Милдред Гордон - Undercover Cat

She was conscious of the middle-aged woman who had parked nearby and whose body was now heading for the en­trance although the head was screwed around in the opposite direction so she could stare at them, and conjecture. A girl drives up and parks, a man does the same, and the man gets in the girl’s car. An early-morning rendezvous. The head swiveled back into position only when the body collided with that of another shopper.

Zeke was saying, “Thanks for calling us right away.” He offered her a cigarette, which she refused. “I’ve got to ask you questions, a lot of them. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

He was looking her over rather thoroughly, and she said, “I’ve always thought what a break a man got being an FBI agent. He can case a girl from head to foot on the grounds he is trying to evaluate her.”

He grinned, the way he always did when he was flustered. “Forgive me – I really was – “

“Studying my character?” She laughed.

He got down to business immediately. “Now this cat, what time does he usually leave the house?” He added, “Ex­cuse me if I ask some silly questions but I’ve never been around a cat. I don’t know their habits.”

“I can see that. Well, he usually takes off as soon as it gets dark. Daytimes, the mockingbirds give him a rough time. The second he sticks his nose out, they shout their Indian war cry, and swoop down on him like a flock of dive bombers. They hit him in the back and take off before he can spring for them. Poor old guy. He’s got some deep-seated neuroses because of them.”

“You mean if it weren’t for the birds he might go out sooner?”

She nodded. He ran a hand through his hair. “We could scare them off, fire a few shots.” He thought that over. “No, we couldn’t. The SPCA would be on our necks if they ever found out we set out deliberately to frighten birds.”

He reached a decision. “Well, dark’s better for us anyway. We want to follow him tonight, Miss Randall, and if be should go back to wherever they’re holding her

“

She shot him an incredulous, sidewise glance. “You mean you think you can follow a cat?”

“We’ve got to.”

She shook her head. “Oh, brother,” she murmured.

“I’ll need to use a room in your house as a base of opera­tions, preferably a back room, so that if somebody calls un­expectedly I won’t be caught in the living or dining rooms.”

“You could use my parents’ bedroom, except it’s upstairs, and that wouldn’t be so good, would it?”

Zeke shook his head, and she continued, “How about mine? I’ll move in with my sister.”

“I hate to disturb you.”

“We’d like to do anything we can – anything at all.”

He took from an inside pocket a map of her neighborhood. “You said over the phone that the Lillian Nelson home” – he indicated the house – “was the farthermost point you knew about.”

“Yes, she called us one day. Sounded like a real swell gal. She’d gotten the phone number from D.C.‘s collar. You see, we keep a little metal tag attached to the collar, in case he gets lost, and she said if he didn’t come around every few nights, she’d worry about him. She said he’d scratch at the back door instead of the front, since there’s a police dog that lives across the street. Not that he would care too much about a dog because he’s taken on a few around here, but I guess, well” – she smiled – “when he’s out on a social call, he doesn’t want to get into a knockdown fight.”

She pointed to the map. “I think he always takes this di­rection. We’ve had calls from neighbors here – and here – but never from anyone east or south of us.”

He scribbled down the names of the known neighbors D.C. had visited. He noted that D.C. returned home anywhere from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. “If he isn’t in when we get up, we send Mike out to whistle for him.”

“Whistle?”

She nodded. “We taught him to answer to a whistle when he was a kitten. I’ve always thought it sounded so silly to go through a neighborhood calling, ‘Here, kitty, here kitty.’ Especially to a man cat. It must do something to his ego, don’t you think?”

He was taken back momentarily. She confused him, threw him off balance. He sneaked a quick look at her, and her eyes were laughing. He knew then there had been a lepre­chaun in her family somewhere.

He took down the names of the immediate neighbors, and asked numerous questions about them. He covered Greg even more comprehensively than the others.

“Who’re his friends?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I thought perhaps – “

“That we dated?” She shook her head. “I don’t think he dates anyone – steady, that is. He’s in love with a dog and a car. He told Inky once he couldn’t afford both a wife and a Thunderbird, and he’d rather have the Thunderbird. But really, Mr. Kelso, I don’t see that this has anything to do with the case. Mr. Balter definitely isn’t holding anyone in his house. If he were, Mrs. Macdougall would know about it. She’s as knowledgeable about what goes on as the FBI.”

He laughed, and then returned to D.C. “What kind of a temperament’s he got? I mean, does he have a good disposi­tion?”

That could be an important factor, perhaps a deciding one, in this kind of a case.

She answered softly, “You shouldn’t ask me, because I’m prejudiced. I love him so much that if anything happened to him

.” She remembered the time he developed an infec­tion in his cheek, and for days lingered in the hospital be­tween life and death. They were almost too scared to call each morning for fear he had died during the night. Mike scarcely slept, and Ingrid canceled her dates so she could visit him at the hospital evenings, even though he was so far gone he didn’t recognize her.

She continued, “I can’t stand people who become sickly sentimental over pets, can you? But the truth is that he’s an affectionate guy who gets under your skin. You’ll see. You rub his ears and he purrs all over.”

That’ll be the day, Zeke thought. He asked next where the cat slept.

“On my sister’s bed.” She wanted to tell him that it was not because he liked Ingrid best, because he was careful to show no favoritism. But Mike thrashed about too much to permit D.C. a good night’s rest, and as for herself, she didn’t enjoy the idea of D.C. awakening at five in the morning, walking the ridge of her long figure, and peering down at her as if to ask if she were going to sleep the whole day through. She had tried pretending he was not there, but that attitude only prompted him to take a good-morning swipe across her cheek with his sandpaper tongue, an act more telling than a dash of cold water. After a few mornings of that, she had dumped him unceremoniously out of the win­dow into the geraniums. For days afterwards he pretended she did not exist.

Zeke was saying, “I should see the cat right away.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him ‘cat.’ It bothers me. It’s just as if – well, as if he were a cat. His name’s D.C.”

She hurried on. “I’m curious. Why do you want to see him?”

“I need fingerprints – I mean, paw prints.”

“What in the world for?”

“We might pick up his trail from last night if he stepped in mud or dust.”

She stared in amazement. “I’ve heard the FBI was thor­ough but I just wouldn’t – I wouldn’t believe – “

“Neither would I, Miss Randall. But cat or no cat, if we’ve got a desperate situation, we’re going to work it out lead by lead.”

She said she couldn’t leave her job but she would call the school and arrange for Inky to return home at the noon break. “But don’t hold it against D.C. if he seems unfriendly,” she cautioned. “He’ll be sound asleep and may not like the idea of being rousted out.”