"Take another step forward and hold it," I said.
"May I?"
"What?"
"It's an old game," she said. "Children play it. It's called Giant Step. You have to ask 'may I' before you move."
It was too bad. I'd warned her. If she'd been a man, she'd have got it squarely across the mouth as I'd promised. Since she was a girl-a girl who looked just a little like my wife-I clipped her above the ear, instead. She swayed, and started to raise her hand to the side of her head, but remembered the gun, and stopped the risky movement. When she looked at me again, her gray eyes were wet with pain. I was giving her a bad time. Well, I wasn't having much fun myself.
I said, "Mrs. Chatham, I once spent four hard years at this business. I know all about the technique of chattering brightly to distract the opposition. I can't afford to believe anything you tell me, so I don't intend to waste time listening to it. The next time you open your mouth without being asked, you'll lose some teeth. Is that clear?" She didn't speak. I repeated: "Is it clear?"
"Yes," she whispered, hating me. "Yes, it's clear."
"All right. Now, one step forward without comments. If you please."
She took the step. That put her far enough from the bed so I could search all parts of it she could have reached without being within too easy range of any tricks she might know. I suspected that, with her physique, given an opening, she'd be as hard to handle as lots of men who thought they were really tough. I didn't find ~anything hidden in the bed.
I straightened up, frowning. There were two separate problems involved. There was the problem of Tina's sudden defection, if that was what it was-and now that I thought about it, it occurred to me that she'd kind of made a point, earlier, of saying: goodbye, don 't hate me. In the long run, this might be the more serious problem, but for the moment I thought I could pass it up. I'd just have to figure the immediate play without Tina, that was all.
Then there was the problem of the girl before me and the man behind her-because somewhere in the background, I knew, there was a man, a very smart and dangerous man, thinking very clever thoughts. I'd underestimated him seriously once tonight, when I'd assumed he'd set a simple and obvious trap here. I couldn't afford~to make the same mistake again. He had something more complicated in mind. I didn't have too much time left to figure out what it was.
I looked at the girl again. Well, it was the logical next step. I said, "Strip."
"What?"
"Take it off. Remove it. Peel."
"But-"
I shifted the gun to my left hand, and reached in my pocket for the knife. I flicked it open one-handed, grasping the exposed part of the blade and giving that quick snap of the wrist that lets the weight of the handle carry it open.
"No," I said as the girl's eyes widened, "I'm not going to threaten you. I don't have to. I've skinned rabbits. I've skinned deer. I've skinned bear, moose, and elk. Any man who's wrestled a bull-elk hide ought. be able to dispose of a tweed suit, a sweater, and some assorted nylon junk. Of course, the clothes aren't likely to be much good to you after I get through cutting them off you."
We stared at each other for several seconds; then her glance dropped and she unbuttoned and pulled off her jacket, hesitated, and laid it on the rug at her feet. Reluctantly, she unzipped and unhooked the fastenings at the side of her skirt. I put the knife away and got the gun back into my right hand. I used to be a passable shot with my left hand, too-we all had to be-but that was a long time ago.
"Just let it fall and step out of it," I said as she still stood there, clinging to her opened, sagging skirt. "Keep working, I haven't any designs on your white body, Mrs. Chatham, but I'm apt to get some if you keep teasing me like this."
She flushed, and hurried up the rhythm of her undressing. As might have been expected from her low heels and tweedy outer garments, her lingerie was as unglamorous as could be found outside a men's wear department. There was no lace or embroidery, there were no little pleated nylon ruffles to tickle Mr. Chatham's fancy, if there was a Mr. Chatham and if he had a fancy. Probably his name was Joe Jones, he liked small blondes, and he was just along for the ride, on orders.
When we got down to it, her figure was quite admirable, although it was, if you'll pardon the expression, a studio figure rather than a bedroom figure. It made my fingers itch, but only for a camera.
"All right," I said, "come away from your clothes. Over here." She obeyed, and tried to confront me defiantly, but she couldn't look me in the face. Well, it was kind of nice to meet one who was self-conscious about her body, for a change… I checked that line of thought. Tina was gone. There wasn't anything to be gained by being bitter, at least until I knew for sure I had something to be bitter about. "Lock your hands behind your back," I said to the girl. "Okay, now bend towards me. If those hands let go of each other, I'll club you down."
She bent forward, and I ran my fingers through her lightbrown hair. I found only a small lump over her ear that I had put there. There was nothing taped to her scalp. There was nothing under her armpits or in any of the other crevices of her body. I don't know where they got her, she was almost a pathological case. She'd have to get over it before she could be trusted with serious work. In other respects, she'd done quite well, but who can use an operative, male or female, who can't stand being searched without half dying of embarrassment?
I made her place her hands flat against the wall, leaning well forward, and hold that position precariously while I searched her clothes. If she was carrying so much as a cyanide capsule, it was too well hidden for me to find without methodically dissecting her outfit, seam by seam, and it wasn't that important. She was certainly packing no major weapon, not even a razorblade.
"All right, Mrs. Chatham," I said. "You may cover it up now." She didn't seem to catch on right away. I said gently, "It's all right, Shorty. The nightmare is over. Put your things back on."
She didn't speak until she'd got dressed as far as her slip, a very plain and practical white garment. Then, with enough clothes on to give her courage again, she glanced at me quickly. "I hope somebody does shoot you!" she breathed. "I hope they're careful, so you don't die too fast. And now go ahead and hit me for talking without permission!"
I said, "It's all right. Blow off steam if you want to. You're pretty good, you know, but you've got to get over dying of shame just because some guy who doesn't give a damn sees you with your clothes off… I mean, just a little advice from one pro to another."
She said, "What makes you think I'm a-"
"You made two mistakes, Mrs. Chatham. Or let's say you made the same mistake twice."
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
I said, "Despite what you're thinking of me, I'm not really a sadist. I don't jab pretty girls with knives just for kicks."
Her eyelids flickered. Practically everybody's got some little give-away, particularly the young ones who need further instruction. This was hers. She rubbed her side with her forearm, where I'd stuck her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," I said, "it was a test and you failed it, Shorty. You should have screamed. A nice, innocent, sheltered young girl, suddenly stuck with a knife, would have jumped six feet in the air and yelled bloody murder, even in the middle of a hotel lobby. She couldn't have helped herself. And when I smacked you with the gun-barrel, you didn't clap your hand to the spot-the nonnal reaction. Oh, you started to, all right, but you remembered that there was a weapon covering you and that if you made a sudden move I might get nervous and shoot. After a painful crack on the head, no untrained young bride from the country would have remembered that, or had the self-control to act on it..