Милдред Гордон - Undercover Cat

“Greg!” She screamed his name so loud that he stopped, startled. She said in a steady, controlled voice, “I did not sic the FBI on you. I did not – “

“Answer me this: Did you or did you not tell the FBI agent about last night, that your cat came over – “

“He wanted to know where D.C. had been and I told him – “

“I don’t understand you, Miss Randall. So help me I don’t, running to the FBI when it was your cat, although for the life of me I can’t imagine what story you told them to bring them down on me. That I was threatening your life? That I was a spy and stuffed the duck with messages?”

“If you’ll give me a chance, Greg. I’m trying to tell you that I told the agent nothing. He wanted merely to know – “

“I heard you. He wanted to know where D.C. had been.

The FBI’s got nothing else to do but chase after cats. One

big, lousy, stinking fat cat, and you tell me the FBI wants to

know where he was. Cripes, you don’t think I’m so stupid »>

He trailed off as she started away. Any second the tears would come and she was darned if she would let him have that satisfaction.

“Patti,” he called weakly. He shook his head like a punch-drunk prize fighter. He was confused. A cat, a duck, the FBI, an angry woman – he couldn’t put the parts together in logical fashion.

He returned to the car. One of the boys asked hesitantly, “What was the blast about?”

“Look at you,” he yelled. “You’ve got more water on you than the car. I’m not paying you to take a bath.”

The other boy asked, “Is the FBI going to arrest D.C?”

“I wish they would. But they wouldn’t dare. The people wouldn’t stand for it, Congress wouldn’t, the President wouldn’t – because cats can do no wrong. I don’t know who’s handling their publicity but they’ve got the best press any­body ever had in the history of mankind.”

As she entered the house, she was so angry her bracelets jingled. Ingrid looked up with surprise from a magazine. “Sis,” she said tentatively, recognizing the anger she knew all too well. “Whatever – “

“He broke the date.”

“Greg did?”

“Yes, your big, fine, noble hero thinks I turned him in to the FBI. I couldn’t tell him the truth. He thinks it’s all be­cause of the row we had last night.”

Ingrid put her arm about Patti. “Don’t worry, when it’s all over, and we tell him – “

“He’ll say we tricked him, that we should’ve told him.”

“I’ll talk to him. He’ll listen to me.”

“Then you date him. Me, I’ve had it.”

She hurried to the back bedroom where she took Zeke by surprise, one leg swung up over the chair’s arm.

“What did you tell Mr. Balter?” she asked without pream­ble. “He’s furious with me, thinks I got the FBI after him.”

D.C. came awake with a start and prepared to leap. He knew that tone. Zeke rose in astonishment. “I don’t under­stand – “

“Me neither. Flinging his old mallard duck up into my face again. Why did you bring the duck into it?”

“Look, Miss Randall, I didn’t bring the duck into it. I haven’t got the slightest idea how the duck ever got into the act. I went to see him as routine procedure. He’s a reputable attorney, a man who could be trusted, and I thought he might have information about the cat’s – I mean, D.C.‘s – where­abouts the night before. He might have given me a lead that would have cracked the case wide open. But before I had time to ask any questions, he was talking about some crazy duck, and how he almost got pneumonia, and he kept talking about it. It was like I’d punched a button that blew up a volcano.”

She was not satisfied. “Why did you think he’d know any­thing about D.C.? Did you think they went out on the town together every night?”

“Please, Miss Randall, the neighbors may hear.”

She crumpled into the nearest chair. “Forgive me, I’m get­ting as bad as that character across the street.”

D.C. settled back down. He was glad he wasn’t the one catching it.

At least one neighbor had heard. Mrs. Macdougall, washing dishes next door, put a small finger in her ear and shook the finger vigorously. But, removing it, she still couldn’t make out the words. She could only hear Patti and a man talking in raised voices.

“That girl,” she said to her husband, “she’s got a man in her room – and her carryin’ on like that before a baby sister and a little boy.”

Her husband, who hadn’t said a word all evening, emerged from behind the sports page. “You don’t say?” A look stole into his eyes. “You don’t say!”

Mrs. Macdougall did say. “No wonder – the whole pack of ‘em taking sun baths half-naked. ‘We don’t want the children to grow up curious,’ her mother saying, and her so respectable-lookin’. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of, the human body.’ Rubbish and tommy rot note 11!”

13

As zero hour approached, the tension mounted. A dozen agents spread out fanlike over the area, stopping children of all ages to show them the picture of D.C. “I’ve lost my cat,” an agent would say. “Thought maybe you’d seen him around.”

Boys especially studied the photograph at length, discussing it among themselves. Only one, though, remembered seeing a cat that size. He recalled that he watched the cat paw at a door across the street from him, and gain admittance. Agents .relayed the lead immediately to Operations Center .

Other agents skirted thief-like along flower beds and shrubs, stooping to examine mud spots created by yard sprinklers. When they found cat tracks, they would place the photo­graphic reproduction of D.C.s paw prints alongside for com­parison. Dogs growled at them, housewives cast suspicious eyes on them, and boys hounded them. “Whatcha doin’, mis­ter?” they’d ask, catching an agent on his knees peering under a bush. They thought he had lost something, which was a rather reasonable conclusion, and wanted to help hunt. The agents were noncommittal. A grunt or two usually classified an adult as unfriendly, and the little snoops would drift on.

“Somebody’s going to call the police,” said one agent, “and they’ll pick us up for being drunk or nuts, or both.” Another said, “I’m not going to tell even my wife what I was doing today.”

Block by block, they scoured the area with typical Bureau thoroughness. If D.C. had stepped into soft earth or crossed a dusty alley, they would have found his track. But not a single one did they come across, attesting to what Patti had told Zeke, that D.C. had a great penchant for cleanliness. Even when he smelled a flower – and he was a great nature lover, she said – he would remain on the grass and project his neck the required distance.

At Operations Center in the back of the drugstore, Super­visor Bob Newton ran a final check on twelve radio cars, spotted at strategic points on side streets near the Randall home, on four sound cone units, and on six agents equipped with infra-red scopes.

Newton cautioned them, “Remember we’re dealing with a highly sensitive type of informant. Maintain a close surveil­lance but keep in mind at all times that you must not do any­thing that will alarm the informant.”

In the Randall home Zeke cleared everyone out of the bed­room at seven-fifteen on the theory that D.C. might sense something was brewing if they gathered en masse. Before Patti left, he checked again the route that D.C. would follow. Patti remembered then that D.C, in heading for Greg’s home, would keep considerable distance between himself and one specific garage. When he was quite young, she related, D.C. had followed a playful kitten into this garage. As he nuzzled the kitten, which had skunks for parents, the most terrible thing happened. For weeks afterwards scarcely anyone spoke to him, nor was he permitted in the house, and, in fact, even the dogs gave him a wide berth.