I nodded and studied her for a moment, knowing that we were far enough north now that there was nothing much inland of us but wilderness, clear across the North American continent. It didn't seem like the place for a fragile little blonde in a pale blue linen playsuit.
"You'd better watch yourself when you go back to whatever it is you're doing," I said. "I figure I'm under suspicion-if nothing else, the fact that Holz is heading this way proves that. If your Communist associates suddenly and unexpectedly picked you to make contact with me, that could mean their top brass has its eye on you, too, and brought us together for some tricky reasons of their own."
She moved her shoulders briefly. "it's occurred to me, but there isn't much I can do about it."
"Why didn't you identify yourself when we met in the bar?"
"Your brunette sexpot was sneaking around. I didn't want her to get any ideas… " Ellen steadied her cup as a series of mild jolts went through the ship; then she drank the last of her chocolate and stood up. "I guess that means we're docking. I'd better get down to the car deck. Good luck, Eric."
"The same," I said.
She was laughing gaily as she left the table, as if we'd just shared a final joke. "Tell that pretty black doggie goodnight for me," she called in a high sweet voice and was gone.
I waited awhile; then I went out on deck. Visibility was poor, so I can't say much about the town of Petersburg, only about the dock, and it looked pretty much like any ferry slip in a fog at night. I stood on deck watching the cars drive ashore without knowing which one was being driven by the girl who'd called herself Blish. Checking up on my Communist contact, even to the extent of identifying her transportation, would have been contrary to my orders. Well, Grant Nystrom's orders.
Then I watched the cars come on board. It should have been an equally profitless occupation since, from my observation post high above the loading ramp, I couldn't see anything of the drivers. Luck was in my favor, however, if it was luck. Presently a white station wagon nosed its way down to the hole in the ship's side and out of sight; an elderly Plymouth built back in the days when that particular company was conducting some unique experiments with tortured sheet metal. I knew the car. I'd sat in it once with a gun at my head, far to the south in a town on the banks of the Columbia River.
I drew a long breath and made my way below. I went straight to my truck, resisting the temptation to do a little scouting among the newly loaded cars up forward. We were pulling away from the dock, and barring accidents, murders, or helicopters, whoever had driven the Plymouth aboard would still be on the ship in the morning.
I checked the camper door. My faithful telltales indicated that my guest had either been very clever or had stayed put as I'd told her to. There was no indication that she'd been away from the truck. I stepped inside and turned on the light. Libby sat up in bed abruptly, as if startled out of a sound sleep. Her short, dark hair was tousled and she was wearing a wristwatch and nothing else. She ran her fingers through the hair and glanced at the watch.
"My God, I must have fallen asleep again," she said, yawning. "What took you so long?"
"Blondie said she was leaving the ship here. I wanted to make sure she did."
"Did she give you the right coin this time?"
"I hope so. I haven't had a chance to check it out."
"Are you going to let me see it?" she asked, swinging her legs out of bed.
"Sure," I said. "We're colleagues, aren't we; fellow soldiers in the secret war against international evil?"
Libby laughed. "You don't sound as if you trust me very much, darling."
I grinned and picked up a handful of lacy black stuff that had somehow found its way to the floor and tossed it at her.
"You'd better put this on, for what it's worth," I said, "so I can keep my mind on numismatics."
Actually, sexy as she looked sitting there naked, she wasn't distracting me at all. I opened the phony quarter and found the tinfoil disk that was supposed to be there, but my mind wasn't on coins, either, no matter what interesting material they might contain. I was thinking very hard about an Indian called Pete and a car I knew that he knew damn well I knew. Say he'd come this far up the coast on an earlier ferry, which was quite possible. Say he'd left his station wagon in Petersburg, flown north to Anchorage, and returned in time to meet my ship with his rather distinctive old vehicle, the question was why.
It looked as if I was being presented with something clever in the way of decoys, meant to attract my attention to one man while I was being stalked by another.
22
SITKA LOOKED LIKE A CITY STILL under construction, which seemed odd considering that it was supposed to be one of the oldest communities on the coast, dating from the days when this far northwestern territory was claimed and governed by Russians. I decided that the unfinished effect was mostly due to the fact that the city fathers had apparently just discovered sidewalks and, mad about their new and unique invention, were laying concrete all over town.
It was raining steadily but not very energetically as the taxi carried me toward a display of totem poles that, I'd been told, was one of the main attractions of the place. This was not, however, my primary reason for going there. I was involved in another of the complicated contact routines some deskbound Communist genius had devised for the benefit of a courier named Nystrom.
After the ship had docked and the first rush of shoregoing passengers had subsided, I'd taken Hank for a walk so that he wouldn't forget what dry land looked like-not that any part of this drizzling region could really be called dry. At least the pup's welfare was the ostensible object of the expedition. Actually, I figured, I was displaying myself on shore with dog and whistle so somebody could get a good look at me for purposes of later recognition.
Hank had been deliriously happy at encountering grass and rocks and trees again after twenty-four hours of doing his stuff on greasy metal. I'd let him enjoy himself for ten minutes by the clock, after which I'd taken him back on board and stuck him into the camper to wake up Libby, figuring it was about time the girl got out of bed.
When I strolled off the landing ramp a second time, dogless, a taxi drove up right on schedule. Transporting me through the muddy little town, the cabby gave me a lengthy tourist spiel, telling me all about a pre-Communist Russian gent named Baranov who'd once been uncrowned king of the area; about a fine old Russian church that had burned down; and about the great Good Friday earthquake of a few years back that actually hadn't affected Sitka much although it had played hell elsewhere along this coast.
His chatter made me uneasy at first, but I came to the conclusion that it held no coded messages to which I was supposed to respond in kind. The guy was just talking because he was nervous, and because he always talked this way to tourists off the boat and wanted our relationship to look perfectly normal.
He let me out by a grove of totem poles standing in front of a neat, park-service-type building, inside which, I was sure, I could learn all about them if I had the time and the desire. The poles themselves were quite impressive: tall, slender timbers, carved and painted, reaching up into the gray sky. The mask-like wooden faces were much less garish than I'd been led to expect by photographs I'd seen, and the muted colors went well with the misty day.
But I hadn't come here to study primitive art, and I went on into the building and made a pretense of taking in the exhibits before wandering into the little movie theater off the lobby. It was dark inside. On the screen, a copper-faced gent was showing the steps involved in totem-pole construction. He reminded me a little of Pete, although Pete was probably not a member of the totem-carving Tlingit tribe.