“Okay,” the kid was saying, “full throttle, keep the airplane on the center line, watch your airspeed, and rotate at fifty knots.”
Cat pushed in the throttle, and the little airplane started to roll. He steered with the rudder pedals, nervously watching the airspeed indicator. At fifty knots he pulled back on the yoke and the airplane leapt off the runway, leaving his stomach on the ground.
“Continue straight ahead and climb to three thousand feet,” the instructor said. A few minutes later they were over Lake Lanier, forty miles to the north of the city, practicing turns. Flying was something he’d thought about off and on over the years, but he had never had the time. Now he had nothing but time. An hour later, Cat had been issued a flight manual and enrolled in the flying school.
That night he stayed up late reading the manual. The next day he took a two-hour lesson. The day after that, another. He began flying every day the weather was decent, studying the manual and workbook whenever he was grounded. He registered in a weekend seminar to accelerate his academic training and passed the FAA written examination the following day with a perfect score. He soloed ten days after beginning his training and began flying the airplane alone on practice sessions and on cross-country flights. His concentration was total. He read every flying magazine he could get his hands on, every book he could squeeze in. He clung to the training doggedly, obsessively. It filled his life, left no room to think about anything else, and that was what he wanted.
In the middle of his fourth week of training, his instructor met him at the airplane after a solo flight. “I’ve scheduled you for a check ride with an FAA examiner for your private pilot’s license tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” the young man said. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Catledge, you’ve set a record around here. I’ve never seen anybody work so hard and get so much packed into so short a time. I think you’ll do just fine on your check ride.” They spent an hour filling out forms and making sure Cat’s logbook was up to date, then Cat went home, buoyed with the idea that tomorrow, after a flying test he was confident he could pass, he would be a licensed private pilot. He started thinking about training for an instrument rating.
Back at the house, he changed into a swimsuit and went out to the pool. He dived in and began swimming slow, steady laps, balancing his kicks on each side, measuring his strokes, working every muscle. He swam twenty laps, then heaved himself onto the side of the pool, sucking in deep breaths. There was water in his eyes, and it took him a moment to realize that somebody was standing at the opposite end of the pool, staring at him. The figure was tall and slim, rather like the man he had been seeing in the mirror lately.
“Hello, Dell,” he said, finally, to his son.
The boy said nothing, just stood and stared blankly at him.
“You haven’t been around,” Cat said, trying to keep his voice neutral. “We’ve been trying to locate you. You’ve heard?”
Dell did not move any closer, but nodded. “I’ve been out of the country. I read about it in the papers when it happened.”
“Why didn’t you come home? There was a memorial service; a lot of people were there.”
Dell seemed to think a moment before he replied. “I didn’t come home because there was nothing I could do for Mother and Jinx, and because if I had come home, I might have killed you. You killed them, after all; that’s how I see it.”
Cat nodded. “For once, we agree on something.”
“You accept responsibility then?” Dell asked, surprised.
“I do,” Cat replied. “One of the things about being an adult is, you have to accept responsibility for your actions. One of these days, maybe, you’ll learn about that.”
The boy’s face contorted. “You bastard. I should kill you now.”
“Maybe you should,” Cat replied, evenly. “You might be doing me a favor, and it shouldn’t bother you much. After all, in your business, people get killed every day.”
“I simply supply a consumer need, just like you,” Dell said.
“Sure, Dell, you go on telling yourself that. Never mind the human misery you and your kind cause. The money’s all that matters.”
“What about the misery you caused my mother and my sister?” he spat back.
“What about the misery you caused them?” Cat asked. “For two years your mother never went to sleep without fear of being wakened in the night by the police announcing your arrest or your murder. Your sister never mentioned your name outside the family, for fear of causing embarrassment to whoever might hear it. Your gifts to them were great — constant pain and suffering. The last night of their lives I sat at dinner and saw tears come to the eyes of both of them when your name was mentioned. To their credit, they both believed there might be something in you worth saving. I haven’t shared their hope for a long time now.”
“Well,” Dell said, “you needn’t devote any more of your time to thinking about me. You can think, instead, of how they would still be alive and well if you hadn’t been so stupid.”
“I’ll do that,” Cat said. “For as long as I live.”
“I’m moving to Miami,” Dell said. “You won’t be hearing from me again. That’s what I came here to tell you.”
“Finally, some good news,” Cat said, bitterly.
“Yeah, I’m moving on up,” Dell replied. “I’m plugged in at the source now; no more low-level dealing — I’m in management. I’ll bet I make more money this year than you do.”
“No bets on that,” Cat replied, trying hard to keep from running to the other end of the pool and beating his son to death. “Dealing in human misery has always paid well. All you have to do to win your bet is to live until the end of the year. From what I hear about your business, that won’t be as easy as you think.”
“We’ll see,” Dell spat at him, then turned and walked away toward the garden gate.
“We’ll see,” Cat echoed quietly to himself. He slipped into the pool again and began swimming long, slow strokes. Breathe deeply, he said to himself. Bleed the anger into the water. The boy was lost; forget about him.
It didn’t work.
Cat spent the evening sitting, staring uncomprehendingly at the bedroom television set. The flight manual lay in his lap, open and unread. His flight test the next day, something that he had been eagerly anticipating, seemed remote and uninteresting. He went to bed at midnight, wide awake, longing for oblivion, but he remained conscious for a long time. Much later, when he had slipped into a light and troubled sleep, he suddenly jerked awake. Something had wakened him, but what? There had been no noise.
Almost immediately, the telephone rang. He must have anticipated it, he thought. He glanced at the bedside clock: just after 4 A.M. Who the hell? He felt an unexpected stab of panic. The phone rang again. Fully awake now, unreasoningly frightened, he picked up the instrument. “Hello,” he said, rather unsteadily. He was greeted by a wave of static, coming, it seemed, from a great distance. “Hello,” he said again, this time more strongly.
Then, faintly but clearly, came a voice he would have recognized anywhere on earth, at any time of the day or night, awake or asleep, a voice he had given up hope of ever hearing again.
“Daddy?” the voice said.
Cat felt a great rush of adrenaline, a tightening of the chest and throat; he seemed unable to exhale.
Before he could speak, there was a turbulent scraping at the other end of the line, followed by a loud thud, then a distant, electronic chirp as the connection was broken.
He spoke repeatedly into the telephone, shouting, begging, until finally he was quieted by the persistent sound of a dial tone coming from the instrument.