Well, you can take a few more yards of that and cut it to fit. It was too bad in a way. I have some sympathy for the misguided young coffee-shop intellectuals, but they don't really tug at my heartstrings. But I couldn't help remembering this girl at the river with a fishing rod in her hand. Whether or not it had been an act for my benefit that particular morning, at some time she must have been truly fond of the outdoors to have learned the techniques so well. She undoubtedly had other talents and virtues; she might be straightened out if somebody wanted to take the time and trouble-and could talk the California police into overlooking an accessory-to-murder charge. Neither was likely. She might be worth saving, but nobody was going to bother. Certainly I wasn't. Saving young doomsday cynics from themselves wasn't what I'd been sent up here for. Quite the contrary.
I caught a glimpse of my watch as I reached for the coffeepot once more. I was surprised to see that it read well past eleven. We'd been playing her delaying game for more than an hour. It should be enough, I decided. Anyway, I'd learned what I wanted to know, as much of it as I could expect to get from her, and I was tired of games. I didn't particularly want to see her go into the sexy Mata Hari act I figured had to come next because it practically always does.
I refilled our cups once more, put the pot back on the stove, and said, "Actually, I may not have to murder anybody else tonight, if I can persuade you to show some sense for a change."
Her eyes widened slightly. "What do you mean?"
"Bellman, I'm a pro," I said. "Three of your friends have already died trying to take me. They haven't even come close." This wasn't quite true-it had been close enough in that cabin before Stottman took a hand-but we weren't dealing with truth here. I went on harshly: "Why don't you get smart before it happens to you?"
She licked her lips. "I… I don't understand…"
"Sure you do. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Now listen closely. I've got orders concerning you, but I'm allowed some discretion. Suppose you give me your word that you'll beat it out of here and go straight home without talking to anybody, taking your friend outside with you…', She was pretty good. She didn't really start; she just sat very, very still for a moment, holding in the start that wanted to betray her. After a brief delay, she managed to put a puzzled frown on her face.
"My friend? I don't know what you mean!"
I went on as if she hadn't spoken. "Of course, the whole deal depends on what he fed my dog. I suppose that's why you've been stalling, to give it time to take effect. If it was something like strychnine, to hell with both of you. But if it was just a harmless knockout drug to let him get that collar, we can work it out. Signal your boy to come in here unarmed, with his hands up, bringing the collar with him. Promise you won't talk, and tell me what the pup got and what the antidote is. I'm kind of fond of him; besides, I'm going to need him for identification again, farther up the line. You do that, and I'll forget my orders and turn you both loose." I looked at her across the table. "Well, what do you say?"
She was back in control once more. She gave me the straight, level, clear-eyed look of the accomplished liar. "Honest, I don't know what you're talking about! There were only the four of us, and three are dead. I'm right here. Who's left to be prowling around outside? You're just imagining things."
It was what I'd expected, of course, but it was still too bad. If she'd accepted the deal, I'd have been stuck with it. Maybe I'd even wanted to be stuck with it, a little.
"Sure," I said. I rose and pulled out the short-barreled Colt revolver. "Sure. So let's go out there and look. If I'm wrong, we'll find nothing but an empty campground and a sleeping pup… After you, Miss Bellman."
I gestured with the gun. With her eyes on the weapon, not speaking, she rose stiffly and moved to the door and looked back. I nodded for her to open it, and she did.
16
THE NIGHT WAS CLEAR AND CALM and moonless. The stars were bright enough up there, but they didn't give much light down here. I let the girl stand in the illuminated doorway for a moment, and showed myself close behind her, to make the situation clear to anyone outside. Then I switched out the camper lights.
Pat Bellman started to look around. I said, a little more loudly than would have been necessary if I'd been speaking to her alone, which I wasn't: "Eyes front, doll, straight ahead now and no tricks. The first twig that snaps, the first shadow that moves, and this.357 blows a hole right through you, back to front."
In ordinary circumstances, against professional opposition, this would have been a waste of good menace. All pros are expendable, and a gun in the back of one means nothing to another with a job to do. But I was gambling that I still had one more amateur to deal with, confused by unprofessional notions of comradeship and loyalty.
If I was wrong-if, for instance, Mr. Soo had decided to come up here and intervene personally-I was apt to be shot very dead very soon. That I'd probably take the girl with me would be of no consequence to Mr. Soo; he could spare an occidental female or two. But in my favor was the fact that any operative of Mr. Soo's caliber, having got what he came for, as by this time he should have, wouldn't hang around to perform a sentimental rescue of an irrelevant blonde.
The girl in front of me stepped to the ground and wriggled uncomfortably against the pressure of the gun barrel as I stayed right with her.
"Really, you're being unnecessarily melodramatic."
"Hank," I called, ignoring her. "Wake up, pup. Hank!" There was no response. Pat Bellman said, "Maybe he slipped his collar and ran off."
"Sure," I said. "Like your imaginary bitch opened her kennel door. He slipped his collar, all right, or it was slipped. But I don't think he ran off. Go straight ahead along the chain now…"
The galvanized chain was a pale streak along the ground. I couldn't see anything at the end of it, but a black dog is hard to see against a dark background on a dark night. Then the chain ended.
"Stop right there," I said, bending down cautiously to examine the empty snaphook. I dropped it, and straightened up. I said harshly, "You've got one more chance. Call in your boy, fast!"
"I told you, there's nobody… Wait a minute, there's your dog! On the ground way over there. At least there's something black… Oh!"
Moving off, she stumbled over something on the ground: the black pup, not off where she'd pointed, but right near the end of the chain where he'd logically be and where, I had no doubt, she had seen him plainly. But it gave her an excuse to lose her balance and fall, or pretend to fall. Actually, it was a little more than a fall,. it was a kind of tumbling somersault, as she went diving over the shadowy form on the ground headfirst, lit on one shoulder, and kept rolling.
It was prettily done. It showed some nice gymnastic training. There were only two or three different split seconds in which I could have drilled her. However, she wasn't the one I wanted at the moment. She had no gun; she'd keep. And I didn't want to produce any bright Magnum muzzle-flashes for her associate to zero in on.
She was calling as she rolled: "All right, Wally! Now!"
The gun opened up from the bushes to the left, near the creek, but I've had a little training, too, and I was already flat on the ground, with my face well down, so there was nothing but shadows for Wally to shoot at. His bullets- small ones, perhaps.22s-pecked at the dirt off to one side. An occasional slug found a pebble to glance off and went screaming away into the distance. Meanwhile I was aware that Pat Bellman had found her feet and was sprinting in the direction of the highway.