Ben was pensive for a while before he said, "You know, if I was going up that hill with anybody—excepting you, of course—I'd want to be roped to Anderl."
"Makes sense. But you better keep your hands out of the larder."
"Yeah! How about that? When he decides to climb a mountain, he don't fool around none."
"Evidently not." Jonathan rose. "I'm going to my room. See you at supper."
"What about lunch?"
"No. I'll be down in the village."
"Got a little something waiting for you down there?"
"Yes."
Jonathan sat by the window in his room, staring out toward the mountain and bringing his thoughts into order. The bold appearance of Pope had been a surprise; for an instant he had been off balance. There had been no time to consider Dragon's reasons for so blatantly rupturing his cover. Because Dragon was chained immobile to his dark, antiseptic cell in New York, it was the face and person of Clement Pope that were universally recognized as SS Division leadership. There could be only one reason for his making so flagrantly open a contact. Jonathan became tight with anger at the recognition of it.
The anticipated knock came, and Jonathan crossed to the door and opened it.
"How's it been going, Hemlock?" Pope extended his broad businessman's hand which Jonathan ignored, closing the door behind them. Pope lowered himself with a grunt into the chair Jonathan had been occupying. "Nice place you got here. Going to offer me a drink?"
"Get on with it, Pope."
Pope's laugh lacked joy. "OK, pal, if that's the game you want to play, we'll use your ball park. Dismiss formalities and get to the nitty and the gritty. Right?"
As Pope tugged a small packet of note cards from his inside coat pocket, Jonathan noticed he was starting to run to fat. An athlete in his college days, Pope was still strong in a slow, massive way, but Jonathan estimated that he could be put away fairly easily. And he had every intention of putting him away—but not until he had drained him of useful information.
"Let's get the little fish out of the pond first, Hemlock, so we can clear the field of fire."
Jonathan crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the door. "Let's mix any metaphors you want."
Pope glanced at his first note card. "You wouldn't have any news about the whereabouts of active 365/55—a certain Jemima Brown, would you?"
"I would not."
"You better be telling it like it is, pal. Mr. Dragon would be mucho pissed off to discover that you'd harmed her. She was just following our orders. And now she's disappeared."
Jonathan reflected on the fact that Jemima was in the village and that he would be meeting her within the hour. "I doubt that you'll ever find her."
"Don't make book on it, baby. SS has a long arm."
"Next card?"
Pope slipped the top card to the bottom of the pack and glanced at the next. "Oh, yeah. You really left us with a mess, baby."
Jonathan smiled, a gentle calm in his eyes. "That's twice you've called me 'baby.' "
"That's kind of a burr under your blanket, isn't it?"
"Yes. Yes, it is," Jonathan admitted with quiet honesty.
"Well, that's just tough titty, pal. The days are long gone when we had to worry about your feelings."
Jonathan took a long breath to contain his feelings, and he asked, "You were saying something about a mess?"
"Yeah. We had teams all over that desert trying to find out what happened."
"And did you?"
"The second day we came across the car and that guy you blew out of it."
"What about the other one?"
"Miles Mellough? I had to leave before we found him. But I got word just before I left New York that one of our teams had located him."
"Dead, I presume."
"Plenty dead. Exposure, hunger, thirst. They don't know which he died of first. But he was beaucoup dead. They buried him out on the desert." Pope snickered. "Weird thing."
"Weird?"
"He must have been real hard up for chow there toward the last."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. He ate a dog."
Jonathan glanced down.
Pope went on. "You know how much it cost us? That search? And keeping the whole thing quiet?"
"No. But I assume you'll tell me."
"No, I won't. That information's classified. But we get a little tired of the way you irregulars burn money like it was going out of style."
"That's always been a burr under your blanket, hasn't it, Pope? The fact that men like me earn more for one job than you get in three years."
Pope sneered, an expression his face seemed particularly designed for.
"I admit that it would be more economical," Jonathan said, "if you SS regulars did your own sanctioning. But the work requires skill and some physical courage. And those qualities are not available on government requisition forms."
"I'm not pissed about the money you're making on this particular job. This time you're going to earn it, baby."
"I was hoping you'd get around to that."
"You've already guessed—a big university professor like you must have guessed by now."
"I'd enjoy hearing it from you."
"Whatever turns you on. It's different strokes for different folks, I guess." He flicked to the next card. "Search has drawn a blank on your target. We know he's here. And he's on this climb with you. But we don't know which one for sure."
"Miles Mellough knew."
"Did he tell you?'
"He offered to. The price was too high."
"What did he want?"
"To live."
Pope looked up from the note card. He did his best to appear coldly professional as he nodded in sober understanding. But the cards fell from his knee, and he had to paw around to collect them.
Jonathan watched him with distaste. "So you've set me up to make the target commit himself, right?"
"No other way, buddy-boy. We figured the target would recognize me on sight. And now he has you spotted as a Sanction man. He's got to take a crack at you before you get him. And when he does, I have him identified."
"And who would do the sanction, if he got me?" Jonathan looked Pope over leisurely. "You?"
"You don't think I could handle it?"
Jonathan smiled. "In a locked closet, maybe. With a grenade."
"Don't bet on that, buddy. As it happens, we're going to bring in another Sanction man to do the job."
"I assume this was your idea?"
"Dragon OK'd it, but it came from me."
Jonathan's face was set in his gentle combat smile. "And it really doesn't matter that you've blown my cover, now that I have decided to stop working for you."
"That is exactly the way it crumbles." Pope was enjoying his moment of victory after so many years of smarting under Jonathan's open disdain.
"What if I just walk away and forget the whole thing?"
"No way, pal. You wouldn't get your hundred thousand; you'd lose your house; we'd confiscate your paintings; and you'd probably do a little time for smuggling them into the country. How does it feel to be in a box, pal?"
Jonathan crossed to pour himself a Laphroaig. Then he laughed aloud. "You've done well, Pope. Really very well! Want a drink?"
Pope was not sure how to handle this sudden cordiality. "Well, that's mighty white of you, Hemlock." He laughed as he received his glass. "Hey, I just said that was mighty white of you. I'll bet this Jemima Brown never said that to you. Right?"
Jonathan smiled beautifically. "No. As a matter of fact, she never did."
"Hey, tell me. How is that black stuff? Good, eh?"
Jonathan drank off half his glass and sat in a chair opposite Pope's, leaning toward him confidentially. "You know, Pope, I really ought to tell you in advance that I intend to waste you a little." He winked playfully. "You would understand that, in a case like this, wouldn't you?"
"Waste me? What do you mean?"
"Oh, Just West Side slang. Look, if Dragon would rather I did the sanction myself—and I assume he would—I'm going to need a little information. Go over the Montreal thing with me. There were two men involved in the hit on whatshisname, right?"