Милдред Гордон - Undercover Cat

“Greg!” Patti called so loudly that he stopped. “I just came from the bedroom. Nobody’s there.”

“Can’t be too careful these days,” he said, continuing dog­gedly.

“For heaven’s sake, Greg, if you don’t trust me, if you think I’m lying to you

‘

Ingrid said quickly, “Please, Greg, listen. You’re getting excited, and after you promised me

” She caught up with him in the hallway and grabbed him by the arm. “Come on into my room. I want you to hear a new Belafonte record I just got.”

Greg pulled away, but then Mike, emerging from his room, blocked his way. “Hi, Greg,” he said with an old-pal affableness note 12 that was unlike him, “you’re just in time to help me assemble my Telstar model.”

Mike stood his ground, bringing Greg to a quick, awkward halt. Behind him Patti asked, “Greg, how could you – how could you let an old busybody wreck everything between us?”

Ingrid piped up, “Yes, how could you, Greg?” She added, “If you don’t believe my sis, I’ll swear to it, and you know I wouldn’t swear to anything and hope to die if I

“

Mike said, “This is the greatest model yet. You never saw anything like it.”

Greg shoved him aside and stepped into Patti’s bedroom.

At the pounding on the front door, and Ingrid’s call for Patti, Zeke anticipated trouble. He picked up his hat and coat and brief case, and stepped into the closet. He never could explain it afterwards but just as he was closing the door D.C. shot into the closet with him.

Zeke rid himself of a good sneeze to get into shape before Greg arrived. He heard the loud talking in the hallway, In-grid joining Patti in an effort to stop the onrushing Greg, and Mike making one last, brave stand.

Zeke reconnoitered in the small, dark closet. He remem­bered to switch off the radio. D.C. seemed quiet enough, rubbing against his trouser leg as if they were old friends.

Zeke heard Patti say, “I told you nobody was back here. I can’t understand you, Greg. I just don’t understand how you could believe that old gossip over me.”

Greg was walking about. “I didn’t believe her. But I got to thinking, what if somebody was hiding in your bedroom, and I didn’t do anything about it, and tomorrow I read in the newspapers

” ,

And then Zeke heard Ingrid, “I’m terribly disappointed in you.”

Near tears, Patti said, “You suspected me. You thought I had a man here.”

Ingrid said, “I think it’s all a mistake. Just a mistake. Let’s have a Coke and a good laugh about it.”

Zeke felt a sneeze approaching, and pressed a forefinger against the base of his nose to suppress it. So why don’t they get Greg Balter out? What in heaven’s name are they waiting for? He couldn’t stall the sneeze forever, not with the blasted cat brushing back and forth, back and forth, across his right calf.

He never knew exactly how it happened. All he remem­bered was that he pushed D.C. gently aside with one foot, and the next instant D.C. screamed murder in a shriek that must have rocked the neighborhood. Zeke’s blood shot through him like a drag race in progress, and thunder filled his head, and his body was paralyzed, until finally the little man at the controls of his shocked brain climbed out and ordered him to get off the cat’s tail. Great Caesar’s ghost, the little man repeated, get off the cat’s tail! And Zeke raised a foot. In the same instant he realized his hearing had been shattered along with his nerves and co-ordination.

The next moment the door was flung open, and Greg Balter stood before him, a portrait of magnificent outrage. Zeke emerged shaken to his toenails. His voice sputtered and died. He pushed the starter again, but the motor only spun a second, coughed, and gave up.

He heard Greg shouting, as if in a tunnel. “You – an FBI agent! Taking advantage of a girl! Corrupting children! I’m going to report you to Washington . I’m going to get you fired. I’m going to have you cashiered out in disgrace. I’ll smear it over every newspaper in the country.”

Patti was crying. “Greg, Greg, please, Greg.” And Ingrid was shouting, “Greg! Listen to me. Greg! Listen to me.”

Only Mike, standing in the doorway, was as speechless as Zeke. His eyes had popped three sizes bigger than normal. This couldn’t be happening. He wasn’t seeing or hearing right. And when his folks got back, oh, brother

.

Greg continued, “But you’re not an FBI agent. You’re an impersonator. I knew the first time I saw you that you were a phony.” He added maliciously, “And that’s a prison sen­tence. You’ll get twenty years for this.”

He turned on Patti, “How could you? How could you?”

“How could you?” she asked.

He hurried down the hallway, pursued by Patti, Ingrid, and Mike. He was saying, “First your cat, and then Blitzy’s at death’s door because of you, and now this. And that routine you gave me this afternoon, I took it hook, line, and sinker.” He mimicked her, ” ‘Now, Greg, don’t get excited. Don’t be so suspicious

. Surely you don’t think I had a man in my bedroom

I can’t understand you, Greg, how you could believe that old busybody.’ “

He banged the door so hard the last Mohican almost leaped off the wall. Patti clenched her jaw in anger against the tears. Ingrid said, “You liked him, didn’t you, sis?” And Mike came up and squeezed her hand. “I’ll have a talk with him next time I mow the grass.”

In the background Zeke stood shaking his head, a fighter who had just gotten to his feet after the count of ten. Patti turned on him and flared in anger, “Did you have to step on his tail?”

“Yes,” Mike put in, “what kind of an FBI agent are you?”

Zeke said quietly, “I’m sorry, terribly sorry, but I’m sure Mr. Balter will understand when this is all over and I ex plain everything to him. You won’t, of course, you just mustn’t tell him now, because it you do it would wreck ev­erything. You have to realize that so much depends on you, that the FBI is counting on you to continue to work with us no matter what comes up.”

He repeated, “I’m sure Mr. Balter will understand.”

“I doubt it,” Mike said. “I wouldn’t, if I had seen with my own eyes – “

“He will,” Ingrid said with conviction, “because he’s a liv­ing doll. If I were a couple years older I’d throw myself at him.”

“You do now,” Mike said.

Zeke withdrew as gracefully as the circumstances would allow. He felt unexplainably guilty, as if what had happened was his fault. Yet, in backtracking, he didn’t believe he could have acted otherwise. He had taken every possible pre­caution. His guilt stemmed, he recognized finally, from the fact that he had permitted himself to become emotionally involved with the Randalls. He was hurt deeply because Patti was hurt, and Ingrid, too. He discovered he liked them immensely, more than he realized. It took a crisis to awaken a man to his feelings.

He busied himself with the radio. “All units, stand by. In­formant expected to begin operation at scheduled hour.”

D.C., who had been tending his wounded member, quit to stare at him. Zeke stared right back, muttering, “I get into gun battles for you, fight off police dogs, and keep you from getting run over – and what do you do? Scream bloody mur­der the first time some little thing happens.”

22

The cuckoo was preparing to strike six when Patti went to the bedroom for a change of clothes. She guessed she should have called or knocked. She was always surprising Zeke. This time he had his shoes off, and began scrounging around for them. “They’re here someplace,” he said, casting a suspicious glance toward D.C.