Cat and Mouse (2 page)

“No further description?”

“About two hundred and forty pounds, bald. He had a scar running down his right cheek from just below the eye almost to his chin.”

“It doesn’t ring a bell with me. I put away some mean hoodlums but never one with a scar like that.”

“So, maybe it was a fan. You still married to Jan?”

“Of course!”

“Treat her right. You are one lucky man.”

“I know. Keep the faith, Heinie.”

“Faith in what? Today? Shit!”

My sentiments exactly (almost). I took a cup of coffee out to the deck along with the sports pages from the morning paper. I left the rest of the paper on the breakfast-nook table for Mrs. Casey. She does windows but not breakfasts and has made it clear that she desires privacy when she eats hers.

As I had told Heinie, I had been instrumental in putting some rough characters behind bars when I was working the mean streets of Los Angeles. I’d had several threatening letters from a couple of them when they left prison.

But I would have remembered a man who fit the description Heinie had given me. It couldn’t have been a bill collector. I’d paid off every debt I had in town when my Uncle Homer died and made me solvent enough to retire and move up here.

It had probably been a fan. I still had a couple of those left.

I
N THE FORMER CHAUFFEUR’S
quarters above the garage, the file cabinet I had brought up from Los Angeles was still intact. The history of my adventures in Tinsel Town were all recorded there. The cabinet was covered with dust; the files were dustless enough to bring into Mrs. Casey’s house.

I took them down to the den in two trips. I had not become rich in Los Angeles but I certainly had been busy.

Some current sage was recently quoted as saying, “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.” These files were.

My modest second-floor office had been in Beverly Hills. There were some memorable names in the files: directors and actors and producers, boxers and football players, two heiresses and one starlet who only last week imprinted her hands in the cement walk of Hollywood Boulevard.

On the seamier side of the law, the files were fewer and older. These were the rough guys, the victims of my code of vindictive retribution. Many of their names brought back memories but not one resembled the man Heinie had described.

I was putting the files away in a cabinet for further consideration when the phone rang. It was Bernie. He said, “McClune tells me you’re aching to play poker again.”

“He lied. It was his idea.”

“So, why don’t you take me to some expensive place for lunch and we can discuss it?”

“What a vulgar, mercenary suggestion!”

“Okay. I just thought you might still believe in your own code.”

“Which is?”

“Owing and being owed.”

“You’re right, I owe you. Pierre’s?”

“Why not? He has your kind of food, too. Hamburger.”

“He calls it Salisbury steak.”

“I know. All you have to do is to tell him you want the Salisbury steak without the egg, bread crumbs, and seasoning.”

“I’ll do that. Twelve-thirty?”

“I’ll be there. And don’t forget to wear a tie.”

“Twelve-thirty,” I repeated.

I did owe Bernie. He had covered for me in all my local escapades and backed me against Chief Chandler Harris. And he had alerted some of his gambling peers to the only bookie in town who paid track odds on long shots, Larry Rubin. Like Larry, Bernie wouldn’t drive a German car if they were five cents a copy, tax included.

I figured I owed it to Pierre to dress with some decorum. I wore my gray flannel slacks with a charcoal jacket and a white oxford shirt. As a minor protest against the absurdity of his demanding a tie even for
lunch
(in California?) I put on a Mickey Mouse tie that one of my Little Leaguers had brought back for me after his visit to Disneyland.

Pierre’s is in Montevista, a suburb of San Valdesto. I was about to pull into a parking space near the entrance when I saw an old gray two-door Plymouth sedan at the far end of the lot. I drove down and parked in the vacant space next to it.

Neither rear fender was crumpled, but the left one could have been hammered out and repainted. The paint in one spot on it seemed to be newer. It was obviously smoother.

The right side door was not locked. I opened it and reached into the car, opened the glove compartment, and took out the registration slip. I was reading it when a shrill voice from the other end of the lot called, “Get away from that car, you damned thief!”

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.”

“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.