The Silencers

XII

It took her more than an hour to make up her mind and then having made it up, to do something about it.

Lying in back, I saw the cab light come on, illuminating the window above my head. A lot of activity followed- when a greenhorn gets involved with a sleeping bag, you'd think a boa constrictor had got into the act.

At last the light went out and the cab door opened- and closed noisily, slammed shut by the wind. Seconds later, she was knocking at the rear door of the canopy. I let her wait a little. It wouldn't do to let her think I'd been expecting her. Finally, I made a grudging sound and crawled back to raise the door which was hinged at the top and swung up like a station-wagon transom.

"Here," she said, pushing an armload of bedding at me. I disposed of the stuff behind me and reached down to help her inside. "Watch your head," I said. "This isn't the lobby of the Hotel Paso del Norte. What's the matter?"

"I'm freezing up there," she gasped, scrambling in beside me. "And scared."

"I offered you warm socks. And I told you to wear your coat."

"There wasn't room for it inside that damn zipper bag. And when I spread it over me, it kept falling off. Anyway, you can't talk to a damn coat."

I closed and latched the door, shutting out the snow and wind. I switched on the electric lantern I kept back there, got her sleeping bag open like a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She drew it tight about her, shivering realistically. I found the tequila bottle and the plastic cups.

"We're going to die!" she moaned tragically, taking the cup I offered her. "We're never going to get out of this dreadful place alive!"

I laughed. "Cut it out. Now if we'd counted on staying in a motel, we'd be in real trouble. There aren't many along this highway, and they'll all be full of stranded travelers, tonight."

"My feet!" she said. "They're frozen absolutely solid."

"Sure," I said. "Gangrene will set in any minute." I made an examination. She'd come around the truck in her stocking feet, rather than ruin her shoes in the snow. "You'd better take off those wet nylons," I said.

She hesitated then unwrapped herself enough to get her skirt up and one garter disengaged; then she began to shake uncontrollably and hugged the robe about her again. Well, she probably was kind of cold. I wouldn't have wanted to run around out there practically barefoot.

"You d-do it," she gasped.

I glanced at her. She had the grace to blush. It was pretty damn corny. I mean, I hadn't been sure until then-not absolutely sure-but the please-help-me-off -with-my-stockings gambit was a dead give-away. No adult woman who didn't plan on getting laid was going to start that routine-alone with a man in a cramped refuge on a stormy night.

"Sure," I said. "Anything to oblige, ma'am."

I got on my knees and arranged the lantern for better visibility. I prepared the patient for the operation. After a little, she laughed softly, watching me work.

"Does it bother you, undressing a woman, Matt?" She didn't seem to be shivering so much any more. "No, that's right, you're the iron man, aren't you? The unfeeling brute who strips them and searches them without a thought for anything but duty and country." There was malice in her voice.

I shook out a transparent nylon stocking and draped it over a pile of stuff at the side. "Would it have made you feel better if I'd raped you?" I asked.

She laughed again. "In a way, of course it would. It would have meant you were looking at me as a woman instead of as a suspicious character." She watched me work the other stocking down and slip it off her foot. When she spoke, her voice was quite different, very soft, very gentle. "You don't have to stop with the stockings, darling. You know that."

"Yes," I said. "I know it."

There was a little silence inside the canopy, while outside the storm whistled and howled. For some reason I was stalling. I drew a long breath and looked at my watch.

"What's the matter?" she asked, rather sharply. "What are you doing?"

"Just checking the time," I said. "I've got a bet riding on this." I didn't but it seemed like a good line. I don't like sex under false pretenses. Sometimes you have to do it that way, in the business, but tonight I couldn't see that it was necessary. "Five bucks," I said.

There was another little silence. When she spoke, her voice was absolutely flat. "Five bucks?" she said, "on what?"

"On whether or not we're making love by nine o'clock,"

I said, which was another lie. We'd discussed the probability, Mac and I, but no time had been mentioned. "It's all right," I said. "My money's safe. We've still got forty minutes to go."

There was another stretch of silence, but it didn't last long. I was ready for her when she came at me, striking at my face with her nails. I got her wrists, as I had once before. She was strong enough, for a woman, but she had no conception of the use of leverage.

"Easy now," I said. "Take it easy, glamor girl. You'll only hurt yourself."

"You beast!" she gasped. "You… you creature! You contemptible-"

"Sure," I said. "There wasn't any bet, Gail. I was just kidding." She didn't speak, breathing heavily, and I said, "You were pretty corny, you know, with that stocking routine. I had to shake you up a bit."

"You louse! You stinking, miserable-" She stopped abruptly and spoke in that perfectly flat voice: "I don't understand."

"Truce?" I said, still holding her.

After a moment, she nodded. I released her wrists, and she sat there rubbing them, not looking at me, while the truck rocked on its spring and hard little pellets of wind-driven snow rattled against the aluminum canopy. I thought the weather would probably break by morning. That hard buckshot snow generally comes with the end of the storm.

"I don't understand," Gail said again.

"You shouldn't try to seduce a man my age with such obvious tricks, glamor girl," I said. "It hurts his pride. Also, there was a matter of principle. There wasn't any bet, but, last night my chief and I did discuss your possible reactions. The consensus was that you'd probably try this. I thought you ought to know that we'd talked about it."

She licked her lips. "You discussed… You actually talked about whether or not I'd… What in the world made you think…?"

"Cut it out," I said. "Can't you see I'm trying to keep this on a reasonably honest basis? Don't go hypocritical on me, Gail."

She hesitated, then said in a different voice: "Did I give myself away that badly?"

"You didn't have to. It was obvious that you hated us, me in particular. God knows, you had plenty of reason. It seemed inevitable that somewhere on this trip you'd try to get even, somehow. And how is a woman going to get even with a man who's too big for her to beat up and has all the resources of the U.S. Government behind him?"

She started to speak, then stopped. Presently she said, "You're a funny person. All right, and where are we now?"

"In the back of a truck in a blizzard," I said, "slowly turning ~ solid ice while you make up your mind where and how you're going to spend the night."

Her head came up. She stared at me. "You're not really conceited enough, are you, to think I'd still consider…?" I didn't say anything, and presently she laughed. It was a real laugh, soft and warm and kind of nice. "Oh, hell," she said, "I'm certainly not going to wade back through three feet of snow to that cast-iron front seat, and if I stay here you'll probably ravish me before morning, anyway."

I said, "Damn, I hate women who think they're irresistible. Do you want me to sleep in the cab, just to prove something?"

She said, "No, darling, I think you've proved quite enough for one night. Well, almost quite enough…"