The Intriguers

xxi.

After a long time, she stirred in my arms. We were lying On top of the bedspread, on the big bed nearer the door. As it had worked out, we hadn't managed to get between the covers, or even undress, or turn out the light.

"My God, talk about instant passion!" Martha breathed. "Do you realize I never even got my shoes off?"

She began to wiggle beside me. I heard one sandal hit the rug and then the other. She continued to squirm. An elbow hit me on the nose.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, trying to avoid opening my eyes and coming to grips with reality once more.

"Getting rid of this cockeyed wig… There! If you were a gentleman, you'd get up and turn out the light."

"If I were a gentleman, would I be here?" I asked. "Now what's the matter?"

"This damn dress is cutting me in two." Comfortable at last, she was silent for a little. Then she spoke again: "Why do you suppose… It doesn't make sense! Like that, wham! With the lights on, yet. No ladylike restraint, no discreet disrobing, just flopping on the bed with the guy fully clothed and… and frantically helping him yank up my skirt and… and rip hell out of my… Oh, well, they had a big run in them, anyway. But with a man I don't even like!"

I said, "Borden, you talk too much. And at the wrong time, too."

"But I don't like you," she protested. "I mean, I hope you're not kidding yourself that this… this wanton, nymphomaniac display means I've fallen madly in love with you, or something."

"Relax," I said. "I know you hate my guts. You still think I'm a cruel, cold-blooded, calculating homicidal type who should be shot on sight, except that you don't believe in shooting anything. And I still think you're a sentimental female dope who lets her mushy emotions get the better of what little immature intelligence she's got. That's the way it is, and nothing's changed. Okay? Satisfied?"

She didn't reply at once. Maybe she thought I'd put it just a little too strongly. But when she spoke again there was no resentment in her voice.

"It must have been the way we've been fighting ever since we met. We simply transferred the… the conflict to a different battleground, don't you think?"

"Sure," I said. "And since it's agreed that we don't love each other, quite the contrary, I don't suppose you'll be hurt if I zip up my pants and go get something to eat. Intercourse just seems to have made me hungrier than ever."

She made a small, giggly sound. "Okay, if you'll bring me a coke and hamburger when you come back. I don't feel up to facing my public at the moment. Matt."

"What?" I asked, standing up.

Her voice was mischievous: "I could tell Dad."

"I don't think you will," I said. "Not that it matters. I'll tell him myself, if he asks. I doubt he'll be very surprised. He's too smart to set up a situation like this and expect us to keep it pure. If that was what he'd wanted, he'd have wished you off on Lorna or some other female agent, not on me."

She laughed softly. "I love the flattering way you put it, as if I were an incubus or something. Ha. There's a fancy word for a girl who's supposed to be practically illiterate. Why don't you think I'll tell, Matt?"

I grinned. "Because, smart as he is, your dad's got some old-fashioned notions that pop up now and then, and they don't all concern the English language. He might just take it into his head that we ought to get married."

Martha laughed again. "Ouch! That would be a fate worse than death, wouldn't it? You can count on my silence, sir. Just don't forget the hamburger, medium rare, with everything. And the coke with ice, please…

In the morning I caught up with my shaving in a bathroom that had a freshly washed blue dress drying on a hanger suspended from the shower rod. Some torn nylon stuff had been tossed casually into the wastebasket. When I emerged, Martha was still in bed, awaiting her turn. I told her it was all hers, and I'd see her in the coffee shop. I took my suitcase out to the car, threw it inside, and inspected all the tires on the rig, the trailer bearings, the hitch, the boat tie-downs, and the brace that supported the massive outboard motor at an angle while trailering, holding the lower unit clear of the road.

Finished, I went over to the motel office and checked us out. I picked up a newspaper on my way into the restaurant and had time to glance through it over a preliminary cup of coffee. There was a short front page recapitulation of the case of the Fort Adams Strangler that held my interest briefly, until I'd determined that nobody seemed to have the slightest intention of questioning the official verdict. Sheriff Rullington had his man, and the situation was under control. The story was all wrapped up, ready to take its place among the classic murders of history.

The second item that caught my attention was a syndicated piece on the editorial page by a Washington political commentator, remarking on the surprising momentum gained in recent days by the candidacy of Mrs. Ellen Love. Her campaign had started slowly, said the expert, in fact many people had scoffed at it as just another token Women's Lib gesture, but now, with the party's convention just around the corner, well-known political figures were beginning to jump onto the accelerating bandwagon.

It was currently conceded, I read, that the lady senator would have a real chance at the nomination, although many students of Washington affairs remained puzzled by the motives of hard-bitten professional politicians in rejecting regular party candidates they would normally have supported in order to follow such a risky and unconventional standard-bearer. Of course, said the columnist, it was possible that they all had the same basic arithmetic in mind: the fact that half the nation's votes were cast by women…

I refolded the paper and laid it on the table. To hell with politics; I had my own problems. I took out of my shirt pocket the motel bill I'd just paid and frowned at an item: L DIST-$4.37. Then I tore the bill across and stepped over to drop it into the wastebasket by the cash register. The damned little amateur Mata Han, I thought grimly as I sat down to my coffee once more; the clumsy little fool, charging her secret long-distance call to the room, for Christ's sake!

To hell with all amateurs, I reflected, particularly young amateur female conspirators and their notion-they all have it-that the way to render any man, even an experienced agent, totally deaf, blind, and stupid, is to drag him into the nearest bed. After a while in the business you get so that, the minute the lady starts unbuttoning her blouse, you start looking for the hidden double-cross. The trouble is, you generally find it. I'd found it.

She'd made the call last night, right after I'd gone out to eat, leaving her alone. According to the desk clerk, she'd asked for a number in Washington, DC, that I knew by heart; a number that, as she was well aware, was currently being monitored by a mimic in Herbert Leonard's employ. There could hardly be an innocent explanation for her calling that number or, for that matter, for her sudden, passionate assault upon my feeble virtue. I dismissed the idea that she'd belatedly come to realize, although she still wasn't quite ready to admit it, what an attractive person I really was. Kidding yourself like that is lots of fun, but in my line of work it can be fatal.

I didn't suppose she'd had much trouble getting the man imitating her father to put her in touch with Leonard. All she'd had to do was give her name and hint that she was willing to make a deal of some kind, any kind, and the man would have strained his circuits to get her the connection. An underling who flubbed a break like that-a promising contact with a trusted member of the opposing team-wouldn't last long in any undercover organization.

Well, it wasn't a totally unexpected development. Mac, the real Mac, wouldn't have used the warning code if he hadn't thought there was a possibility that she'd turn against us. He might even have been counting on her doing just that. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. It would explain why he'd used her for a messenger, instead of a trained agent he could trust.

The outlines of his strategy were beginning to take shape: put a sentimental girl into the company of a ruthless agent under circumstances in which the man's actions were bound to offend her idealistic, non-violent principles, and the results should be fairly predictable. The final straw, from Martha's standpoint, had obviously been my turning old Hollingshead, with his bad heart, over to the authorities and thus, indirectly, causing his death. However, if that hadn't happened to show how evil and depraved I was-we all were, her dad included-something else Undoubtedly would have. It had been almost inevitable that sooner or later she'd come to the conclusion that, as a concerned young member of society, she was required by her conscience to take positive action against us, and to hell with filial devotion, if any.

So now we had her in contact with Leonard, as Mac seemed to have planned from the start. You had to hand it to the guy, I reflected. He was consistent; you might even say he was fair. Like his daughter, he wasn't allowing himself to he influenced by any tender feelings for a member of his own family. He was using her weaknesses-she'd probably call them strengths-just as he'd have used those of any agent in his employ. If it seemed a little cold-blooded, well, I reminded myself, nobody'd forced the girl to pick up the phone and make the Judas call. Mac had merely foreseen that such a thing might happen and set up a situation to take advantage of it some way. I thought I could see roughly what he had in his intricate, scheming, unsentimental mind..

Something touched me lightly on top of the head, and I realized that I'd been kissed. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting, darling," Martha said.

"You're just one cup of coffee behind," I said, rising to help her with her chair.

Today she was wearing her own short brown hair, and a simple, tan, short-sleeved pantsuit. Seated, she smiled up at me, looking so young and tomboyishly innocent that I was almost ashamed of my dark suspicions, but her smile was too good to be true. It was a confident Mata Han smile, not the shy and uncertain expression suitable for a relatively inexperienced girl who'd found herself in bed with a man she didn't really like without knowing just how it had happened.

"Welcome back, Miss Borden," I said, sitting down to face her.

She frowned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there's been a glamorous blonde imposter-" She laughed quickly. "Oh, that tramp! T really don't understand what men see in her, Mr. Helm. So obvious, don't you think?"

She was too feverish and intense and gay; she'd forgotten that Martha Borden was basically a relaxed, barefoot, nature-girl type. She was seeing herself, instead, as an irresistible femme fatale who could wind even a dangerous character like me around her tanned little finger. That evening, several hundred miles to the east in Montgomery, Alabama-having requested a little shopping time along the way-she treated me to her version of the sheer-black-nightie routine. It wasn't embarrassingly bad, but I'd seen it done better.

The following evening we reached Robalo Island, Florida, well after dark, too tired to play any phony, sexy games. In the morning, we went to see Hank Priest.