"That's my girl," I said. She didn't even look up at the sound of my voice; she just kept on staring. I went on: "Stay just like that. Don't move a muscle, or the body-count will rise to four practically instantaneously."
She didn't move. I went over and checked her for weapons. There weren't any, or, if there were, they were small and well hidden. When I stopped in front of her, she raised her eyes slowly to my face, and licked her colorless lips.
"You… you killed them!"
"Don't say that," I protested, hurt. "Here I've just gone to a lot of trouble to make it look as if they killed each other…
"You killed them!" she whispered, unheeding. "All of them! Just like you killed Mike Bird. What kind of a murdering monster are you?" Her voice rose in a shrill, hysterical way on the last words.
I looked down at her for a moment. I'd been kind of taken with her for a while, I remembered, but it seemed a long time ago. Now I was, to say the least, disenchanted with her; and I guess a reaction of sorts was setting in. Even in my line of work, three dead men in less than a minute is a shade over the quota. Anyway, I obviously had to do something fast to keep her from throwing a noisy wingding in here. I'll admit I welcomed the excuse.
I changed my revolver from my right hand to my left, drew back the hand thus freed, and slapped her face, once, just about as hard as I could without breaking my hand or her neck. She staggered aside and almost fell over the nameless man lying face down nearby. She caught herself, gagged, and moved away from the corpse, putting a belated hand to her cheek.
"You hypocritical little phony!" I was surprised to hear that my own voice was noticeably shaky. Like I say, reaction. I went on harshly: "First you smiled at me and sent me out to where your sniper was.waiting to shoot me down! When that failed, you dispatched a couple of other boys to take care of me… Oh, yes, they made it quite clear what their orders were! And then, for God's sake, then, after trying twice to have me killed, you have the unmitigated, gold-plated gall to come in here and complain because all your inefficient assassins bungled their jobs and got themselves dead! Just what kind of monster are you, Skinny?"
She licked her pale lips once more, not looking at me directly. "I never thought… we never expected..
"What? That somebody might object to being murdered for your convenience?"
"It was… it was such a lot of money." Her voice was almost inaudible. "Such a lot of money. Fifty thousand dollars. And we thought it would be… would be kind of fun. Exciting."
It wasn't the same old grim racket anymore, I reflected sourly. All kinds of people were taking it up for kicks. Or pretending to.
I asked. "Who was going to pay you all this money?"
She didn't seem to hear me. She said in a choked voice: "Fun! Oh, my God! They're dead! They're all dead, and it was all my idea. But I never dreamed..
Her face changed abruptly. She gulped, and turned toward the door in sudden distress. Her problem was obvious, and I stepped aside and let her stumble out into the dark. The sounds she made out there were quite convincing, so I took advantage of her momentary helplessness to retrieve my bag, tackle box, and fishing rod. I made sure I'd left nothing behind that I didn't want to leave, turned out the lights, and locked the door. When I came to Pat Bellman, she was still doubled up with cramps, but they weren't producing much anymore. I waited for her to recover. At last she fumbled in her pants pocket for a Kleenex and wiped her mouth and turned to face me.
"Damn you," she said shakily. "Damn you, you didn't have to stand there watching!"
I said, "Skinny, cut it out. Of course I had to stand there watching. And you'll lay off the proud-lady routine or I'll smack your face again."
She licked her lips, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you'd better get things perfectly clear, Miss Bellman. You're not a fine lady who can demand respect and consideration from the gentlemen around her. You're not a nice girl who can expect the nice boys to look the other way politely while she upchucks her dinner. You're a murdering bitch who's been caught in the act, and I'm the guy you tried to murder-or have murdered. Remember that, and conduct yourself accordingly, and maybe we'll get along without any more slugging or shooting. Where's your car?"
She hesitated, apparently considering some kind of argument or protest, but she decided against it. "Back along the dirt road about a mile and a half. I ran it off into the woods where it couldn't be seen."
"Let's hope you did a good job, so it'll still be here when you come back for it. If you come back."
"What… what are you going to do with me?"
I said, "Whatever's necessary to make you tell me about fifty grand, and the people who were willing to pay it, and what they thought they were buying for it." She started to speak, and I interrupted her: "But not here."
I led her to the truck. Thirty minutes later we were on the main highway heading west toward Prince Rupert and the coast.
15
THE PHONE BOOTH WAS PRETTY exposed, standing near the highway in the bare dirt parking area serving a small roadside restaurant, now closed for the night. However, I didn't have much choice. I wanted to get a warning message through as soon as possible, now that we were a reasonable distance from the scene of my latest crimes, and this was the only facility we'd encountered in over an hour. Up ahead, according to my information, were some sixty miles of construction work, where the highway through the coastal mountains, formerly a gravel road, was being rebuilt and paved.
My chances of finding any kind of a suitable communications center along the torn-up stretch didn't seem promising; and while Mr. Smith's fine young men were supposed to be keeping a cautious watch over me and reporting my progress and my problems, I never like to count on other outfits to do things right if I can get our own people on the job. After everything that had happened tonight, if I loused up the mission, it didn't seem likely that it would be on account of a mere phone call.
I drove into the lot, therefore, and jockeyed the rig around until I could more or less cover both cab doors from the booth. The girl beside me stirred uneasily.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Just making sure I can nail you if you make a break while I'm on the phone." I looked at her and put a mean grin on my face. "You remember that guy back there with the hole in his head? I hope you appreciate that I made that shot left-handed-and while he had the drop on me, or thought he had. I'm even better with my right hand. Give it a try if you like. I'll bet you don't make ten yards, measuring from the sill of the car door to the nearest point of your body, wherever it falls."
I waited, but she made no response, and I went over to the booth and called our relay man in Vancouver, keeping an eye on the truck and the highway at the same time, as best I could.
When Vancouver answered I said, "Eric here. Three packages, perishable. Francois Lake. McAllister Lodge, Cabin Number One. Got it?"
"Got it. Sounds like you've been a busy little man. What do you want, a pickup-and-disposal squad?"
"Not if it can be avoided. If they just disappear, people will ask questions I'd rather not have to answer. How much international pressure can we apply through channels? It would be very nice if the local authorities could give out that the boys obviously killed each other off, for reasons unknown. I've got it set up to look that way, more or less. A mystery man who rented the cabin is being sought for questioning, but not very hard, since it's all cut and dried. Can do?"
"I'll forward your recommendation. It's supposed to be a hands-across-the-border job, so maybe we can swing it for you. Anything else?"
"Yes. What the hell is NCS?"
The man in Vancouver laughed. "If I knew that, I certainly wouldn't blab it over the phone. The Northwest Coastal System is one of the biggest secrets on this continent since the Manhattan project."
"Sure," I said. "A secret everybody knows except the poor suckers trying to protect it, like us."
"Not me, friend," said the man in Vancouver. "And not you. Protecting s
ystems is other people's work. We're protecting a man, remember?"
"Keep talking."
"Never mind NCS. We want the Woodman, and we want him dead; dead enough so that he can't fire his little rifle a few months from now at a very well-known gent- exact identity not yet determined-about to assume a very important office. It's been a rough summer and we'd hate to see a worse autumn. This country just can't take any more snipers mowing down any more popular citizens. If it happens while election hysteria is still upon us, indications are that the lid will blow off. Our job-your job-is to head the Woodman off at the pass, and to hell with NCS. You don't have to announce this to Mr. Smith and his merry men, but on the other hand, you don't want to forget it for a moment. Message received?"
"Received and understood," I said. I'd been about to ask a silly question about the mysterious Woodman to whom he'd referred, but when he'd repeated the nickname I'd caught on: it was just one of the in-jokes that circulate through an organization like ours, easy enough to dig if you remembered that wood translates to Holz in German. I just said, to put it on the official record: "In other words, I have now been instructed that chopping the Woodman down to size takes priority over dealing with secret information no matter how priceless and irreplaceable."
"You have been so instructed. Sleep well."
"And pleasant dreams to you," I said. "Eric out."
I hung up. No cars had passed on the highway, and Pat Bellman hadn't moved. I got back on the seat beside her and drove off, keeping an eye on the big, truck-type mirror on my left, the one outside the cab she couldn't see me watching. No lights appeared in the glass, but I kept catching ghostly hints of movement far back on the road behind us. Well, that figured.
I mean, the girl beside me had seemed like a very competent person when I'd first met her in Pasco. She'd set me up for murder with cold-blooded efficiency. Yet tonight she'd treated me to a brainless-ingenue performance that would have shamed a high-school melodrama. She'd walked in on me too carelessly, acted too shocked and stunned by the gory scene in the cottage, and lost her dinner too dramatically.
Lots of girls in the business can blush and weep and faint on demand. A determined young lady, trying to create an impression of total helplessness, might even manage to puke as required. I hadn't believed her act even before I'd spotted a car running dark behind us. Now the question was: just what did she and her accomplice have in mind for me, and where did they intend to try it? It occurred to me that there was no reason for me to await their pleasure.
I put my foot on the brake as a roadside sign flashed into the headlights, advising of a campground ahead. Pat Bellman glanced at me quickly but did not speak.
"Chow time," I said. "Your friends kind of interfered with my dinner and I'm getting hungry."
The camp turned out to be located on a fair-sized stream. I swung in, found a suitable parking space along the bank, and placed the rig so it was reasonably level. There were no other truck-type campers here, and no trailers or tents, either. We had the place to ourselves.
I escorted Pat to the rear of the camper, hitched the pup to a chain outside, and ushered the girl into the little cabin. There was a dinette forward that converted to a double bed, if you needed a double bed. Aft, stove and refrigerator faced sink and clothes closet across a narrow aisle. A space heater, and various racks and lockers, were ingeniously fitted into the remaining space.
Pat made her way forward and sat down on one of the dinette seats, shrugging off her denim jacket. I sat down to light the stove. Nystrom's choice of camper was decidedly limited in headroom, perhaps on the theory that a man six-four is bound to bump his head, anyway, so he might as well get a low unit, easy to drive, and learn to do his indoors chores sitting down. After a little, as I juggled pots and pans and groceries, the girl on the other side of the booth looked up.
"You're going to kill me, too, aren't you?" she said dully. "Just as you killed all the others. My God, they're all dead, all of them! I'm the only one left."
Outside, as if to call her a liar, Hank hit the end of his chain suddenly, shaking the camper. I looked around, putting a frown on my face. At the edge of my vision, I was aware of Pat Bellman grasping the edge of the dinette table tightly, starting to push herself up. She was obviously trying to think of some way of keeping me from going out there, or looking out. Then she forced herself to relax, with an obvious effort.
I rose deliberately and went to the door, crouching to avoid the low ceiling. I looked out at the black pup, almost invisible at the end of his shiny, galvanized chain.
"What's the matter, Hank?" I called loudly. "You got nightmares or something? Lie down and go to sleep."
I saw that he was eating something. As I watched, he licked up some invisible scraps from the ground in front of him. Considering the contents of the collar he was wearing, it was the obvious play, but that didn't make it any easier to take. I realized that I'd become quite fond of the mutt in the week or so we'd been together. I reminded myself that it was always a mistake to get sentimentally involved with your partner in a mission; and that applied whether your partner was human or animal.
"You be quiet out there, hear?" I said, deliberately turning my back on the pup and his unauthorized midnight snack, not to mention the stuff he had around his neck. The priorities had been assigned. We were protecting a man, not a system-and not a dog, either.
I saw Pat Bellman's face go smooth with relief as I pulled the door shut behind me. I stopped to fiddle with the stove, to give her time to get her expressions sorted out, before I returned to my seat facing her. Outside, the pup jangled his chain once more, either picking up a new tidbit or cleaning up the final scraps of the one he'd just swallowed. I looked at the girl across the table; the girl who'd claimed to be a dog-lover, who'd already had one good Labrador shot, along with his master.
"Hi, Skinny," I said. "Under other circumstances, this would be nice and cozy, don't you think?"
She didn't smile. "What's your name?" she asked. "What's your real name? I think I'm entitled to know that before you kill me. And who you're working for."
"The name is Nystrom," I said. "Until the job is finished, that's my real name. And I work for a man in Washington whose name wouldn't mean anything to you."
"Are you trying to make me think you're employed by the U.S. government? A killer like you? I don't believe it!"
"That's your privilege," I said. "How do you like your eggs?"
"What?"
"Eggs."
"Oh, I couldn't… Well, all right. Sunny-side up. Two. And three strips of that bacon. And black coffee, lots of black coffee. And some toast if you've got it. Lots of toast." Apparently she felt the need to explain her sudden hunger, because she laughed brightly. "You've kept me so busy chasing you that I've hardly had time to eat. I guess my last real meal was the one you bought me in Pasco. I really shouldn't have let you pick up that check, should I? After all, it was my invitation."
From not talking at all, she was now beginning to talk too much. I saw her steal a glance at her wristwatch and look up quickly, clearly hoping I hadn't caught her at it.
"If I were to try to talk you into sparing my life," she said, "If I were to try, where should I start?"
"I told you where. I'd like to know who's offered you fifty grand for what." I glanced at my own watch as I turned toward the stove. The time was a few minutes after ten, if it mattered, and apparently it did. I went on, "Oh, and there's another question I'd like an answer to. Why did you send your boys after me tonight?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't act stupid, Skinny. You know I've made only two of my scheduled five contacts. Yet you sent a couple of fumble-fingered goons to grab the dog collar tonight instead of waiting until it held all the information you wanted. They were going to grab it, they were going to question me, and then they were going to dispose of me. It seems like a pretty shortsighted performance. Who was going to get the rest of the stuff for you if you had me killed?"
"You didn't really what?"
"They weren't really trying to kill you."
I said, "I was there. I heard what they said."
"They were just supposed to talk as if they were going to kill you. To scare you. And then I'd have come in and stopped them and you'd have been grateful and…" She grimaced. "All right, maybe it was silly. But that's the way I was told to do it. You're not the only one operating under orders, Mr. Nystrom, or whatever your real name is.',
"I see," I said. "So you'd been instructed to grab the available stuff now, and then try to get me to cooperate gratefully to bring you the rest, because you'd saved me from your terrible thugs." I laughed. "Whose brainwave was that?"
"I can't tell you."
"Sure you can."
"He… he'll kill me if I talk."
I put a plate down in front of her. "I'm right here, sweetheart, dangerous old me. Where's this other guy? What can he do to you that I can't?" I set my own plate on the table, dumped a fistful of implements between us, and sat down. "Dig in," I said.
She took a bite, and started to speak, and stopped. We ate in silence. Not until she had cleaned off her plate thoroughly did she look up and say. "He was Chinese. A Chinaman named Soo."
I regarded her small tomboy face across the table. She was telling the truth now, and I thought I knew why. She was telling the truth because for some reason she had to keep me talking in here for a certain length of time, and if I caught her in a lie I might get annoyed enough to break off the conversation. What she'd said was highly interesting. I guess I should have felt kind of vindicated and triumphant. After all, I'd suggested the possibility of Chinese involvement to Libby Meredith, who hadn't seemed very impressed by my logic. But the fact that my guess had proved correct didn't intrigue me as much, at the moment, as the name that had been mentioned.
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