Not that she wasn’t attractive. The soft flesh that had been allowed to accumulate during the years of confinement and despair, which had blurred the fine features and thickened the slim figure, had been burned away under the hot Arizona sun that had also changed the prison pallor to the smooth golden tan I’d already noted. I’d thought of her as a girl, seeing her from behind; but there was really nothing girlish about her, I realized now. This was an adult and very striking woman, but the shocking thing was not so much what she’d gained as what she’d lost: a certain air of gentility that she’d somehow managed to cling to throughout her troubles, up to now.
The Ranch had done what it was supposed to do. It had taken the wreckage that crushing disgrace and brutal imprisonment had made of a relined young lady and had used it to construct a very handsome but quite unladylike fighting animal.
For a moment I saw her with frightening clarity, sleek and dangerous, like a female puma I’d once encountered on a mountain trail—we’d both decided we had urgent business elsewhere—and I wondered whether I’d really done her a favor by bringing her here. Particularly with a criminal record behind her, it was a risky way for her to be; safer to have left her ineffectual and inconspicuous. We faced each other like that for a long moment, almost like enemies. Then Madeleine relaxed and smiled at me at last, and suddenly there was only a very good-looking woman in her late twenties or early thirties standing there in a summery blouse and skirt, with fingers rather smudged by carbon paper.
“Well, Matt?”
“I’m going to miss that nice plump lady who took care of me in the hospital,” I said.
“I wasn’t plump, damn it!” She grinned. “Well, maybe just a bit too well-upholstered. Aren’t you going to say something nice about me?”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said. “You’d think I was patronizing you again. Like: you Cinderella, me Fairy Godfather.”
“You louse.” But she laughed, unoffended. “Incidentally, if you’re wondering what I’m doing in here, the other girl came down with some kind of violent dysentery and had to be rushed into Tucson. I wasn’t doing anything after the class went on to the technical and classified stuff, just a bit of jogging, and fencing left-handed when Martinelli had time for me, and trying to learn to shoot a little better when the range was open. And waiting for you to return. So I volunteered my services, and they looked at me very suspiciously, and locked up the heirloom jewelry and the silver flatware and all the secret formulas for terminating the world with a big bang, and turned me loose. God, what a disorganized mess; I’d like to spend six months straightening it out. Their filing system is simply prehistoric, along with their antique typewriter. But anyway, it’s nice to know I can still run one of those machines after a fashion. One day I suppose Uncle Sam will stop buying me clothes and feeding and housing me, not to mention teaching me how to kill people, and I’ll have to go out and make it on my own.” She gave me a look that was almost shy, and went oddly with her new self-possessed appearance. “Matt.”
“Yes?”
“It’s… kind of scary, knowing all that stuff. Do you know what I mean?”
“I know. It’s a good way to feel about it. Don’t stop.”
She licked her lips. “It’s like… well, owning an attack-trained dog you’re not quite sure you can control. But when I think of all those poor, helpless, untrained, unarmed women walking the streets afraid, never making eye contact with anybody lest they be jumped and raped… I always wondered why a man like you would go in for work like this. But that’s part of it, isn’t it? Not having to be afraid of anybody.”
“Don’t get too cocky. If a hundred-and-twenty-pound girl meets a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound man who knows the same tricks, too bad.”
She laughed quickly. “Do you want to give it a try, buster?” She glanced at her watch. “Well, I’d better log you in and lock up here and show you your room. We’re over in Cottonwood Cottage, very cozy. I’ve got the keys right here. My turn to supply the booze.”
Many of the dude-ranch rooms had been in the big, hotel-like main building known as the Lodge, but there had also been a number of single and double cabins, and we’d kept them and retained the original names: Aspen, Birch, Cottonwood, Pinon, Tamarisk, Willow, Yucca. Cottonwood was a two-unit cabin. Madeleine unlocked the first door we came to and put the key on the little table just inside.
“Come next door as soon as you’re ready,” she said. “Don’t be too long; I’m thirsty.”
When her door opened to my knock, after a suitable cleanup interval, I was a little surprised to see that she hadn’t changed her costume. I guess I’d expected her to be eager to show off her glorious new figure in something glamorous and intimate and sexy. Well, to be perfectly honest, in spite of our no-kiss meeting, I’d been assuming in my smug male fashion that we’d simply pick up where we’d left off the night before I was shot.
Seeing her still in her office clothes, becoming though they were, and noting the separate, if neighborly, accommodations she’d arranged for us, I decided that I’d better take nothing for granted. The situation had altered considerably since that snowy evening, and certain people had altered considerably also. The signals were pretty clear: the strong, slender woman before me felt that our relationship was in need of clarification, if not a complete overhaul.
She said, “I made a fire; it still gets a little chilly around here after sundown. Sit down and let me make like a hostess.”
“What did you do to your hair?” I asked, settling into a deep chair in front of the big stone fireplace.
“It just got that way. All that sunshine. Well, the girl in the beauty shop—I got into Tucson under protective escort a couple of times—thought it was very chic and wanted to emphasize it a bit, so I let her.” She brought me a drink and stood over me. “If you feel it’s too gaudy for what we’ll be doing, I’ve got a rinse that’ll turn me into an instant mouse.”
I shook my head. “No. I want to talk it over with you and get your ideas, but my feeling is that our best bet is to walk boldly into the cage, meaning Santa Fe, and stir up the animals. Flashy car, flashy blonde—well, semiblonde—gent with arm in conspicuous black sling. All part of the image we’ll be projecting, if you agree that the best way to tackle our problem is to attract attention rather than avoid it. But before we get on that subject, I’d better bring you up to date. Not to be corny or anything, but I’ve got good news and bad news.”
She sat down gracefully in the opposite, big chair. “Give me the good news first, please.”
“I’m supposed to let you know that the bossman was very impressed by your training record. For an old lady of thirty-four with a bum wrist you did real good. I’m supposed to let you know that we can use your special talents. We get a lot of wild, bloodthirsty kids, but good-looking dames with legal training don’t wander in the door every day.” I looked at her across the low round cocktail table that separated us. “I’m not selling anything, Madeleine. In fact I think you’d probably be better off carrying out your journalistic plans, when the time comes. This kind of work isn’t for everybody, and I’m not a bit sure it’s for you. But I thought you might be pleased by the official compliment.”
She said quietly, “Thank you, Matt. Yes, I’m pleased and flattered. May I think it over?”
“As long as you like. It’s an open offer.”
“And the bad news?”
“Double-headed. First, if you’ve got any sense at all you’ll be scared—I am—when you learn the dimensions of this thing we’re being asked to go up against. Second, you’ll be mad when you learn the attitude of the people who’re asking it. One of them, anyway. Do you want to hear it all now, or after we’ve had another drink and maybe dinner?”
“I thought we’d have dinner right here in front of the fire,” she said. “Let me call the kitchen and get things started, then we can talk.”
Room service is provided at the Ranch for people in residence who, for one reason or another, are
n’t supposed to be seen too much; or for people who aren’t supposed to see too much, like who’s currently using the big dining room. However, unless you’re on a special diet for medical reasons, you take what they’re dishing out that day; there’s no menu. The only official choice is coffee, tea, or milk. Unofficially, however, you can get a bottle of moderate wine, if you try hard and have a certain amount of seniority. But it seemed that a feminine voice with a nice way of saying please could accomplish the same purpose; I could hear her promoting a certain California Cabernet with apparent success.
“Like old times,” I said when she returned.
“Oh, the wine,” she said. “I always do seem to take over in that department, don’t I? But I’m afraid what they’re bringing is hardly Château Margaux. Now you can pour me another martini from that pitcher and spring your bad news on me.”
I told her of the meeting in Washington, holding nothing back, not even the fact that I’d been asked if I’d got to fuck the lady and, if so, how she’d performed. She’d been watching the fire as she listened; now she turned to look at me.
“Well, what did you tell him?”
“That you were quite satisfactory, of course,” I said.
“Thank you for the testimonial.” Her voice was tart. Then she smiled faintly: “He’s kind of an old blowhard, isn’t he, your Mr. Smith. I suppose he’s who I think he is; we got some news even in prison.”
I noted that she was no longer stumbling over the word. I said, “Yes, but let’s leave his real name out of this… Goody, that sounds like food at the door.”
The dinner was roast beef, and the wine seemed quite adequate to me, but I’m hardly a connoisseur. Madeleine wrinkled her nose over it in a critical way; then she grinned at me quickly across the table. Clearly we were both thinking the same thing: barely two months earlier she’d been a different woman in a different place, a place where nobody—she least of all—had worried about the difference between imported and domestic wine.
She drew a long breath. “Well, it looks as if the fate of the nation rests upon our shoulders, doesn’t it, Matt?”
I said, “Hell, it always does. You’ll get used to it.”
She laughed. “Don’t be so cynical in front of the green troops; they might think you don’t take the mission seriously. Matt.”
“Yes?”
“May I make a suggestion? When we get to Santa Fe, it’s pretty important that we’re convincing and, well, a little dangerous-looking, isn’t it? Just as you said a little while ago. Well, I’ve been thinking about it while you were away, and I know the character I’d like to play—I even got together some clothes for the part. If you’ll let me do it my way.”
I said, “Don’t be so goddamn humble, Ellershaw. You know damn well you’re going to do it your way. It’s mainly your show, and I’d be a fool to argue with you about how it should be performed. Tell me.”
She said, “Of course what I’d love to do is return home in a chauffeur-driven Rolls and emerge gracefully all glittering with diamonds and dripping with sables—wearing an umpty-thousand-dollar Paris gown, of course—and look down my aristocratic nose at all the crummy peasants who’d gloated over my… my downfall. But first of all that would be too expensive to be practical, and second of all, even if it were feasible, it wouldn’t accomplish much except to reinflate the ex-convict lady’s punctured ego. It wouldn’t scare the people we’re after into betraying themselves by making another move against us. If I deliberately give the impression, at your agency’s expense, that I’ve somehow managed to land in the lap of luxury since my release from the pen, there’ll be no real driving motive for me to seek vindication, or revenge, will there?”
“Sounds reasonable,” I said. “Carry on.”
She swallowed something in her throat; clearly her homecoming was something she still couldn’t contemplate without emotion.
She said, “Even if… even if I come back to Santa Fe now, after serving my sentence, looking just reasonably presentable, pretty much the same woman who was hauled away to stir, only eight years older—well, looking about the way I do this minute—my return will have no real impact. The few people who remained my friends and were sorry for me when it happened, and maybe actually believed me innocent, will be relieved to see that I haven’t suffered too badly from my incarceration. Those who just loved seeing the hotshot lawyer girl knocked off her high horse will be disappointed that I show so few effects of my prison ordeal. But nobody’ll be particularly afraid of me. It will just be the same Madeleine Ellershaw back again after having—whether as innocent patsy or guilty accomplice—paid eight years of her life for her folly in loving and trusting the wrong man. And everybody knows that, whatever may have happened to her, Mrs. Ellershaw was brought up to be a real little lady who couldn’t possibly do anything crude and vengeful no matter what the provocation.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “But what’s your point?”
She drew a long breath. “Matt, what we need is a truly shocking change in me that’ll make them sit up and take notice. Well, we had one that was shocking enough, but thanks to you and this outdoors torture chamber of yours, that flabby, pasty-faced dame is gone. She wouldn’t have been much good for menace, anyway; she wouldn’t have scared a sick mouse.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Let’s face it, I’m not a real little lady any longer.” Madeleine pushed her empty plate aside and leaned forward earnestly. “After Fort Ames and this place, I’m not any kind of a lady. I’ve… lost faith in all the things that supported me before: my upper-class family, my careful upbringing, my expensive education. They couldn’t keep me out of prison, and they didn’t do me a damn bit of good while I was in there. But now I have something very simple and primitive to sustain me instead: the fact that I can toss any bastard across the room who annoys me. Or blow his brains out with a gun. Or spill his guts with a knife, or break his neck barehanded. It scares me, as I told you, but it gives me confidence, too. So let’s use it, damn it!” Her voice was suddenly harsh. “Let’s show those sinister creeps who framed me, who’ll undoubtedly be watching, what a cheap, crude, vengeance-hungry female animal their damned maximum-security correctional institution has made of the nice, bright, polite young career girl they ruined and sent away to prison. My idea is, you’re the conscientious trainer trying to restrain me, trying to keep me off people’s throats, and I’m your savage killer-Doberman-bitch straining at the heavy leash, just panting for blood. What do you think. Matt?”
“Colorful,” I said. “But promising, if you’re willing to make yourself look that bad.”
She said rather grimly, “You’re forgetting the dismal dame who was dragging herself homewards so humbly before you got shot. After facing the idea of coming home like that, I find anything an improvement. This way I at least get to spit in their eyes. I’ve got it all set, the way I’m going to dress; I’ll show you in the morning.” She laughed. “You won’t like it, but as you told me once under similar circumstances, I’m not putting on this act for you.” She hesitated, and glanced at me a bit uncertainly. “Matt?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t mean to be a take-charge girl. Slap me down if you want to. After all, you’re the professional here. I’m just a wet-nosed amateur.”
I grinned. “I just love that phony humility; you know you’d bite my head off if I really—” I was interrupted by a soft knock at the back door of the unit, which led out to a little patio where the dude-ranch guests used to sunbathe in private. When Madeleine glanced at me quickly, I said, “I called somebody from my room and told him to stop by, somebody I want you to meet. I’ll let him in.”
The young man who entered when I opened the back door was wearing a sports shirt and slacks. He was very pretty, and his hair was very pretty, too; one of the blow-dry boys. He could have been the star of any current TV show—John Wayne, where are you now that we really need you?—except for his eyes. They were brown eyes, and they were opaq
ue and deadly as he stepped inside expecting a trap because he’d been trained to expect traps everywhere. Then he saw me clearly and saw that I matched the description he’d been given. The wary tension went out of him and suddenly he was just a nice young fellow with smiling brown eyes.
“Eric?”
“I’m Eric,” I said. “This way.”
We didn’t shake hands; this was business, not friendship. I followed him into the big room, where Madeleine stood by the fireplace, waiting.
“Madeleine, this is McCullough,” I said. “Take a good look at him. You know Jackson, and young Marty, and after all those days nursing me in Santa Paula, you can probably recognize some of the other men who were watching over you. That’s the first line of defense. McCullough, here, is the second, with a backup crew. I thought you’d better see what he looks like so you don’t shoot him by mistake some time when things get a bit hairy. Now that you’re a dangerous lady with a limited hunting licence… I mean field qualification.”
Madeleine nodded. “Hi, McCullough.”
“Mrs. Ellershaw.”
“Okay, McCullough. That’s it,” I said.
“I’ll be around,” he said. “Good night, ma’am.”
There was a little silence after he’d gone, then Madeleine whistled softly. “Am I right in thinking that he’s not as sweet as he looks?”
“We hope not. One of the new ones. Like me, he’s been recuperating from a few anatomical perforations.”
“I haven’t seen him around.”
“There are quite a few things around this place you haven’t seen. And people.” I grinned. “Old soldiers like me don’t worry too much about showing their faces around. I mean, we’re known, we’re in dossiers all around the world. Our covers were blown long ago, and sometimes it works just as well that way. When a miscreant hears that Horrible Helm is after him he just lies down and dies, or cuts his throat obligingly, saving me a lot of trouble. But often an unknown face is needed, and we try to keep the new young ones, like McCullough, from being spotted too soon. So they don’t wander around this place openly and ogle the pretty girl trainees, unlike some people.” I studied her for a minute, and said, “Well, it’s been a long day and planes make me tired. I think I’ll thank my hostess and retire to my own quarters, if she doesn’t mind.”
The Infiltrators Page 16