Tell Them Katy Did by Victor J. Banis

the meantime, he was content as the President here, and if the pond was small, he was surely the biggest and most enviable fish in it. The company provided him a house, which he fancied was the grandest in the town, and servants to run it for him. He had a car and a driver, and he was known and respected at the local country club, which was far nicer, really, than one might expect.
    When he remembered how he had grown up, in a house not much more than a shanty in one of the meanest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, he could not help thinking he had done himself very well in his forty-six years on the planet. He reckoned he would be back in California, in a far grander neighborhood (he was thinking Beverly Hills) and high up on the corporate ladder, by the time he was fifty.
    He was a widower, a barely remembered wife having died almost twenty years before. He had often since considered remarrying, but he had decided that would wait until he assumed his rightful place with the firm. He was in good health. Everyone said he was young for his years, and he felt sure that by the age of fifty he would still be able to live an active life. He had no doubt that he would find a suitable wife then. As for the present, he was honest enough with himself to admit that he somewhat selfishly liked his independence.
    He entertained often, but even when he was alone for the evening, he always enjoyed a full dinner, served rather formally. His cook, a local woman, was quite good, and had gotten better since she found her efforts appreciated. He had a house-boy, half Chinese and, though he would never have said this to anyone else, as pretty as any woman. Chi Seng saw to all his wants, physical and otherwise, so that he need never bother himself with what he considered the awkward trappings of romance, nor the details of housekeeping. In short, he had everything that he could desire. Or, nearly everything, at least.
    More than once he had thought about taking a vacation in Los Angeles. He missed certain things—the weather, especially. He hated the winters here, when everything was buried under snow and just getting around was difficult. But he had not gone back to the west coast since the day he left, when he had made a promise to himself that he would return an unqualified success. There were people he wanted to “show.”
    He had been out to a restaurant this evening with some business associates and he had not only eaten a fine meal, but topped it off with more than a few drinks. Good Scotch beforehand, an old California Cabernet with dinner, and a good cognac afterward. He was feeling very mellow, and halfway home he decided to do something he rarely did. He told his driver he wanted to walk.
    It was near the end of October, when sometimes it could be snowing already, but this year the weather was holding pleasant. A waxy moon slipped in and out of the clouds, like a fat lady playing hide and seek, and though the hour was not late, only a little before eleven, the town was quiet. He saw no one else as he ambled along, the car coasting slowly behind him in case he changed his mind. He did not get as much exercise as he should, and he thought this effort would be good for his waist, which had begun to bulge a bit more than pleased him. Not that he was fat, he wasn’t, and he was a tall man after all, six three in his stocking feet, so he could carry some flesh on his bones. Still, it never hurt to stretch one’s legs.
    As he came near to the cemetery, he saw a hearse turn in between the gates, an ebony limousine close behind. They stopped a hundred feet or so down the drive, the red of their taillights piercing the night. It was decidedly late for a funeral service and besides, the town being a small one, he knew just about everything that went on in it, and he’d heard of no one dying in the last day or so.
    Delbert paused. He was not one of those superstitious types who imagined ghosts and ghouls hovering about in such places. In fact, he