The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape (14 page)

Camp sat looking him over in a way Lee didn't like. “I have a request from Morgan Blake.”

Lee waited. Why tell him about Blake's problems?

“Blake wants you to accompany him on his wife's visiting days, says she'd like to meet you.”

“Why would she do that? What the hell is that about?
Visiting is for families.” Why would Blake want him there during that private time? Why would the woman want to meet
him
?

“It's an unusual request,” Camp said. “Did you know Blake before you were transferred to Atlanta?”

“Never heard of him. Why would I want to get involved in someone else's family?”

Camp leaned back until his wooden chair creaked. “You've gotten friendly with Blake pretty fast.”

“He's a nice enough kid. But visiting day? I don't think so.”

Camp just looked at him.

“I listen to him,” Lee said, “the kid needs someone to vent to, but I sure didn't put it in his head to meet his family.”

“Morgan says that talking to you has helped him accept his situation. You think you're some kind of counselor?”

“I listen good,” Lee said, hiding his amusement.

“Whatever you're doing,” Camp said, “seems to be working. I've noticed a change in Blake.”

“So what do I get, a medal? Maybe I can counsel the whole family.”

Camp gave him another long, hard gaze. Lee was about to rise and leave, but his curiosity got the best of him. What harm would it do, a few minutes in the visiting room? It might answer some questions about the way Blake watched him, frowning and puzzled. “What the hell,” he said. “I can give it a try.”

Camp studied him, made a notation on a pad, and handed Lee a list of visiting hours. Lee moved on out of the office wondering why he'd agreed. Wondering why Blake had made the request. If there was something Morgan knew that Lee didn't, maybe now he'd find out.

Bushed from the cotton mill, he skipped supper and headed for his cell. One day on the job and his cough was bad. His body ached, his head pounded, he knew he should have taken the kitchen job.

But he wasn't going to call it quits, he'd
wear
a damned handkerchief around his face, he'd get
used
to the noise.

In the cellblock, as he climbed the metal stairs and moved in through his barred door, his bunk looked mighty good. He collapsed onto it, his strength gone. He was getting old. The thought sent a chill through him. He was deep asleep when Misto dropped onto the cot and stretched out beside him, lying close, listening to Lee's ragged breathing.

“She will come now,” the cat whispered, placing a soft paw on Lee's cheek, sending his words deep into Lee's dreams. “The child will come now. You'll know soon enough why Morgan watches you. You'll know soon enough why, all these years, you've carried Mae's picture with you. You'll begin to see now that you can defeat the dark spirit. You will take strength not only from me, but from the child.”

L
EE DIDN
'
T WAKE
until morning, to the sounds of men starting the day, coughing and grumbling, the water running, an angry shout, springs creaking and metal clanging. He washed, dressed, stood for the count and then headed for breakfast. Collecting his tray, he found Morgan already at a small table.

“What's that about?” he said, setting down his tray. “Why would your wife want me to visit? What kind of scam is this?”

Morgan looked down at his plate, his face coloring. “Actually, it's my child who wants you there, it's Sammie who asked for you.”

Lee scowled at him. “How does your kid even know about me? What have you told her? Why would . . . ?”

Morgan drizzled syrup over his pancakes. “I didn't tell her anything about you. She . . . she dreamed about you. She . . . said you came here from California.”

Lee looked hard at him.

“She's only a little girl,” Morgan said, forking pancakes. The clatter of breakfast dishes and the staccato of men's voices echoed around them, bouncing off the concrete walls. “She . . . Sammie has these dreams. About people, about things that will happen. Sometimes,” he said, looking almost shyly at Lee, “sometimes her dreams turn out to be real.”

“What do you mean, real?” Lee said uneasily.

“She knows what you look like. She knows you worked in the desert, driving a truck, and she dreamed of you flying in a small, open plane. She knows you, Lee, though you've never met.”

Morgan's words chilled Lee, pulled a memory from deep within and nearly forgotten, incidents from childhood that he'd put away from him, that he hadn't wanted to think about. Secrets came alive again, his sister Mae's secrets when she would whisper her dreams to him, dreams that later turned out to be real.

Once Mae told him that their milk cow, Lucy, would birth triplet calves, and triplet calves were rare. Lucy bore three live calves, all healthy little bull calves. The predictions frightened Mae; she would tell them shyly, painfully but earnestly, only hoping the adults would listen. Once she told Pa that he'd better fix the roof of the hay barn before the next snow or it would cave it in. Pa didn't fix the roof. In the heavy winter it did collapse, ruined half a barn full of good hay, but luckily none of the animals was hurt. Pa was angry at Mae that the roof fell in, like it was her fault, and that was the last dream she ever told Pa.

By the time Lee left home, either the dreams had stopped or Mae stopped talking about them. Pa grew angry if she mentioned a dream, and their mother didn't want to hear it, either. Lee was the only one who listened, uncomfortably, then he'd put the dreams away from him. Mae never knew how much they frightened him, this seeing into the future, predicting a future that hadn't yet happened, that no one
should be able to see. Now again the shadowed memories from that long-ago time filled him. “Your little girl dreams of something that hasn't happened?” he asked softly.

Morgan nodded. “She described you exactly. She dreams of you and feels close to you. She wants you there on visiting day,” he said awkwardly.

Lee shivered.

“She's only nine, Lee. She's my child and I love her and she has these dreams, that's all I can say. What will it hurt to humor her?”

“She dreamed about me because you talked about me.” Lee said nothing about Mae, he wasn't telling Morgan about Mae.

Morgan laid down his fork, fixing his attention on Lee. “I never talked about you. I never mentioned you. I can't explain why she dreams of you. She dreamed of you and me talking together in the automotive shop.”

“That's because you told her you were working there. That's where she pictures you, in a place like your shop in Rome.”

“In her dream there was a red Buick roadster up on the rack.”

“How would a little girl know a Buick roadster from a hay wagon?”

Morgan smiled. “She helps . . . used to help me in the shop, handing me tools. From the time I came home from the navy she's hung around the shop, she knows all my automotive tools. She knows the makes of most cars, she can stand on the street and rattle off the make, model, and year of nearly every car that passes.

“It was hard on her,” Morgan said, “being without a father. Hard on all the service kids, those years without a dad to lean on and to learn from. Becky took the best care of her, but when I got home Sammie clung to me, wanted to be with me in the shop.” Morgan shook his head. “We were so happy,
the three of us together again, our life starting again as it should be. And then, long before the robbery and murder, Sammie dreamed about me being locked behind prison bars.

“Becky and I thought this dream was just a simple nightmare, we knew such a thing couldn't happen. But then it did happen,” Morgan said. “The afternoon and night I was drugged? Sammie, at the exact same time, reacted in the same way; she was groggy, she kept falling asleep, she couldn't stay awake.”

Lee said nothing. To believe in the ghost cat was one thing, and to know the dark spirit was real, he had learned to adjust to that unseen world. But to bring alive the future as Mae had done, to reach forward into unformed time—that bruised something young and painful in Lee, brought back an unsteady fear he didn't want to deal with.

“Yesterday,” Morgan said, “Sammie told me that when she dreamed of you in the shop, you dropped your handkerchief on the floor. She said when you picked it up, you picked up a metal nut off the shop floor, that you made sure it was hidden in the handkerchief that you put in your pocket.”

Lee choked, couldn't swallow. When at last he got the coughing under control, Morgan said, “Come on, Lee, humor a little girl. What can it hurt to meet her, to spend a little while with us next visiting day?”

Lee knew now that he'd better do that. This kind of thing would turn a man crazy unless he knew what it was about.

B
ECKY LEFT THE
drugstore at five feeling good after her first day at work. She'd found a bookkeeping job at last, after multiple tries. She liked the people she was working with; she liked the fact that the Latham family had slowly, over the years, established a small chain that gave five areas of Atlanta excellent pharmacy service. She would be paid at the end of each week and she badly needed the money to pay their attorney. The shop windows along Peachtree were bright with Thanksgiving color, a hint of Christmas scattered among them, and the air had turned crisp and chill. She had started to cross the street to the department store meaning to buy some stockings before her last pair gave way when she thought she saw Brad Falon.

Catching her breath, she drew back into the shadow of a doorway. The man moved swiftly away from her; she could see only his back, a slim man, Falon's height. Same narrow head, light brown hair combed into a thick ducktail. He turned the corner and was gone and she hadn't seen his face. Had he seen
her,
was that why he hurried away? She wanted to follow him, but that wasn't wise. Instead she returned to
the pharmacy, stood in the shadow of the doorway for a long time watching the street.

He didn't return. Maybe it wasn't Falon, maybe only someone who resembled him. The man had been visible for only a minute, and was half hidden by shoppers. How could Falon have found out so soon where she'd gone? Moving on into the drugstore as if she had forgotten something she smiled at Amy, the small, blond clerk, and went on into the back office. She sat down at her desk, feeling shaky. She stared at the neatly stacked ledgers, at the chrysanthemums that Mr. Latham had brought from his garden to brighten her first day on the job, a homey, kindly gesture.

The Latham's pharmacies were small shops selling prescriptions only and over-the-counter medications, no ice cream counter, no magazines or toys. The plate-glass windows were kept sparkling, the marble floors immaculate. Near the front door were two benches where customers could wait for their orders. Behind the pharmacist's counter was a large safe where cash and a few narcotic drugs were kept, a refrigerator, and shelves of prescription medicines. The inner office was lined with file cabinets facing the two desks. Becky's job was to keep daily accounts for the five stores. Invoices and sales records were put on her desk each night, after John Latham had made his rounds. Latham was a slim, quiet man, with a habit of smoothing the top of his head, where his hair was thinning.

Becky had found the job through an agency after two weeks of looking on her own. She had chosen the agency with the most comfortable atmosphere, and had indicated on her registration forms that she was a widow. Two days later she had the job. The previous bookkeeper, who was leaving to have a baby, had interviewed her, and then Mr. Latham had talked with her. Her salary was more than she had hoped, and this downtown branch was a five-minute drive from Anne's, an equal distance from the grammar school.
Sammie should already be in school, but Becky was still reluctant to send her off by herself. Now, if she
had
seen Falon, she would have to keep Sammie home.

If he had tracked her this far, he would find the house—or had already found it, was already watching the Morningside neighborhood. Fear and anger made her heart pound. She breathed deeply, trying to relax. She couldn't let panic paralyze her, she had to think what to do, had to watch more carefully around her, further caution to her aunt and Anne's housekeeper to be aware, to keep the doors locked. And she'd have to carry the .38. An empty gun was no good, lying in the bottom of a suitcase.

She waited at her desk for twenty minutes, then left by the back door, crossing the small parking area to her car. She drove home to Anne's by a circuitous route, watching for Falon's black coupe. The next morning when she dressed for work she unlocked the .38 from her battered overnight bag, loaded it and put it in her purse.

Leaving Sammie at home with Mariol, Becky drove to work, warily watching the streets. Pulling into the narrow parking area behind the redbrick building, she left the gun under the seat of the locked car. Maybe she was being paranoid, carrying a gun, and maybe not. Falon had been in their house more than once. He had killed one man that she knew of, and he had nearly killed bank teller Betty Holmes. He might well have killed her and Sammie that night when Sammie was small, when he broke into their house and Sammie's good cat attacked him. Sammie was so little then. Neither of them had forgotten Misto's bravery and the terrible shock of his death.

Could
she shoot Falon if she must? Oh, yes. If he came at Sammie, she'd kill him. She had warned Anne and Mariol about Falon, though she wasn't sure that either one took the threat seriously enough. She had made them promise not to open the door to any stranger and not to let Sammie play outside alone.

On her second day, arriving at work, she didn't glimpse Falon or his car, and when she didn't see him the next day or the next, her tension began to ease. Very likely that wasn't Falon she'd seen, but a stranger, a coincidence not a threat. She had been at work a week when she came out of the drugstore at four feeling good, her first week's pay in her purse, feeling strong and secure to be making a regular salary again. Things were better at Anne's, too; something was changing that puzzled her, Anne seemed almost pleased that they were staying there, she wasn't nearly so grim and cold as when they arrived.