She fired again, and hit the can. “You do not think it can be the police?”
“It doesn’t seem likely,” I said. “There’d be no reason for them to keep us on ice like this. If the cops had something on us, they’d just move in and cart us off to jail. I think it’s Herrera’s bunch. The girl must have arranged to meet someone last night. When she didn’t show, they set the wheels in motion.”
“Yes,” she said, “you may be right. But how did they find us?”
I waited for her to shoot and said, “I told them.” She glanced at me quickly, surprised, and I said: “Me and my big mouth. I told Herrera at the party that I’d be heading down along the Pecos in the morning. She must have reported in before she came to the studio. When they missed her, they must have decided to try an intercept, gambling that I’d stick to my original route in order to make everything look natural and normal. They had plenty of time to get ahead of us while we were messing around back in the hills—anyway, the truck is no hotrod. All they had to do was watch the one highway and pick us up as we went by.” Tina fired again. I went on: “They know you’re alive now. Therefore, even if they haven’t found her, they must be almost certain Herrera’s dead. Therefore they’ll be assigning another operative to Amos Darrel.”
Tina said, “And still you say we should be casual?”
“Yes,” I said. “Because they don’t know we know it, yet. They think we think we’ve got them fooled, so far, if you follow me. They think we think Amos is safe, for the time being. Which means that, rather than instituting a crash program, they’ll probably let the new guy, whoever he may be, take a little time and set up the job right. Which gives Mac or whoever a little better chance of spotting him and taking him out of the play—as long as we keep these characters happy by shooting at tin cans and making love and in general acting like a couple of unsuspecting kids on a picnic.”
Tina’s next shot missed the can, as she glanced at me. “You mean you think they were watching…”
“It seems likely.”
She laughed, but her face was slightly pink. “Why, the dirty Tom Peepers!” After a little, she said “But I must report. I must speak with Mac.”
“Sure,” I said. “They’ll expect you to. After all, you’ve got to tell him that the body’s safely buried, and that we’ve made a clean getaway, slick as a whistle. We’ll stop for lunch pretty soon and let them see you put in the call. No harm in that, just as long as we take it easy and carefree.”
She nodded, steadied the slim-barreled pistol, and emptied the rest of the clip rapid-fire. I could see the bullets striking in and around the can; she was no genius, either. We’d neither of us become famous for snuffing out candles at ten paces or shooting cigarettes out of people’s mouths. I took back the gun, reloaded it, took her by the shoulders, and kissed her, saying, “We might as well give Mr. Peeper his money’s worth.”
“He’s a dirty old goat,” she said. “But let us give him his money’s worth, by all means, chéri.”
She moved abruptly, and I found myself, pushed and tripped at the same time, going over backwards. I landed in a sitting position almost hard enough to crack my pelvis.
“What the hell—”
“You great bully!” she cried, laughing at me. “You were so big and brave last night, catching me off guard when I was all dressed up and couldn’t fight back. Kick my behind up behind my ears, will you?”
Her foot shot out. I tried to grab for it, but it was only a feint. She did some kind of a quick double-shuffle and, catching me on hands and knees—reaching, off balance—she put a foot in my rear and sent me forward on my face. Then she was running upstream, laughing. I picked myself up and charged after her. She was in better condition, but I had the longer legs and I was used to the altitude. She couldn’t stay ahead of me. She tried to dodge, but the banks of the wash were steeper up here, and I caught her by an ankle as she scrambled for the top, and brought her back down in a little avalanche of loose dirt.
She twisted free, found her feet, and, as I closed with her incautiously, tried a wicked little chop to the neck that would have paralyzed me if I hadn’t remembered the proper parry. She danced back out of reach.
“Slow!” she panted. “Just a great softy! I bet you do not even remember this one!”
Then we were working our way through the old hand-to-hand combat-and-mayhem routines, half seriously, holding back only enough so there would be no real damage if a blow should slip through. She was fast and in practice, and she had some new ones I’d never encountered. Finally she clipped me across the bridge of the nose hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, but she didn’t get out again quite fast enough. I caught her, tied her up, threw her down, and pinned her. We were both gasping for breath in the thin desert air. I held her down until she stopped wiggling. Then I kissed her thoroughly; and when I was through, she lay there and laughed at me.
“Well, Liebchen?” she murmured. “What about Mr. Peeper and his money’s worth?”
“You go to hell, you damn, nymphomaniac,” I said, grinning.
“Old,” she jeered, still lying there. “Old and fat and slow. Helm the human vegetable. Help me up, turnip.”
I held out my hand to her, ready for a trick, and set my weight against hers as she tried to pull me off balance. I used her own effort to turn her around, and smacked her hard across the dusty seat of her jeans.
“Now behave yourself, Passion Flower,” I said.
She laughed, and we buttoned ourselves up, tucked ourselves in, and brushed each other off. Then we walked back down the wash together. I felt oddly happy, with the guilty kind of happiness of a kid playing hooky from school. I’d been a good boy for years, my attendance record had been perfect, my deportment had been excellent, but it was all shot to hell now, and I didn’t care. I was through being a model citizen. I was myself again.
17
In front of the restaurant, I put the truck into a slot next to a small, blue foreign sedan that I recognized, from the sticker on the back, the Texas plates, and other peculiarities, as the one I’d already passed on the road. It was a Morris. I’d read somewhere that they’d jacked up the horsepower from twenty-seven to a sizzling thirty-eight, but it still wasn’t exactly what the sports-car boys like to call a bomb; you wouldn’t have to worry about tearing up the pavement with the frantic acceleration when you let in the clutch. Glancing inside, I saw that the damn little heap, not much bigger than a perambulator, had a ducky little miniature air conditioning unit mounted under the dash. Well, that’s Texas for you.
“It’s a Morris,” I said to Tina as I opened the truck door for her. “Remember the one we managed to promote in London, quite illegally, that I was always having to get out my Boy Scout knife on and dismantle that ridiculous electric fuel pump they must have got direct from the Tinker-Toy people.”
“I remember,” she said. “I was very impressed by your cleverness.”
“You were supposed to be,” I said. I gestured towards the public phone booth at the corner of the building. “Go ahead and do your stuff where everybody can see you. I’ll wait for you inside. Got a dime?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need more, or will Mac let you reverse the charges?” I grinned. “This peacetime operation must be the nuts. I can remember a few times in Germany when I’d have loved to pick up a phone and ask the boss what the hell to do next. Where do you get hold of him these days? Does he still have that hole in the wall just off 12th Street in Washington?”
I was just talking casually as we walked towards the building, to make us look bright and carefree. I didn’t mean a thing by the questions, but Tina glanced at me sharply, and hesitated a long moment before she said in a half-embarrassed way: “I’m sorry, chéri. You know I can’t give you information like that. I mean, you’re not really… I mean, you’ve been outside a long time.”
It was a little like being kicked in the teeth, although it shouldn’t have been. After all, there would be quite a few
of us alumni of Mac’s unique institution of higher learning by this time. We couldn’t all expect to be kept posted on developments back at the old alma mater.
“Yes,” I said. “Sure, kid.”
She put her hand on my arm and said quickly, “I’ll ask him what… what your status is.”
I shrugged. “Don’t bother. You shoot ’em, I bury ’em. Unskilled labor, that’s me.”
She said, “Don’t be silly, darling. Order me a hamburger and a Coca-Cola. By all means a Coca-Cola. One must drink the wine of the country, nicht wahr?”
“Jawohl,” I said. “Si, si. Oui, oui. Roger.”
“Eric.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes were apologetic. “I’m sorry. But you wouldn’t tell me, if our situations were reversed. Not without instructions. Would you?”
I grinned. “Go make your call, and stop worrying about the morale of the troops.”
Starting through the door, I drew back to make way for a young couple just coming out—a skinny young man in a sports jacket and the kind of checked cap that was once reserved for golfers, and a big horse of a girl in flat shoes, a tweed skirt, and a cashmere sweater. She damn well had to wear flat shoes. In high heels, she’d start having my trouble with low doorways.
For my courtesy, she smiled at me nicely, showing big, white, very even teeth. On second look, she was kind of attractive in a healthy and long-legged way. She reminded me of somebody, and I paused to watch her climb into the little blue car, fitting herself quite gracefully into the limited space. The man climbed in, and they drove off together, with the proud and self-conscious look of people who’ve found themselves something unique in the way of transportation.
It wasn’t until I was inside the building that I realized who the girl reminded me of—my wife. Beth had once had that nice, young, well-bred, under-dressed, Eastern-girls-school look, just like this female Texas beanpole. Perhaps she still had it. It’s a little hard to tell just how a girl looks after you’ve lived with her a dozen years or so. Well, Beth’s looks weren’t something I wanted to spend a lot of thought on, at the moment.
I picked up a Santa Fe paper from a stack of assorted news publications by the door and went on into the restaurant proper. It was done in chrome and Formica with plywood paneling, and it had all the warm and homelike atmosphere and authentic local color of a filling station, except that the waitresses wore full-skirted pseudo-Spanish costumes that reminded me a little of Barbara Herrera. I seemed to be in a reminiscent mood.
There was a big jukebox in the corner, on the democratic theory, I suppose, that a couple of dozen diners yearning for peace and quiet must not be allowed to frustrate the one minority screwball with a coin and a yen for noise. A beefy character in a gaudy shirt, high-heeled boots, and tight jeans that came up just high enough to cover his rump was feeding it some change, and as I wandered towards an empty table, the speaker let out a few weird sounds, and a man began to sing in an eerie, breathless voice about something coming out of the sky that had one big horn and one big eye.
I sat down and opened the paper and discovered that it was yesterday’s, as might have been expected. Santa Fe has only an afternoon paper, and today’s probably wouldn’t get this far from home until supper time or later. It gave me a funny feeling to look at it, the same edition, to all appearances, as the one I’d picked up by the front door, glanced at, and tossed back into the house as we were leaving for the Darrels’—yesterday evening, before anything at all had happened. It seemed as if enough time had passed since then for them to print up a three-volume history of the era, let alone a new daily paper.
I folded the paper and looked around the room. A waitress sneaked up, stuck a menu and a glass of water in front of me, and escaped before I could trap her into taking the order. The jukebox was still going strong: the one-eyed, one-horned thing coming out of the sky had turned out to be a Purple People Eater, naturally.
Everybody in the place looked strange to me, all the peaceful people. I guess I was the thing coming out of the sky, with a knife in my pocket and a pistol under my belt and the dust of a secret grave still on my boots. I saw Tina come in, glance around, and start towards me, looking lean and competent in her jeans. She was another one, a carnivore among all the comfortable domestic animals. It was in her eyes and the way she walked, so obvious for a moment that I wanted to look around to see if anybody was staring at her with fear and horror.
I watched her come to the table, and it occurred to me that she wasn’t a person in whom one could safely place one’s childlike and innocent trust. None of us was. It occurred to me, also, that I’d have liked very much to talk with Mac myself, to get some idea where I stood. Not that I thought Tina might try to deceive me—I didn’t think she might, I knew it. If the job required it, she’d lie unblushingly and ditch me without a qualm. Well, I’d have done the same to her. I’d done it to others when the occasion demanded; I had no kick coming.
She sat down opposite me, grimaced, and put her hands to her ears. “It should be illegal, to so torment innocent people.”
I grinned. “What the hell do you know about innocent people?” She made a face at me, and I said, “At least they ought to let you buy five minutes of silence at the going rate. Did you get hold of Mac?”
“Yes,” she said. “He says it’s too bad we’ve been spotted. He says you were foolish to take a route you had already talked about.”
“He does?” I said. “The next time, suppose he figures it out and sends me a routing in advance.”
She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s done. He’s arranging for extra precautions to be taken in Santa Fe. Amos Darrel will be protected night and day until Herrera’s replacement is identified and disposed of. Meanwhile, Mac agrees that your plan is the best, under the circumstances. We are to proceed happily on our way, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but nevertheless making an effort to identify those who follow us, so that they can be picked up when the time is ripe.”
“We’re to act as bait, eh?”
“Precisely, my love. And as for you,” she said, “he asks are you planning to come back to us permanently? If so, he will tell you everything you need to hear when he sees you, which will be soon enough. If not, the less you know the better.”
“I see.”
She watched me across the table. “You must make up your mind, first. That is logical, is it not? Mac says there is a place for you, if you want it. You would have to take a refresher course of training, you understand, and you would not, at first, have quite the position of seniority you occupied at the end of the war. After all, there are people with us who have worked steadily for all the years the organization has been in existence... In the meantime, do not be hurt if I tell you nothing that is not essential to our present work. That will make it simpler for everybody, if you should decide to go back to your peaceful vegetable existence after all.”
I said, “Yes. Of course, it depends a little on whether my peaceful vegetable existence will take me back.”
Tina smiled. “Oh, she will take you back, my dear, if you are suitably humble and remorseful. After all, it is a very well-known situation: the old wartime love affair flaming into sudden life years later, flaming briefly and dying and leaving only the bitter ashes of disillusionment and regret. She will understand; secretly she will value you more for knowing that another woman has found you attractive—although she will never admit that, of course. But I do not think she will send you away, if you return humbly, asking forgiveness. So the decision is still entirely yours.”
I shook my head. “Not entirely.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are a few people around who aren’t very fond of us, remember? There’s a death to be paid for, and, as I recall, we used to make a point of paying those debts whenever possible, as a matter of principle. It seems unlikely they’ll be more lenient. Anyway, we’re bait, kid, and bait is always expendable. Let’s not worry about my future until we�
��re sure I’ve got one.”
18
San Antonio was a big surprise to me. Remembering the sprawling, smog-bound horror the supposedly somewhat civilized Californians have perpetrated, under the name of Los Angeles, in a coastal region that must have been quite beautiful to start with, I hadn’t really been looking forward to seeing what a bunch of crude Texans had managed to cook up in a rather arid and unpromising corner of their native state.
What I found was a nice old city with some of the unfortunate trappings of what’s known as urban progress, but also with a better than average nucleus of pleasant old crooked streets and picturesque old buildings and plazas; and with a pretty river wandering through the busiest business section, rather like a toddler turned loose in Daddy’s office. We drove around a bit to let me get the feel of the place, and I tried to act like a writer looking for material. We finally located the hotel we’d called for reservations, near the historic Alamo.
The uniformed doorman didn’t bat an eye at the sight of my 1951 truck with its businesslike snow tires, camping canopy and spare water and gas cans. It’s one of the advantages of traveling west of the Mississippi: you can drive something practical without being sent around to the service entrance.
After getting settled in our room, and cleaning up a bit we went out on foot to have another look at the town. I hung a camera around my neck, thinking to get some shots of the Alamo and other points of interest, but instead I spent the afternoon helping Tina pick out a skirt-and-blouse outfit for traveling and a sexy dress to wear out to dinner. This is supposed to be a hell of an ordeal for a man, but I don’t see why it should be. To have an attractive woman—one you’ve made love to and expect to make love to again—parade herself before you in a variety of seductive dresses, asking for your approval, can be very interesting, kind of like the love dance of the peacock in reverse. Anyway, if you’re going to have to look at her, why pass up the chance to exercise some control over her appearance?
Death of a Citizen Page 9