A short, sharp, extremely hostile sound suddenly interrupted my play. My ears twitched and my fur stood up; even with my lack of experience in the out-of-doors, I recognized the sound of a dog’s bark. I turned my head and moved my eyes just in time to see a large beast bearing down on me from the right, still barking, as a man ran after him waving a long leather strap.
The dog had slipped his leash and was on the warpath. I could either stand my ground and rely on my claws, or flee.
There wasn’t time to disentangle myself from the bracelet. I ran, expecting the dog to nip at my tail any second, and managed to claw my way up a tree. The dog circled below, howling and barking, until his human being finally caught up with him. I watched, clinging to safety, as the man hooked the strap onto his collar and led him away.
My heart was beating rapidly. I stretched out on the limb, reluctant to venture forth again. Dogs weren’t my only worry; there might also be stray cats in the area. In a desperate situation, I had a chance of intimidating a dog, but no cat worthy of the name would back down from a fight with me.
I shook myself, trying to free myself of the bracelet, then forced myself to be calm. A survey of the area revealed that I was not that far from the entrance to the Watergate complex’s hotel, where a limousine was just pulling up to the entrance.
Something moved below me; a woman in shorts and a baggy shirt was jogging toward me. She stopped under the tree and leaned against the trunk.
“Jesus,” I heard her say, “Daddy’s going to kill me. He’s just going to kill me.” She sounded quite distressed.
“Mrrow,” I said, thinking that I might be able to use a little help making my way down.
She looked up. Young Maury had always brought home attractive human females, but this one far exceeded them in beauty. Her hair was thick and dark, her eyes large and green, and her teeth were white as she smiled at me.
“You poor kitty,” she murmured, and then, “Oh, my God.”
“Mrrow,” I said again as I crept backward along the limb. When I was halfway down the trunk, hands seized me and gently set me on the ground.
“Nice kitty.” She showed me more of her teeth. “You wonderful kitty. You absolutely excellent and terrific little kitty.” She reached for the bracelet and removed it from me. “You found my diamond bracelet. Daddy would have just killed me for losing it.” She scratched my head; I purred, then rolled around in the grass, showing my belly. “Are you sure you’ll be all right? Do you even have a home? I wouldn’t mind taking you home myself.”
I stretched and got to my feet. She knelt next to me and peered at my tag. “Why, you live around here. I think I’d better take you home.”
I squinted at her. I was tempted to scurry away, given that I’d had so little chance to explore my surroundings. But my encounter with the dog had dampened my enthusiasm for more adventures, an extremely large male human being seemed to be watching the young lady and me at a distance, and perhaps it was wiser to take advantage of the safe passage home that this female was offering.
I allowed her to pick me up. She insisted on holding me with my head nestled against her elbow, not exactly the most comfortable position, but I was able to endure my discomfort until we reached Watergate South.
The doorman recognized me as we approached, and quickly opened the door for us. Maury was lurking in the lobby, still clutching my carrying case, as my captor entered the building. “Angleton!” he said to me. “Thank God you’re safe.”
“Is he yours?” the young woman said.
Maury didn’t reply immediately. I had a good look at his face from my vantage point; his mouth was hanging open and his eyes were as glassy as they had been when he first heard me speak.
“Is he your cat?” the woman said. “Are you Maury Carabas? The tag says he belongs to a Maury Carabas.” I wriggled around in her arms, then leaped to the floor. “Hello?” she continued. “Anybody home?”
Maury managed to close his mouth for a moment. “Hello,” he said at last in a muted voice. “Yeah, he’s my cat.”
“It’s a good thing I found him, then. You really shouldn’t let him run around outside, even if he did find my bracelet for me. I was afraid I’d never see it again.” Her arms tightened around me. “You should be a lot more careful with this wonderful, beautiful kitty.”
“I know, but Angleton has a mind of his own.” Maury still had a dazed look on his face. “What’s your name?”
“Desirée.”
“That’s a beautiful name.”
This hardly passed as witty repartee, but the young woman was now staring at Maury in the same stupefied fashion as he was gazing at her. “Maury’s a nice name, too,” she replied.
“I work for Senator Trilby. I’m a member of his staff.”
“I’m here in Washington with my father,” Desirée said. “He always stays at the hotel here when he’s in town.”
They continued to stare at each other for a while, while I longed to feed Maury some more eloquent lines of conversation, until he leaned over and opened the top of the case. “In you go, old buddy,” he said as he took me from Desirée and deposited me in my container. “Um, I know this is kind of sudden, but after I take Angleton back to the apartment, would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?”
“Sure. I’ll wait down here.”
I sighed with exasperation as Maury picked up the case. Risking my hide so that he could find yet another young lady to waste his money on was not what I’d had in mind.
“You can come up to my place if you want.”
“Better not.” She gestured toward the doors. “One of my security people probably followed me here. He won’t bother us if I wait for you here, but he’d probably want to check you out before I went off with you.”
“Your security people?” Maury asked.
“My bodyguards. It’s not my idea, but Daddy insists on it whenever I’m out jogging or shopping or wandering around. The only thing he gave in on is that they have to keep their distance while they’re protecting me. I mean, like, what kind of social life would I have if they were standing right next to me all the time?”
Bodyguards, I thought; people of limited means usually did not hire such protection. Perhaps this young woman had more substantial resources than I realized.
“With the crime rate in this town,” Maury said, “maybe your dad’s got a good idea.”
A man came through the entrance. Peering up through the metal bars of my carrier, I recognized the rather large individual I had spotted outside earlier.
“Jeez, Jeffrey,” Desirée said to this man, “you don’t have to come in here. It’s cool. Like, all I was doing is giving this guy’s cat back to him.”
The man touched the cap over his brow with one hand. “Never hurts to double check, Ms. Morlock.”
“Morlock?” Maury said.
“That’s my last name,” the young woman said.
“Any relation to Roland Morlock?” Maury asked.
“He’s my dad.”
I had to restrain myself from rolling around inside my carrier in ecstasy. A lost bracelet and an unleashed dog had led Maury and me to the daughter of the richest and most powerful media lord in the country.
* * * *
Maury and Desirée were soon keeping company, so much so that the Washington Post’s society pages began to take note of the fact. Whenever the two weren’t spending time in the Royal Suite at the Watergate’s Swissôtel, they were playing tennis, picnicking in Rock Creek Park, working out at the hotel’s health club, playing golf at Burning Tree, attending yet another performance at the Kennedy Center, or jetting up to New York City for a weekend of theater performances and club-hopping. Often I accompanied them on these junkets, packed in my carrier and safely in the keeping of one of Ms. Morlock’s bodyguards.
That Desirée and Maury had a certain lack o
f intellectual prowess in common only seemed to strengthen their bond; however vacuous they might have seemed to many of their former loves, they never bored each other. The two were together nearly every evening, and on those rare occasions when they were not, Desirée called on the telephone and engaged Maury in lengthy if often monotonous conversations. They spent their evenings at Mr. Morlock’s hotel suite, where Desirée had remained even after her father returned to New York, or at Maury’s apartment, where they could barely restrain themselves from expressing their affection at almost any opportunity.
The young woman’s increasing fondness for Maury also encompassed me, the cat who had found her bracelet and had enabled her to meet the man who had, so she proclaimed, become the love of her life. When they were not at Maury’s apartment, the two brought me to the hotel suite with them. Whenever they dined on take-out or room service food, they fed me tidbits with their fingers, and because Desirée was always dieting, I had my choice of abundant leftovers.
Even more miraculously, Roland Morlock, upon meeting Maury, took a strong liking to him. I suppose that I can claim some credit for that, as I was careful to rehearse Maury in a recitation of Mr. Morlock’s prehistoric political views before he met his love’s father for the first time; by repeating Mr. Morlock’s various statements or else keeping his mouth shut and nodding while the great man expounded on politics and society, Maury had made a stunningly good impression on Desirée’s father. It’s also true that Mr. Morlock had grown increasingly distressed at seeing stories about his daughter’s nocturnal shenanigans regularly appear in the publications of several of his competitors. Maury, to his mind, was a great improvement over Desirée’s past suitors.
Maury’s prospects had never been brighter. One of the wealthiest young ladies in the world adored him, and it was increasingly likely that their strong attachment to each other would eventually result in matrimony. Mr. Morlock, during his visits to Washington, often spoke of various executive positions that Maury might some day occupy in one of his companies.
I should have been as delighted as a cat roaming in a garden of catnip, but I had miscalculated Maury’s capacity for subtlety. Knowing that Mr. Morlock was extremely wary of young men who were unduly interested in his daughter’s financial assets, I had advised Maury to hint that he was a young man of considerable means. “You don’t want Roland Morlock to think of you as a fortune hunter,” I had told him, “especially since young Desirée, according to a recent article in Vanity Fair, has already had a couple of unfortunate and expensive involvements with mercenary young men of dubious antecedents. The only way to convince him that you’re not after his daughter’s money is to act as though money doesn’t matter to you—in other words, as if you have more than enough of it yourself.”
“I always foot the bill when we go out,” Maury said. “I’m not exactly a cheap bastard.”
“True enough,” I said, well aware of how rapidly our scanty resources were being depleted, “but we’ve reached a point where more is required. You’re already living as a young man of means might, and you have an eminently respectable family background thanks to your father, but it wouldn’t hurt to drop a few hints about other assets.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
I repressed a sigh, which would only have escaped me as a snarl. “You might mention your occasional enjoyment of a good horseback ride in the Virginia hills, thus leading Mr. Morlock to assume that you possess a horse or two, even a stable and a farm. You can imply that your broker was smart enough to get you out of the market just before the dotcom and telecommunications fiascos. You needn’t say anything outright, or make any overt claims that could easily be checked. The trick is to leave a certain impression.”
Maury not only followed my advice, but also exceeded it. Four months after meeting Desirée Morlock, he had managed to convince her father that he had a few million salted away in bonds and other investments, that the acreage of his Virginia farm encompassed a county or two, and that he had given up his late father’s Georgetown home for the Watergate only because the house had evoked too many painful memories of his beloved sire. Had he been more discreet and ambiguous, he might have been safely wedded to Desirée before her father discovered his true net worth. By then, Mr. Morlock, faced with a happily married daughter, would most likely have overlooked the matter, especially since he would have had to admit to himself that he had drawn his own conclusions too readily from some rather vague statements of Maury’s. He was not a man who cared to admit his own mistakes.
But he was also not a man who would allow his daughter to marry a four-flusher. The truth would come out, either through Mr. Morlock’s investigations or else in some published item by an inquisitive journalist. Maury, by being too specific instead of ambiguous in his statements, would soon be exposed as an outright liar, and I had no way to avert the disaster that would ensue.
* * * *
Maury and Desirée had jetted off to Los Angeles in one of her father’s Gulfstreams for a week-long vacation before Christmas. They had wanted to bring me with them, but I had explained to Maury privately that I had other fish to fry.
There was much for me to ponder in his absence. I spent a couple of days at Maury’s computer, which he had left on for me, distracting myself by researching real estate listings in Tallahassee. At last I removed my paw from the mouse and closed my overstrained eyes.
The truth of our situation could escape me no longer; we would soon be penniless. The longer we stayed in Washington, and the more prolonged Maury’s courtship of Desirée became, the greater the chance of exposure, and of Mr. Morlock’s parting the two lovers decisively and forever.
It was time for desperate measures. Perhaps if we decamped from the Watergate and headed south, Desirée would be moved to follow Maury there, and would quickly agree to marry him so as not to lose him again. It wasn’t much of a plan, but I was hard-pressed to come up with anything more promising. We might be able to scrape together enough to afford one of the modestly priced bungalows in the Tallahassee listings.
As I contemplated this half-baked idea, there was a rattling outside our door. My ears flicked as I heard the almost imperceptible sound of the lock turning. Desirée had left her bodyguard Jeffrey at her hotel suite with orders to come over twice a day to feed me and clean out my litter box, but he had already completed his rounds.
The door opened. The silhouette outlined by the lights in the hallway was much smaller than Jeffrey’s large form. Someone was breaking into the apartment.
I leaped down from my chair, frantically looking for a place to hide in the large room that constituted most of our living space. It was unlikely that a burglar would go out of his way to harm me, but I wanted a good look at the miscreant in order to be able to describe him later to Maury before he contacted the police.
“Angleton,” the intruder said then; I had heard that voice before. “Angleton, I know you’re here.” The door slammed shut behind him; heels clicked against the marble floor of the foyer. “You’d better come out.”
I slipped under the dining room table, holding my breath, then crept toward our Christmas tree. An overhead light suddenly illuminated the room as I scrambled under the tree’s lowest branches. “Come out, Angleton,” the man said. “You can’t hide from me, I’m afraid I know all about you. Charles told me your secret, just before his death, while we were planning a certain operation in the Middle East. I know all about what your role in that mission was to be.”
I saw his face now, and recognized Magnus Ritchard. For such an experienced operative to get past the doorman and our building’s security systems and to acquire copies of our keys was probably a simple matter. But why was he here? Perhaps the Agency had finally given the go-ahead for the obstreperous dictator’s assassination, and Mr. Ritchard was here to enlist my services in that effort.
He sat down on the sofa. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
I crept out from under the tree, still apprehensive. Mr. Carabas would never have confided our secret to his colleague unless he had trusted Mr. Ritchard implicitly, yet I remained suspicious. If the man wanted my help in one of the Agency’s operations, surely he could have contacted me in some other way.
“Mrrow,” I said.
“Don’t get funny with me, Angleton. I know you can do more than meow. Charles told me all about your long conversations and how many languages you managed to pick up. I know you can understand every word I’m saying to you.”
I moved a little closer and sat down a few feet away from his feet. “I know all about you,” Mr. Ritchard continued, “and I’m the only one who knows, now that Charles is dead. There’s something I have to discuss with you, and unless we come to an understanding, your nine lives will pass very quickly, I promise you.”
My fur rose along my spine; he was threatening me. He would not have had to threaten me to enlist me in any Agency operation; evoking the memory of Mr. Carabas would have been enough to win my cooperation. Mr. Ritchard, I feared, was playing another game.
“Mrrow,” I said again.
“You’d better listen, you little fleabag. This isn’t about that mission Charles and I were planning. That never got past a couple of discussions we had by ourselves. This little meeting involves you and that doofus you’re living with, and if you’re not cooperative, a lot of very unpleasant things can happen to recalcitrant kitty cats and their masters. Nobody else in the Agency knows about you, either, so don’t think you can go running to them for protection.”
I stretched out, still keeping my eyes on him.
“It’s very simple,” Mr. Ritchard said. “You’ll go on living with Maury, and every once in a while, you’ll report to me. That isn’t asking so much, is it? Later on, when we figure out how to make the best use of him, there’ll be more for you to do, but nothing as risky as what Charles was planning for you in the Middle East. Once Maury’s married to the Morlock girl, he’ll start rising in her father’s company, and having somebody in place to watch him and maybe to help in using him later on could be very beneficial to us.” He paused. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you had something to do with getting those two together.”
Puss in D.C. and Other Stories Page 3