The Interlopers

23

AFTER LEAVING SITKA, WE SPENT the rest of the day cruising along sheltered passages between large, spectacularly mountainous islands-well, spectacular when the fog let us see them-with thickly wooded shores. At least the forests were thick where the lumbermen hadn't been at them, but in many places it looked as if a mad barber with giant clippers had been at work, leaving the dirty bare skull of the earth shockingly naked.

"What's the matter, darling?" Libby asked, coming up beside me where I leaned against the rail. "You look like another kid ran off with your ice cream cone."

I gestured toward the denuded shoreline we were passing. "I thought they only hacked them down like that back in the days of the bad old lumber barons who never heard of conservation."

Libby laughed. "You worry about the damndest things, Matt. I mean, Grant. You worry about that dumb mutt you've got to drag along for identification-and I don't thank you for turning him in with me this morning when I was sleeping soundly-and now you're worrying about trees, for God's sake! The Japs need the lumber and somebody wants their money, so what's the problem? After killing four men in less than a week, are you going to weep over a pine tree?"

I didn't think the stuff was pine, but in other respects she was perfectly right, of course. However, as usual, her sense of security was microscopic. I glanced around casually. A stocky male figure in jeans and a heavy, hip-length jacket was hunched over the rail up forward.

"Raise your voice a little," I said. "Pete didn't hear you the first time."

Libby followed my glance, but ignored my sarcasm. "That's the man who visited your truck this morning after I'd left? Stottman's assistant?"

"That's the man. Now he seems to have appointed himself my shadow. It's an old psychological device: keep haunting the evildoer and eventually he'll get nervous and betray his guilt, you hope." I grimaced. "Pete would just love to hear you confirm that I killed his plump sidekick, not to mention those other characters. He's pretty sure already, but not quite sure enough to get mad enough to act."

She made a face at me. "Let's go inside and discuss it over a drink. It's cold out here!"

"I've got to go feed that dumb mutt, as you call him," I said. "I'll meet you in the bar in half an hour."

She frowned, clearly annoyed in her feminine way that I'd prefer a dog's company to hers, even briefly. She turned without speaking, marched away to the nearest door, and paused a moment to look at herself in the glass, tidying her windblown hair. She disappeared into the cabin.

I grinned; then I shivered as the raw wind bit through the ski parka I'd inherited from Grant Nystrom. It seemed a long time ago since I'd been warm enough to welcome a swim, down in British Columbia. I went down to the car deck, said hello to the pup, checked my watch, and at five o'clock sharp turned him loose to run while I stirred up his meal-five cups of dry dog food, water, and half a can of horsemeat, if you're interested in the dietary details. He wasn't what you'd call a dainty eater.

Then I glanced at my watch once more. I waited until exactly ten minutes had passed, then leaned out the camper door and blew the come-here whistle softly. It took Hank a minute or two to respond, and when he came romping up between the cars, I could see that the collar he was wearing was just a little newer and blacker than the one he'd had on when I turned him loose.

I carefully didn't look toward the aft end of the hold where, jammed in among a bunch of passenger cars, stood a vehicle that looked like a boxy Ford delivery van converted for camping-a vehicle I'd first seen in Prince Rupert when I'd delivered Smith, Junior, to what he'd called his lab truck. Even without looking, I was aware that a bearded young man I didn't recognize was leaning casually against a door of the truck.

That would be the partner young Smith had referred to, ostensibly drinking a Coca-Cola, actually standing watch while the youthful pride of the undercover services, inside, checked the material I'd gathered from the last two drops and altered or replaced it judiciously so Hank's collar would do the nation's interests no harm, and maybe even a little good, when I finally delivered it in Anchorage.

It was the kind of tricky secret-agent stuff that always makes me kind of embarrassed; it seemed like a kid's game a grown man wouldn't want to be caught playing. On the other hand, I was relieved to have the latest information in the pup's collar defanged and defused, so to speak; and even more relieved to realize that four of my five contacts were now history. Only one act of my super-spy drama remained to be played-Nystrom in the Northwest, or the Courageous Courier-well, two, if you counted the delivery in Anchorage, assuming that Holz let me get that far.

After the pup had finished eating, I turned him loose once more while I busied myself cleaning house after a fashion. When ten minutes had passed again, I called him in with the whistle; and he had his old collar back. It was a cute routine. I didn't know if it had actually fooled anybody, but I was sure it had made the boys in the lab truck feel clever and useful.

Hank was licking his chops happily, savoring the aftertaste of whatever tidbit they'd used to lure him in. I regarded him sternly.

"Some one-man dog you are, Prince Hannibal," I said, "making up to anybody who scratches your ears or offers you a handout! Now try to be good and stay off the furniture."

When I came into the cocktail lounge and looked around for Libby, I couldn't spot her at once. Then a woman lounging at the bar shifted position and smiled at me, and I realized that it was my attractive colleague, self-styled. I'd got so used to seeing her in pants that I hadn't recognized her in a dress. It wasn't much of a dress; at least there wasn't much of it. The main impression she gave, sitting there, was of slim, endless legs in figured black stockings. Above was something brief, black, and sleeveless.

I gave the exposed limbs, as the Victorians used to call them, the amount of attention they deserved by whistling softly.

"Where's the party?" I asked. "Should I break out a tux or am I all right in slacks and a wool shirt?"

Libby laughed. "It's our last night on board, darling. According to the purser's blackboard, we'll be landing in Haines, Alaska, around six A.M. After that, I understand, we cross the border under our own power, and the going through Canada can get pretty rugged. I… I just thought we ought to celebrate a little while we have the chance."

We did.