The Wrecking Crew

Chapter Sixteen

THIS WAS the land of the Midnight Sun, and while it was past the season for that particular display- it happens only around midsummer-the evenings were still late and the mornings were still early. Presently the long winter night would descend over the land, but not quite yet. It seemed very soon that there was light at the window.

She said, "I'd better get back to my room, darling."

"No hurry," I said. "It's early, and the Swedes are a tolerant people, anyway."

She said, "I was awfully lonely, darling." After a while she said, "Matt?"

"Yes?"

"How do you think we ought to run this?"

I thought that over for a moment. "You mean, like strictly for laughs?"

"Yes. Like that, or like some other way. How do you want it?"

"I don't know," I said. "It'll take some thought. I haven't had too much experience along these lines." -

"I'm glad. I haven't, either." After a little, she said, "I suppose we could act cool and sophisticated about the whole thing."

"That's it," I said. "That's me. Cool. Sophisticated."

"Matt."

"Yes."

"It's a lousy business, isn't it?"

She shouldn't have said that. It admitted everything, about both of us. It gave everything away, and we'd been doing fine. It had been a smooth, polished act on both sides, one move leading to the next without a stumble or a missed cue; and then, like a sentimental amateur, she went and deliberately tossed the whole slick routine overboard. Suddenly we weren't actors any longer. We weren't dedicated agents, either, robots operating expertly in that kind of unreal borderland that exists on the edge of violence. We were just two real people without any clothes on lying in the same bed.

I raised my head to look at her. Her face was a pale shape against the whiter pillow. Her dark hair was no longer brushed smoothly back over her small, exposed ears. It was kind of tousled now, and she looked cute that way.

She was really a hell of a nice-looking girl, in a slim and economical sort of way. Her bare shoulders looked very naked in the cold room. I pulled up the blanket and tucked it around her.

"Yes," I said, "but we don't have to make it any lousier than necessary."

She said, "Don't trust me, Matt. And don't ask me any questions."

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

"All right," she said. "As long as we both understand."

I said, "You're green, kid. You're real smart, but you're an amateur, aren't you? A pro wouldn't have given it all away like you just did. She'd have left me guessing."

She said, "You gave yourself away, too."

"Sure," I. said, "but you knew about me. You've known about me all along. I still wasn't quite sure about you."

"Well, now you know," she said, "something. But are you sure what?" she laughed softly. "I really have to go.

Where's my dress?"

"I don't know," I said, "but there seems to be some-body's brassiere hanging on the foot of the bed."

"The hell with thy brassiere," she said. "I'm not going to a formal reception, just across the hall."

I lay and watched her get up and turn on the light. She

– found her dress on a chair, shook it out, examined it, pulled it on, fastened it up, and stepped into her shoes. She went to the dresser, looked at herself in the mirror, and pushed helplessly at her hair. She gave that up, and came back to the bed to gather up the rest of her clothes.

"Matt."

"Yes?"

"I'll double-cross you without blinking an eye, darling. You know that, don't you?"

"Don't talk so tough," I said lazily. "You'll scare me. Reach in my right pants pocket."

She glanced at me, picked up my pants, and did as I'd asked. She fumbled around among some change and came out with the knife. I sat up, took it from her, and did the flick-it-open trick. Her eyes widened slightly at sight of the sharp, slender blade.

"Meet Baby," I said. "Don't kid yourself, Lou. If you know anything about me at all, you know what I'm here for. It's in the open now, that's all. This doesn't change anything. Don't get in my way. I'd hate to have to hurt you."

We'd had a moment of honesty, but it was slipping away from us fast. We were starting to hedge on our bets. We were falling enthusiastically into our new roles as star-crossed lovers, a jet-age Romeo and Juliet, on opposite sides of the fence. Too much frankness can be as much a lie as too little. Her speech about double-crossing had been unnecessary; she'd already warned me not to trust her. If you say "Don't trust me, darling" often enough, you can make the warning lose its effect.

As for me, I was brandishing a knife and making bloodcurdling speeches: good old bone-headed, fist-fighting Secret Agent Helm flexing his muscles before a lady he'd just laid.

I think we both felt a kind of sadness as we looked at each other, knowing we were losing something we might never find again. I closed the knife abruptly and tossed it on top of my pants on the chair.

She said, "Well, I'll see you at breakfast, Matt," and leaned over to kiss me, and I put my arm about her just above the knees, holding her by the bed. "No, let me go, darling," she said. "It's getting late."

"Yes," I said. "qa~e you seen yourself like that?"

She frowned. "Yoa mean my hair? I know it's a mess, but whose fault-"

"No, I don't mean your hair," I said, and she looked down at herself quickly, where I was looking, and seemed a little startled to see the way her unconfined breasts made themselves quite obvious through the clinging wool jersey of her dress. It was the same elsewhere. It was really quite a thing: the simple, discreet black dress with its party touch of satin at the waist and so obviously nothing but Lou inside it. She'd have been much more respectable in a tram-parent negligee.

She murmured, rather abashed, "I didn't realize… I look practically indecent, don't I?"

"Practically?"

She laughed, and shaped the black cloth to her breasts with her hands, a little defiantly. "They're kind of small," she said. "I always wondered if any other animal besides hian… I mean, do you think bulls, for instance, go for the cows with the biggest udders?"

"Don't be snide," I said. "You're just jealous."

"Naturally," she said. "I'd just love to have them out to here… well, I guess I wouldn't, really. Think of the responsibility. It would be like owning a couple of priceless works of art. This way, I don't have to spend my life living up to them."

I said, "If current fashions continue, I suppose we'll eventually wind up with a whole race of skinny women with giant tits."

She said, quite primly, "I think the discussion has gone far enough in that direction."

She was a funny girl. "Do you object to the word?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, and tried to free herself again. "And I don't really want to go to bed with you again right now, certainly not with my one good dress on, so please let me •.. Matti"

I'd pulled her down on top of me. "You should have thought of that-" I said, rather breathlessly, as, holding her in my arms, I reversed our positions by rolling over with her-"you should have thought of that before you started looking so goddamn sexy."

"Matt!" she wailed, struggling ineffectually among the bedclothes. "Matt, I really don't want… Oh, all right darling," she breathed, "all right, all right, just give me a chance to kick my shoes off, will you, and please be careful of my dress!"