"Nope. Philly," I lied.
For some reason I was making her mighty nervous. It wasn't my driving because I was holding it to a steady thirty to keep inside the green lights. I tried another grin. This time she smiled back and worried the fingers of her gloves.
I couldn't get over it, Ethel Brighton a Commie! Her old man would tan her hide no matter how old she was if he ever heard about it. But what the hell, she wasn't the only one with plenty of rocks who got hung up on the red flag. I said, "It hasn't been too easy for you to keep all this under your hat, has it?"
Her hands stopped working the glove. "N-no. I've managed, though."
"Yeah. You've done a good job."
"Thank you."
"Oh, no thanks at all, kid. For people with intelligence it's easy. When you're, er, getting these donations, don't people sorta wonder where it's going?"
She scowled again, puzzled. "I don't think so. I thought that was explained quite fully in my report."
"It was, it was. Don't get me wrong. We have to keep track of things, you know. Situations change." It was a lot of crap to me, but it must have made sense to her way of thinking.
"Usually they're much too busy to listen to my explanations, and anyway, they can deduct the amounts from their income tax."
"They ought to be pretty easy to touch, then."
This time she smiled a little. "They are. They think it's for charity."
"Uh-huh. Suppose your father finds out what you've been doing?"
The way she recoiled you'd think I smacked her. "Oh . . . please, you wouldn't!"
"Take it easy, kid. I'm only supposing."
Even in the dull light of the dash I could see how pale she was. "Daddy would . . . never forgive me. I think he'd send me some place. He'd disinherit me completely." She shuddered, her hands going back to the glove again. "He'll never know. When he does it will be too late!"
"Your emotions are showing through, kid."
"So would yours if . . . oh . . . oh . . . I didn't mean . . ." Her expression made a sudden switch from rage to that of fear. It wasn't a nice fear, it was more like that of the girl on the bridge.
I looked over slowly, an angle creeping into the corner of my mind. "I'm not going to bite. Maybe you can't say things back there in front of the others, but sometimes I'm not like them. I can understand problems. I have plenty of my own."
"But you . . . you're . . ."
"I'm what?"
"You know." She bit into her lip, looking at me obliquely. I nodded as if I did.
"Will you be here long?"
"Maybe," I shrugged. "Why?"
The fear came back. "Really, I wasn't asking pointed questions. Honest I wasn't. I just meant . . . I meant with the . . . other being killed and all, well . . ."
Damn it, she let her sentence trail off as if I was supposed to know everything that went on. What the hell did they take me for anyway? It was the same thing all night!
"I'll be here," I said.
We went over the bridge and picked a path through the late traffic in Manhattan. I went north to Times Square and pulled into the curb. "This is as far as I go, sugar. Thanks for the ride. I'll probably be seeing you again."
Her eyes went wide again. Brother, she could sure do things with those eyes. She gasped, "Seeing me?"
"Sure, why not?"
"But . . . you aren't . . . I never supposed . . ."
"That I might have a personal interest in a woman?" I finished.
"Well, yes."
"I like women, sugar. I always have and always will."
For the first time she smiled a smile she meant. She said, "You aren't a bit like I thought you'd be. Really. I like you. The other . . . agent . . . he was so cold that he scared me."
"I don't scare you?"
"You could . . . but you don't."
I opened the door. "Good night, Ethel."
"Good night." She slid over under the wheel and gunned the motor. I got one last quick smile before she pulled away.
What the hell. That's all I could think of. What the hell. All right, just what the hell was going on? I walked right into a nest of Commies because I flashed a green card and they didn't say a word, not one word. They played damn fool kids' games with me that any jerk could have caught, and bowed and scraped like I was king.
Not once did anyone ask my name.
Read the papers today. See what it says about the Red Menace. See how they play up their sneaking, conniving ways. They're supposed to be clever, bright as hell. They were dumb as horse manure as far as I was concerned. They were a pack of bugs thinking they could outsmart a world. Great. That coffee-urn trick was just great.
I walked down the street to a restaurant that was still open and ordered a plate of ham and eggs.
It was almost two o'clock when I got home. The rain had stopped long ago, but it was still up there, hanging low around the buildings, reluctant to let the city alone. I walked up to my apartment and shoved the key in the lock. My mind kept going back to Gladow, trying to make sense of his words, trying to fit them into a puzzle that had no other parts.
I could remember his speaking about somebody's untimely death. Evidently I was the substitute sent on in his place. But whose death? That sketch in the paper was a lousy one. Fat boy didn't look a bit like that sketch. All right then, who? There was only one other guy with a green card who was dead, the guy Lee Deamer was supposed to have killed.
Him. He's the one, I thought. I was his replacement. But what was I supposed to be?
There was just too much to think about; I was too tired to put my mind to it. You don't kill a fat man and see a girl die because of the look on your face and get involved with a Commie organization all in two days without feeling your mind sink into a soggy ooze that drew it down deeper and deeper until it relaxed of its own accord and you were asleep.
I sat slumped in the chair, the cigarette that had dropped from my fingers had burned a path through the rug at right angles with another. The bell shrilled and shrilled until I thought it would never stop. My arm going out to the phone was an involuntary movement, my voice just happened to be there.
I said hello.
It was Pat and he had to yell at me a half-dozen times before I snapped out of it. I grunted an answer and he said, "Too late for you, Mike?"
"It's four o'clock in the morning. Are you just getting up or just going to bed?"
"Neither. I've been working."
"At this hour?"
"Since six this evening. How's the vacation?"
"I called it off."
"Really now. Just couldn't bear to leave the city, could you? By the way, did you find any more green cards with the ends snipped off?"
The palms of my hands got wet all of a sudden. "No."
"Are you interested in them at all?"
"Cut the comedy, Pat. What're you driving at? It's too damn late for riddles."
"Get over here, Mike," his voice was terse. "My apartment, and make it as fast as you can."
I came awake all at once, shaking the fatigue from my brain. "Okay, Pat," I said, "give me fifteen minutes." I hung up and slipped into my coat.
It was easier to grab a cab than wheel my car out of the garage. I shook the cabbie's shoulder and gave him Pat's address, then settled back against the cushions while we tore across town. We made it with about ten seconds to spare and I gave the cabbie a fin for his trouble.
I looked up at the sky before I went in. The clouds had broken up and let the stars come through. Maybe tomorrow will be nice, I thought. Maybe it will be a nice normal day without all the filth being raked to the top. Maybe. I pushed Pat's bell and the door buzzed almost immediately.
He was waiting outside his apartment when I got off the elevator. "You made it fast, Mike."