The Hour of the Cat (51 page)

He removed the rest of his clothes and walked into the water up to his waist. Roberta swam toward him. Still several yards away, she arched her body and resubmerged. Something brushed against his legs. Before he could turn, she came up behind. She tried to swim away, but he caught her ankle. Her body was slippery. It shimmered in the silver glow of the moon. He drew her close and kissed her. Her wet body angled into his, a neat fit.

They gathered their clothes and went back to the house. Despite the raucous protest of Doc Cropsey's bedsprings, unaccustomed to the prolonged and boisterous repetition of compression and release, Anderson's loud snoring in the next room continued uninterrupted. Rain pounded the roof and then stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Near dawn, she got up and covered them with a blanket. The birds screamed in berserk anticipation of the sunrise. Dunne nestled into the sinuous curve of her body. He whispered in her ear:

He draped his arm over her. She took his hand in hers and sang softly:

They left Doc's place late morning, amid a pale, motionless mist. Shelter Island was Roberta's idea. She found a road map in Doc's kitchen and pointed out that if they used the Shelter Island ferries, they could reach the south shore of Long Island and return to the city without retracing their steps or coming near Yaphank. They filled up with gas at the first service station they came to and drove to Greenport. The line for the ferry on Main Street was only two cars long. Anderson wanted to go into the restaurant next to the ferry line for a cup of tea. Dunne convinced him it would be better if they waited until they reached the South Shore. Anderson sat glum and unhappy in the back.

The ferry arrived in a few minutes. Once they were on, it left for Shelter Island. Cap pulled low over his eyes, a ferryman came to collect the fare. He held out a receipt in a hand missing two fingers.

“See that sky?” he said.

The morning mist was gone; a rising wind stampeded a herd of gray, dark-bellied clouds eastward, toward the open sea. “The clouds?” Roberta said.

“Nope.”

Dunne sat motionless, staring down into his lap. He recognized the ferryman: Clem Payne, the man who had taken him fishing earlier in the summer. Anderson stuck his head out the window and quickly withdrew it. “No gulls.”

“Yep. Mornin' like this, wind or no wind, they'd be swarmin' over them trawlers tied up at the docks, waitin' for the scraps be throwed 'em. Not today,” the ferryman said.

“Could be, they went back to the city with the summer visitors,” Roberta said.

“Gulls got more sense than city people. They know when bad weather is movin' in. From the look of things, I'd say we're 'bout to get ourselves a nor'easter. Maybe worse. Either way, seems Mother Nature might have somethin' up her sleeve.” He put his receipt book in his pocket and readied to tie the boat to the pilings as it docked in the ferry slip.

Roberta waved at the ferryman as they drove off the boat. He nodded rather than waved. “Did you have to be that rude?” Roberta said. “You barely looked at him, Fin.”

“We've met before. I wasn't eager to jog his memory.”

“Unlikely,” Anderson said. “He's a country person. They're the same the world over. To them, all city people look alike.”

Shelter Island had the appearance of a deserted village. Many of the houses were already boarded up for the winter. The single road they followed from the north ferry to the south was only lightly trafficked. The boat ride was significantly shorter than on the north side, but the wind continued to pick up. They had to roll up the windows to keep from getting soaked by the spray from the choppy water.

Sag Harbor was as forlorn as Shelter Island. Only a few cars were parked on the main street. A wind-driven spiral of papers and leaves rampaged across it. When they reached the Montauk Highway, they turned west, toward the city. After a brief while, they stopped so Dunne could relieve himself. The clock in the office said 12:15. He looked at his watch. It was five after two. “Your clock has stopped,” he said to the attendant.

The attendant laughed. “Only thing workin' around here today is me. Look at the barometer 'neath the clock. This mornin' was well over 29. Now it's down under 27.5. Ain't never been that low before. It's like the damn thing just up and died.”

Anderson wasn't in the car when Dunne returned. “‘Mutiny on the Bounty,'” Roberta said. “I told him to wait for you, but he said he couldn't wait any longer for his cup of tea. He's up the street in that greasy spoon.” She pointed to a luncheonette several storefronts away.

“We might as well join him,” Dunne said. “It's a straight drive west from here to the city. Guess it can't hurt if we eat first.”

They left the car at the gas station. Roberta tied a silk kerchief over her head. The roiling black sky looked ready to burst. The wind came in spurts, dying down for a moment before a fresh, fiercer gust arrived. It almost ripped the kerchief off Roberta's head. She ducked into the doorway of a florist's shop to retie it. Dunne turned his back to the street, cupped a match in his hand and lit a cigarette. He did the same for Roberta. She lowered her head toward the flame. The small sign in the window behind her advertised END OF SUMMER SALE. EVERYTHING MUST GO. Except for a few pots of golden chrysanthemums and a box of sea lavender, everything had.

Roberta touched the flowers in the window box. “These are pretty,” she said. “I wonder what they are.” In the glass above the box was the weak reflection of street and sky. The clouds moved with menacing speed. A black car pulled up across the way. A woman got out, looked around, and ran to a pharmacy.

“Impatiens,” Dunne said. “Their time is almost up.”

“You're the last man I'd ever think would know anything about flowers.” She dropped her cigarette and stepped on it.

The woman across the street rapped on the door of the pharmacy, which seemed to be closed. She turned and glanced about. Finally, the door opened and she went in.

Dunne gripped Roberta's arm with his left hand and held her back.

“Fin, let go! You're hurting me!”

He kept his grip. “Go to the car right now. Pull around to the front of the luncheonette. I'll get Anderson. Do it fast!”

“What's got into you?” When he released her, she rubbed her arm and stayed where she was.

He stared past her, into the window. “Look over my shoulder. See that car? It's being driven by Irene Loben, one of Sparks's accomplices.”

“I'll be there in a minute.” She ran back to the car.

He pulled down his hat, securing it against the wind, and rushed into the luncheonette. Anderson was at the far end of the counter. The counterman brought him his tea and buttered toast.

“I've been looking forward to this all day,” Anderson said as he lifted the cup. “Cheers.”

Dunne held the door ajar. The wind surged in behind him. “Let's go.”

“Close that damn door,” the counterman snapped.

Anderson sipped his tea. “What's the hurry?”

“Sparks's friend is parked across the street.”

“Good God.” Anderson dropped his cup. The contents splashed across the counter. He slapped a quarter on the cash register and followed Dunne outside. Miss Loben was exiting the pharmacy. Last time he'd seen her was on the steps of the Hermes Sanatorium, a look of horrified surprise on her face. Now, expressionless, she lowered her head and ran to the car, got in, and drove east, in the direction of Montauk.

Roberta drove toward them and made a screeching U-turn in front of the luncheonette. A bread truck just missed hitting her. The driver screamed and shook his fist. The car stalled. She started it again, slowed down enough for Dunne and Anderson to hop in, and sped away. Rain suddenly beat against the windshield in blinding sheets. “I can barely see.”

“Just keep driving.” Dunne opened the glove compartment and rifled through it. He reached to the back and removed a compact, silver-plated, snub-nosed pistol.

Roberta glanced at him. “How'd you know it was in there?”

He made sure the pistol was loaded. “Checked your clothes and your purse. Wasn't there, so I figured it had to be here.”

“That's what I love most about you, Fin. You're such a romantic.” The sky had turned pitch black. She turned on the headlights. The road ahead was layered over with leaves and broken branches. “We have to pull over,” she said, “I can hardly make out the road.”

Directly ahead, the red glow of tail lights was suddenly visible. “Damn it, stay behind those lights!” Anderson yelled.

“That could be anybody.” Roberta erased the vapor on the window with a swipe of her sleeve.

Dunne helped her. “Won't know unless we follow it.”

They trailed at a short distance. Several times they inched around giant elms that had been toppled by the wind. The car ahead picked up speed and skidded through a pond-sized puddle. Roberta stepped on the gas. A few yards beyond, the car veered off the highway, rode up on the shoulder, and smashed a picket fence. They could barely keep the tail lights in sight as it raced in the direction of the beach. Crossing over a small bridge, they encountered only darkness. The car had vanished.

“We've lost her,” Roberta said. “We better go back.”

“There!” Anderson pointed up a narrow lane that cut between a high hedge and ran toward the dunes. The lights rose as the car cleared a knoll, and then sank out of view. “Pull over!”

The wind pushed so hard against the car that it listed into the hedge. There was a lone shack up the road, on the bay side. “Maybe we'd be safer there,” Roberta said.

“I don't think we should move anywhere at the moment,” Anderson said. As he spoke, the roof of the shack lifted off in one piece, twisted in the air, and broke apart in an explosion of wooden shingles. A flock of them landed on the roof of the car, pounding dents in it. The wind peaked higher, then slowly began to wane in the way it had risen, powerful bursts interspersed by calm. Gradually, the rain tapered off with the wind. The clouds parted. Sunlight glistened on soaked fields and bushes.

Roberta sat up. “That was some squall.”

“It was no squall.” Anderson got out of the car. He reached down, lifted his pants leg, and removed a pistol strapped to his ankle. “I've been in the Tropics for these storms. This is a full-blown Cape Verde hurricane. We're in the eye of it.”

“This isn't the Tropics. Those storms don't come this far north,” Dunne said.

“Apparently, the Weather Bureau forgot to inform the storm of that. As soon as the eye passes, it will resume. We haven't much time. You two go back and alert the authorities. I'll make sure they can't drive away.”

“Who should I call?” Dunne said. “The FBI?” Dunne handed the snub-nosed pistol to Roberta. “Back the car across the driveway. If anybody tries to get through . . .”

“Don't worry about me,” Roberta looked at Anderson. “Just remember to shoot first.” She returned to the car and put it in reverse, blocking the road. Anderson and Dunne walked through a palisade of high hedges. They climbed a small knoll. When they reached the crest, the sun was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds. The wind returned, this time from the south. The whipped sand stung their faces. In front, fifty yards or so, was a cottage tucked between the knoll and the grass-covered dunes. Loben's car was parked outside.

Clouds piled on one another and rapidly blocked out the sun. Anderson and Dunne lay down on the leeward side of a dune. Beyond the cottage, waves pounded the beach. Their plumes rose high in the air, over the far dunes, and scattered like shrapnel. Down the beach, the sea had already broken through and was surrounding several houses.

“We can't just wait here!” Dunne yelled.

“We don't have to! Look!”

Hatless, in a yellow rain slicker, white pants, and blue deck shoes, Sparks had exited the cottage. Irene Loben was behind him. The hood of her red pullover covered her head. They stood by the car, sheltering themselves by its side, but made no attempt to get in. Neither of them seemed surprised to see Anderson approaching. Dunne ran to catch up with him, tripped over a rotted log, and fell hard on his cast. He cried out in pain. The rain started again, coming in gray sheets laced with sand and the salted spray of the ocean. He struggled to stand.

Anderson neared the bottom of the hollow. He was close enough to see the smile on Sparks's face. He raised his gun, motioning for Sparks and Loben to return to the cottage when, from behind, the blade of a gardener's spade shattered his clavicle; a quick second blow sliced open his carotid artery, spurting blood over his jacket. He staggered and turned toward the attacker, who'd been sheltered behind a dune. This time the spade hit him full in the face, pulverizing his front teeth, smashing his nose and sending him sprawling. He tasted blood in his throat and tried to recall where he was. He heard the distant thunder of artillery. He was lying in a trench at the Somme, a ditch filled with dead and dying men. He struggled to recite four lines from Jeremiah, a prayer and a prophesy. How'd they go? He remembered now:

The spade, especially sharpened for the purpose, descended with the force of an executioner's axe, four times in all, finally severing his head from his body.