Cat People (3 page)

Nora looked up at him from the pillow on her side of the bed. The dark hair framed her face in soft, tangled waves. Her breasts were bare where the sheet was pulled down. She made no attempt to cover them.

Ivan Shoffner, or the Great Samson, as he was billed, leaped from the bed beside Nora and stood pressed against the far wall. He clutched at a blanket, trying to cover his nakedness. His beautifully muscled body gleamed with perspiration. Samson's eyes were huge, the whites showed all around the irises. His gaze bounced between Phillip's face and the gun holstered at his hip.

"Now, Phillip, wait a minute. Don't do anything crazy." The strong man's voice was pitched several tones higher than normal.

"Get out of here, Samson." Phiilip's eyes were on his wife.

The strong man scrambled for his clothes, which lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. "Right, Phillip, I'm going." He danced around awkwardly on one foot, trying to get the other into his black bikini briefs without taking his eyes off Phillip and the gun.

"Never mind the clothes," Phillip said. "Just get out. Now!" The last word cracked like a whip.

Samson crushed his clothing into a ball and edged out through the curtain, keeping as far as he could from Phillip in the confines of the trailer bedroom. Once he was past the curtain, he fairly leaped from the trailer, banging the door behind him.

Phillip did not look around. He continued to stare down at Nora Gallier.

She licked her lips. Her eyes were bright, but more with excitement than fear.

"Hello, Phillip."

He looked at her for a long moment before he spoke. Then his voice was a rasp. "Why? Why did you do this, Nora?"

"It just happened. Nobody planned it."

"That's a lie. You planned it. You were deliberately careless so I would be sure to find you. Even so, it took me a long time to get here, didn't it? Even young Richie knew about it. How long have you been doing this?"

"Not so long. A month. Six weeks."

"Was there anyone else before this one?"

"No. Samson was the only one."

"Does it make you happy to hurt me, Nora?"

Her eyes grew softer. "It isn't that, Phillip. I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted to be like other people for a little while. Samson was close, and he was easy, so I took him."

"It was a mistake," Phillip said. "You can never be like other people. Neither can I. You know that. You know what we are. We must always stay with our own kind. You and I and the children."

"It will never happen again, Phillip."

"It
must
never happen again," he said. "Look at you." He whipped the sheet down and off the bed, exposing his wife's body. "It's just a matter of time until Samson stays a few minutes too long and sees you like this. Samson or somebody else. I can't allow that to happen."

Phillip Gallier unsnapped the holster on his hip and drew out the revolver. He stood over the bed and took careful aim. For the last time he looked into the eyes of his wife.

"I love you, Nora," he said, and he pulled the trigger.

The report of the pistol was like a cannon in the little room. The body on the bed jumped convulsively, writhed for a moment in the final agony, then lay still.

"Daddy!"

Phillip turned from the bed and saw his children standing wide-eyed and terrified behind him. Paul was holding the bedroom curtain aside. Irena had her little hands pressed to her mouth.

Phillip took a step toward them.

"I'm sorry, my darlings. I love you both very much, but you should never have been born. I will try to make it as painless as possible for you. Believe me, this will save you from much worse pain later in your lives."

He raised the gun, but for a crucial fraction of a second he could not pull the trigger. In that moment of hesitation Paul seized his little sister, bounded back through the trailer, and dived out the door. Already adept at tumbling, the boy hit the ground, protecting Irena as best he could, rolled, and sprang to his feet. By the time Phillip reached the door, the children were nowhere in sight.

"God help both of you," he muttered. Then he turned and walked back into the tiny bedroom. He lay down on the bed, put the muzzle of the revolver in his mouth, and blew the top of his head off. They found him there that afternoon, lying beside the dead leopard.

The DC-10 banked gently over Lake Pontchartrain and began its final approach to the New Orleans International Airport. Irena Gallier watched nervously from the window beside her coach seat, her hands in her lap with the fingers laced tightly together. She was twenty-one years old, and this was her first time in an airplane.

The landing gear hit the runway with a soft thump. The big engines roared as the pilot reversed the thrust. The heavy plane slowed rapidly until it was taxiing along at no more than twenty miles an hour. Irena relaxed. She wiped her palms on a wadded Kleenex.

The chunky redheaded man in the next seat turned a big grin toward her. "There, now, it wasn't all that bad, was it?"

Irena smiled back at him, relieved that her smile came naturally. During the flight the man had told her he was a salesman for a cosmetics firm and that he was returning to his family in New Orleans after an extended selling trip to visit dealers up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Irena knew the man had talked so much to her because she showed her nervousness about flying, but she appreciated it nevertheless.

"It wasn't bad at all," she told him. "I feel foolish now for worrying about it. Thanks for helping to keep my mind off where I was."

"Shoot, it was my pleasure," the salesman said. "I always eiyoy having somebody to talk to."

As the jet continued taxiing toward the terminal, Irena took out a small mirror and a hairbrush. Her short, boy-cut dark hair and huge lustrous eyes made her seem even younger than she was.

The plane came to a stop, and there was a general movement toward the exit as the passengers unbuckled and stepped out into the aisles.

The salesman retrieved his topcoat and carry-on bag from the overhead compartment. He gave her a parting smile. "Good luck to you."

"Thanks. You too."

She checked to see that she had left nothing in the pocket on the seat-back in front of her, then stood up and joined the others inching toward the exit.

Once inside the terminal she hung back as, one after another, the deplaning passengers were greeted by people waiting there for them. She wondered if she would recognize her brother, Paul. It had been almost seventeen years since she had seen him.

All around her there was laughter, and a few tears too. People were hugging and kissing and shaking hands, and everybody was smiling. Irena saw the cosmetics salesman greeted by a plump, pretty woman and two energetic redheaded boys. He glanced over toward her, then separated himself for a moment from his family and walked in her direction.

"Is somebody meeting you?" he said.

"Yes, my brother. He lives here. He's probably a few minutes late."

"Probably," the man agreed. "He might be here now, waiting down at the baggage claim. Lots of people wait down there."

"That could be where he is," Irena said. She gave him another smile, but this one was less than genuine. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Take care of yourself."

"You too. Goodbye."

She watched the salesman walk back to rejoin his family. She was relieved to be rid of him, even though all he wanted to do was help. He had made her feel suffocated.

Now, as she watched him slip an arm familiarly around his wife's waist, with the two boys capering along beside him, Irena felt a twinge of envy. Would she ever be a wife, with a husband and a family of her own? Would she ever be free to live a normal life?

The last of the passengers had left the arrival area, and no one had come forward to greet her. Irena began to feel uneasy about standing there alone, as though unseen eyes were watching her. She saw a sign reading "Baggage Claim," with an arrow pointing toward a DOWN escalator. She walked quickly in that direction.

The baggage-claim area was cold and impersonal. It had a concrete floor and a big metal turntable onto which the luggage slid from a chute. The passengers from Irena's flight stood around the perimeter of the turntable waiting to seize their own bags as they rode past.

Irena stood at the rear of the crowd, searching the faces for someone who might be Paul. Finally the people melted away, and there were only a few forlorn pieces of luggage still revolving on the turntable. One of them was the new Weekender she had purchased for this trip. Could Paul have gotten the time of her flight wrong? she wondered. Or mixed up the date? Her nervousness increased.

The next time her bag came around she hoisted it off the turntable and set it down on the floor. She had packed a lot into the bag, and it was heavier than it looked. As she started to pick it up again, a smiling young man strode toward her from the far side of the room. He had a clean-cut, collegiate look. Paul? No, he was too young. Still, he was making directly for her. Irena answered his smile tentatively.

"Hello, there," the young man said. "How are you?"

"All right," Irena said carefully.

"Well, you sure look all right to me, but I guess there's none of us who couldn't be just a little bit better. Am I right?"

Irena did not answer.

"Just because you're all right and I'm all right, I want to make you a present of this book."

For the first time Irena noticed that the young man was carrying a stack of slim green volumes cradled in one arm. He slipped one off the top of the stack and held it out to her.

"Go ahead and take it. It's absolutely free. No obligation. Just a gift from me to you, in the spirit of universal brotherhood."

Irena glanced at the title stamped in gold on the cover:
Achieving Everlasting Peace and Harmony.
"I don't think I can accept it."

"Please," the young man coaxed, continuing to smile. "I told you it's a gift. If you do wish to make a donation, it will go to a good cause, and I can assure you it will be appreciated."

"No, I don't think so."

Irena started to move away from him. The young man danced sideways to block her path. His smile hardened at the edges.

"If you'll just take the time to look through the book, I think you'll be surprised at what you see. It might very well change the entire course of your life, as it has so many others'."

"I'm sorry, I'm not interested. Let me pass, please." Again she tried to get past the boy, and again he moved to block her way. He was standing uncomfortably close to her.

"Here." He thrust the book at her. "I'm offering it to you free. A gift. Read just a little of what the prophet has to tell us." His manner turned subtly threatening. "Or aren't you interested in the way to find everlasting peace and harmony?"

"Let me pass," Irena told him. "I don't want your book."

The young man moved swiftly and took hold of her elbow. Irena looked around the baggage room for someone she might appeal to for help. The few people in sight were standing well away from them, and were absorbed with their own affairs. There was no one who looked like he might work for the airport. No policeman.

The young man grasped her elbow firmly and raised the stack of books close to her face.

"I don't think you understand," he said. "It's free. You can make any kind of a donation you want to. You have the opportunity to improve your life immeasurably this very afternoon. You're not going to pass up that opportunity, are you? I promise you, you'll regret it."

"Let go of my arm, you're hurting me."

"Just let me show you some of the more meaningful passages in the book." The young man's breath was warm and moist on her face. It smelled of licorice.

"Let her go."

The deep, commanding voice coming from close behind her startled Irena. The boy too looked up, surprised. He quickly released his grip on her arm and stepped back, staring at whoever stood behind her.

Irena turned. She saw a tall man, about thirty, wearing a dark suit and a clerical collar. His eyes were large and dark in a pale face. They flashed now with a dangerous anger.

"I was only offering her a book," the boy said.

"I know what you were doing. I am telling you to leave her alone.
Now."

The boy faced the older man for only a moment, then he spun away and hurried off with his stack of books, through the door leading outside the terminal.

Irena smiled up at the tall man. "Thank you. I wasn't sure what he was going to do."

"Most of them are harmless, but they can be a terrible nuisance." He gestured toward her suitcase. "May I help you with that?"

Irena glanced around uncertainly. "Well, I'm, uh, waiting for my brother. He was supposed to meet me here."

The tall man smiled down at her. "What's the matter, Irena, don't you recognize me?"

She looked at him mere closely. "Paul? Is it really Paul?"

"Welcome home, little sister," he said, and opened his arms to her.

Irena hugged him. His cheek was smooth and cool. He had a sharp, clean scent of shaving lotion. His body was surprisingly hard and muscular against hers.

Paul released her abruptly and stepped back. "I'm sorry I wasn't upstairs to meet your flight. I got hung up in traffic."

"That's all right, we're together now." Irena let her eyes run over him. She pointed to the clerical collar. "I didn't know you were a ... a ..."

"A man of God?" He laughed. "Actually I'm just a lay minister. I do what I can to help out at the Tabernacle Mission in the French Quarter."

"How did you happen to ... I mean, how did it come about?"

His eyes grew serious. "For about ten years I lived the kind of a life that I'm really ashamed of now. I just decided one day that it was time I balanced the books." He touched the collar. "If this bothers you I can take it off."

Irena hugged him again. "No, of course not. I think it's wonderful, and I'm just so glad to see you. We've got so much to talk about."

"Yes, little sister, that we do."

He picked up her heavy suitcase as though it were filled with feathers, circled her waist with his free arm and led her out of the terminal.