"Yes."
"Will you try to help? Hans was supposed to call long distance after I'd turned over the papers and… and he'd made sure they were okay. He was supposed to call and have Penny set free. Naomi knows how to get in touch with them back there. Maybe you can persuade her… Oh, hell, here comes the little bitch now. What do you bet she didn't get anything for me to wear, just for herself." Jenny hesitated, seemed to go through a mental struggle, and said very quickly in a low voice, "Dave, there's something you'd better know. Don't count too much on what we'll find in Inverness."
I looked at her, startled.."What the hell do you mean by that?"
She shook her head. She was watching Naomi approach, carrying a big package, looking like a sweet little thing in the morning sunshine, with her plain blue jumper and ruffled blouse and piled-up hair. Jenny whispered, "There isn't time now… Just be careful. There, I've done you a favor. You will try to help Penny, won't you?"
"I'll try."
I spoke mechanically. I was wondering what she was holding back that could louse us up. If, after all this, the stuff wasn't waiting in the Inverness post office, or if there was something wrong with it… well, I could worry about that when it happened. The present had enough worries without my borrowing from the future. I leaned forward so Naomi could squeeze into the back seat of the Volkswagen.
"Do you know they don't have any jeans in this forsaken country?" she asked brightly. "Why, it's practically subversive. All right, Dave, let's go. Stop in the first patch of woods. I want to get out of this droopy teen-age outfit before I'm picked up for playing hooky from junior high."
She sounded brisk and cheerful. You'd never know, listening to her, that she'd committed murder and had a few other crimes in mind. I drove out of town and found a track running down into a stand of pines and stopped when we were out of sight of the highway.
"Your dressing room, ma'am," I said, and got out so she could tilt the seat forward. She reached back for her package and straightened up beside me.
"Come with me, Dave. I want to talk with you."
"Sure."
"Take the keys. We wouldn't want Mummy-dear driving a car all by herself. She might hurt herself."
I took the keys and followed Naomi. She moved off a little ways but stopped where we could still see, and be seen from, the car. She put her package on the ground and turned her back to me.
"I'm told you're a great button-and-zipper man. Demonstrate."
"Always happy to oblige."
I got to work on the familiar fastenings, reflecting that I was getting in a rut. If I wasn't bullying them for information, I was helping them take their damn clothes off.
"I'll just bet you're happy." Naomi's voice was tart. "Is she any good in bed?"
"Who, Jenny? You never gave me a chance to find out!"
"She's an awful pill, really. She was going to chicken out, you know. But Hans was way ahead of her. He never really expected her to go through with it all the way, voluntarily. That's why he had me ready to step into the kid's shoes, so he'd have something on Mummy-dear that would keep her in line until we got out of the country."
She pulled her dress and blouse off her shoulders and let them drop at her feet. Then she kicked off her shoes, peeled off her stockings, whipped her slip off over her head, and stood before me in nothing but a little pantie-girdle and a very tight, flat brassiere.
"Unhook me," she said, and when I'd done so she pulled the brassiere off and threw it as far as she could, and drew a long breath, turning to face me. "God, it's nice to breathe again. And eat. Did you ever try chewing a steak with a mouth full of stainless steel? There's another bra in the package. Get it out for me, will you? The next brat I impersonate, I hope she won't be so damn flatchested. Dave?"
"Yes?"
"Do you like it?"
"What?"
"What you see, stupid!" She laughed. "What I mean is, we can have a lot of fun together, but first we've got to get rid of Mummy-dear. I mean, once we've made sure she isn't playing any tricks. I called Gaston Muir from that store back there. I told him to expect two passengers on his boat. Just two."
It was no time to act shocked or high-principled. And it was no time to act curious about where the proposed boatride might end. I merely shrugged.
"Very cozy," I said. "Just so it's the right two passengers, doll. Don't you try any tricks. I wasn't born yesterday."
She smiled up at me approvingly. "What a suspicious tall man it is! Don't worry, darling. We're going to have a swell time together. We'll have a million kicks, a million laughs. Hand me that shirt, will you?"
I handed her a dark print shirt and a pair of tight black pants and she put on a pair of sandals all by herself and we went back to the car where Jenny was sitting with a disinterested, disdainful look on her pretty, freckled, adult face, that was supposed to tell us she hadn't even noticed the striptease that had been performed under her nose, and mine. Fourteen hours later we were in Inverness, having stopped for no policemen-we'd hardly seen any; I wondered if Mac had somehow managed to get them clear off the roads-and for nothing else, either, except food and gas.
XXI
IT WAS as easy as… well, as getting mail from General Delivery usually is. First, of course, we had to wait hours for the post office to open next morning, but once that ordeal was over, it was a breeze. There wasn't even anybody in line ahead of us. Jenny went up to the window, gave the fictitious name to the clerk, and turned back to us holding a big manila envelope bound with heavy cord. We closed in on her, Naomi and I, and escorted her back to the car. Naomi snatched the envelope and scrambled into the back seat.
"I saw a pay phone back on the main street by the gas station," she said breathlessly. "Drive us there while I see what Mummy-dear has for us. Damn. She's got it all tied up with string like she was afraid it would jump out and run away. Lend me your knife, Dave."
"To hell with you, doll," I said, driving. "You want my knife, you know how to get it. First you call in six strong friends to help you. You keep your toy gun. I'll keep my knife."
She made an impatient sound. "All right, you open it, damn you!"
I parked the car by the phone booth, took the envelope, cut the strings, and slit it open for her. She grabbed it back and pulled out the papers far enough for a look. I heard her breath go out in a long sigh of satisfaction as she saw the big red stamp on the top sheet. I could only read the one glaring word SECRET from where I sat, but I found it a great relief.
Jenny said quietly. "There's a policeman."
We looked up. An unmistakable officer of the law was strolling up the main street toward us. He wasn't a local cop, but a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police-in riding breeches, no less. I didn't see a horse. He didn't seem to be looking for any murderers or seeing any. Behind me, I heard Naomi stuff the documents hastily back into the envelope.
"What are you waiting for?" she breathed. "Drive!"
"Don't be silly," I said. "You want us all to spit on him as we go by, so he'll be sure to notice us? He's just getting a bite to eat. Go make your phone call."
The Mountie turned into a restaurant a block away. Naomi drew a shaky breath, squeezed out of the car, and entered the phone booth, clutching her envelope. When she was busy talking, I glanced at Jenny, beside me.
"Okay, Irish," I said. "What was that all about? That scare talk you gave me back while she was buying clothes?"
Jenny shook her head quickly. "Never mind," she breathed. "It's all right. Whom do you think she's calling?"
"A gent called Gaston Muir, I presume," I said. "But don't ask me what I think she's telling him. I could be wrong, and I wouldn't want to slander a sweet girl by mistake."
Jenny glanced at me, studied my face for a moment, but did not speak. Then Naomi was coming back to the car. I leaned forward to let her in.
"Drive on up the coast," she said. "I'll tell you where to turn."
I said, "I thought we were all set to make contact tonight in
a restaurant in French Harbor."
She wasn't a very good actress. She met my eyes too candidly. "The plans have been changed," she said. "I got hold of Gaston and told him we already had the stuff. He can't get away immediately, he's got something to do with the boat, but he wants to meet us early this afternoon and make arrangements; in the meantime we're to go to a certain place and stay out of sight. I've got the directions."
"Sure."
The ocean was to our left as we came out of town. Well, actually the map said we were looking at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and that the real ocean was way off to the north and east past the end of land, but it was enough salt water to impress an innocent New Mexico lad. Jenny drew a long breath, beside me.
"It's beautiful," she said, "but kind of scary. I always wonder what's out there under the surface."
"Fishes," I said. "And dead men's bones."
"Watch where you're driving," Naomi said behind me. "Don't turn here. We stay on the pavement for another couple of miles."
We followed the pavement past a bunch of deserted coal mines, and then we followed the gravel for a way, and then we were on dirt, and finally we wound up at another mine way out in the woods. It looked like any little old mine, east or west. I suppose an expert can tell at a glance what came out of them, but to me they all look alike, whether they once produced gold, silver, copper, or coal. There are the same dumps, the same wandering rusty tracks that once made sense to somebody, the same picturesque, crumbling hoists and elevators, and the same weathered shacks.
At least they look the same to me, and I always have the same thought when I see one: Now, there's a hell of a fine place to hide a body. Apparently it was a thought that had occurred to other people as well, unless I was doing Naomi and her unseen friend a grave injustice.
I had no real doubt about what we'd been brought here for, Jenny and I. The trouble was, there wasn't much I could do about it. The message still had to be delivered, and I was running out of carrier pigeons. Hans was dead. Jenny no longer qualified. That left only Naomi to carry the ball- Naomi, and Gaston Muir, an unknown quantity. My sense of self-preservation is as strong as anybody's, but we're not hired, after all, just to stay alive, although it's considered a reasonable secondary objective.
My primary objective, however, was to get the stuff onto Gaston Muir's boat. In order to accomplish this, I had to keep both Naomi and her accomplice unhurt and unsuspicious, and the only safe way was to sit where I was put and wait for somebody to lower the boom on me. It took them a long time to get around to it. I suppose they were waiting, among other things, for me to get bored and sleepy. I considered dozing off, but decided it would be out of character. Jenny, however, curled up in the car and went to sleep.
Then Naomi started to chatter brightly about one thing and another, and then, sitting on a log, I heard him coming up behind me. I found myself hoping he was a better sailor than he was a woodsman, or that boat would never get out of the harbor. I saw Jenny stir uneasily and come awake and look our way and see him-both car doors were open for ventilation-but she was, thank God, too late to call a warning. A gunbarrel touched the back of my head before she could open her mouth.
Muir, if it was Muir, had a deep voice. "Do not move, Mr. Clevenger," he said, behind me. He spoke to Naomi:
"You said he had a knife, girl. Get it. Then go watch the woman."
I started at the touch of the gun, as if he'd taken me completely by surprise. Naomi darted forward and got the little folding knife from my pocket and backed off, looking like the kitten that ate the robin, pleased and proud.
She pocketed the knife, produced her glass pistol, slipped a rubber cap or stopper of some kind off the muzzle, and moved where she could aim the thing at Jenny.
The situation was self-explanatory, and as a reasonably bright agent I'd have accepted the fact that I'd been double-crossed, and we could have gone on from there, skipping the corny dialogue. But I wasn't supposed to be a reasonably bright agent, I was supposed to be a reasonably dumb private detective, so I went through the motions of looking shocked and outraged.
"Hey, what is this?" I demanded. "Give me back my knife. Naomi, tell your pal he's making a mistake-"
Naomi laughed. "The mistake is yours, darling."
"Why, you treacherous little bitch!"
I made as if to lunge for her and tear her to pieces with my bare hands. It was very dramatic, and I was told to sit still or get shot, and I sat still and went through the you-can't-do-this-to-me routine, and the I'll-get-you-if-it's-the-last thing-I-do routine, and a couple of the other verbal gambits people are accustomed to perpetrate on TV when they have guns pointed at them unexpectedly. I mean, there's a whole literature on the subject, all of which assumes that the hero is an unstable idiot who's got to blow his top noisily every time his fellow-men, or women, prove unworthy of his childlike trust.
The man with the gun had moved around to where I could see him. He was a big, dark, middle-aged man with something of a belly on him. He was wearing a black seaman's cap, an old black suitcoat, a work shirt buttoned to the neck, and clean overalls. His gun was a Luger, old and worn but showing no rust or neglect. It was the first 7.65 mm. Luger I'd seen in a long time. You hear more about the heavier 9 mm. cartridge these days, but the 7.65 was once considered very modern and high-speed stuff, shooting a light bullet at well over a thousand feet a second when that was very rapid indeed for a pistol.
Gaston Muir, in contrast to his weapon, had a deliberate, slow-moving, almost gentle air. He let me rave a reasonable length of time, which was promising. I mean, if I'd been him, I'd have rapped me hard along the head with the gunbarrel to shut me up, but apparently he was a more kindly type. Maybe he even had objections to violence. It was an encouraging thought, but I didn't put too much stock in it. After all, he did have a gun.
"That is enough, Mr. Clevenger," he said at last. "I said, that is enough, man!"
I said, "Just do me one favor, Muir, if that's who you are?"
"I am Muir," he said. "What is the favor?"
I glared at Naomi. "Just let me get my hands on that slut for sixty seconds-"
Muir said, "Please, Mr. Clevenger. We sympathize with your disillusionment, but as a sensible person you must realize that there is no place for you beyond this point. If we were to take you farther, you would learn things you should not know. Now go over and join the lady, if you please."
I rose from my log, growling something blasphemous, and went over to stand beside Jenny, who'd got out of the car. She glanced at me, and looked at Muir, and licked her lips.
"What… what are you going to do with us?"
I was annoyed at her for asking. I mean, if he admitted frankly that he was going to take us into the mine and shoot and bury us where no one was likely to dig us up accidentally, what had we gained? And if he said he wasn't, how could we believe him? So why waste breath on a question that had only profitless answers, when the real answer was probably only a few steps and a few minutes away?
I guess I was really annoyed with her because, after almost two full nights and days in the same dress, she looked kind of wilted and wrinkled, as well as scared, and I was sorry for her. I didn't want to be sorry for her. I'd been sorry for Larry Fenton, and it had got me nothing but trouble. I reminded myself that Genevieve Drilling had bought chips in this game long before I had; there was no reason why she shouldn't stick around to see the last hand with the rest of us.
Naomi said, "What do you think we're going to do with you, Mummy-dear? You see that black hole in the hillside up there? Start climbing!" She waved her weapon at both of us. "You, too, Dave, darling."
Muir asked, "Where are the papers, girl?"
"On the back seat of the car."
"Are the keys in the car?"
"I think so."
"Make sure," Muir said. "And then get the coal oil lantern and the coil of rope that's in that shack over there. Behind the door. And put that un-Christian weapon away. There's no need fo
r it here."
It was a frustrating situation. Usually, at the end of a job, you're closing in on somebody you're trying to catch. If you've used yourself as bait, which happens, at least there's a point at which you're allowed to stop acting meek and stupid: you can shed your shackles and start swinging. But here there was nobody to catch. In fact, my job was to see that they stayed uncaught, by me or anybody else.
There was nothing for me to do, therefore, but scramble obediently up the slope behind Jenny. If I should overpower my captor and his small female ally, I'd have to get right to work and figure out a way to let them escape convincingly, unharmed. It was simpler and safer-at least as far as the job was concerned-just to play it docile and hope that the gods, or Gaston Muir, would be merciful. I wasn't silly enough to count on mercy from Naomi.
She came scrambling up the dump behind us, with a coil of rope over one shoulder, swinging a kerosene lantern by the bail. I noticed that, regardless of Muir's orders, she hadn't put her trick gun away. Jenny came to a stop at the mouth of the mine, breathing hard. It had been a hard climb up the slope of loose rock, particularly in high heels, and her face was shiny and the thin white stuff of her blouse clung damply to her arms. Her eyes were big and dark. She looked at me as I came up, with a question in her eyes, but the others reached us before she could put it into words.
Gaston Muir had to light the lantern, since Naomi was too young to have learned about the methods of illumination that preceded universal electricity. Muir gave it back to her burning, and relieved her of the rope. No seaman can ever take a coil of rope without doing something with it; and we stood waiting while he re-coiled it more neatly.
The Ravagers mh-8 Page 15