The
I parked behind the two other cars, walked up the broad flight of steps to the porch and pulled the bell cord. It had an electrical device now and chimed somewhere inside. When that happened the voices that seemed a little too loud suddenly stopped and when the door opened I looked at the tiny old lady that used to make me jelly sandwiches when I was locked in my room and tell me everything was going to be all right and I said, "Hello, Annie."
She stiffened automatically, looked up at me over her glasses, annoyed. "Yes?" Her voice was thin now, and quavered a little.
I bent down and kissed her cheek. It was quick and she didn't have time to pull away, but her mouth opened in a gasp of indignation. Before she could speak I said, "It's been a long time, Annie. Don't you remember the one you called your pussy cat?"
Her eyebrows went up slowly as memories returned. She reached out, touched my face, shaking her head in disbelief. "Cat. My little Cat Cay."
I lifted her right off her feet, held her up and squeezed her a little. The two-day-old beard was rough against her cheek and she squealed with a little sob of pleasure until I put her down. "I don't believe it," she told me. "So many years. You're so . . . so big now. Come in, Cat, come in, come in."
"You haven't changed, Annie. You still smell of apple pie and furniture polish."
She closed the door, took my arm with fragile fingers, stepped back and looked at me closely. "Yes, it's you all right . . . the broken nose Rudy gave you, the scar where you fell out of the tree . . . your father's eyes."
But at the same time she was looking at the well-worn black suit and the battered porkpie hat and in her mind I was still the left over, the one who didn't fit or belong, who had always been a convenient whipping boy for Rudy and his brother Theodore, the family scapegoat who took the blame and punishment for everything two cousins did and had to cut out at twelve.
"Where's the clan?" I asked her.
Her eyes darted toward the pair of oak doors that led to the library. "Cat . . . do you think you should . . ."
"Why not, old girl? No hard feelings on my part. What happened is over and I'm not going to be around long enough to get any rumors started. Besides, there's not one thing I want from this bunch of Bannermans. By myself I do okay and no squawks. I'm only passing through."
She was going to say something else, stopped herself and pointed to the doors. "They're all . . . inside there." There was a peculiar edge to her voice, but she was still the family housekeeper and didn't intrude in the closed circle of affairs.
I patted her shoulder, pushed down the two great brass handles and swung the doors open. For one second I had that cold feeling like I used to get when I was told to report and knew what was going to happen. Uncle Miles would be pacing the floor in his whipcord breeches, slapping his leg with the riding crop while he listened to Rudy and Teddy lie about who let the bay mare eat herself to death from the feed bin, or who fired the old cabin out back. I'd know the crop was for me with long hours in the dark attic bedroom and a week of doing backbreaking man-chores to follow until I was allowed the company of the family again. I remembered the way old MacCauley hated to assign the jobs, but he had his orders from Miles and he'd try to take the load off my back, knowing he'd be fired if he was caught. If my old man had been alive he would have knocked his brother's ass off for doing it. But pop had died. He went under a frozen lake to get Rudy who had fallen through, caught pneumonia and a week later was dead.
But it wasn't the same now. Uncle Miles was a skinny, frightened old man who sat behind a desk with a tight face that was all bluster and fear and Rudy and Ted, a couple of pudgy boy-men with faces showing the signs of dissipation and easy living. Neither one of them had much hair left and their faces were pink and soft looking. Ted, who always was the lesser of the two, fidgeted with his hands at a corner of the desk while Rudy stood there pompously with his hands on his hips and his tongue licking his thick lips nervously.
There was a third one I didn't know who was relaxed in a chair with his legs crossed, smoking, an angular guy with thick, black hair and a pointed widow's peak above a face that was strong and handsome.
The other two I did know. One was Carl Matteau, the other Popeye Gage and they were Syndicate boys from Chicago and they both had amused, tolerant expressions on their faces.
Every head in the room swiveled my way when I walked in but there wasn't a sign of recognition on any of them. Miles and his two sons threw a quick look at the pair of hoods, wondering if I were part of them, but when Carl Matteau shrugged they knew I wasn't and Uncle Miles came halfway out of his chair with his face flushed in anger at the intrusion.
"Just what is the meaning of this!" he demanded.
I grinned at him, slow and deliberately. "A social call, Uncle. I came to pay my respects to the family. Relax."
It was Rudy who recognized me first. Something happened to his breath. It seemed to stick in his throat. "Cat," he said. "Cat Cay!"
"Hello, Punk." I walked over to him, stood there looking down at his eyes, knowing what he saw scared him stiff. He started to hold out his hand and I slapped him across the mouth.
Teddy never moved for a few moments, then skittered behind the desk. "Are . . . are you crazy?" he managed to get out.
"Sure, kid." I laughed and watched Miles let go the arms of the chair and sink down into the padded seat. He looked even smaller than before.
All he could say was, "
But it was and he knew it.
The one sitting behind me, the good-looking one, came out of his chair very casually, strode over to the desk and stared at me with eyes as cold as my own. He was as big as I was, but only in height, but he had the kind of build you couldn't trust. A lot of those angular guys could be like whips. "Do you mind explaining who you are?"
I pushed him a little. "You first, buddy."
He rolled with the nudge. "Vance Colby. I happen to be engaged to Anita Bannerman."
Anita! Damn, I had almost forgotten about her. The distant cousin who was ten to my twelve, fair headed and frail who used to follow me around like a puppy. She was another who had sneaked me sandwiches and milk when they had my back against the wall. Cute little kid. She had met me by the gate the night I ran away and kissed me goodbye and ran back to the house crying her eyes out.
"Well, how about that," I said.
"That doesn't explain you."
"I'm a Bannerman, buddy. The bastard Bannerman. You should have heard of me. Max, my old man, and Miles here were brothers. I used to live here."
"So." That was all he said. He nodded as if he knew the whole story and turned to look at Uncle Miles. The old man seemed to be in a stupor.
For some reason the whole thing got funny. Everything was out of focus and there was a charge in the air that you could feel on your skin. I said, "Well, I didn't expect any fatted calf killed for me, but I sure didn't think the clan would be so far on their heels they'd entertain a couple of bums like these two here." I turned around and looked at Matteau and Gage.
It was Gage who started to move until Matteau tapped his arm. "Easy, boy," he said to me.
I walked over to him, gave him one stiff shot in the chops and when he folded I laid one on the back of his neck that piled him into the rug. When Gage reached for the gun I jammed the barrel of the .45 in his mouth and felt teeth snap and saw the blood spill down his chin and the wide eyes of a guy who had just made one hell of a big mistake. He hit the wall, came off it knowing what was going to happen and too late to stop it: I let him have the gunsight across his jaw that laid the flesh open and he went down on top of Matteau with a soft whimper and stayed there.
All you could hear was the terrified silence. It was a noise in itself. I said, "Don't anybody ever call me
