Милдред Гордон - Undercover Cat

“I can’t understand it,” Dan said. “Something must’ve hap­pened. She’s never shown any interest in us before.”

They had canvassed this entire area to find a landlady who looked as if she would mind her own business, and an apart­ment on an alley, so they could come and go without passing through a foyer. The day they rented the place she had been extremely impersonal, almost curt. She had let them know she would not disturb them if they left her alone. “The rent’s eighty-five a month furnished as is. If you wear out a broom, you buy another. I don’t want no tenants pestering me.”

They told her they were brothers, and then when they seized the bank teller they had a problem. Dan solved it by telling the landlady, “My wife and me, we’ve been having trouble. I figured when I moved in here we’d broken up for good but she shows up today and we got everything settled. I know you’ll want more money, now there’s three of us.”

“Ninety-five for three.”

“That sounds reasonable.” He added, “I want you to meet her soon as she feels like it. She’s got a bad spell of bronchitis and taken to bed but she’ll be up and about soon.”

The landlady had offered no comment. Her attitude was that if she never met his wife, that would be all right with her.

Now Sammy said, “I got a brain storm in the night.”

Dan showed no interest. He was pacing about, thinking. Sammy continued, “If we forced forty or fifty sleeping pills down her, it’d look like she conked off on her own.”

Dan’s look stopped him. “What’re we going to do, hang around while they pick up her body and find out who she is?”

“No, we’ll powder out.”

“And leave a trail a mile wide? The landlady’s seen us, and she’ll pick us out when the cops bring their little album around, and then they’ll plaster our pictures in the papers, and we won’t be able to stick our heads out the rest of our lives.”

Sammy squirmed. They both had records, and hence mug photographs on file. They had been caught within hours after their first job together, the heist of a Yuma , Arizona , bank. A clever attorney, though, had upset the witnesses to such an extent that the bank manager, who had been positive in his identification of them, had become confused. To their amaze­ment, the jury acquitted them.

Dan continued, “What’re you trying to do, Sammy, make the ten-most-wanted list?”

They quieted at the sound of water running in the bath­room, and fell into their usual places in a couple of easy chairs with the newspaper divided between them.

A quarter hour later she emerged with heavy gray circles under lifeless eyes.

” ‘Bout time you were getting out here,” said Sammy, checking his watch. “What you trying to do? Starve us to death?”

She started for the kitchen. He was on his feet like a spring­ing tiger, and grabbed her. “When I say something, you lis­ten, you hear me?”

“I heard you. I didn’t think an answer was needed.”

Dan said, “Make it ham for me. I’m hungry enough to eat a bear.”

Sammy let her go. “Go on, you heard him. Get in there.” He cuffed her on the rear.

Controlling her anger, she asked calmly, “What do you want me to do? Blow up, so you can slap me around? Is that what you want? I’ve played ball, haven’t I?”

“Cut it, Sammy,” Dan said.

She continued, addressing herself to Dan, “My dad’s got a birthday today. He’s sixty-seven, and very sick. He hasn’t got much longer to live, and if he doesn’t hear from me, if he thinks I’m dead

what I’m getting at is, could you tele­phone him and say I’m all right’”

Dan put down the paper while Sammy watched for a cue. “Sweetheart, you know they’ve got a tap on your old dad’s phone, and the minute I call him, the cops pick me up. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you, because you’d be all alone with Sammy.”

“Hey, Jenkins,” put in Sammy, “what about that?” He turned to Dan. “No, I don’t think so. I like ‘em hungry-look­ing. No hips, no – “

“Okay, Sammy. Let her get breakfast.”

In the kitchen, she got the eggs, bacon, and ham from the refrigerator, and began the monotonous daily routine. In the beginning, when they had insisted she cook for them, she had balked, then realized she would anger them without accomplishing anything. It was then, that first night, that she de­cided she would never cross them. She would act submissive in the hope she might catch them off guard.

In studying her possibilities for survival, she concluded she must somehow attract attention from the outside to the apart­ment. The physical setup, though, was against her. The win­dows were nailed fast, and those in the living room hung with curtains too heavy to see through. Only ten feet beyond was the brick wall of the next building. Since the apartment was on the rear, only an occasional person passed by. In the kitch­en itself Dan kept the Venetian shades drawn, which was logical since the sun struck that side until midafternoon.

As a result of her bank training, she examined every possi­bility carefully. If she had known about electricity, she could have shorted a wire, blown a fuse, and brought someone into the apartment. But she hadn’t the faintest idea how to induce a short.

The next possibility that had occurred was to start a fire. She watched for a chance to drop a match into the kitchen wastebasket but Dan kept her under close observation. Then, three days ago, she reshaped the idea. She left a roast in the oven, turned the flame to five hundred, and propped the oven door open slightly with a knife. As she left the kitchen, she closed the door. She had hoped the roast would burn, the smoke fill the kitchen and seep out the back window, and a passer-by call the fire department. But Dan, always alert, smelled the smoke before it had accumulated sufficiently. In­stead of opening the outside door to air the kitchen, he turned on the exhaust fan, and they sat in the smoke until the fan slowly carried it out. “What you trying to do, get the fire de­partment in here?” he asked with that uncanny instinct for seeing through a matter. But while he might be suspicious, he could not be sure. Accidents like that did happen. After that, however, he checked the burners before they left the kitchen.

And then last night this stray cat had offered her another chance. By now someone had found the watch. The question in her mind was, would they identify the watch? Surely the newspapers had carried her description and what she was wearing. Surely her father had given them the photograph taken at a bank picnic only a month ago, and she had had the watch on her left wrist at the time. She had no idea, though, what the newspapers had printed. Dan and Sammy clipped out stories relating to the crime before passing the papers to her. Twice when news broadcasts came over about the holdup, they switched to other stations.

And another fear ate into her. Would the newspapers carry the story if the watch were found? If they did, she was dead. Literally dead. Surely the police would realize this. But then again, maybe the cat’s folks would tell the newspapers.

As if he were reading her mind, Dan asked, “What time you got, sweetheart?”

She went about the chore of turning the bacon with a steadi­ness that belied the grab of her heart. “I don’t know. I’ve mis­placed my watch. When I got up this morning, it wasn’t on the night table. I must’ve put it down somewhere.”

Sammy’s voice came over from the living room. “You’re get­ting old, Jenkins.”

“She’s not that old,” Dan said softly, and to her, “You don’t just lose a watch in a three-room apartment.”

“I’d lose my head if it weren’t screwed on.”