck.”

They hesitated, like a fighter on the ropes. Zeke continued,“The first one goes for a gun gets it.” He sneezed then and his Colt bobbed threateningly. Quickly , they followed his orders, their faces wrapped in an expression of utter dis­belief.

“When you get to Leavenworth ,” Zeke said, “you can tell them you’re the first guys ever railroaded to prison by a cat.”

28

The next day the newspapers played the story big. Bored and blase about it all, D.C. stared out from the first page of every edition. The headline writers had enjoyed themselves immensely. FBI UNDERCOVER CAT ROUNDS UP KILLERS. DARN CAT GETS HIS MAN. FBI SOLVES“IMPOSSIBLE CASE” WITH CAT STOOLIE.

Under one picture a caption writer even quoted D.C.“It was nothing. It was only what any patriotic American would have done.”

Mike showed D.C. his photograph, spreading the news­paper out on the kitchen floor. D.C. took a glance and it was obvious. Mike reported later, that he thought the pic­tures unflattering. He tried to dig a hole in the vinyl to bury them. It was not publicity that counted but what a man had in the refrigerator.

Pandemonium reigned that morning. Knocking on the door of the Randall home were reporters asking for exclusive in­terviews, two Life photographers requesting a layout, news-reel cameramen from three television stations, an advertising agency executive wanting D.C. to endorse Little Tiger cat food, and a press agent who said he could get D.C. an in­vitation to sit on the President’s lap at the White House.Once Patti overhead Inky indignantly telling someone over the phone, “He’s not ‘that cat.’ His name’s D.C. How’d you like it if I called you ‘that man’?”

Early on the scene was Mrs. Macdougall who prattled in­cessantly. “When the neighbors started talking, I said shame on ‘em. I said to Mr. Macdougall, I said, if that nice Patti Randall’s got a man in her bedroom, she’s got a reason.”

Slowly Zeke made his way through the melee to the front door where he thanked Patti.“You’ve put up with an awful lot.”

“I hope we’ll see you again,” she said.

Ingrid spoke up.“I’ll cook you dinner any night you say. I’m good at steaks.”

He smiled.“I bet there isn’t anything you’re not good at.”

Mike asked,“Don’t you want to say good-by to D.C.?”

“You tell him good-by for me,” Zeke answered, suppressing a sneeze. He added, “You know something, Mike? Why don’t you fasten him to a rocket? I’d like to see him be the first cat in orbit.”

When Zeke was gone, Ingrid flounced down on the floor and rolled over on her back.“Why is if, sis, every man I love is too old for me ? Mr. Kelso, Greg

?”

At mention of Greg’s name, D.C. marched into the room bearing a fish in his mouth. “Oh, no,” Patti screamed, and grabbed him, and tore the fish away from him.

Just then the doorbell sounded, and Greg stood there. He spoke very calmly.“I don’t like to mention this, Miss Ran­dall, but your cat paid me a social call and on his way out ? absent-mindedly, I’m sure ? picked up the most beautiful bluegill note 14 you ever laid your orbs on. I stood all day in a drenching rain

“

Patti simply stared. Mike asked,“You sick or some­thing?” Ingrid exclaimed, “What an image, Greg. I knew you could do it.” She looked at Patti. “Isn’t he just wonderful?”

“Thank you,” Greg said, handing her a new five-dollar bill. “By the way, you’d better get yourself a new cricket. I just heard over the radio, it’s only seventy-eight.”

Patti plopped the fish into Greg’s hand. “He’s a klepto­maniac, and we might as well face it. But can’t we keep it just between the two of us since he is a hero to a hundred million people?”

He nodded.“You know, I was thinking, well, maybe he could be rehabilitated ? with the right man.”

She smiled.“That’s the sweetest proposal I ever had

only

” She simply didn’t feel up to remaking a man. Not this one anyway. He could be fun, and exciting, but let’s face it, she told herself, he was an emotional staircase, and that little man inside would be pounding up and down for evermore. And she had no intention of spending the rest of her life listening to his frantic footsteps.

Ingrid sighed deeply and returned the five dollars.“You can’t win ‘em all,” she said.

He brushed it off with a laugh. He would give Patti twenty-four hours to think it over. Fish in hand, he left, passing Zeke coming back up the walk. Zeke rolled a little, as if he had just climbed out of the saddle, and he had aboyish dare-me spread across his features.

His voice spoke to Ingrid, his eyes to Patti.“about that steak ? would tonight be too soon?” He had that kind of pe­culiar look which foreshadowed coming events, and as Patti correctly interpreted those coming events, everything inside her quickened. She flounced her hair, and laughed, and took him closely by the arm, and walked him down the sidewalk out of earshot of Ingrid and absently into earshot of Mrs. Macdougall. But the world had taken on anew sheen, even mrs. macdougall.

“Let’s go somewhere,” he said.

She nodded.“Somewhere. I’ve been wanting to go there for a long time.”

He smiled down at her in that easy way of his, and it was as if he had been a part of her always, and always would be.

As for D.C., he couldn’t have cared less at this moment about coming events. He was skirting along the shrubbery, tailing Greg. He always went where the action was.