She'd swung back to face Beth, who licked her lips. "I don't know what you-"
Moira had her by the arm. Before I understood what she was about, the two of them were at the bedroom door-the closed one. Moira turned the knob with her free hand, kicked the door open, and gave Beth a hard push.
"Can you take it, Mrs. Logan? Take a good look and go make your damn report!"
Chapter Sixteen
WHEN BETH came back from the bathroom, the kid had arranged a little tableau for her. I was sitting on the living-room sofa, and she was sitting cross-legged on the floor between my feet, and I was working on her hair with the towel. We must have looked quite cozy and domestic.
Beth came in looking pretty good, considering. She'd pulled herself together nicely; she just had the pale, shaken, slightly disheveled look of anyone who's just lost a meal down the drain. She stopped in the doorway to look at us, and I thought she winced slightly-I guess it's always hard to face the fact that anyone you've lived with for years can be happy with somebody else, doing all the things you used to do together, and maybe a few more besides.
Moira said, "I poured some coffee for you, Mrs. Logan. I think it's still hot… Ouch, take it easy, baby!"
Beth stood there looking at us for a moment longer. Something else was on her mind now; she looked kind of lost and bewildered.
"Coffee?" she said. "How can you…?" She glanced towards the closed door, and away. "Shouldn't we… do something?"
"What?" I asked. "Only God can do what they really need done."
"But-"
I said, "They'll keep. For a while at least." She winced again at my crudity, as she was supposed to do. It was time she woke up to the fact that she was in the big league now. She'd been in it before, of course, but she hadn't known about it until the very last. This time she'd married into it from choice, unless the Duke had deceived her about his background, and he looked like the kind who'd be honorable as hell about things like that. I said, "Something has to be done, sure, but when I do it, I want to know it's right. Sit down and drink your coffee, Beth."
I indicated a chair. She hesitated, and went quickly over and sat down. After a moment, she picked up the cup and saucer from the small table nearby and began to sip the coffee gingerly.
I said, "They were friends of the Duke's, weren't they?"
She didn't look up. "Please call him Larry," she said. "He's… trying to live down that other name and everything that went with it. Yes, they were his friends, or at least men he'd known when…" She stopped.
"When he was in the rackets," I said.
"Yes." Nobody said anything for a while. Beth lifted her head abruptly. "You have to understand. It was the children. He threatened to-"
"Who threatened?"
"Her father. Fredericks."
"Threatened to what?"
She looked at her coffee cup. "Terrible things. He was using the children-my children-as a club against Larry, to make him-"
"To make him what?" I asked when she stalled again.
She shook her head quickly. "I can't tell you that."
I passed it up, and said, "Logan's had a boy of his own for years. He's been vulnerable to that kind of threat for years. And if he's anything like the man I think he is, he'd know the way to deal with it."
She shook her head quickly. "He hasn't had me for years. Fredericks thought I… I'd weaken and put pressure on…" She was silent for a little while. Then she said breathlessly, "He was right! Oh, he was absolutely right! I couldn't stand it. Not knowing what might be happening when they were out of my sight for even a moment You saw the way it was out there. I was going crazy!"
"So the Duke decided to relieve the pressure?"
Beth hesitated, and glanced at Moira, and burst out, "Why should she be immune? If he can threaten my children-"
I said, "Well, it didn't work. It's kind of too bad. I don't figure the two goons were any great loss, but that was a damn nice dog."
Beth's head came up sharply. She looked at me, a glance of sheer horror. I wasn't showing the proper respect for human life. Well, it was time she got used to that.
I said, "There's just one thing everybody seems to have overlooked." Neither of them was obliging enough to feed me the proper question. Suddenly I felt old and sad and tired. I said, "Those are my children, too. If Duke Logan can't protect them properly, I guess I'll have to." Nobody said anything to that, either. I gave the kid's head a last vigorous rub, and dropped the towel over her face. "You're dry. Go comb yourself out, you look like Medusa with a head full of snakes."
"What are you going to do, baby?"
"I have to make a phone call. It's kind of confidential, so I'd appreciate it if you-both of you-would go into the other room and close the door."
Moira got up and turned to look at me searchingly. "I said you were a government man. I'll bet you're calling Washington."
She was perfectly right, of course. She usually was. I said, "Go comb your golden tresses like a good girl."
She studied me for a moment longer. Then she moved her shoulders minutely, dismissing whatever it was that had bothered her. I wished I could dismiss what was bothering me so easily.
"The gadget you want is over there," she said. "There are no extensions. Come on, Mrs. Logan, he wants privacy."
I watched them go out of the room together, Beth slender and ladylike and half a head taller. The kid looked small and bouncy beside her. I went to the phone and called the regular Washington number and went through the routine formalities. Then I had Mac on the line. One thing about the guy, he may be a tricky bastard to work for, but he's never off playing golf when you need him.
"Eric here," I said. "I thought you'd like to hear about my vacation, sir."
Mac's voice was dry. "Are you having a wonderful time, Eric? Do you wish I were there-so you could punch my nose?"
"You might have told me my family was involved."
"It seemed better to let you discover it for yourself," he said. "You might have had some inconvenient scruples about visiting them as an agent on official business; you might have felt I was asking you to spy on them."
"Weren't you?"
He laughed and ignored the question. His voice became more businesslike: "I'm acquainted with develop.. ments up to Paul's last report. I also have a medical statement indicating that Paul's injuries were more purposeful than malicious, if you know what I mean. Not that there weren't indications of gratuitous violence, but on the whole it appears that Paul's assailant had a definite aim in mind." Mac cleared his throat. "Did he talk?"
"Paul?" I said. "It would seem so."
"Your evidence?"
"Martell knows all about me, even to my code name. Of course, he might. have learned it elsewhere, but considering the short time I've been back in the service, it seems ~inlike1y." After a moment, guessing what was in Mac's mind, I said, "Anybody can be made to talk, sir."
"True, with reservations. But I wasn't criticizing Paul, only myself for putting him in that position. I.
shouldn't have sent him ahead to operate alone, Eric. I knew he wasn't up to it, not against a man like Martell. I…" There was a little silence. I was a little embarrassed. I mean, you don't want a guy like Mac to turn human on you. It shakes your faith in immutable things like life and death and the movements of the heavenly bodies. I heard him clear his throat again; then he said crisply: "Martell must have taken some action on his information, or you wouldn't know he had it."