Милдред Гордон - Undercover Cat

He heard the growing, excited babble of voices as neigh­bors opened windows and doors and others streamed out of their homes. He whispered rapidly into the mike, “Unknown party fired one shotgun blast from back of Greg Balter house, then apparently fled. No sign of informant. Come in ten, twelve.”

“Twelve in. Lost informant. Went completely off scope.”

“Ten in. No informant on sound pattern. Continuing to scan.”

Zeke continued, “All units. Attempt pick up trace of in­formant. Neighbors closing in here. Am returning to opera­tion base. That’s all. Out.”

18

Patti was pressing a dress in the kitchen when Zeke came through the back door. He was too discombobulated, as her Uncle Bob would say, to knock.

“Hello,” he said, and brushed by her on his way to her bedroom.

She pivoted in surprise. “Just hello? Nothing more?” In-grid and Mike wandered out of the living room where they had been watching one of television’s most famous surgeons operate.

Zeke never paused. Trailed through the dining room and down the hallway by all three, he said, “Somebody opened fire on us with a shotgun. Over in Greg Balter’s back yard. Everything was going according to schedule. The cat was digging and all of a sudden Cape Canaveral blew up.”

Entering the bedroom, he went to the closet where he had moved the technical equipment.

“Where is D.C.?” Patti was beside herself. “Is he dead?”

Zeke said into the mike, ” Operations Center , Operations Center . ZK here. I’m back at base. Believe shot fired by un­known party standing inside service porch of Greg Balter home. Probability unknown party fired to kill either myself or informant or both.”

Patti shouted, “What about D.C.?”

Zeke continued into the mike, “Will remain here until neighborhood quiets down. Will advise if further develop­ments.”

Signing off, he turned to Patti. “I don’t know, Miss Randall. The last I saw of your cat he was suspended in mid-air. I don’t know whether he came down or not.” He took an enormous handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.

“He’s dead,” Patti said quietly, and Ingrid added, “Oh, no.”

“I doubt it.. I don’t think he can be killed by anything less than an atom bomb.”

“You’re the FBI,” Patti said slowly, resisting the tears. “I thought you’d protect him. I thought the FBI always did. But you walked away and left him.”

“Miss Randall.

I did not leave him. He left me.” He added, “I couldn’t wait around. I couldn’t explain this to the neighbors. I couldn’t tell them I was an agent running a surveillance on a cat. It would have hit the newspapers, and the fugitives would have read about it and put two and two together.”

“You walked away and left him.”

Ingrid choked back a sob. “Please, sis, don’t. What could Mr. Kelso do if he had stayed around? If D.C.‘s gone” – she hesitated, almost breaking – “he’s gone.” She turned to Zeke. “I’m glad you’re back. It might have been your body over in Greg’s yard instead of D.C.‘s.”

She put an arm about Patti. “It wasn’t Greg who fired the shot. I know it wasn’t.”

Mike cleared the husk from his throat. “How come you didn’t spot the guy first, like Glenn Ford? He didn’t let any­body sneak up on him and fire away.”

Zeke ran a hand through his unruly hair and was pondering an answer when a loud, demanding knock reverberated through the house. They froze into an old-fashioned portrait sitting. Patti recovered first. “I’ll get it. You stay here.” She indicated Ingrid and Mike.

She paced slowly to the front door, taking all the time she could to collect herself. She switched on the porch light and drew the door open a few inches. “Oh, it’s you,” she mumbled.

Greg charged in, bearing a bedraggled tuberous begonia, which he proceeded to shake in her face. “Clara Peabody – –finest specimen obtainable. And look at it. Watered and cared for with my own hands for six months, and nourished by God, and in six seconds destroyed by your cat.”

She stood staring, then shook her head to try to make sense out of this wild onslaught of verbiage. He continued rapidly, “Sad to say, my begonia’s dead but he’s still alive, and wailing like a banshee. So if you don’t mind too much, Miss Randall – that is, if it’s not interfering with your personal affairs” – he looked around the room for evidence of a man – “would you come and get the little monster?”

He added, “He’s up a tree right over my bedroom.”

“You took a shot at him,” she said angrily. “You deliber­ately tried to kill D.C. I never thought you’d go that far. But you set out with – with – “

“Premeditation?”

“That’s it, that’s what it was, premeditated murder.”

He stared at her with calculating eyes as a thought took shape. He asked slowly, “How did you know I took a shot at anything? Who told you?”

“No – nobody. I heard the shot.”

“You heard a shot, and you knew it was my shotgun. You recognized it from its tonal quality.”

“I knew,” she insisted stubbornly. “You threatened him once. Remember? You said you were going to give him a pants full of buckshot. Those were your exact words. You said – “

“Did your boy friend tell you he was prowling around in my back yard like a burglar, and drew a gun, and was going to kill me in cold blood?” He raised his voice. “Tell him to come on out and we’ll settle this man-to-man.”

“Greg!” She started to cry. “Greg, how could you suggest, how dare you?

“

“Don’t tell me he didn’t run back in here?”

“Greg!”

“He shot out of my place like a rocket.”

“If you choose to believe Mrs. Macdougall

“

“That old busybody.” Quickly he drew a legal brief in his mind. “But there was a man in my yard, and you knew I’d taken a shot

“

“If you have prowlers, call the police. Don’t come roaring over here.”

She was so furious she could have kicked him on the shins, but she controlled herself admirably, she thought. She said, ‘Til get into something and come over.”

He calmed suddenly, shaking his head. “Well, I did it again, didn’t I? I’m always doing it with you.”

“You’d better do a little public relations work on yourself, Greg, instead of hiring people to do it for you.”

He stood like a boy caught robbing the deep freeze. She walked to the hutch, picked up the five-dollar bill, and handed it to him. “Here’s your five dollars. I don’t want to see you throw your money away. Nobody can do anything about your image.”

Greg took the bill as if it might snap at him. “I do care, Patti, don’t you see? Why don’t we sit down like sensible people and calmly and quietly – “

“Okay – whenever you think the description fits you.”

“If you’d keep your cat tied up

“

“And have him turn into a frustrated, neurotic old man?”

“You’d rather have a frustrated, neurotic old neighbor maybe?”

She repeated, “I’ll get into something and come over.”

As he left, he said, “All right, and be sure to bring the fire department with you, because, man, if that cat had had some­thing to hold to he’d have been the first one on the moon.”

In the glare of giant spotlights a ladder rose from the bed of a fire truck straight toward D.C., who sat swaying on the highest branch. He looked with keen interest on the equip­ment below and the mob of firemen, police officers, and neighbors. Not bad, not bad at all. Man, he really had a blast going. It was odd. Some nights he went out and couldn’t find any action, and other nights, when he was only half trying, he would hit it lucky and get a whole neighborhood out of bed.