Cat and Mouse Read online

  A pair of stout and middle-aged women were bearing down on me from the restaurant entrance. I replaced the slip, closed the car door, and put on my winningest smile.

  When they came within range, I said, “I apologize, ma’am. I thought it was my wife’s car. We’ve been…well, I don’t want to go into that. I assure you I am not a thief. I am meeting a police officer here for lunch. He will be glad to confirm what I told you.”

  She glared at me. “A likely story! We’re not waiting for anybody. Get out of here! Go back where you came from.”

  “Sorry,” I said with hauteur, “but I have a reservation for lunch, and my officer friend will soon be here to meet me.” I nodded a curt good-bye and walked away.

  Bernie was waiting for me under the canvas canopy in front of the restaurant door when I got there. He apparently had not witnessed the squalid scene and I didn’t see any reason to mention it. He looked at my tie, sadly shook his head, and said nothing.

  Pierre met us at the door, sadly shook his head and looked at Bernie. “Maybe a corner table where nobody will notice him?” Bernie suggested.

  “In which case,” I said, “Lieutenant Vogel will pick up the tab.”

  “This way, gentlemen,” Pierre said. He led us to a table where we had a view of the town below and the sea beyond it.

  Bernie ordered a dry martini, I a beaker of draft Einlicher.

  Pierre said, “I owe you a lot, Mr. Callahan, for introducing me to that beer. Today, I will instruct my chef to broil you the finest hamburger you have ever tasted.”

  “Thank you.” Ī said.

  “And don’t forget his ketchup,” Bernie said. “I’ll order later.”

  Pierre smiled and left. Bernie said, “What’s this about the cat on your lawn? McClune mentioned it.”

  I gave him the sordid story.

  “A kid, maybe?” he asked. “They’ve had a lot of juvenile burglaries in Montevista. And the ones they caught weren’t poor kids. But papa doesn’t give them a big enough allowance to pay for their dope.”

  “I doubt if this was a kid.” I told him about the man who had asked about me at Heinie’s.

  He frowned. “I don’t see the connection.”

  “Neither do I, yet.” I shrugged. “You know me. I work on instinct.”

  “Don’t downgrade it,” he told me. “I’ve seen it at work. Have you been threatened before by people you put away?”

  “A couple of times. Have you?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yes! And they included some vicious remarks about my heritage.”

  When we had finished our drinks, Bernie ordered something in French I can’t spell and the waiter assured me I was in for a delicious surprise, compliments of Pierre. Way down deep in his devious soul I have the feeling that Pierre likes me and forgives all big tippers.

  The hamburger the waiter brought me was large and pristine. He brought the ketchup along to make it less pristine. Bernie’s plate made me wonder if it was possible Pierre’s septic tank had overflown again. All sauce, no chow, French cuisine.

  I am not a complete lout. I tried the hamburger without the ketchup. Delicious! I made the thought vocal.

  “It’s probably gourmet-grade chopped filet,” Bernie informed me. “You’re lucky it’s on the house.” He took a sip of his wine; I took a sip of my second Einlicher. He said, “I told McClune I would alert the patrol boys in town about that gray Plymouth. I’m sure no kid in your area is driving one of those unless it’s a classic.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Now, about the poker. Is Saturday night at my house okay with you?”

  “I guess. Unless Jan has other plans. How much money should I bring?”

  “Whatever you can afford. I can arrange transportation for you if you need it.”

  “No, thanks. It will be worth the trip just to see Ellie again. What is she doing these days?”

  Ellie is his wife. He shrugged. “I’m not sure if it’s saving the whales or fighting that oil company that wants to drill off Omega Beach or writing nasty letters to our governor. That woman—”

  “Is a citizen,” I finished for him. “That’s getting to be an archaic word, isn’t it?”

  “Could you define it for me?”

  “Yes. It is a voter who quite often votes against his or her own self-interest.”

  He smiled. “Could you name one?”

  “It would be immodest of me. What do you want for dessert?”

  “I’ve cost you enough already,” he said. “Only coffee for me.”

  “You have just become a citizen,” I told him.

  My good friend and occasional adversary, Bernie Vogel. We are different breeds of cat but I admire him. He could have retired five years ago on the property in town his father had left him. But I am sure he felt it was his citizen’s duty to put the bad guys where they belong (in the can or under the sod) and to maintain an orderly world. As a student of history he should have realized that there hadn’t been an orderly world since the dawn of civilization.

  There was still a lot of afternoon left. I drove back and forth in the lower Main Street district on the off chance I might spot an old gray Plymouth two-door sedan with a crumpled left rear fender. The area was loaded with old cars and crumpled fenders but not one of them was a gray Plymouth two-door sedan. I went home.

  Mrs. Casey had brought in the mail. It was on the table in the front hall: one letter, two bills, and nine pieces of junk mail. I opened the letter and read it.

  Then I phoned Bernie. “You can forget Saturday night,” I told him. “I’ll be staying at home for a while. I just got a letter.”

  “What kind of letter?”

  “Seven words—‘The cat was first. Who is second?’”

  “Take it to McClune,” he said. “They’ve got a better lab up there and a much faster computerized fingerprint file.”

  “I’m not leaving the house.”

  “Okay. I’ll phone him and have him send a deputy to pick it up. Sit tight, buddy.”

  I phoned Corey’s office and he was there. “Are you still available for night work?” I asked him.

  “Hell, yes. A store?”

  “No. Our house. Did you get your gun permit?”

  “Six months ago. What in hell is going on, Brock?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. Take a nap now and come around ten o’clock. Bring the gun.”

  “Right!”

  I still had the second-hand gun I bought in Los Angeles when I opened the office. I had carried it on only two cases there. It was an ancient .38-caliber Colt Police Special. The gun was still in working order but the ammunition for it had been discarded years ago. I could get more; guns and ammunition are easy to buy in this country, too easy.

  I was going over my files again when the doorbell rang. Mrs. Casey got there the same time I did.

  The deputy said, “I came for the letter.”

  I handed it to him and he left. Mrs. Casey asked, “What’s happening, Mr. Callahan? The Criders’ maid told me this afternoon that somebody threw a dead cat on our lawn. And now this!”

  “Patience,” I said. “I’ll explain it all when Jan comes home.”

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  “I don’t either, Mrs. Casey. Let’s wait for Jan.”

  She went back to the kitchen muttering to herself. I went back to my files. Nothing, nothing, nothing…

  The phone rang. It was Larry. He said, “I’ve got a hundred and forty dollars here for you. Do you want to pick it up or should I bring it over?”

  “Not today. Mail me a check. Mail two checks, seventy of it to Jan the other seventy to me.”

  “Mail? What’s with you? Trouble, Brock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it connected with that guy asking about you at Heinie’s?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible.”

  “I’ve still got some friends down there, chum, who are on the shady side. You call me if you think they could be useful.”r />
  “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  Occasionally giving me an inside tip on a hot one and booking my bet was Larry’s way of paying the interest I had refused. It was possible, of course, that Larry laid off my bet as he did with his own money down in Los Angeles. Today’s sixth could have been a boat race, but that seemed highly unlikely at Santa Anita.

  Jan came home a little after five o’clock and we gathered in the living room. I related all that had happened, starting with the dead cat and finishing with today’s letter.

  When I had finished, Jan said, “So that’s why you were asking about my cat.” She looked at Mrs. Casey. “Did you know about it?”

  “Not until this afternoon when the Criders’ maid told me.”

  Jan looked at me. “And that’s why Bill Crider wants a neighborhood watch?”

  “No. It’s the burglaries he’s concerned about. What I would like to suggest is that you girls take a suite at the Biltmore and live it up while I watch the house.”

  “No way!” Jan said.

  “I second the motion,” Mrs. Casey said.

  “I was afraid of that,” I said, “so I phoned Corey. He’ll guard us nights, I’ll be home during the day. Could we take a vote on that?”

  Jan looked at Mrs. Casey and she nodded.

  Jan said, “And now I think we should have a quiet drink.”

  “I’ll get my Irish whiskey,” Mrs. Casey said. “It will be nice to have Corey in the house.”

  …where she can finally convert him to the true faith, I thought, and he can learn to play bingo. I didn’t voice the thought.

  The man asking about me at Heinie’s and the dead cat on the lawn might have been only a coincidence. But the dead cat on the lawn and the seven-word letter certainly was not.

  And why had the writer added, “Who is second?” Someone other than Callahan? My Jan? Why hadn’t he written “next”? Had he planned more than two? Trying to analyze the mind of a kook was traveling down a trail too murky for me.

  We played gin rummy after dinner, loser sits out, and Mrs. Casey won, as usual. Jan said she didn’t have any small bills in her purse. Mrs. Casey said she could make change for a large one. Jan said I wouldn’t mind paying for her. I was not consulted on that decision.

  Then Mrs. Casey went up to her room to watch a Bogart rerun and Jan went in the den to watch a PBS program on the Aztec civilization. I went out into the gloom and sat in a deck chair on the front lawn, waiting for Corey to show.

  I could hear the twin tail pipes of his Camaro rumbling long before the car came into sight around the bend of the hill.

  He had brought his lunch box with him, complete with a vacuum bottle in the lid. Night watches were what paid most of the rent in his new one-room office downtown.

  In the living room, the area of my previous seminar, I told him what I had told Jan and Mrs. Casey.

  “A live one for a change,” he said. “I hope the bastard shows up on my watch.”

  “Corey,” I admonished him, “you must remember that we are not the law.”

  “We’re a damned sight closer to it than he is. Stop fretting, Brock. I’m a big boy now.”

  He showed me his revolver, what the local police were carrying since they had switched from Colt, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson.

  He had brought a box of ammo along and they would fit my ancient Colt. He gave me a dozen from the box. I took them to the bedroom and stored them on the highest shelf in the closet, deep in the corner, next to my gun. Guns make me almost as nervous as gun owners do. My policeman father had been killed by a hoodlum’s gun when I was twelve years old.

  Our living room is in the front of the house. That is where Corey would sit and watch through the huge picture window. I turned the lawn lights on.

  Mrs. Casey came down during a commercial to ask him if he would like a snack. He told her he had brought it. She went back to Bogart.

  The mist drifted in before Jan and I went to bed, shrouding the lawn lights, obscuring the view of the road.

  We didn’t stay up for the eleven-o’clock news; we had our own troubles now.

  CHAPTER 3

  IT WAS A RESTLESS NIGHT. I dreamed of my father again. Jan slept on; my mate has a less violent history. In the morning, at breakfast, she said she had decided not to go to work today.

  “I can drive you down,” Corey offered. “You’re safe with me.

  She shook her head. “It’s not that. Fiesta starts tomorrow and all the tourists are already in town.”

  “There might be some customers among them,” I pointed out.

  “For Kay Décor?” She made a face. “Hardly! Practically all of the better shops are closing for the weekend.”

  Better is Jan’s euphemism for expensive.

  Corey left, after his second helping of pancakes, and Jan went out to the pool. I sat in the living room, reading a Muller-Pronzini mystery, but facing the window so I could keep an eye on the road.

  The cars went by. The only old ones were classics, a 1930 Duesenberg, a 1965 Mustang, an ancient Stutz Bearcat. The new ones were mostly Porsches and Cads and Continentals—and a county patrol car. The patrol car cruised slowly past twice.

  McClune phoned around ten-thirty to tell me they had come up with zilch; no definable fingerprints and the stationery was available at any cheap chain store.

  “Probably some smogtown weirdo,” he said. “Do you have a record of your cases down there?”

  “Yes. And I’ve gone over them three times.”

  “Well,” McClune said, “we’re patrolling that area more than usual. There was another burglary yesterday. Maybe we scared him away.”

  “I hope not. I want that bastard!”

  “Easy, Brock!”

  “Sorry. I criticized Corey for saying almost the same thing last night. We are not the law.”

  “Exactly. Though I must admit you’ve helped the law here since you moved up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll keep in touch.”

  The law in San Vadesto, both county and city, had been more tolerant of me than it had been in Los Angeles. The cynical thought came to me that I was now richer than I had been in Los Angeles. The sensible thought came to me that I should not look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “You’re mumbling again,” a voice said.

  It was Jan, wearing a terry-cloth robe over her bikini.

  “Again?”

  She nodded. “You woke me up twice last night. Why don’t you go out to the pool and get some exercise? I’ll sit here.”

  I put on my trunks and went out to swim a leisurely ten laps. Though now solvent and snug in suburbia, I was still the punk who had been on probation for one full year in his Long Beach youth, a hot-rodder, son of a cop father and an angelic mother, Stanford graduate, my jersey in the Hall of Fame at Canton. And now I was being held house-bound by a creepy cat killer…Who wouldn’t mumble?

  I worked on the weights for half an hour, took a shower, and it was time for lunch.

  Mrs. Casey ate with us. “How long is this going to last?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jan said, “If it keeps up too long I’ll go stir crazy.”

  I nodded. “That’s why I suggested the Biltmore.”

  I finished the Muller-Pronzini book after lunch and went out to turn on the lawn sprinklers. Across the street, Bill and Sally Crider were talking to a man I recognized as a local realtor.

  The Criders went into the house; the realtor came over to ask, “How’s it going, Brock?”

  “Fair enough. Are the Criders putting their house up for sale?”

  He nodded. “This area’s turning into a battle zone. How about you?”

  “It might be hard to sell,” I explained, “if I told the buyers my reason for moving. And that would be the only decent thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

  He smiled. “Same old acid tongue! A man has to eat, Brock.”

  “Even cannibals,” I admitted.
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  “Even cannibals,” he agreed. “Have a nice day, Brock.”

  He smiled again, nodded a good-bye, walked to his BMW parked across the street, and went away.

  Constant smilers give me the chills. Those millionaire television preachers who appeal to the right-wing red-necks infesting our country, quote their personal interpretations of the Bible, rationalize their bigotries—and never stop smiling. The bland face of evil…

  One thing you can say about big bald mean guys who kill cats, they don’t try to look holy.

  The patrol car cruised by again before I went into the house. Jan was talking on the phone to Audrey Kay, her boss. Mrs. Casey had come to the kitchen to stack the lunch dishes in the washer. Her next daytime drama was not due for half an hour.

  I took a bottle of Einlicher out of the fridge and settled down in the living room to read the latest Travis McGee. I was halfway through it when Corey arrived.

  “My folks aren’t home,” he explained, “and I thought you wouldn’t mind a fourth at dinner.”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Casey won’t. Which reminds me, we never discussed your current rates.”

  He looked embarrassed, the first time I had ever seen that look on his face. “Gee, Brock, I don’t know—”

  “You can’t afford any freebies,” I told him sternly. “You’re a professional now.”

  He shrugged. “My aunt gave me six and a half dollars an hour in L.A.”

  “That’s for family. I’ll make it seven.”

  He shook his head. “You’re family, too. I’ll settle for six.”

  Corey is not one of those modern restless young men who leave home for their own bachelor apartment as soon as they start to shave. He has economic sense; he knows that he can get better cooking, free laundry, and more comfortable quarters at a much more reasonable price with his doting parents.

  He had gone to school at the local UCSV and lived at home even then. As a matter of fact, he had shared his room (but not his meals) with a classmate and generously split with his parents the rent his friend paid him.