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“I’ve got some ideas,” Zeke said. ^The trick is to think of him as a person, map it out the same as we would anyone.” “No,” Newton said with a poker face. “No, I don’t think so. Might work out better if you thought of yourself as a cat.”

4

Finished with the dishes, Helen Jenkins put the butter in the refrigerator, closed the door, and leaned against it. Dan stared quizzically from the doorway where he stood guard when she was in the kitchen.

Each night she moved slower, the tension and exhaustion eating deeper. She feared she might suffer a heart attack. Her cardiogram at the last check-up had disclosed a devia­tion. She had reached an age, her physician said, when she could tolerate only so much stress. Ten years of caring for her crippled father had consumed her mentally and physically, even though she did love him deeply.

And now this horror that was in its seventh day, that seem­ingly had no end.

She pushed back her hair, which was beginning to string. She was badly in need of a permanent. Funny, the situation she was in, how the condition of her hair disturbed her so.

“I’m going to bed and read,” she said.

He blocked her way. He was a head taller, and thin to the point of emaciation. Unlike Sammy, he ate little, and was always doing something – pacing about, sitting down, getting up. His nervous hands, never quiet, drove her wild. This second they were adjusting the gun pushed inside his belt.

Suspicion swept his weary eyes. Usually she read in the cramped little living room while Sammy and he played poker.

“Sure,” he said, and stepped aside. But not before he had studied her intently for evidence that she was breaking. And if she did, she thought, what then? What would they do if she lost her balance, turned hysterical and screaming?

Not that she would. She had stood up under a lot these last years. She had watched her father deteriorate from a big, rugged man, full of zest for living, to a bed patient. She had watched her dreams for love and children and a home decline with him, the years that were her life slipping by, until by now so many had passed that she had run out of hope.

As she crossed the half-dark living room, Sammy glanced up from his usual position by a small table radio. Hour after hour, day after day, he listened to a music station, until she could scream. He was a paunchy runt with a beetle look. Every time he came near, she edged away.

Dan was another matter. Strangely, and against her will, she was drawn to him. He was quiet and intelligent, and had a boyishness about him that an older woman might find attractive. She had no doubt, though, that he would kill with­out compunction if crossed. As long as she minded him, like an obedient child, he would not harm her. Sammy might, and if he tried, she did not know what Dan would do. Probably he would drift away and leave her to Sammy, whom he hu­mored in small matters.

Dan said, “She’s going to read in bed.”

Sammy wiped a thin coat of oil over the barrel of the thirty-eight he was cleaning. “You mad about something, Jenkins?”

“I’m tired.”

Sammy smiled. “Don’t get sick on us, Jenkins. We’d have to shoot you like an old horse, wouldn’t we, Dan?”

Sammy looked at the barrel. “You sit right over there where you always do, Jenkins.”

“Sit there yourself,” she snapped.

Sammy got to his feet slowly. Dan said, “Too hot a night to get all heated up, Sammy.”

Sammy turned toward him. “Too hot, huh? Okay for you to say – but I got the watch tonight, and I’m not going to sit in that doorway from now to seven in the morning.”

“I’ll take it until midnight,” Dan said. Each night the rou­tine was the same. They took turns watching her, while she slept, from a chair they placed in the doorway to the bedroom.

Sammy shrugged, “Anything you say, Dan. I’m just along for the ride.” He chuckled. “And my split.”

They tensed then, all three, as a scratching noise came over from the kitchen door, which trembled audibly as someone tried it. A soft brush o’f sound followed, so faint they could not distinguish what it was.

In a swift, almost fluid movement, Dan slipped to the door. Sammy stood where he was, his thirty-eight aimed on the door. Dan listened as his hand turned the knob. He dropped into a crouch behind the door, then pulled it open, staying out of sight of anyone who might be there, and leaving the party a dead target for Sammy.

Out of the night came the biggest black cat she had ever seen. He poked his head in a few inches in an exploratory manner. Dan said, “Come on in, kid,” and closed the door behind him. She herself felt the tensions and fears of days slip away. She laughed hysterically; it was good to see some­thing from the outside world.