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.”
She finished off the whiskey. “They’re leavin’ tomorrow. The brother got a job up at San Jose , and I’m glad because I’ve been worryin’ ‘bout ‘em since the men couldn’t find no work and the woman’s been ailirt’.”
“What does she look like?”
“Never set eyes on her. Wouldn’t know her from Whistler’s mother if I was to see her. Husband said she’d taken to her bed, but now you ask me ‘bout ‘em, can’t recollect seein’ a doctor around, and I don’t miss much. But some people’s odd. Don’t like to call a doc. Had a brother once, just wanted to curl up like a dyin’ worm
.”
27
As Zeke knocked softly on the door to number ten, his right hand slipped by way of reassurance to the holster at his side under the unbuttoned coat. He had removed his tie, loosened his collar, and mussed his hair. He should have left off his coat, too, but he needed it to conceal the holster.
He stood at an awkward angle, so that he could see the door if it opened, and also the long, dark, tunnel-like corridor he had come down. His eyes moved from point to point, checking the doors along the hallway. Each was a potential danger area. The fugitives inside number ten might have staked a guard along the route Zeke had traveled, ready to ambush him.
Zeke himself had posted a fellow agent at the far end of the corridor, out of sight. Other agents had taken up positions on either side of the back kitchen door, and also under the windows to the bedroom.
Zeke repeated the knock, taking care that it produced the right volume, loud enough to be heard and yet not so loud it would seem that someone, perhaps an officer, was demanding entrance. He felt confident that one of the men would answer. Not to answer would create suspicion. But they would need a minute or two of preparation to check their weapons and for the second criminal to herd the woman, if she were still alive, into a back room and hold her at gun point. Zeke feared what the woman might do. By now she had been a prisoner nine days, and if she heard a voice at the door that promised help she might scream out, either in a desperation gamble or perhaps involuntarily, hysterically.
He listened intently, hearing the muted grumbling of an air conditioner and the playing of a radio. Now the radio was turned up a little louder, and he felt a surge of relief. That could mean the woman was alive and they were using the radio to blot out any possible outcry. The number was Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance,” a frenetic piece that always set his nerves on edge.
Once again he knocked, this time hesitantly, like a man who hopes someone will answer but at the same time dislikes bothering a neighbor at this late hour. The carpeted floor on the other side replied softly as footsteps took their accustomed place preparatory to the opening of the door. He sensed a body there, listening, too, breathing ever so quietly, a mind wondering about this late caller, running swiftly over the possibilities of who it might be, a mind tense and fearful, as would be normal with a fugitive holed up for so long.
He was considering tapping once more when the door eased open a couple of inches, and two sharp, suspicious eyes peered out. The head was a young man’s, blunt in design and faintly back-lighted. Behind him was a small living room with a tired, old Midwestern landscape on the far wall above a shabby divan. A closed door by the divan led probably to the kitchen, and another one at the left, to a bedroom. All of this he noted in a glance.
Quickly, before the nervous door could close, he said, “Say, mister, sorry to trouble you, but have you seen a black cat around about so high with a collar on? A boy out back said he saw a cat enter an apartment along in here.”
For an interminably long moment the fellow stared at him. My coat, Zeke thought, my coat’s out of place. No one looking for a cat at this hour of the night would be wearing a coat. A sweater perhaps, or a thin, old jacket, or a sport shirt.
The fellow opened the door a little wider, and said slowly, still studying Zeke, “Yeah, he’s in here. Friendly little cuss, isn’t he?”
Zeke took a step inside a room lighted by a weak bulb in an old-fashioned table lamp. The place reeked with stale cigarette smoke. He slouched deliberately in an attempt to give the impression he had nothing on his mind but to retrieve the cat.
“Thank heaven,” he said, with what he hoped was proper relief. “My wife’s been about to go out of her head. He’s been missing since last night, and sometimes I think she loves him more’n she does me.”
The fellow called in the direction of the bedroom where the “Sabre Dance” was reaching a frenzied climax. “Hey, Sammy, bring the cat out.” He turned back to Zeke. “You live around here?”
“Down the street a couple of blocks.”
“What’s the address?”
“4820 Anderson . If you want a reward “
“He’s been here before. Two or three nights ago. But he didn’t have on a collar or a white tail then.”
“A white tail?”
“Yeah, looks like he’d dropped it in some paint. Only it isn’t paint. Can’t make out what it is. You didn’t know about it, huh?”
His sharp, penetrating eyes never left Zeke. And Zeke knew that the slightest hesitation would trap him. “He was all black last time we saw him.”
“What d’ya call him?”
“D.C. Stands for Darn Cat.”
“I don’t think that’s funny, to put a tag like that on a little guy. Sammy, what’s holding you?”