Милдред Гордон - Undercover Cat

“You won’t say anything that’ll hurt him?’

“Don’t worry. I’ll handle his sensibilities with great care, although I doubt if he has any. Now run along and get your homework done.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

“Forget it.”

“I’d absolutely die if you – “

“Absolutely, positively, definitely die?”

Ingrid smiled wanly, and Patti’s gaze followed her as she disappeared crestfallen into her room. That kid, how Patti loved her, the image of herself at sixteen, the same quick hurts, the same hopes and desperate wants, and even the same dialogue. And Mike, she loved him too, but in a different way – Mike who never did what he was supposed to do but didn’t do it in the most appealing way as he wandered in a boy world of his own dreaming.

She took a deep breath. She was proud of her family, proud that it was bound together by more than “Wagon Train” and a place to eat and sleep.

As she started for the back bedroom, Mike came bursting noisily through the front door. She tensed, held her breath, and tried shutting off her hearing in anticipation of the slam­ming of the door.

“Hey, Pat,” he yelled. “Greg’s going to pay me three dollars a week to mow his lawn. He says you’re underpaying me over here, and it’s against the minimum wage law, and you’re guilty of peonage, and he’ll take it to court for me.”

Patti bristled. “You tell Mr. Balter – “

Mike didn’t hear. “He’s a great guy. Do you know what he’s doing? He’s taking all the kids over at the boys’ home to the circus.”

“That’s fine,” Patti said. “Be sure to thank him for the paid advertisement. I just hope you collect for it.”

“What d’ya mean? Whatcha talking about?”

“Your timing’s bad, boy.”

He backed toward his. room, his eyes wide with astonish­ment and mild shock.

In her bedroom she found Zeke walking aimlessly about. D.C. had moved from the bed to the chest of drawers, where he had barely enough room to place the body between her cosmetics. He never yet had knocked a bottle over. He was washing his white-coated tail. If he had any one outstanding virtue, it was perseverance.

Zeke asked, “Doesn’t he ever do anything but take baths?”

She laughed softly. “Not so loud, please.” She crossed to the closet to get a dress. “You’ve given me quite a reputation. Our next door neighbor overheard us talking last night and told everyone I had a man in my bedroom.”

He was concerned. “I’ll have a talk with her when this is over.”

“What about the others? Mr. Balter?” She laughed again. “I’ll tell you. You can hang a banner across the house, IT WAS ONLY AN FBI AGENT, NOT A MAN.”

Zeke said, “If her ears are that sharp, I’d better move the equipment into the closet so she can’t hear me talking over the radio.”

The cuckoo peeked out, cucked eight times, and shut the door after himself. D.C. aroused and, after several yawns jumped to the bed and walked to the window at the far side to look out. Not a bad night, not bad at all. He stretched one hind leg as far as it would go, then the other, and arched his back. There was nothing like a good day’s sleep to tone your muscles. He yawned again. He might as well take a swing around the neighborhood, knock off a dog or two, see what he could mooch, and check Greg’s service porch. And if he found another duck, he would keep it for himself this time.

He looked up at Patti out of liquid amber eyes and meowed softly. He might be an old roue going out on the town, but he carried it off with a nice touch of innocence. Patti stooped to rub his ears and he moved away. Affection was something to be exchanged at the proper time and in the proper place, such as after a good meal, but not when he was going out and had other matters on his mind.

Patti followed him out of the room. One thing he had taught them well was to open doors on command.

Zeke whispered into the mike, “All units, all units. In­formant leaving house. Will follow and advise.”

16

Helen Jenkins extended her hearing as far as possible. She was stretched out on her right side, her arm under her head to lift it from the pillow. In the living room Dan and Sammy were talking, quite low but still loud enough for her to catch the conversation. Earlier, they had switched off the air conditioning, deciding the night was to • cool to operate it without someone thinking it strange.

A half-hour ago she had come to bed, and been so exhaust­ed that she had had to struggle to stay awake. But she had re­sisted sleep, thinking she might overhear them. For the first ten minutes she pretended she was restless, which was normal for her, and then had turned as usual from her left to her right side before simulating sleep.

Now Dan was saying, “You don’t just lose a watch. I’ve got a smell for these things. You remember the Johnson job, how we cleared out of there two hours before the cops broke the door down, because I smelled them coming?”

Sammy coughed; he smoked too much. “Big thing. She loses a watch. So what? I lose things and don’t find ‘em for weeks.”

“I don’t know where else we could’ve looked.” She could hear Dan walking about thumping a chair, the wall, the way he did when he was disturbed. “If I could just figure it

.”

Sammy was striking a match, the box kind; he didn’t like the packets. “That dame up front will be nosing around soon.”

“I’ll stall her.”

“You’re kiddin’ yourself. Once one of those dames gets started – I tell you we got to move fast and without Jenkins. We got to get her off our backs. You sit around thinking, talk­ing, doing nothing, and we’re going to get messed up for sure.”

He coughed hard, then continued. “It’s easy. Nothing to it. We drop her in one of those bins I was telling you about, over in the alley, back of the stores. What can happen driving over there? Four blocks. No stop signal. No cops hiding around at that time of night. The newsstand closes at eleven, the theater a block up the street empties about the same time. We’ll pile a lot of cartons on her and nobody’ll know until they pick up the boxes at nine the next morning.”

She broke into a sweat and a roar filled her head. A step tapped softly on the floor, coming her way. She clenched her fists so tightly she was like a board. She sensed that the step stopped in the doorway. She battled a compulsion to make a dash for the front door. If they shot her down, wouldn’t it be better than waiting here? At least she had a chance, a small one.

But her body balked, controlled by her reasoning, which prompted her to breathe long and slowly, long and slowly, as if she were sound asleep, to keep her eyes closed no matter how much they wanted to open.

The step receded, and she sagged. One of them had wanted to assure himself she was still sleeping.

She tensed again at the sound of Dan’s voice. “I don’t like any part of it.”

“She’s gotten under your skin. That’s a bad sickness. I almost got myself shot once, there was this dame

“

“Knock it off, Sammy.” Dan’s tone was deadly. “You know I never let a woman shake me up when I’m on a job. But I play it my way. That’s how we set it up. My way. Real close.”

“A guy who plays it too close, maybe he’s just plain

” Sammy thought better of it.

“Plain what, Sammy?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“I asked you, Sammy, plain what?”

“Gripes, if I could just get a drink. I tell you, I’m stir crazy. I could punch a hole in that wall, like a guy I knew once. He punched a hole clean through a wall. We got all this money, and for what? No dames, no liquor, no golf, no fresh air. We’re in a stinking, lousy jail. And her in there, she’s going to have the screaming willies. You taken a good look at her eyes? What’re you going to do when she starts yelling? Yeah, what you going to do? Put a shot through her like some goof-up kid who loses his head? And get knocked off making a break?”