She turned her eyes on me, rather shy and warm eyes that cause men to manufacture dreams. There were little fires burning in them, small glowing coals a man delights to look into across the breakfast table.
“I skate as often as I may,” she told me. “I would have liked to skate tonight, but—”
“But what?” I prompted patiently.
“It is too thin,” she finished lamely. The girl was obviously lying; it embarrassed her to know that I realized it. She hadn’t intended to say that at all. Even her voice refused to underwrite the answer. She recovered herself and directed attention away from the lie by a direct question.
“Do you, sir?”
“Roller skating,” I backed out hastily. “I have to have wheels under me; I’ve never been on ice skates in my life. Perhaps I could learn?” But she didn’t accept the suggestion.
“The ice is wonderful. You’d like it.” And with that her attention went back to her driving and stayed there. She seemed to feel somewhat guilty about it.
I tried to say: “My name is—” but she cut it off.
“Don’t. It’s better I didn’t know, sir.”
“Excuse me,” I protested. “I’m not getting smart. I only wanted to get acquainted with you.”
She smiled softly as though she were pleased. The smile would wear well, too, across a breakfast table.
“Perhaps I’ll be driving again some night soon, sir.”
“Perhaps.”
I had been thinking for some minutes that I was already skating, and on very thin ice. The Chinese doll supposed I had been ‘there’ before, and that I would return again. I realized then I would have to maintain that illusion, not only for her but for whatever might follow. Which could be difficult, at best. The doll’s particular job was plain enough: she was operating a regular and scheduled commuting service from some unknown point to some equally unknown point.
Well — in all fairness, perhaps neither point was wholly unknown. I had climbed in the car at one point, and I was beginning to entertain suspicions as to the second point. If my suspicions proved true, I was going to be awfully disappointed in my judgment and the doll.
We were leaving the houses behind and passing a few boarded-up gas stations. I was peering out the window again when the girl abruptly whipped the car around in a tight twist to enter a narrow, rutted lane. The sudden movement threw me against the side of the car.
She spoke briefly, “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Okay,” I returned. “Should have remembered it.”
She accepted it as a right answer. Reaching out with one hand, she snapped off the headlights. The coupe continued to bounce slowly along, partly guided by the ruts. Outside my window I caught an astonishingly near glimpse of the lake. The lake was just beyond the fender tips.
“You’re a damned good driver,” I said admiringly.
“Thank you, sir.” And then she added, “You’re a good sport, sir.”
“Meaning what?”
There was a minute silence. Finally, “Usually men start something when we turn out the lights here.”
It was my turn to be embarrassed, and I used a non-committal throat-clearing to cover my reaction to the information she had just given me. “Usually men...” and “when we turn out the lights...” Especially the use of “We.”
Much to my relief we left the lake behind, passed the snow-covered bandstand and picnic tables, and headed towards an old, unpainted barn standing gloomily in the far corner of the field. A fisherman’s cabin stood in darkness off to the right, near the lake’s edge. It was much too dark to look for previous tire marks but the Chinese doll was supremely sure of herself.
The gun holster under my armpit began to itch and I had the first faint qualms over the foolhardiness of my act. I mentally apologized to the girl for my half-formed suspicions.
She drove the coupe up to one corner of the barn.
There was a small, shack-like structure adjoining it on the side nearest us. This was the end of the line, the second point on the commuting schedule and every passing second found me more and more convinced the barn did not house the girls from Croyden.
Partly pushing open the door of the car, I turned to the girl and slid my hand into my trouser pocket.
“I’d like to—”
“No sir,” she cut me off quickly and politely, all the friendliness of a few minutes ago vanished into the darkness around us. “I cannot accept money, sir.”
What was I to do? I did it. I got out, said “Thank you,” and “Good night,” and closed the car door. She drove off at once, retracing the lakeside route we had just traveled. I stood there and watched the dark blotch of the coupe until she again switched on the lights as she neared the highway.
At that moment the little guy who sits behind my eyes and watches over me said, “Do something, Charles Home. Somebody is looking at you.”
A lot could depend on what I did next. I was an outsider, unaware and unprepared for the next step — or what was expected of the next step.
The Chinese doll had left me there because she believed I knew what to do. The somebody who was watching me was waiting for me to do it. There was only the barn, which was the lock, the key and the riddle. I knew from experience it was smarter to force the key for any lock to come to me. Much smarter than to display my ignorance by fussing with the lock. And safer. Like the old stall of escaping undue attention by inviting ordinary attention.
I put my hands in my pocket, turned towards the barn and took a single step, scraping the snow off a patch of ground with my shoe. At the same time I pulled one hand out of my pocket and deliberately dropped my keyring on the ground. The keys made a pleasing jangle as they struck the hard-packed earth. I swore at them softly and sincerely.
A door gently creaked and the lock began to open.
Dropping swiftly to one knee I pulled out a packet of matches and lit one, cupping my hands over the flame to hide the flare from my face and direct the light towards the ground.
Instantly a voice hissed from the shack doorway.
“Put out that light, Jack!”
I did, and could have gratefully kissed the owner of the voice.
I complained to it, “I’ve dropped my keys.”
“Wait a minute, Jack. Wait.”
This time the voice was milder, more natural. I waited. Someone was kneeling beside me. The someone flashed and just as carefully shielded from his face a narrow-beamed pen light onto the snow. He kept his other hand out of sight. It would be in his coat pocket, clutching something nasty.
“Where?” he asked me.
“Over here. Move your foot. There... there they are.” I snatched them up and the flashlight blacked out. We got up and he followed me into the shack. I stopped just inside the door while he closed it behind us and snapped on an overhead light.
The shack was light-tight and several degrees warmer. There was another door leading into the barn but it wasn’t open yet.
The man facing me, searching my face and my clothes, was a kindly appearing middle-aged gent with slowly silvering hair. He wore crinkles around pale blue eyes, the kind of crinkles you find on people who have lived in California or Florida; sun crinkles. A smile played just behind his lips. He was cleanly shaven and nicely dressed. He reminded me of the fatherly, benevolent characters you see playing judges and senators in the movies.
The nice old gentleman examined me all over. The smile hiding behind his lips deepened and almost showed itself. I wanted to grin back at him.
“Jack, Jack—” He shook his dignified head slowly and in a sad, reproving manner. “You know you can’t take that gun in there with you.”
He was good, that fellow. Tell that to a dozen people who might be carrying guns and ten of them will admit that they are, swallowing the accusation whole. This man wasn’t merely firing arrows into the air on the off-chance he might hit a duck. He knew where the duck was hiding. He was looking at my shoulder, looking through my overcoat.