“Well, you handle that rig like an expert, ma’am,” I said.
“I ought to,” she said. “My father was a contractor. There wasn’t a piece of machinery he used that I wasn’t checked out on, Mr. Clevenger—that is, until we got rich and respectable and I was supposed to stay off the trucks and cats and look ladylike in a pale blue convertible with an automatic shift—” She broke off, and gave me a sharp glance. “You’re a real confidence man, aren’t you? You know just how to flatter a woman and get her talking about herself.”
“Sure,” I said. “Nothing softens them up like telling them they’re swell truck-drivers. I’ve found the technique infallible, ma’am.”
She laughed reluctantly, and stopped laughing. “Well, let’s have it,” she said. “I suppose you have a lot of phony identification cards and things that are supposed to convince me you aren’t working for Uncle Sam in some clever and underhanded way.”
Penny said, “Oh, Mummy! You promised you’d—”
“It’s all right, darling,” Genevieve said. “Mr. Clevenger has a tough hide, I’m sure. He doesn’t mind my needling him a little. Well, Mr. Clevenger? Should we start with your private detective’s license or permit or whatever you call it?” I showed it to her. She glanced at it and said, “A very handsome piece of work. Now, how about a pistol permit? You do have one, don’t you, even though you don’t have the gun with you? And a few credit cards, perhaps. Although that’s pretty weak. Even I could get myself a credit card in the name of Clevenger if I wanted to.”
Penny stirred uncomfortably. “Mummy, you’re not being fair.”
“Oh, I’m being very fair,” her mother said. “Mr. Clevenger knows perfectly well that his documents mean nothing because any government agent could have them made up for any character he cared to impersonate. He’s going to have to come up with better evidence than this.” She smiled and patted her daughter’s hand. “The fact that his Douglas Fairbanks routine is irresistible to teen-age girls hardly constitutes proof of his good intentions, darling.”
I said, “Well, what about this, Mrs. Drilling?”
She looked at the paper I held out—a folded newspaper clipping—and at me. Then she took the clipping and unfolded it, frowned, studied it carefully, and looked up again suspiciously.
“I didn’t see this item anywhere,” she said. “I’d certainly have noticed it.”
“Maybe you weren’t looking at the right Winnipeg paper shortly after that little ruckus in the woods, ma’am. I just happened to come across it. Somebody’d left it behind at a roadside cafe.”
This wasn’t true, of course. Figuring I might have a chance to use it sooner or later, I’d phoned Mac to put somebody at tracking down all published news items bearing on the subject. They’d been rushed to a pickup spot—drop, if you want to be technical—here in Montreal as soon as it became clear we’d be passing through the city.
Penny was frowning at us. “What is it?”
“Oh, a little item I just knocked out on my portable printing press,” I said. “It purports to be a news picture of two convicts who were recaptured in a rather battered state a few days after their escape from the penitentiary at Brandon. Strictly counterfeit, of course, like all my documents. As your mother said back there, sooner or later we’ll hear of the real escapees being taken in Labrador or British Columbia.”
“Let me see!” The girl took the clipping from her mother’s hand. “But those are the two men who tried to—”
I said, “Honey, don’t look now but you’re being naïve. Naturally, if I’m going to fake a picture, I’ll use faces you’ll recognize. Look at your ma. She doesn’t believe a word of it. And don’t think she’ll go hunting through old newspaper files to check it, either. She knows what she knows, and nothing’s going to convince her otherwise.” I sighed. “It’s no use, Penny. I thank you for your good offices, but the court has already passed judgment and isn’t about to reverse its verdict.”
Penny turned indignantly to Genevieve. “But Mummy—”
“Let me see that again,” Genevieve said. She frowned at the clipping for several seconds. Then she looked at me. “If that picture is genuine, I owe you an apology, don’t I, Mr. Clevenger?”
“If,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “is it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It is.”
She hesitated. “I don’t trust you,” she said at last. “I don’t trust you one little bit.” Then she drew a long breath. “But I’ll admit it begins to look as if I’d been a little hasty. What Penny had to say about those men, and now this clipping... maybe you really did help us out of a very nasty situation, Mr. Clevenger. If so, please forgive me for jumping to conclusions.”
It was a pretty good apology, as apologies go. I mean, she’d hedged a little, but on the whole I should have been pleased and satisfied—and I would have been, if I hadn’t found myself wondering just how long she’d been sitting on that speech before she’d found an excuse to deliver it. I had a sudden strong feeling that the whole scene had been planned in advance: that I’d been brought here by the daughter so the mother could apologize to me on one pretext or another, if not a newspaper clipping then something else.
It was a snide thought, but I found confirmation when I glanced at Penny’s face. Instead of jumping up and down happily because her hero had been vindicated, she was looking uncomfortable and embarrassed, as if she wished herself miles away where she wouldn’t have to watch her mother putting on a humble act for a man for some obscure adult reason.
I didn’t spend too much time worrying about the reason. It promised to be an interesting evening, and it was starting out well. Once we got over the little awkwardness that followed Genevieve’s apology, everything went gracefully. The service was smooth and efficient and the drinks were excellent. The salmon was as good as a fish can be, and you forget how good that is when you live away from the ocean for a while.
Penny was allowed a glass of wine with her meal, and presently, not much to my surprise, she showed signs of getting sleepy and was given the room key and sent up to bed. I ordered a cognac and Genevieve took something green and sweet and minty. She raised her glass to me.
“Well, Mr. Clevenger?” she murmured.
“Well what, Mrs. Drilling?” I said.
She was smiling wryly. “Were we too obvious? We haven’t had much practice at intrigue, you know. I think Penny did rather well, don’t you?”
I studied her face for a moment. I said, “With a little practice, she’ll be another Mata Hari—but don’t forget that lady got shot. Two people have already died on this operation. Why not let me take the kid back to papa before she gets hurt playing in a grownup game?”
Genevieve grimaced. “You’re a stubborn man, Clevenger. You’re still pretending to be a silly private eye. Please stop it.”
I said, “I thought we decided—”
“We decided that those men back there may have been real convicts, and you may have saved us from them very bravely and skillfully. That satisfied Penny, but you and I both know that it has nothing to do with what kind of an agency you’re working for, public or private. In fact, if it was a real fight, and you’re so good you can take on two desperate criminals practically barehanded and dispose of them without even breathing hard, then you’re too good to be working for some cheap little Denver detective bureau, Mr. Clevenger or whatever your name is. No matter how you slice it, it comes up stamped U.S.”
“Your flattering estimate of government men might surprise a few people,” I said. “And in that case, why the humble apology and the free meal?”
“Because I still need help,” she said. “Or maybe I should say that I need help again, very badly, and again you’re the only man I can turn to. I don’t care who you’re working for. If you’re a government man, you may even be able to talk me into giving your lousy scientific papers back, but first you have to do something for me.”
It was a real swifty. The last thing
I wanted was to be handed Dr. Drilling’s papers: they had to be delivered by her and Ruyter.
I said, “Take the proposition to Johnston and his sidekick, ma’am. They’ll snap at it. Me, I’m not being paid to hunt secret documents, any more than escaped convicts. My experience is that any private character who gets mixed up with stuff like that, winds up in trouble, even if he’s trying to be helpful. Johnston and Fenton are the names. You’ve undoubtedly seen them along the road. If you want, I’ll bring them around for a conference.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Oh, why don’t you stop that stupid pretense... I couldn’t talk to those two clowns and you know it.”
I said, “Johnston’s no clown. I won’t say as much for his partner, but Johnston’s a smart operative, don’t kid yourself.”
“Just the same, he wouldn’t deal. I know the type. He’d make no concessions. He’d just start waving the flag and telling me about my patriotic duty, in between threats.”
I gave her a quick glance. “And you think I’m a government man but you think I won’t? You think I’ll deal? How will I deal?”
She hesitated and looked down at her green drink. “I think you’re a smart man, Mr. Clevenger.”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks. What does that mean?”
She said slowly, “I told you my father was a fairly successful contractor. I think you’re a smart man, and I know I’m a fairly rich woman, and... and not too unattractive, I hope.”
There was a little silence. I said, “Let’s not be so damn subtle, Jenny O’Brien. Are you trying to bribe me, or seduce me, or both?”
She looked up and smiled. “Well, what’s your weakness, Dave, money or sex?”
I drew a long breath and said, “I always thought money was a highly overrated commodity, ma’am.”
14
Leaving the elevator, we walked down the hall, passing the door to Jenny’s room. I had to start thinking of her as Jenny now. It wasn’t possible to consider playing a seduction scene with a woman with the cold and formal name of Genevieve.
She didn’t say anything about checking to see if her daughter had made it safely. I guess she felt it was no time to act motherly; besides, a fifteen-year-old girl wasn’t likely to get lost between lobby and hotel room. We stopped at my door. Jenny put a hand on my arm.
“Dave.” Her voice sounded hesitant.
“What?”
“You’re going to have... to give me the cues. I haven’t had much experience at this sort of thing.”
I glanced at her sharply, a little disappointed in her. I don’t mean that I’d been taking her proposition at face value: I hadn’t. It was fairly obvious that she had something tricky in mind, whether or not it actually involved a bed. I couldn’t legitimately complain about that. We were all being pretty tricky on this job. I just didn’t like being treated as if I were a moron who’d swallow anything. That innocent-little-me line, from a woman her age with her record, was getting us pretty far out into the cornfield, I felt.
Surprisingly, I saw that for all of being a married woman with a teenage daughter—not to mention all the other things she probably was—she did look kind of innocent. I don’t mean the fragile, helpless, frightened kind of innocence. She looked like a healthy, freckled, tomboy who’d finally been run down and put into shoes and a pretty dress, and who thought it was kind of crazy, but was perfectly willing to give womanhood a whirl if somebody’d just show her how. It bothered me. She kept stepping out of character—the character my evidence said she ought to have, the character the acid bottle in her trailer said she ought to have.
“I mean,” she went on, “I’ve never seduced anybody before. You’ll have to show me how it goes.”
Well, it was a moderately fresh angle from which to attack an ancient situation. I guess it beat the sultry-siren routine at that. I unlocked the door, opened it, and reached inside to switch on the room light before speaking.
Then I said, “I seem to recall hearing your name linked with that of a man once. A man named Ruyter. Probably a vicious slander.”
She glanced at my sarcasm, hesitated, but walked on past me without making a response. I followed her inside and closed the door. She turned to face me in the center of the room.
“I didn’t say I was a virgin, Dave.”
“So?”
“So I’m married, I’ve had a child, and maybe I’ve even slept with a man who wasn’t my husband. A man who was charming and attentive and very, very persistent. Maybe I was even silly enough to believe, at first, that his persistence was due to my irresistible beauty and fascinating personality.” Her tone was wry. After a moment she went on: “Arid maybe one night when my husband was supposed to take me out and I’d got all dressed up only to get the usual last-minute call from the lab—Howard didn’t even bother to call himself, he had his assistant do it—maybe I just got good and mad and called up Hans and let him buy me an expensive dinner and lure me to his place afterwards.” She was silent; then she looked up almost shyly and said, “That isn’t quite the same, Dave, as coldbloodedly arranging to spend the night with a man I hardly know and don’t trust at all.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Well, I don’t trust you and I’m not going to pretend I do. I’m quite sure, for instance, that you’re here not only because a woman has made you a proposition you find moderately intriguing, but also because you feel it your duty to your government—all right, your employers, let’s not argue about who they are—to learn what’s behind her offer.” She studied me shrewdly. I didn’t say anything. She sighed and said, “Not that I ever had a great deal of faith in Hans, either, but don’t tell him that. Of course I pretended to be madly in love with him. It made the whole thing seem more dignified and graceful, and you don’t tell a reasonably nice man—well, I thought he was reasonably nice at the time; an obvious, international-type smoothie, but a nice smoothie—that you’re just sleeping with him because he’s available and you’re mad at your husband.”
I said, “For not having much faith in this international smoothie, you’re sure going a long way with him now. Could this have something to do with what you need help with?”
“It could, but let’s not talk about it yet,” she said. “I mean, it isn’t very romantic. Right now I’m supposed to be overwhelming you with my charm, not boring you with my troubles.” She hesitated. “Dave.”
“Yes.”
“Be nice,” she said softly. “Play up a little, please. You’re making it very hard for me. Don’t act so government-agentish. Can’t you see I’m embarrassed as hell?” She drew a sharp little breath and went on briskly before I could speak: “All right, now I’ve got as far as the man’s hotel room. What do I do next, seduction-wise? Do I simply take off my clothes and jump into bed and stretch out my naked arms to him? It seems a little... well, abrupt. Shouldn’t we first maybe have a couple of drinks?”
I said, “Shouldn’t we first maybe discuss just what kind of help you’re hoping to buy with your white body?”
She drew another quick breath and said impatiently: “You’re really being damned difficult! Even though I don’t trust your motives at all, I’m willing to gamble on your being honest enough to do something for me after... after you’ve had me. Why can’t you be willing to gamble on my being sensible enough not to ask more of you than... than one good lay is worth? Believe me, after living for fifteen odd years with a man who considers sex infinitely less interesting than science, I’m not likely to overvalue what I’ve got to offer.”
I regarded her with growing respect, and the uneasy feeling that somewhere beneath the play-acting was some kind of a solid foundation of truth and sincerity. The question was, what kind.
“I said, “You do put it right on the line, Irish.”
She met my look steadily. “I try to. I’m not going to ask you to betray your country or neglect your duty or anything like that. I... I just want somebody in my corner when the showdown comes, somebody who has a personal interes
t in seeing that I get a reasonably fair deal. I’m glad you didn’t ask for money. I’d never be sure of a man to whom I’d given money.”
I said, “You don’t know much about this kind of business, do you? What makes you think a man who’s willing to go for a deal on the side is going to stay bought no matter what you pay him off with?”
She shook her head quickly. “You don’t understand. I’m not really asking you to be bought or stay bought, Dave Clevenger. All I’m really trying to do is get you to look at me as me, not as a bunch of damaging information in a file somewhere. If you’d just take one good look at me, forgetting everything you’ve heard, you’d see I couldn’t possibly be the sinister person you think I am—you, and those two other government men who are following me so tenaciously, and Howard, and Hans, and... and everybody. I’m not that wicked and I’m not that clever.”
She was really very good. I thought of a glove and a bottle that was supposed to contain salad dressing and didn’t. I said, “I don’t know what’s more dangerous, a woman who tells you how wicked she is, or a woman who tells you how wicked she isn’t.”
Jenny made a protesting gesture. “Damn it, you’re thinking of me as a movie cliché: espionage heavy, female, Type B. I’m not a cliché, I’m a woman, and a pretty ordinary woman at that. If I have to pay you or go to bed with you to make you realize that... Ah, let’s get on with it! Where do you keep your liquor? That should be the first step, shouldn’t it, to get the man drunk and susceptible?”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s the procedure. Here.”
I went to my suitcase and got out a bottle of Scotch in a paper bag. As I slipped it out of the sack, I remembered the last time I’d had a drink from that bottle, and who’d been with me that night and what had happened between us, and what had happened to her later. It made me, for some reason, feel kind of cheap and disloyal.
I said to Jenny, “I didn’t expect to be doing any entertaining up here, or I’d have had ice ready. Do you want me to ring for some?”
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