Милдред Гордон - Undercover Cat

She straightened her shoulders, so he wouldn’t know about the rumbling fear deep down. “You could take me wherever you’re going. You need somebody to cook and wash for you.”

He pushed his plate back with a hand none too steady. He hadn’t touched his bacon and eggs, “We can pick up a couple girls along the way to do that – and other things, too. A com­bination package. They won’t know who we are and won’t care as long as we buy them a fur or a piece of rock.”

He rose as if to end the talk and, going to the sink, washed his hands. “You’re playing for time. You figure you may get a break. Well, forget it. You only get a break in this world when you make one, and you’re not going to get the chance.”

She retorted, “You do it, and you can hide out somewhere for a month, maybe two months, but not for too long, and you know it, just as you know you’ll go to the gas chamber for it. Wouldn’t it be smarter to turn me loose and let me talk? You could get to Mexico before the police got started, or board a plane for the Orient. If you tied me up, you’d get a head start of a few days before anybody came in here and found me.”

He took a long time drying his hands. “I don’t go for Mex girls, or Jap ones. I want my women American. Like you, sweetheart. You’re getting to look awful good to us. Sammy was saying we had to put you away before he did something he shouldn’t.”

She stared at her plate. Her voice stayed only above a whisper. “I don’t understand how you could take a human life. Sammy perhaps, but not you.”

His eyes drifted away, staring into some distant corner of the past. She had stirred some random feeling that had long lain dormant. “Not you,” she repeated.

He put a match to a cigarette. “I think Sammy pegged you right. A con woman.” He took a quick, nervous puff.

Sammy appeared then in the doorway. “Is eleven o’clock to­night okay, Jenkins? We could make it for midnight, couldn’t we, Dan, if that’s a better time for Jenkins.”

20

Patti was modeling an abbreviated play suit in the store’s garden section when she spotted Greg making his way to­ward her. Hurriedly, she pirouetted before a bulging middle– aged woman who would have had no business in a play suit even in the privacy of her own home.

Greg stepped up. “Please, I’ve got to talk with you.”

She walked on, and he followed. “Even a criminal gets a defense.”

She stopped very still by a patio table and an umbrella, fearful he would create a scene. He talked as if she were a leprechaun who might vanish. “About last night. So much happened.”

“I don’t care to hear about last night,” she said.

“I didn’t take a shot at D.C. There was this guy sneaking around, and I fired over his head. I only wanted to scare him. I didn’t know your cat was anywhere about until I fired the shot and saw him flying through the air.”

“You’re making it up, Greg. You said you were going to give him a pants full of shot – “

“For heaven’s sake, Patti, are you going to throw that in my face forevermore? I was mad when I said it. You know how I get. I wouldn’t even step on his tail – because you love him and I love you.”

“You what?”

“That’s what I said.”

She considered the matter. That same old charm. He only had to smile, and that did it. That wiped out all of his trans­gressions. “Why didn’t you tell me last night you were firing at this mysterious prowler?”

“Because when I turned on my patio light, there was my begonia dug up by the roots, and something snapped in me.”

“Something always snaps in you.”

“And afterwards, well, D.C. clawed my arm half to shreds – I had to see a doctor today and get it bandaged. Anyway, can we forget it? Can we start all over again?”

She looked up at him. “Greg, tell me, how can you be so sweet in the daytime, and such a stinker nights?”

“So much happens at night. Did you hear me? I said I loved you.”

“You pick such romantic spots.” She looked at him sharply. “I still think you took a shot at D.C.”

“So help me, on my boy scout honor.”

He hurried on. “You know I love you or I wouldn’t’ve hired Ingrid and Mike to do P.R. work for me.”

“That was pretty sneaky.”

“I’m sorry about that, Patti. But you do crazy things when you’re in love. As you can see, I’m doing my own P.R. job now.”

“Greg, please, I’m working. Couldn’t we talk about this tonight?”

“But I’ve got to know now, I’m going out of my mind. Who is the fellow ? Is it serious?”

“What fellow?”

“Please. I couldn’t sleep, didn’t get an hour’s sleep all night. Inky said – “

“Inky thinks I need a reputation.”

“You mean – ?”

“Exactly.”

“But Mrs. Macdougall?”

“She’s an old gossip. You know that, Greg.”

“Yeah – and is she far out. She told me she saw a man following D.C. last night. How crazy can you get?” He thought the matter over, then was forced to add, “But she was so positive she heard voices – “

“Surely you don’t think a man spent the night in my bed­room, because if you think that – “

“No, no, of course not. It’s only .. .”

“It’s only what, Greg?”

“I’ve got this temper, and when I hear something like that. ..”

“I knew a man once, had a violent temper. And then one day he saw it was ruining his life, ruining his business and his home, and he said to himself, never again. And today he’s the calmest, nicest human being you ever met. So you can do something about it, Greg, if you want to. I think it’s like drinking too much. Sometime or other you have to face up to it and call it quits.”

“I quit this morning. Believe me

” He walked too close to a display of Mexican pottery ware and his coat sleeve brushed a large bowl, which toppled. She caught it in time.

“I’m a bull in a china closet,” he said.

She looked at him dreamily. “I bet when you were a little boy your mother always held you tightly by the hand when she took you into a store.”

He could have kissed her, and would have before everyone if a young man had not suddenly lost interest in a barbecue he was pricing and turned to admire her; and his pretty wife, catching him in the act, said, “No, George, I’m not going to buy you that even if it is your birthday.”

When she left work that afternoon, Greg was waiting to drive her home. She emerged carrying a potted begonia. “With my regrets – and D.C.‘s,” she said, handing it to him. “Clara Peabody.”

He inspected the plant with a critical eye. “I’ll accept your regrets but I don’t know about D.C.‘s. Are you sure he’s sin­cere about this?”

She laughed and, while he held the door, slid into the front seat. She asked solicitously about his bandaged arm. He pre­tended considerable pain but said, “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.” He asked then, “Are you positive he’s a cat? I mean, well, you know how they get babies mixed up in hospitals. Maybe he was a panther cub and they put the wrong tag on him.”

She sat close to him. “You know only one side of him.”

“You mean there’s another?”

“When he curls up in your lap and starts purring, you know that this little bit of life – “

He broke in. “Tell me, are we talking about the same cat? Little bit of life? Two hundred pounds of savage fury. And I’ve got an arm to prove it.”

“You’re so prejudiced. If you’d just try to like him

“

“I’ll try. Because nothing could be all bad that you love so much.”

As he drove, the world turned into a fairyland set to music. Even the traffic signals seemed to play a melody. She scarcely heard Greg talking. He was asking about going to the Cocoa-nut Grove at the Ambassador Saturday for the dinner show.