The Interlopers

20

WE FACED EACH OTHER ACROSS the little formica-covered dinette table. Libby started to raise her paper cup to her lips, checked herself, and looked down at it, frowning. She turned her gaze on me.

"You knew I'd come?"

"Two chances out of three; enough to gamble a cup of coffee on." I grinned. "Strictly a grandstand play, of course."

She didn't smile, but watched me steadily. "How did you figure it, Matt?"

"Say you were exactly what you'd been claiming to be: Miss Elizabeth Richbitch Meredith, a spoiled, willful society lady who got involved with some nasty commies for kicks, but later saw the light for one reason or another and changed sides to join us good guys. In that case, what would you do if an unappreciative jerk refused to accept your priceless favors as sufficient reward for his services and asked for cold cash instead? Well, there was a chance that you'd just scratch the cad off your social list; but there was also a chance, considering your parting words, that you'd come after him with a gun."

"That's one chance out of two that I'd come," she said. "What's the third possibility?"

"That you weren't the thrill-seeking Miss Richbitch at all; that you were a simple working girl with instructions to keep the guy under close-not to say intimate- surveillance for purposes still to be determined. In that case, of course, no personal considerations like wounded pride would apply. You'd realize at once that you'd made a strategic error in letting the bastard walk out on you, regardless of insults, and that the only way you could repair your mistake was to grit your teeth, go straight to the crummy slob, and apologize as humbly and seductively as possible. Which was exactly what you did."

There was a little silence, broken only by the steady rumble of the ship's powerplant-louder down here on the car deck-echoed by minor rattles and vibrations in the camper. At last Libby laughed shortly.

"All right," she said. "All right. It's nice to deal with a bright man, I guess, even if it's a little hard on the ego. But if I'm not Miss Richbitch Meredith, darling, who am I?" I said, "That's my question; I asked it first."

She hesitated and looked down at her coffee cup, frowning again. She spoke without looking up. "Does King's Mountain mean anything to you, darling?"

I let my breath go out in kind of a sigh. I said, "Well, it's a place where people got killed, like Bull Run."

She looked up and smiled. "So now you know." But of course I didn't. What had just passed between us was the current identification signal-a Revolutionary War battlefield answered by a Civil War battlefield- applicable to all undercover agencies of the U.S. government. To an old cloak-and-dagger type like me, it didn't mean very much. I've been around too long to trust a password known to that many people, some of whom are bound to let it slip, intentionally or accidentally.

Still, it was an indication of something I'd already considered as a possibility. I said, "Assuming that you came by that I.D. routine legitimately, how does it happen that a bright girl like you is working for a stupid gent like Smith?"

"What makes you think I'm working for Mr. Smith?"

I shrugged. "Well, you're not one of ours or you'd have used a different call sign; besides, my chief has assured me we have nobody else on this job. And I hope to God there are no other U.S. spook shops mixed up in this operation. Two are enough, or one too many."

She laughed. "Assuming I am working for the man you call Smith, and have been right along, what makes you think he's stupid, Matt? Don't tell me a smart agent like you was fooled by his pompous act and the boyscouts he employs as a cover!"

"Go on," I said.

"You ought to know that in this business the cleverest thing you can do is act very dumb and make it stick. Mr. Smith, as you call him, puts on a deliberate show of running something closely related to the YMCA, full of bright, earnest, high-minded young people. However, the real work is done by nasty, immoral characters like me, reporting through totally different channels. That way, nobody worries much about Mr. Smith and his apparently ineffectual activities, which is just the way he likes it. Okay?"

"It seems complicated, but okay. Do the boyscouts know about you?"

"As far as they're concerned, I'm a genuine double agent, discovered, recruited, and briefed by them. They're very proud of me; I'm their prize exhibit. The fact that I was planted on the Communists in the first place by the very man who gives them their orders would disillusion them terribly if they found it out."

"Sure."

She went on: "Of course, if you ask Mr. Smith, he'll say that he never heard of me except as an ex-commie agent who was persuaded to change her mind, and that what I've just told you about his setup is a figment of my imagination."

"Naturally," I said.

She laughed. "But that really makes no difference to our relationship, does it, Matt? Because you have no intention of trusting me, anyway, no matter how many signs or countersigns I produce, or how many important people vouch for me-or don't vouch for me."

"No intention whatever," I said. "I'm a suspicious bastard, particularly when it comes to lovely ladies who invade my quarters in black lace lingerie."

She glanced down at her brief garment. "It is pretty tarty, isn't it?" she murmured. "I ought to be ashamed of myself, oughtn't I?"

"You most certainly ought," I said. "But I find it all very sad. I don't suppose you really have nine grand to give me. And now that it's been more or less established that we're professional colleagues, our relationship will have to be strictly business, won't it? I mean, except when people are looking, of course."

She hesitated, then spoke without expression. "As a matter of professional technique, Mr. Helm, I have always felt that when I'm assigned to play a role-like pretending to be madly in love with a man-I can do a much more convincing job if I play it all the way, whether people are looking or not."

I regarded her across the table. She had, I noticed, very nice shoulders, pleasantly white against the black ribbons and ruffles of her scanty, sex-doll garment. Her face was very nice, too. In fact, she was damn near beautiful, or perhaps it was the intimate circumstances that made her seem so.

I said, also poker-faced: "We certainly wouldn't want to handicap you in carrying out your assignment, Miss Meredith." I looked at her for a moment longer, and decided we'd been subtle and clever enough for one night. I said, "Look, doll, you don't have to, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we had a good time in Seattle and I'd be happy to repeat it, but if you're just under orders to sleep with me for reasons of strategy or something, hell, I'll move up front with the pup. In the morning, I'll give you a notarized certificate of copulation you can show your boss if he asks. Say the word."

Something changed in her eyes. She said, "You're really a pretty good guy, aren't you?"

I grimaced. "Go to hell. I just like my victims tender and willing, that's all."

"I know I don't have to," she said quietly. "And I don't have any such orders, Matt." She hesitated and looked down and, so help me, actually blushed a little. Her voice was almost inaudible when she spoke again: "I'm acting strictly.. – strictly on my own initiative."

"Well, in that case…" For some reason, I found it necessary to stop and clear my throat. "In that case, suppose you go stand over by the door for a moment, while I transform this eating-booth into a more useful and comfortable piece of furniture…"