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.
“Are you a kicker offer, too?” she asked. It was surprising how much they had in common.
D.C. sat on the chest top and displayed unusual interest in what was transpiring. He had his moods. He might be bored and blas? note 13 one day, and the next, the scholar who was eager to learn all he could about his fellow man. Now his bright, full eyes followed first the one, then the other.
As she went to the clothes closet, she said,“I’m sorry I blew up.”
“I don’t blame you.” He was still searching for his shoes. “I would’ve, too.” He looked up from the floor, sending her a smile that warmed her all over. “I should’ve kept it from happening but I haven’t had much practice hiding in girls’ bedrooms. They don’t teach practical things like that in the Bureau. Oh, here they are.”
He was as elated as if he had trapped a bear. He found them where he had placed them, on an end‘table.
Patti said,“Ingrid talked with Mr. Balter. He promised her he’d keep quiet.”
“How’d she manage that?”
Patti left the closet with a red Italian knit.“She wouldn’t tell me but I can guess. She probably turned on the tears. If this gets out, she says, it will hurt her so for everyone to know her sister is a tramp, and it doesn’t happen very often, and there’s hope for her if she marries the right man. I can just hear her telling him what a sweet, dear person he is, and I can see him puffing up like a toad and ? darnit, where’re those earrings?”
Her fingers rummaged through a little green jewelry case on top of the chest alongside D.C. who dug in a paw to help.“No, thanks,” he said, removing the paw. “I remember putting them right here yesterday. They’re always running off and hiding.”
Zeke put on his coat.‘I?ve got a pair of cuff links I’m going to get out a wanted bulletin on if they don’t show up soon.”
He turned, toward D.C. and sneezed.“What about him? Is he going out tonight?”
Patti rubbed his ears, and he purred and stretched.“How about it, D.C?”
He meowed softly, and Patti translated,“He says sure, why not? Except he’s stricken Greg’s place from his route after what happened last night.”
The radio came alive, and Zeke stepped into the closet and began talking. She watched him covertly. Such a long, tall man with the grace of a cat in his walk and movements. He would be nice to have around, she thought, easygoing when a man should be, and firm when the occasion called for it. He would be gentle and thoughtful with the woman who was his wife, even if she might never know him too well. He would always conceal his thoughts behind those soft, blue eyes, a loner of the desert country. Not that he would ever have reason to hide anything, but only because he had lived like that from childhood, a boy spurring his mustang into the canyons or up on some mesa, and lying under a greasewood bush and talking to himself and dreaming his dreams.
Now Greg, he would want to share his life with his family. He would talk out his thoughts and expect others to do the same. He possessed such a terrific zest for living. He hungered for excitement, and fed on it, whether behind a 250-horsepower motor, or with a beautiful, unbroken woman, or fighting a court case, or storming across the street with a bedraggled begonia. And that temper. A woman could help so much, a wife who understood and was patient, who could reason with him, whose love would be such that he would do anything for her. He had lived too long alone, and indulged too often his feelings and whims.
She smiled inwardly. Ever since she first became interested in boys, she had projected herself into the future with this one and that one, imagining what it would be like to be his wife. And here she was doing it again, and at her age.
As Zeke put down the microphone, she asked,“Can I get you coffee, anything?”
She discovered she was standing close to him, so close he could have taken her into his arms, and suddenly she wanted that. She could see the same want reflected in his eyes, as no doubt he could in hers. Then the reflection clouded as a thought stole in, reminding him of a reason why he should not. He turned away with seeming effort, and a chill brushed the warmth from her. She broke the brief, telltale silence.“If there’s anything you want, let me know,” How many times in her life, she wondered, would such prosaic little sentences, spoken in a routine voice, cover up emotions that she must hide, because a woman dared not expose them to a man?
Now if he had been Greg, and seen the want in her eyes, he would have swept her up so fast
.
As she left the room, she surprised Ingrid in the hallway, eavesdropping. If there was a scent of romance about, Ingrid would catch it. She was an incorrigible romantic, almost a paradox in an age when novels and movies and television shows emphasized the sordid in the name of realism.
“Ingrid!” she said sharply. “How many times have I told you ? “
“I didn’t hear anything. Nothing at all.”
She continued to Ingrid’s bedroom to change clothes. “You heard nothing because there was nothing, but if there had been something, you would have written it down verbatim in that locked-up diary. I don’t care what secrets of yours you write down, but I don’t want any of mine showing up in court five years from now.”
Ingrid flopped on the bed while Patti changed.“Tommy asked me today. He was adorable. I like men who are adorable, don’t you, sis? He asked if I was going to the dance, and I said I hoped so, and he asked who was taking me, and I said Eddie had called up but Eddie wasn’t my type, and Tommy asked if he was ? my type, I mean ? and I toldhim I’d be ready at eight. So if it’s all right with you, I’ll tell Eddie you said I couldn’t go with him. Please, just this one time. I won’t ask you again.”
“Why won’t I let you go with him?”
“Because you don’t know Eddie and Tommy’s an old friend of yours.”
“He is?”
“You met him at the Cal game, remember?”
“Oh, the one with the big ears.”
Ingrid thought deeply for a moment.“Maybe you baby-sat with him and he’s just like your own boy.”
“Now wait a minute, Inky. Do you think Mother would okay this?”
“I was afraid you’d bring that up.”
“I’d like to help you. You know that. Only we all have to make our own decisions and live with them. Why don’t you tell Eddie you’re sorry, you like him a lot and admire him as a student, but you two have different interests, see things differently, and dating just wouldn’t work out.”
“I’ve got to grow up, huh?”
“It’s rough, I know.”
“Okay.” She rolled over on her back, stared at the ceiling, breathed heavily, and sighed.
Much later, as Patti was applying nail polish to halt a run in her nylons, Ingrid said quietly,“You know what, sis? He’s never broken the girl barrier.”