The Ravagers

IV

SHE WAS standing at the dresser in the corner, operating on the cap of an interesting-looking bottle, when I entered the hotel room after knocking on the door and being told it was unlocked, come in.

"Your sandwich is over on the T\T," she said without looking around. "Help yourself, Mr. Clevenger. I'm sorry, they didn't bring up any mustard or catsup."

I said, "Who needs it? At the moment I could eat the damn cow with the hair on."

I went over and took a couple of bites and felt stirrings of returning strength and intelligence. I swung around to look at the small, wiry girl across the room. She was wearing slim black pants, a long-sleeved white silk shirt, and a little open black vest. What the costume was supposed to represent wasn't immediately clear to me, but then there's a lot about women's fashions I don't dig.

I asked, "Do I call you by a name or do you answer to any loud noise?"

She said without turning her head, "I'm registered as Elaine Harms. If you've got to call me something, that'll do."

"Sure."

"I hope you like Scotch. It's as cheap as anything up here, which isn't cheap."

"Scotch is fine."

Normally I'm a bourbon-and-martini man, but I don't consider it a principle worth fighting for at three in the morning in a strange girl's hotel room. Anyway, I was less interested in her liquor than in the face she was being so careful to hide from me. When she turned, there was something deliberate and challenging in the movement that would have warned me, had I needed warning. She came forward with a drink in each hand and a rather malicious gleam in her eyes, watching me for signs of shock. To hell with her. I've played poker since I was a boy; and I've seen plenty of men- and women, too-with damaged faces. Only a couple of hours back I'd seen a man with no face at all. She couldn't scare me.

I took the glass she held out and said, "Thanks. You're a lifesaver, Miss Harms."

"I hope your sandwich is all right, Mr. Clevenger."

"Swell," I said. "Two more like it would just about bring my day's intake up to the subsistence level."

It wasn't really very shocking. I mean, she'd had smallpox as a kid, that was all. It had left her skin with a general over-all roughness. It was too bad, of course, but not as bad as if she'd had the fragile type of good looks to which a rose-petal complexion is essential.

Instead, she had a kind of street-urchin face with a good big mouth and a small upturned nose. With a smooth skin, she'd merely have looked cute; now she looked both cute and tough. The smallpox scars did for her what a dueling scar does' for a man; they gave her a hard and dangerous look. In her pants and silk shirt, she resembled one of the deadly, often similarly pockmarked, sword-packing young dandies of centuries past, who'd skewer you as soon as look at you.

She said, "You sound as if you'd come a long way fast, without taking time to stop and eat."

"I was down in South Dakota at noon today. Well, yesterday."

"What brought you up here?"

"A phone call," I said. "A phone call about a stupid jerk who might have got himself into trouble." I had worked out some kind of a story, driver over here, utilizing as much of the truth as I safely could. "I was supposed to wipe his nose and send him home to daddy."

"Who and where is daddy?"

I shook my head. "You want a lot for a roast beef sandwich, Miss Harms."

She persisted: "What was your connection with Mike?"

I didn't know what she'd been told by Greg. I gambled and said, "We were in the same line of business."

"He claimed to be an insurance man from Napa, California. He said he was on vacation, just a tourist."

I said, "I've got a card somewhere that says I sell insurance in Trinidad, Colorado. If you believe it, you're dumber than I think. If you believed Mike, you're dumber than I think."

"But you aren't saying what you really do?" When I didn't answer, she said, "We aren't getting very far, are we?"

"I've got no place to get," I said. "I'm just here because I was invited."

She studied me thoughtfully. After a little, she said, "The redcoats are attacking Bunker Hill, Mr. Clevenger."

I don't suppose that makes much sense to you, in the context, but it made a few things clear to me. It was her way of telling me who she was and asking me to identify myself similarly, if I could. From time to time somebody makes a hopeful attempt to correlate all the various undercover activities of our vast and unwieldy government, to make sure that they synchronize properly, and that nobody unwittingly sticks a thumb in a colleague's eye. It doesn't work out very well, for several reasons, one being that no cynical and experienced agent is going to be happy entrusting his life and mission to the irresponsible cretins working for some other department. Half the time we don't even trust the people in our own outfit.

This girl was not one of ours. Mac would have told me if there was someone around I could call upon for assistance. That made her a member of another agency, and now I was supposed to give her a brotherly kiss of recognition and say something about waiting till we saw the whites of their eyes-that isn't the countersign we were actually using, of course, but the real one was on about the same level of corniness. They all are.

According to official theory, Miss Harms and I would then sit down and compare notes about the Drilling operation in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence, and work out a plan for a joint campaign. You can see how the idea might appeal to a bunch of Washington efficiency experts who'd never been asked to stake their lives on some unknown character's reliability, on the strength of a widely distributed phrase that could easily have been compromised.

I said, "You've lost me, doll. Anyway, it was really Breed's Hill, wasn't it?"

I won't say whether, under other circumstances, I would have given the correct response. Normally, we're told to cooperate within reason, but it's left to the discretion of the agent on the spot and it's always a ticklish diplomatic question. In this particular case, of course, I had my orders. Mac had put it quite plainly: Other agencies have not been informed of our participation, and are not to be informed.

Elaine laughed quickly. "I'm sorry. I guess my mind was wandering." She hesitated. "Well, would you mind just telling me what you're doing here?"

I said, "Sure I'd mind." She started to speak, and I interrupted: "Now don't go threatening me again with the Regina cops, Miss Harms. I bet you don't want cops any more than I do. If you want to know about me and my business, tell me who's asking. If you were to show me a little gold badge, for instance, my attitude could change very suddenly.,'

She frowned. "What makes you think I-"

I said, "Why don't we try operating on the assumption that we're both reasonably bright people, for a change? That was a password or something you just tried on me, wasn't it? That Bunker Hill crap. So, since you seem to want a lot of questions answered, suppose you first tell me who you are, and why you've been watching a room that's got a dead man in it, and following people who entered that room, and checking them out with corny countersigns. If it's Uncle Whiskers who wants information, I might oblige. If it's Little Red Riding Hood, or Smokey the Bear, to hell with them."

She smiled faintly. "You're getting very tough all of a sudden, Mr. Clevenger."

I regarded her for a moment longer; then I swallowed the last of the sandwich and washed it down with the last of the drink and set the glass on the television set. I took two Canadian dollar bills from my wallet and laid them beside the glass.

"There you are," I said. "Nobody's obligated to nobody. If there's any change, give it to your home town Community Chest. I see you've got a phone, so you'll have no trouble calling the cops after I'm gone." I grinned at her and headed for the door. "See you in jail."

"Mr. Clevenger."

I stopped with my hand on the knob. "If it's got a question mark at the end of it, you're wasting your breath."

"I am working for the United States government, Mr. Clevenger. Uncle Whiskers, if you prefer."

I turned around. She had seated herself on the big double bed. As I came back across the room, she watched me closely for clues to what my reaction would be.

I went to stand over her and said grimly, "Well, I sure had to put on a big act to get that out of you, doll. Now show me something that says it besides you, and we're in business."

She shook her head. "We don't all carry little gold badges, Mr. Clevenger."

"I'm supposed to take your word for it?" I let her brace herself for an argument; then I shrugged. "Well, okay. I'm not hard to get along with. You come part way, I'll come part way. Maybe we'll get together eventually. I work for Western Investigation Services, 3001 Palomas Drive, Denver, Colorado."

She looked surprised. "A private detective?"

"That's right. Private investigator, private op, private eye, shamus, snooper, you name it."

"Can you prove it?"

I said, "You give proof, honey, you get proof. If your word's good, so's mine."

She laughed. "That doesn't necessarily follow."

I said, "Hell, it's easy enough to check, if you're really a government girl. All you have to do is pick up that phone and ask for long distance. Washington will have the dope back for you in the time it takes us to have another drink, if your bureaucracy's halfway on the ball."

She made no move toward the telephone; she didn't even look that way. She kept her eyes hard on me and said, "And Mike Green was a private investigator, too? You said he was in the same line of business."

She could have been leading me into a trap with the question. I gambled on the fact that Greg had been, for all his faults, a pro: he wasn't likely to have spilled any beans to a G-girl in pants.

"Sure," I said. "He worked for a West Coast outfit. They sometimes handle stuff for us out there, and vice versa, so when they called us for help my boss contacted me in Rapid City, where I was winding up some business, and told me to get the hell up here. Mike hadn't called his Los Angeles office when he was supposed to. They'd got worried and asked if we'd discreetly find out what was wrong." I grimaced. "They've got some weird notions of geography, out there in L.A. I think they figure anything east of the Rockies must be close to anything else east of the Rockies."

Elaine stared at me searchingly for several seconds; then she looked away and made herself comfortable on the bed. I wondered idly about the way women must be constructed differently from men, that makes them so happy sitting on their own feet. She looked up abruptly, hoping to catch me by surprise, I guess.

"Mike never gave me a hint of anything like this," she said. I didn't say anything, and she went on: "Of course, he did act pretty mysterious at times. I knew he wasn't just an insurance salesman seeing the sights. What was his interest in Mrs. Drilling? What's yours?"

I said truthfully, "I don't know yet."

"You're not denying that you're watching the woman, are you? After all, I saw you."

"Sure," I said. "I called Denver about Mike, and the boss sent me right out to check the camp for Drilling, to make sure she hadn't flown. He's contacting the coast to find out what the score is. I'll talk with him again in the morning." I frowned down at Elaine. "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what kind of government business brings you here, Miss Harms."

She hesitated only briefly. "I don't see why not. You can pass the information along to your employer, with a word of warning. Mrs. Drilling has stolen some scientific documents of national importance. Her husband, scientist at a certain government project, apparently was a little careless with his briefcase at home. We are trying to get the contents back before she passes them to her lover, a man we know to be a foreign agent. We think she has made arrangements to join him somewhere in eastern Canada and escape with him overseas. We're also kind of interested in taking him, if it can be done without jeopardizing the main job, which is getting the papers back."

I said, "I suppose she's got rid of the stuff temporarily, or all you'd have to do is shake down her trailer and truck."

"As a matter of fact," Elaine said, "a thorough search was made, more or less surreptitiously and illegally I'm afraid, a couple of days ago. Nothing was found. She had three days to dispose of it after she left home, before she was located up in British Columbia. We think she must have mailed it to herself at some eastern address, and that she's now heading to pick it up. Anyway, we'll keep a close eye on her until we find it." Elaine looked up at me. "And you can tell your boss that any private agency that interferes is going to find itself in serious trouble."

I sighed. "Honey, you are the threateningest girl I ever did meet. First it was the Regina police and now, I suppose, it's the whole U.S. government. But I'll tell him. I'm sure he'll shake like a leaf. He's a very timid man, just like me."

The girl on the bed laughed. It was the first real, honest laugh I'd seen her give. It changed her face so you forgot the ways in which it missed perfection. She was really quite a nice-looking girl.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to sound pompous and official, but Mike Green caused us a lot of worry, hanging around the subject the way he did. We had to waste a lot of time on him, not knowing who he was."

"You didn't happen to see his murderer, while you were wasting all this time?"

She flushed slightly, as if I'd accused her of inefficiency, which of course I had. "No," she admitted. "No, when I got there this afternoon, he was already dead. But is there much doubt? I mean, there's only one logical candidate, isn't there?"

I said, "I wouldn't know. My information is limited. Well, I'll pass the warning word along when I talk to my boss in the morning. Now I'd better get out to camp and try to grab a few hours' sleep. My God, it's still raining! I hope I left the bedroll where it's dry. My tent isn't as waterproof as it might be." I glanced at my watch. "There's hardly enough of the night left to make it worth while blowing up that damn air mattress."

"You have a few hours yet. The Drilling woman hardly ever hits the road before nine o'clock." Elaine hesitated. Something in her attitude made me look at her sharply. She returned my look without expression, and patted the chenille spread on which she sat. "It's a big bed," she said.

It was one of those funny moments. The atmosphere of the room changed abruptly. She met my look with one that was half defiant, half challenging.

"It's a lonely damn profession," she said. I continued not to say anything. It was her party. She said, "Of course, if you'd rather not, okay. I mean, if you're being true to a wife or girlfriend, far be it from me to lead you astray. And if you only sleep with girls with peach-blossom complexions-" She stopped there, watching me.

I said, "And if I just happen to be tired from driving five hundred miles in eight hours? Those VW's aren't designed for road racing, you know."

Something changed in her eyes, turning them dull and opaque, like slate. "Well, it's as good an out as any," she said evenly. "Pardon me for being forward. Check with me in Brandon this evening. In case you forget the name, it's a town with a big provincial prison nearby. It's about a day's run east for Drilling unless she changes her driving habits drastically. Miss Elaine Harms. The Moosehead Lodge, Room 14. I'll be waiting to hear from you. You'd better come up with the name of your principal and some good reasons for butting into this case. My chief isn't fond of private interference."

"Threats, always the threats," I said. I looked down at her and asked bluntly, "Did Mike Green ever get a similar invitation, and what was his response?"

She sat very still, crosslegged on the bed. There was a brief pause before she answered. "Mr. Green liked dames with looks and class," she said then, in a flat voice. "He wasn't about to lay any pockmarked monkeys when there was better stuff to be had, end of quote. Well, at least he was honest. He didn't say he was tired." She grimaced. "Goodbye, Mr. Clevenger. I hope you have a good night's rest. I'll expect you in Brandon with lots of information."

I said, "You're cute when you're mad, but you're prettier when you laugh."

She looked up. After a long pause she said warily, "You can skip the romantic approach. And don't do the little girl any great big favors."

I said, "It's hell what a man will do to avoid having to sleep in a leaky tent in the rain, isn't it?"

She smiled slowly. Her smile was as good as her laugh, kind of pert and young and impudent. "And it's hell what a girl will do to keep from having to sleep alone, isn't it?"