The Cat from Hell
By STEPHEN KING
Halston thought the old man in the wheelchair looked sick, terrified, and ready to die. He had experience in seeing such things. Death was Halston's business; he had brought it to eighteen men and six women in his career as an independent hitter. He knew the death look.
The house - mansion, actually - was cold and quiet. The only sounds were the low snap of the fire on the big stone hearth and the low whine of the November wind outside.
'I want you to make a kill,' the old man said. His voice was quavery and high, peevish. 'I understand that is what you do.'
'Who did you talk to?' Halston asked.
'With a man named Saul Loggia. He says you know him.'
Halston nodded. If Loggia was the go-between, it was all right. And if there was a bug in the room, anything the old man - Drogan - said was entrapment.
'Who do you want hit?'
Drogan pressed a button on the console built into the arm of his wheelchair and it buzzed forward. Closeup, Halston could smell the yellow odors of fear, age, and urine all mixed.
They disgusted him, but he made no sign. His face was still and smooth. 'Your victim is right behind you,' Drogan said softly.
Halston moved quickly. His reflexes were his life and they were always set on a filed pin. He was off the couch, falling to one knee, turning, hand inside his specially tailored sport coat, gripping the handle of the short-barreled .45 hybrid that hung below his armpit in a spring-loaded holster that laid it in his palm at a touch. A moment later it was out and pointed at ... a cat.
For a moment Halston and the cat stared at each other. It was a strange moment for Halston, who was an unimaginative man with no superstitions. For that one moment as he knelt on the floor with the gun pointed, he felt that he knew this cat, although if he had ever seen one with such unusual markings he surely would have remembered.
Its face was an even split: half black, half white. The dividing line ran from the top of its flat skull and down its nose to its mouth, straight-arrow. Its eyes were huge in the gloom, and caught in each nearly circular black pupil was a prism of firelight, like a sullen coal of hate.
And the thought echoed back to Halston: We know each other, you and I. Then it passed. He put the gun away and stood up. 'I ought to kill you for that, old man. I don't take a joke.'
'And I don't make them,' Drogan said. 'Sit down. Look in here.' He had taken a fat envelope out from beneath the blanket that covered his legs.
Halston sat. The cat, which had been crouched on the back of the sofa, jumped lightly down into his lap. It looked up at Halston for a moment with those huge dark eyes, the pupils surrounded by thin green-gold rings, and then it settled down and began to purr.
Halston looked at Drogan questioningly.
'He's very friendly,' Drogan said. 'At first. Nice friendly pussy has killed three people in this household. That leaves only me. I am old, I am sick ... but I prefer to die in my own time.'
'I can't believe this,' Halston said. 'You hired me to hit a cat?'
'Look in the envelope, please.'
Halston did. It was filled with hundreds and fifties, all of them old.
'How much is it?'
'Six thousand dollars. There will be another six when you bring me proof that the cat is dead. Mr. Loggia said twelve thousand was your usual fee?'
Halston nodded, his hand automatically stroking the cat in his lap. It was asleep, still purring. Halston liked cats. They were the only animals he did like, as a matter of fact. They got along on their own. God - if there was one - had made them into perfect, aloof killing machines. Cats were the hitters of the animal world, and Halston gave them his respect.
'I need not explain anything, but I will,' Drogan said. 'Forewarned is forearmed, they say, and I would not want you to go into this lightly. And I seem to need to justify myself. So you'll not think I'm insane.'
Halston nodded again. He had already decided to make this peculiar hit, and no further talk was needed. But if Drogan wanted to talk, he would listen. 'First of all, you know who I am? Where the money comes from?'
'Drogan Pharmaceuticals.'
'Yes. One of the biggest drug companies in the world. And the cornerstone of our financial success has been this.' From the pocket of his robe he handed Halston a small, unmarked vial of pills. 'Tri-Dormal-phenobarbin, compound G. Prescribed almost exclusively for the terminally ill. It's extremely habit-forming, you see. It's a combination painkiller, tranquilizer, and mild hallucinogen. It is remarkably helpful in helping the terminally ill face their conditions and adjust to them.'
'Do you take it?' Halston asked.
Drogan ignored the question. 'It is widely prescribed throughout the world. It's a synthetic, was developed in the fifties at our New Jersey labs. Our testing was confined almost solely to cats, because of the unique quality of the feline nervous system.'
'How many did you wipe out?'
Drogan stiffened. 'That is an unfair and prejudicial way to put it.'
Halston shrugged.
