Cat's-Paw, Inc.

by L. L. Thrasher

  I looked around the room I was in. There was a single light switch just inside the door Next to it was a bank of four switches with no switchplate covers. The sheetrock was cut out around them in a rough rectangle. I flipped the first of the four switches and a section of the ceiling lit up. The person on the bed sat up quickly.

  Jessica Finney. Alive, and well enough to get out of bed in a hurry. She was wearing yellow babydoll pajamas. She stood still for a moment, looking at the door, her arms crossed protectively across her breasts. Then she turned, dropping her arms, and looked at the window. On her side, it would be a mirror and all she would see was her own reflection.

  Her face was expressionless. There was a dark line along her jaw, and marks on her upper arms and on her thighs. Jessica knew all about the camera behind the mirror. “She thought it was real, you know, and she tried to fight.”

  Jessica sat on the foot of the bed, her head bowed.

  I went back into the hall. The noise had abated but they were still in the kitchen. I returned to the room, closing the door behind me, and flipped the single light switch, turning on the ceiling light in my room. On the other side of the window Jessica raised her head and stared, surprise then recognition on her face.

  There’s no magic to a one-way mirror. It’s just a window with a reflective coating on one side. It works the same as any window. The one-way effect depends on the relative lighting on either side of it. If you’re in a lighted room at night and look at a window, you see your own reflection and darkness beyond. If you’re outside in the dark, you can see into the lighted room clearly. If you equalize the lighting by turning on a light outside, you can see into or out of the room with equal ease.

  Jessica and I now had equal lighting in our rooms and were looking at each other through the glass. I put my finger to my lips. She nodded. I gave her a thumbs-up gesture and turned out all the lights. I disappeared from her view but she was visible in the dimly lit bedroom. She sat back against the headboard of the bed and pulled the quilt up to her chin.

  I opened the door and stood behind it in the darkness trying to figure out how to get Jessica out of the locked room. The dead bolt had a keyhole on each side. The window would be nicely finished on her side but on this side it was rough. The wall was about ten feet long and the window took up most of it. The glass was held in place by a frame of unfinished one-by-fours. I might be able to pry the boards loose with my knife but there was no way I could handle a sheet of glass that big by myself. If it broke, no amount of firefighting would cover the noise.

  It occurred to me that I wasn’t in a very good position. I could get out a window but that would put me outside with five men between me and Jessica. Eventually someone was going to come upstairs to check on Nikki. Once they discovered he was gone—

  Someone was coming up the stairs. I drew my gun and moved so I could see through the crack at the hinge side of the door. A shadow moved along the wall, then a man passed by. The smoker. If he looked in on Nikki, all hell was going to break loose.

  I stayed where I was, barely breathing. His steps continued down the hall. Stopped. I heard, clearly, the sound of a zipper. Then the sound of urine streaming into a toilet. I holstered my gun and walked quickly down the hall. The bathroom door was partly closed. I pushed it open. The smoker was standing at the toilet, his back to me. He looked over his shoulder, nothing but mild curiosity on his face. Before his expression could change, I had him in a chokehold that’s been banned by police departments everywhere. His feet lifted off the floor, his full weight hanging from my arms. I ruined his aim completely. My socks grew hot and wet then cold and wet as he struggled silently against.

  After an eternity, his hands stopped clawing at my arms and face. He seemed to be fumbling in front of him. He wasn’t trying for his gun, it was digging into my ribs. His right hand came into view. A switchblade flicked open. His brain must have been screaming for oxygen by then. His movements were slow and clumsy but he got the knife turned toward me. I increased my pressure and gave a quick hard jerk to his head. I felt an odd snap and he collapsed, his body dangling from my arms. The knife fell, hitting the rim of the toilet with a loud clang.

  I lowered him to the floor. The bathroom suddenly smelled like an overused cat litter box. I grabbed a towel off a rack and pressed it against my nose and mouth, breathing deeply into it. I dropped the towel and peeled my wet socks off as I stepped into the hall, closing the bathroom door behind me.

  I stood in the hall. My arms were aching and I was shaking with reaction. My brain was non-functional. I just stood there.

  Eventually, I became aware that the noise from downstairs had changed. Over the sound of the radio, I could hear paper crumpling and something heavy sliding across the floor. They were finished in the kitchen and had gone back to packing.

  A shadow leapt up the stairwell, making me flinch.

  Someone called, “Hey, Bill! Didja fall in?”

  The fat man’s voice wheezed, “He’s probably buggering the little faggot.”

  Laughter followed his remark. The shadow receded.

  I managed a complete thought—they expect him to come downstairs.

  So go downstairs.

  After a moment, my feet moved. I went into the bathroom and flushed the toilet, ran the tap briefly

  I drew my gun.

  Walked down the hall.

  Down the steps.

  When I reached the landing, automatic pilot took over. I spun around the corner in a crouch, fanning the thirty-eight in front of me. Without my willing it, my voice said, “Police! Freeze!”

  Nobody froze.

  The fat man was standing in the archway to the dining room. He lurched backward, disappearing into the darkness.

  The three men crouching by packing boxes went for their guns.

  I shot Nikki’s jock and Blackbeard while they were fumbling at their holsters. The redhead and I fired within a half second of each other. His shot slapped into the wall beside me. He had jumped to his feet and my bullet hit his leg. Blood spurted out in a thick stream. He screamed, dropped his gun, fell to the floor, clutching his leg, frantically trying to stop the blood pulsing from an artery. The scream gurgled out. He lay, white-faced and silent, bleeding to death.

  Without being aware of doing it, I had backed into the corner of the landing. I crouched there, my heart racing. There had been a fifth shot. From the dining room. The bullet had hit the living room wall just in front of the stairwell.

  The fat man had a gun.

  I pressed my ear to the wall at my side. All I heard was my heart pounding and an amplification of the bass notes of the music. The song on the radio ended and the DJ began his inane patter, oblivious to the fact that he was talking to a room of dead and dying men. I shot the radio. It exploded, splattering plastic fragments against the wall. A thin column of smoke rose from the ruins.

  The sudden silence seemed absolute. I pressed my ear to the wall again and felt a faint shudder. The fat man was moving but I couldn’t tell whether he was in the dining room or the kitchen. Then I heard the swinging door moving on its hinges. I crept down the stairs. Just before I reached the archway, I heard another sound. The slap of a screen door closing.

  He was going for the cars.

  I ran to the front door, leaping over boxes and bodies, my feet sliding on the bloody carpet. I vaulted the porch railing and crouched at the corner of the house, listening for the sound of the fat man coming. Four hundred pounds can’t be moved quietly and he would be breathing harder than I was. I didn’t hear anything. I looked around the corner. Nothing but the old barn.

  I ran to the other side of the porch and looked down the side of the house. Nothing.

  I ran to the back of the house, staying close to the wall. At the corner I stopped and listened hard. Nothing. I swung around the corner. Nothing. Light streamed from the screen door. I looked around, confused. I was faster than a fat man. He couldn’t have made it to the woods.

  From the tre
es where I had hidden earlier to fight with blackberries, Nikki’s voice came, clear and pure, “No one came out.”

  It took an instant for it to sink in, then I jerked the screen door open and ran for the stairs. Never underestimate a fat man. He wasn’t going for the cars. He was going for a hostage.

  The hall at the top of the stairs was empty. Light from the open door of Jessica’s room made shadows leap and weave wildly on the walls. The upstairs was filled with the sound of raucous breathing, his, hers, and mine.

  I went into the empty room and closed the door. I hit the four light switches with the side of my arm and the room beyond the window lit up like the movie set it was.

  Jessica and the fat man froze for an instant in mid-struggle. They jerked around to face the mirror, eyes blinking against the sudden brightness. The fat man had one arm around Jessica’s waist. His other hand was jamming a gun into her side. He pulled her tight against him, dragging her backwards a few feet. They were staring into the mirror, but my room was dark. They were seeing their mirror image.

  I moved back until I was against the wall opposite the window then I took careful aim at the fat man’s nose and waited for something to happen.

  Acres of blubber bulged out on either side of Jessica. As Bundy had said, I’m a hell of a shot. I could have dropped the fat man with an elephant gun without much danger of hitting the girl by mistake. But if I fired, his gun hand would clench, voluntarily or involuntarily, and a bullet would tear through Jessica.

  The fat man’s voice wheezed faintly through the glass. “Throw your gun out in the hall. I’ll let her go.”

  Fat chance, fat man. I kept quiet. He couldn’t be sure I was still in the room, couldn’t be sure I wasn’t sneaking down the hall toward the open door. As if he read my mind, he took a quick look at the door then shifted his weight so he was facing it.

  I kept on waiting, not knowing what I was waiting for but couldn’t think of anything else to do. The phrase “Mexican standoff” drifted through my mind.

  Jessica was staring in my direction. She smiled gaily.

  I was so surprised I smiled right back at her.

  She went limp, her torso dropping across the fat man’s arm, her head almost to the floor, arms hanging loose, legs splayed out ragdoll fashion.

  The fat man buckled under the sudden unexpected weight on his arm then he heaved her upward. Her arms swung loosely, her head lolled. The fat man heaved again, hard enough to snap her back against his huge belly. She flopped forward again.

  All he had to do was keep the gun pointing at her. But he didn’t. He shoved his right hand under her arm, the gun in front of her, and before he got the leverage to yank her upward, I shot him. Right through the looking glass.

  For a fraction of a second, the thick glass held, cracks spiderwebbing out from the bullet hole, then it fell with a noise like the final crack of doom. Somewhere in the midst of all the glass breaking there was a second shot then a thunderous shudder as the fat man hit the floor. Jessica was on her knees, then on her feet. She kicked the fat man twice, her foot sinking into his flesh, then she headed toward me.

  “Don’t,” I said. “You’re barefoot.”

  Come to think of it, so was I. We picked our way through broken glass to our respective doors. Jessica stopped before she got to me, treading water, but I kept going and when I reached her, she put her arms around me and pressed her face against my chest. She wasn’t crying but she was trembling violently. I left her for a moment to look at the fat man. I didn’t bother checking for a pulse. No one could be alive with a hole like that I his head. Jessica was slumped against the wall in the hall. I picked her up and carried her downstairs, putting her on the couch, which I pulled away from the wall, angling it so she wouldn’t have to look at the men on the floor.

  I went out to the porch and yelled “Ollie-Ollie-outs-in-free” and was rewarded with a shimmer of silver coming my way. I had my arms full of Nikki for a minute then I peeled him off and we went inside. I introduced the two kids and explained Nikki’s presence briefly to Jessica, who had seemed a bit confused at the sight of him. I sent Nikki upstairs to get linens and Jessica’s clothes. I headed for the phone with a tremendous sense of relief. It was over.

  The telephone was on a small table near the dining room door. I picked the receiver up and put it to my ear, the dial done as welcome as a warm fire on a cold day. I poised my finger to dial then stood there staring stupidly. There was no dial, just a smooth black surface where one should have been. I picked the phone up and turned it over. No dial on the bottom either. I slammed it down and slammed the receiver on it, muttering some of my best obscenities.

  “There’s another one,” Jessica said. “They always unplugged it and hid it. It’s one of those little one piece things, just a receiver with the buttons in the middle. It’s white.”

  Nikki appeared with Jessica’s backpack and an armful of sheet and towels. I stationed him at the door to watch for headlights while I did what I could for the wounded men. Blackbeard was shot just below the shoulder and was semiconscious and moaning softly. He moaned louder when I asked him where the telephone was. Nikki’s jock had a bullet through his gut. His pulse was thready and his breath was coming in slow rasps. The redhead was very dead, most of his blood soaking into the carpet around him. I tossed a sheet over him.

  Jessica had pulled jeans and a sweatshirt out of her backpack and put them on over her babydolls. She shoved her feet into some sandals and said she would look for the phone. I took Nikki’s place at the door and sent him to help her. I retrieved my shoes and scraped mud off them while I watched the road.

  The kids returned, shrugging and shaking their heads. Nikki watched the road while I searched a few obvious hiding places then gave it up. It would take hours to systematically search the house for a small white telephone.

  Jessica was on her knees by the packing boxes. She had pulled open a box containing video cassettes and was reading the labels. They were marked with a combination of letters and numbers that meant nothing to me. She chose one but when she started to put it in the machine she discovered there was already a tape in it. She turned the television on and pushed the play button on the VCR. The tape must not have been rewound. It began in mid-scene. A young girl was in the throes of orgasm in a bathtub. Her partner was a detachable shower head set to emit a pulsating stream of water. Jessica hit the eject button and the screen went to snow.

  The next tape was rewound and the screen flickered for several seconds before the picture started. This one was Jessica, naked and standing awkwardly with a long piece of sheer red fabric in each hand. Music started. The Jessica on the screen began to move slowly in a sensuous dance. I stared, mesmerized. As soon as she began to move, Jessica underwent a transformation. She seemed to become prettier, more defined, as if the camera could see beyond what was visible to the naked eye. She was no longer an awkward fourteen-year-old but the very essence of femininity, sexuality, and innocence in an unbeatable combination. The red scarves floated about her as she moved to the music, her eyes firmly on the camera, full of promise and invitation. The screen flicked to snow as the real Jessica hit the eject button.

  She inserted another tape. Jessica again. Sitting up in bed, blinking at sudden light, her eyes full of surprise and confusion. And then terror. The tape was ejected just as two naked men wearing ski masks appeared on the screen.

  Jessica put the rape tape back in the box and sat on the couch, her dance tape clutched in her hands.

  From the door, Nikki said, “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. We need a phone.”

  “Beam us up, Scotty,” Jessica said and we all laughed.

  “Wait until morning and send smoke signals,” Nikki said.

  I went out to the porch and looked at the cars. The Buick, a Nissan hatchback, and a Cadillac big enough to bear the fat man’s weight. Three sizes of tires, two flats on each car, and, presumably, one spare in each trunk. Slashing the tires
had seemed like a good idea at the time. I looked down the road. The fat man had said Tony would be here with the van in a couple hours. I looked at my watch. Incredibly, it was less than an hour since I had first reached the house, just about three hours since I had first seen Nikki in the Buick. Portland seemed like a lifetime ago.

  A van would be handy but did I want to wait? No. Did I want to meet Tony? Not particularly. Smoke signals. The Nova’s explosion hadn’t exactly drawn a crowd but the gas tank had been almost empty and the ravine was deep. The fire had burned out quickly without spreading to the wet brush and trees. I went into the kitchen and got a flashlight I had seen on the counter, then I crammed some paper into a packing box and told the kids to come with me.

  We walked out to the barn. I flashed the light around inside it. Part of the roof was on the packed-dirt floor and there were several piles of wood and debris that had obviously been there for years. The walls were rotting, splintery wood. I put the box near a pile of wood scraps against the wall and touched the flame of my lighter to the paper.

  Jessica was still clutching her dance tape. “You’ll make a great Juliet,” I told her. “You don’t need that.”

  She held the tape briefly in front of her then tossed it into the box of flaming paper. We retreated to the corner of the house and watched as the flames engulfed the side of the barn then spread to the front, turning the doors into sheets of fire. The flames leaped and soared, smoke and ash poured upward, lighting the sky. We went to the front of the house and sat on the porch steps.

  I felt good. I had totaled my car, set fire to a kitchen, shot a radio, and torched a barn. I had killed three men—one with my bare hands—and wounded two others. I was sitting on the porch of an old house in the country somewhere in the state of Oregon, listening to flames crackle and snap. I had my left arm around a fourteen-year-old girl who was a rape victim and my right arm around a thirteen-year-old boy in a silver gown who was a kidnap victim. Back in Portland, a seventeen-year-old murder suspect was sleeping with her arms around a bear she had named for me. What the hell, I still felt good.