Elmore Leonard - Cat Chaser

Mary smiled thinking about it now, realizing she missed him.

It didn’t seem possible to miss someone you saw only once or twice a week over a period of a few years; but she had continued to picture him and think about him and what she felt now was real. You know when you miss someone.

Before today she hadn’t seen Moran since his divorce. Since his father-in-law drummed him out of the club, ripped the crest from his blazer. Mary saw it that way in fantasy, in flashes: Moran standing at attention in his beard and sneakers, expelled for refusing to wear white patent-leather loafers with tassels, and matching white belt. Out. Refusing to talk about real estate, grain futures, tax shelters, more real estate. Out.

She should have jumped up and yelled and run across the lobby. Nine hundred miles from home…

Call his room.

An outfielder with the Cincinnati Reds’ Triple-A farm team came over to where Mary sat at the first table inside the lounge and asked if she’d have a drink with him. Good-looking, well built, at least ten years younger than she was. Mary smiled and said, “I’d love to. Sit down.”

Giving her something to do, so she wouldn’t have to make an instant decision. For all she knew Moran was meeting someone, a girl…

They talked about the World Series in New York and Guerrero, the L.A. Dominican, hitting the home run Sunday, the outfielder telling how everybody in the lounge watching it on TV had practically freaked out, their boy coming through. She flirted with the outfielder a little, because she could see he was taken with her and it made her feel good. The mysterious American woman in expensive casual silk, alone in Santo Domingo. The muscular, curly-haired outfielder sat with his big shoulders hunched over the table eating peanuts one at a time, holding back.

Mary de Boya, at thirty-four, was quite likely the best-looking woman the outfielder had ever seen in real life. Her blond honey-streaked hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders framing delicate features, a fine mist of freckles, startling brown eyes.

She asked the outfielder what it was like to stand at the plate and see a hardball coming at you at ninety miles an hour. The outfielder said it didn’t matter how fast it came, you had to stand in there, you couldn’t give the pitcher nothing. He said it was the curveballs that were more apt to do you in. Curves low and away. The outfielder asked Mary if she had ever been down here before. She told him a few times, for polo matches at Casa de Campo. He said oh, was that what she was down for this time? Mary paused. She said no, she was meeting her lover. The outfielder said oh…

“Now I’ve got to run,” Mary said, and left the outfielder half in, half out of his chair. At the front desk she asked for Mr. Moran’s room number.

The clerk said, “Mr. Moran,” and looked it up. “Five three seven.”

“How long is he staying?”

The clerk had to look it up again. “The twenty-ninth. Four days.”

Mary turned partway, paused and turned back to the desk again. “I think I’d like a room.”

“Yes,” the clerk said, “we have a very nice room. Or we have a suite if you like a sitting room, too.”

“That’s fine,” Mary said, though she didn’t seem quite sure about something. “I don’t have my luggage with me.” She looked at the clerk now for help. “It’s at Casa de Campo. If I give them a call, can you send someone to pick it up?”

“Yes, but it’s seventy miles there,” the clerk said. “I don’t know how rapidly they can do it.”

“Do the best you can,” Mary said. She filled out the registration card using her maiden name, Mary Delaney, and an address in Miami Beach off the top of her head, committing herself now, beginning to make her move, thinking: If you’re meeting someone, Moran, I’ll kill her.

The view from Moran’s room was south, past the swimming pool area directly below and down an abrupt grade to a postcard shot of white colonial buildings and palm trees on the edge of the Caribbean. In this time when dusk was becoming night, color gone from the sky, he could hear voices, words in clear Spanish and bikes whining like lawnmowers: the same distinct, faraway sounds they listened to sixteen years ago in tents on the polo fields. The sounds of people doing what they did despite the other sounds that would come suddenly, the mortar and rocket explosions, five klicks removed from the everyday sounds, off somewhere in the city of Santo Domingo. He didn’t like those first days, not trusting the people, not having a feel for the terrain. He studied his Texaco map by flashlight and memorized names of the main streets, drew red circles for checkpoints, Charlie and Delta, the embassy, the Dominican Presidential Palace, the National Police Barracks. Take Bolivar to Independence Park, where burned-out cars blocked intersections, and duck. Beyond this point you could get killed. He liked it once he had a perimeter and was able to tell his fire team what they were doing. None of them had been to war.

He would walk those streets tomorrow… and hear the voices again on the field radio… “Cat Chaser Four, you read? Where the fuck are you?”… And the girl’s voice coming in. “I know where you are. I see you, Cat Chaser… Hey, Cat Chaser, come find me… You no good with tigres . All you know how to hunt, you Marines, is pussy. Come find me, Cat Chaser Four, whatever your name is… This is Luci signing off.”

Luci Palma, the sixteen-year-old girl who gave them fits with an M-1 carbine from World War Two. The girl who ran over rooftops…

The room-service waiter came with a bucket of ice that held three bottles of El Presidente beer. Moran signed, gave the waiter a peso and said, “Were you here during the revolution?”

The waiter didn’t seem to understand.

“Hace dieciséis años,” Moran said.

“Oh, yes, I was here.”

“What side were you on?”

Again the waiter hesitated.

“Que lado? Los generales o los rebeldes?”

“No, I don’t fight,” the waiter said. “I like peace.”

“No one I’ve talked to was in the war, the guerra ,” Moran said. “I wonder who was doing all the shooting.”

The phone rang.

“I was in Samaná,” the waiter said.

“Everybody was in Samaná,” Moran said. “Thanks.” He walked behind the waiter going to the door and stopped by the nightstand next to the bed. As the phone rang for the fourth time he picked it up.

“Hello.”

The voice instantly familiar said, “Moran? What’re you doing in Santo Domingo?”

He said, “I don’t believe it. Come on…” grinning, sitting down on the bed. “What’re you doing here?”

“I asked you first.”

“Where are you?”

“About twenty feet above you. Seven thirty-five.”

“I don’t believe it.” He sat up straight and wanted to make his voice sound natural, casual, as he said, “Mary?… Is Andres with you?”

“He can’t come back here, George. He’s afraid somebody’ll shoot him.”

“Gee, that’s too bad. I mean that you couldn’t bring him.” He heard her giggle. “Well, who’re you with?”

“Nobody. I’m all alone.”

“Come on… I don’t believe it.”

“Why’re you so amazed?”

“You kidding? I don’t believe this . I’m not sure I could even imagine something like this happening.”

She said, “Are you alone?”

“Yeah, all by myself.”

“I mean are you meeting anyone?”

“No, I’m alone. Jesus Christ, am I alone. I don’t believe it,” Moran said, getting up, having to move around now, excited. “You know I recognized your voice right away? What’re you doing here?”

“I saw you in the lobby. A little while ago.”