Over every radio came instructions from Operations Center : “All units stand by for informant to leave. Residents of eight two six already checked out. All okay. Units fourteen and sixteen move to next position. Z will join seventeen in front-door surveillance.”
Zeke approached car seventeen and leaned against the driver’s door. The strain was beginning to tell. “Well, so far, so good.”
The agent behind the wheel nodded.“Never saw anything like it in my nineteen years with the Bureau.”
The other agent said,“When I tell my wife ? well, she never believes me anyway. Thinks I’m out tailing something looks like Jayne Mansfield every night.” He shook his head sadly, “Keep telling her, wish I were.”
In the police car a mile away, Officer Tracy shook his head.‘There’s that same informant ? under the shrubbery.”
“Drunk again.”
“But scratching on a door. Scratching, Al. What’ve they got, a monster?”
26
Inside 826 Randolph a woman of about thirty and her husband the same age, both high school teachers, welcomed D.C. He was an old, mysterious friend who dropped in frequently. Sometimes he would spend a couple hours with them, curling up in a chair and sleeping. Other times he came by merely for a perfunctory social visit, and once having satisfied the amenities, and licked up a handout, would indicate he had an extremely busy schedule and leave.
As an old friend, he was accustomed to making himself at home, and, after greeting them with a few soft meows, would make straight for the gleaming, huge white box in the kitchen from whence came all the good things of this world.
The woman, Anne Gilbert, who thought D.C. was about the sweetest thing on four paws, was putting down a small serving of salmon when the telephone rang. Her husband, Jimmy, a high school math instructor, took the call. She heard his voice raised to an exclamation mark, and, being curious, stepped into the living room.
He put his hand over the receiver.“The FBI.”
“What do they want?”
“I don’t know.” He said into the phone, “A cat?
Yes, a cat came in here a couple minutes ago
. Well, he’s licking up some fish right now
. Wait a minute, is this some kind of a joke?
Well, how do I know you’re the FBI? You call up and ask about a cat
. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Hold on a minute, please.”
He covered the speaker again and said to Anne,“They know the cat came in, and they offer as proof they’re the FBI the fact they know he has a white tail which they say they painted.”
“The FBI ? painted a cat’s tail?”
“Well, his tail is white tonight. You remarked about it yourself when he came in.”
“But the FBI, catching a cat and painting his tail. Why?”
He said into the phone,“What did you paint his tail for?
Yes, yes, I understand. Just a minute, please.”
He shook his head with disbelief as he turned to Anne.‘They say this concerns an important case and they can’t tell us anything now but they would appreciate it greatly if we would co-operate with them, and when the case is over they’ll send an agent by to thank us and explain everything.”
“What do they want?”
“That we put him out the front door as soon as he has eaten.”
“It’s some youngster. Somebody in one of our classes and this is going to be all over school tomorrow.”
He nodded, and said into the telephone,“I don’t know who you are but you should enroll in dramatics if you haven’t al ready. You’re too good an actor to be wasting all that talent. And we both think it’s a great gag, and we’ll go along with it. Good night.”
Nine minutes later, at ten-seventeen, the front door of 826 Randolph opened, and D.C. cautiously pushed his head out on the end of a stretched-out neck, and took a radar bearing. Though he had come this way a thousand times, and never been ambushed, he behaved like an old trapper deep in Indian country.
Parking himself under a bush, he proceeded to wash his face with loving care. He liked fish but not the after-taste. His tail swished a few times. He was a little put out because the woman, who always slobbered over him, had picked him up bodily, when he had done nothing whatsoever, and ejected him. He couldn’t tolerate females who rubbed their faces against him, which she always did. He liked sentiment as much as the next cat but too much was nauseating.
His facial finished, he strolled two houses down the street, hugging the shadows, and turned into an alley, one of the few in Sherman Oaks.
Keeping a distance of a hundred feet, Zeke followed him.“Informant proceeding to South Street . Suggest all units shift one block over but maintain same pattern.”
As Zeke slipped silently along, hugging the shadows himself, he listened to reports from the units. D.C. passed off one scope and onto another. A sound cone unit turned him over to another. And radio cars rolled along streets parallel to the alley.
At the alley’s end, D.C. crossed the street and passed a couple locked in embrace in a car. They remained unaware of Zeke walking by them.
D.C. took a footpath that bisected a vacant yard. He walked boldly under a lighted window, through which could be heard a man and woman quarreling. He reached another alley, flanked with the ugly rear ends of decrepit apartment houses. The cry of a baby unhappy with his new world floated from a nearby window.
He proceeded more cautiously now, as if remembering an unfortunate experience suffered in this area. He flattened down to a belly crawl under a child’s wrecked wagon, and listened intently to the night’s sounds. At the same time his sharp eyes surveyed the layout ahead foot by foot. This was the kind of reconnaissance that would insure a cat a ripe old age.
Next he stole along a fence and up to a back door, and scratched hard. If he remembered correctly? and he always did ? this place should be good for a handout of liver. When no one answered he emitted a low, beseeching, pitiful meow, which, translated, said he was dying of hunger.
Zeke said into the transistor mike,“Informant at back kitchen door of apartment building due south of Minton Street, east of Anderson . Will seventeen ascertain exact address and stand by near front of building for further instructions?”
“Seventeen proceeding as instructed.”
The determined scratching and persistent meowing produced results. The door opened a few inches, and eyes pivoted about to determine whether D.C. had brought a friend. The door swung back, revealing a young man. He said, “Why, hello, kid, where you been? Come on in.” D.C. entered quickly, and the door closed just as quickly behind him.
Zeke said,“Informant entered apartment. Request ten take over stakeout at back entrance.”
He moved fast through the night, gaining the sidewalk, and once on it, ran to Anderson , turned right, and entered the building by the front entrance. He slipped down a long, narrow, dark corridor that led to rabbit-hutch apartments to determine the number of the one D.C. had entered. Returning to the foyer, he tapped softly on the manager’s door, and then a little louder. The time, he noted, was ten forty-two. His fingers worked nervously as he waited.
The door opened an inch to permit a battered, wrinkled character in her mid-sixties to stare at him out of eyes half-asleep. Zeke identified himself, showed his credentials, and, as she opened the door wider to study them, pushed his way in.
When the letters FBI dawned on her, she awoke as if slugged by a shot of whiskey, which was what she poured as Zeke asked about the people in apartment number ten. She offered him a drink in a water glass that had a nicked rim. When he refused, she dropped the weight from her feet into a historic armchair that was beginning to lose its stained innards.“Nice folks,” she said. “A married couple and her brother. Never gave me no trouble. But I keep it that way here. I tell ‘em I don’t care what they do but do it quiet.”