Payback by Sam Stewart Page B

Janet, said, “Look—” then heard his own urgency and started it again. “I just wondered,” he said, and asked her if he’d gotten any calls from a “Cat.”
    â€œThis morning?” Janet asked.
    â€œOr while I was away.”
    There was nothing this morning, but he asked her if she’d go check the folder on his desk. He waited, pulling Scotch, pacing on the carpet till his leg almost buckled, then sitting on the bed.
    Janet said thoughtfully, “No. I don’t see it.”
    â€œWell, I don’t think it would only be an it. According to Melda he’s been calling me a lot. Starting … I don’t know. First Monday I was gone.”
    â€œOh. I don’t know.” She was riffling paper. “Well … the only person who was calling you a lot, if you’re starting that Monday, was a jewelry salesman. He didn’t leave his number and he—”
    Right. That was it. “No name? just ‘jewelry salesman’?”
    â€œThat’s it,” Janet said. “And he never left a number. He simply kept telling me to give you the message. I don’t think he really believed you weren’t here.”
    â€œI can see that,” Mitchell said. “Just one other question. What was the date of the last time he called?”
    â€œLast Wednesday,” she said. She sounded concerned. “Was it something I really should have told you long distance? I really thought it—”
    â€œNo.” He handed her a tale about looking at a Rolex and the guy was just a pest. “But there wasn’t any Cat.”
    She assured him there wasn’t.
    Rule #4: After you’ve thought about it carefully, act.
    He picked up the envelope and studied the number. 212. Manhattan. New York. He dialed, fudged it, hung up, dialed again, and got a feminine machine. “This is Marian Cleaver. I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now—”
    Mitchell hung up and then dialed it again, carefully and slowly.
    â€œThis is Marian Cleaver …” He waited for the beep. Hesitated. Then he said, “Tell him it’s the jewelry buyer and I’m back in L.A.”
    He sat for a moment wondering if Melda’d really fucked up the number, transposed a few digits.
    He might never know.
    He got into the bathtub. The water had cooled to a temperature that wouldn’t quite boil a lobster, just stun it. He lay there kneading at his leg, the whisky and an ashtray sitting on the rim.
    He could see how it went. The putative Cat felt ignored by the mouse so the value of the “family jewels” went up. By a count of seven and, according to the radio, possibly nine.
    Against all logic, his leg was relaxing. Dumb little fucker didn’t have a logical bone in its bone, hadn’t gotten the message. You could calm it with water, comfort it with Scotch.
    Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples , he suddenly thought.
    Comfort me …
    His mind went back to Vietnam.
    1969. The Year of the Rooster.
    The Year of the Cat.

7
    Catlin took his eyes very slowly off his feet and looked at the mountain he was marching to. Everything incredibly green. Even the skies could look green in Vietnam. The color of vomit. The color of mold. Vertiginous rot. He shifted his pack. The guy up ahead of him—bare shoulders rippling and gleaming in the heat—had a boil like a burgeoning tomato on his neck.
    He looked at his feet.
    His father’d been in Paris in August ’44. He’d liberated seven Parisian virgins. He’d learned how to say “ couchez avec moi ,” and sometimes he’d whisper it to Catlin’s mother—“ couchez avec moi ,” and she’d giggle in the kitchen, flushing, hit him with an elbow in the ribs. But that had been, Christ, maybe ten, twelve years ago. Before things had changed. It was ancient history. Like World War Two. Like Liberating Armies and Paris champagne.
    He