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“What attitude did Mr. Balter take about this? Was he – that is, upset?”

“That puts it mildly. Mr. Balter can get awfully mad awfully fast.”

“I’ll need a description of the cat. We always get one on – “

He had started to say “informants.” A description of a cat? That struck him as asinine. But he did have a card to file in an index, a report to write eventually, and the Bureau in­sisted on details.

He wrote on a separate sheet: Informant. Name: Darn Cat Randall. He frowned, crossed out the Randall, then rein­stated it. Address: 1820 Greenbriar, Sherman Oaks, Califor­nia . Description:

“How old is he?”

“Let me see. We got him when Mike was seven. That makes him five.”

“Weight?’

“Twenty-five pounds.”

Zeke put down his pencil. “Miss Randall, I have been labor­ing under the impression this is a house cat.’

“He is. Plain all-American cat.”

“And he weighs twenty-five pounds?”

“He does have a weight problem. We have to watch his diet.”

Zeke swallowed and turned back to the form. “Height?”

“Really, Mr. Kelso

.”

“Sorry – you’ll have to forgive me. We don’t get many cats – I should say we don’t get any.” He read from a list. “Educa­tion, hobbies, relatives – I guess they don’t apply.”

He reached a conclusion. “Could I see you soon as pos­sible? I’d like to get the watch.” He added cautiously and without conviction, “You could be most helpful to us – you and D.C.”

They agreed to meet at Bullock’s in Westwood, at 10 a.m., outside the store, on the second-level parking lot. She said, “If we meet inside, one of the girls will ask who you are, and I don’t want to try to make up a story, because I always get caught.”

As he headed for the supervisor’s office, he hummed softly. Passing the steno pool, he was conscious of a dozen eyes fol­lowing him. He was fair game, one of the few single men in the office.

The supervisor on the criminal desk, Robert Z. Newton, looked even more harried than usual. His desk was stacked with reports from the agents, which he would read, initial, and forward to Washington if the leads and facts had been properly developed and set forth, or return to the respective agents with cryptic notes if they had been careless.

On spotting Zeke, Newton brightened. “I see you beat me in this morning. You after my job?” He got up to stretch. He was getting a little heavy about the girth, but determinedly kept his belt at the same notch.

Zeke said, “We’ve got a break finally in the Jenkins case.”

Newton stopped quite still. For seven days agents had worked the case without developing a good lead. They still knew little more than the bare facts: that at 10:05 a.m. two men, somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age, wearing Halloween masks, had escaped with $202,400 in cash from the Van Nuys Federal bank, forcing Helen Jenkins, forty-one, to accompany them at gun point. As happened frequently, the eye witness accounts varied widely regarding the height of the men, their build, their clothes, and the weapons they carried. Only on the escape car was there gen­eral agreement, and, as usual, it had been stolen and was found deserted three hours later in a Studio City parking lot. The victim’s father, Thomas Z. Jenkins, sixty-six, who was bedridden, provided the lead about the watch.

Zeke said, “But it’s the darndest note 3 setup you ever heard. I don’t know

.” He changed tack. “Here, I’d better give it to you the way it came in. I just took a call from one Miss Patti Randall, 1820 Greenbriar Street , Sherman Oaks.”

He referred to his notes. “She said that at 12:30 a.m. her black cat, named D.C., an abbreviation for Darn Cat, returned home with one mallard duck stolen from the home of Greg Balter, attorney, 1817 Greenbriar, and a yellow gold watch fastened around his neck like a collar. At my request she opened the watch and the scratch mark on the back cover definitely establishes it as the one Miss Jenkins was wearing at the time of her abduction.”

“Hold on, Zeke. What kind of a cock-and-bull yarn you giving me?”

“I didn’t believe it myself until I asked her to open the watch.”

“You mean we’ve got a cat for a lead?”

“A big one. Twenty-five pounds. And solid black.”

Newton sat back down in the swivel. “Well, I’ll be

. I’ve been in the Bureau fourteen years and I’ve had a lot of strange informants in my time. .. .”

His mind checked the possibilities with the experience honed by those fourteen years. “As I see it, we’ve got several leads we can work. We can try to find out where this cat was last night, which will probably prove negative, and – “

Zeke broke in. ” – We can run a surveillance on him to­night when he leaves the Randall home – “

Newton smiled. “What with – another cat?”

Zeke continued, “And if he goes back to wherever they’re holding Miss Jenkins

“

“Yeah.” Newton appraised that lead, shook his head. “May not be easy to follow a black cat in the dark. And if he makes ..you – if he knows he’s being tailed

“