Death of an Angel Read Online Free Page B

rocks?”
    He could. He did. They sat, the Norths with martinis.
    â€œSix per cent of thirty thousand dollars,” Sam Wyatt said. “Thirty-two, one week. Less the ten, of course. A week . And then—”
    And then, quite unexpectedly, he sniffled. He sniffled again. His eyes filled with tears and Pam, keeping a bright, and she hoped sympathetic, smile, thought, well, really .
    The wife of a publisher meets writers from time to time, and this is inescapable. Writers often need their hands held and publishers occasionally oblige. Publishers must attend literary cocktail parties, and take their wives, and at such festivals writers are every now and then encountered. So for the breed, Pamela North, of all human idiosyncrasy tolerant, had acquired a special tolerance. But this—this carried it far. Even if things went down drains, did grown men weep into their scotch? It appeared, lamentably, that they did.
    Sam Wyatt drew out a handkerchief, and dabbed his eyes. He sniffled further, and dabbed his nose. And then he stood up, and looked around. And then, a little wildly, he pointed toward the door which opened on the hallway to the bedroom, and said, in a choked voice, “Damn. Oh, damn.” And then he sneezed.
    Martini, the older of the cats, the mother of the others, had come to scout. It might not be the vet; it had not sounded like the vet. It might be—At the sneeze, which was convulsive, Martini flattened pointed, dark brown ears. She spoke once, with emphasis. She turned, and stalked away, no doubt to warn her offspring. And Sam Wyatt turned to Jerry and said, still in a choking voice, “You’ve got them! ”
    The Norths merely looked at him.
    â€œCats!” Sam Wyatt said. His eyes were streaming, now. “Of all things— cats! Don’t you know they’re worse than horses?”
    â€œThan—” Pam said. “Than horses , Mr. Wyatt? I mean—horses in an apartment? I mean—”
    She stopped, being unable, at the moment, to mean anything at all.
    But Jerry said, “Damn. You’ve told me. I’d forgotten.” He turned to Pam. “Got to get him out of here,” he said. “Dandruff, you know.”
    â€œDan—” Pam began, and said, “ Oh! How dreadful! And we’re simply swarming with them. I’m so—”
    â€œWah-ugh,” Sam Wyatt said.
    â€œâ€”should have remembered,” Pam said, to Sam Wyatt with sympathy, to Gerald North with reproach. She raised her voice. “We have to go, Martha,” she called. “The chops tomorrow or something. Will you feed the—” She stopped. Perhaps even the word. “Martini and you know,” she said. “We—”
    But by then Jerry had led Sam Wyatt to the door, and Pam followed. Wyatt sneezed briskly, now, and it was doubtful whether he could see. It was almost half an hour, in the dry coolness of a cocktail lounge, before Sam Wyatt could finally blink away the tears. By then he had, in what voice he could manage, apologized, had assured them that he liked cats, that it was he who should have remembered.
    â€œIs it only cats?” Pam asked, then, and Wyatt shook his head sadly.
    It was a lot of things. Cats were the worst, he told them. But horses were bad, also. And even dogs, although less immediately, with somewhat less violence, had the same result.
    â€œMental, I suppose,” Sam Wyatt said, in a tone of enhanced gloom. “Goes back to my childhood, probably. Cat-block. Probably a cat scratched me when I was—oh, two, maybe—and I got it confused with my mother. Things happen that way, they say.”
    This Pam doubted, intensely.
    â€œYou’d have had to be scratched by a horse, too, wouldn’t you?” she said. “I don’t think horses—anyway, that would be ailurophobia. The cat part, at least. And you’re not afraid of them.”
    â€œI am of horses,” Wyatt said.