"The grasshoppers?" she said. "Oh, you can chase them in The daytime, but I generally just pick them off the leaves after dark. What's his name?"
Her mind wasn't on angling either, I saw. She obviously was more interested in the pup.
"Hank," I said.
"No, I mean his real name."
"Oh. Well, officially he's Avon's Prince Hannibal of Holgate." I grinned. "If you want the works, his sire was Field Champion Avon's Prince Rufus, and his dam was Holgate's Black Donna… What's the matter?"
There was a funny look on her tomboy face. "He doesn't look like one of the Avon dogs. I've seen pictures of them in the magazines, and they're all built like Grey-hounds." She laughed quickly. "Not that I'm running down your dog; I like the small, stocky type of Lab myself. After all, if you're going to have a retriever, it ought to look like a retriever and not a racehorse, don't you think?" She hesitated but went on before I could speak. "Of course you have papers on him."
"Sure," I said. She had me baffled; I couldn't guess what she was driving at. I tried another grin. "But I'm afraid he's not for sale."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of buying him. But I have a little bitch who's just come into heat and the dog to which I was planning to breed her… well, it didn't work out, and I was wondering… could I see his papers?"
We'd considered all kinds of possibilities, setting this up, but the pup's love life hadn't really entered into our calculations.
I said, "Well, he's pretty young to be used at stud, and I'm only in town for a day or two."
She gave me a nice, unselfconscious grin. "How long does it take, actually? And I shouldn't think it would hurt him to learn the facts of life." She looked down at the black pup. He'd got wet again, visiting with her upriver, and now he was on his back, rolling himself happily in the dirt. In that position it was rather obvious that he was a little boy dog and not a little girl dog. The blond girl laughed. "He seems to have all the necessary equipment. He might as well learn how to use it."
She was kind of a refreshing young lady, but if she wasn't the person I'd come here to meet, I was wasting my time on her; in fact, she was an obstruction I'd better dispose of fast, before her presence scared off the real contact.
I said curtly, "I don't really think-"
"Please," she said softly. "I really want to get a good litter out of Maudie before she's too old. She's been.. she's been pretty great." She stopped and cleared her throat. "Where are you staying in town? Or are you camping out?"
"No, I got tired of pioneering. I'm staying at the Thunderbird Motel, but..
She said, "Please. I'll pay any fee within reason. Your dog is really lovely. He's just what I've been looking for. They'll be beautiful pups. How about twelve o'clock? I'll buy you a lunch and we can talk it over, and I'll take you out to see Maudie. Of course I have to keep her penned up right now. She's a very good Lab. You'll like her…"
Ten minutes later, I was driving away, pretty well committed to officiating at a canine love-in. The time was up and the right words hadn't been said to make the contact official. Either she wasn't the one, or she was staffing for some reason, perhaps suspicion. Well, if she really knew dogs-and she seemed to-she had good reason to be suspicious.
3
I'D TOLD MAC FROM THE START that Mr. Smith from Washington was a damn fool, having me go to all the trouble of making my hair an exact match for the dead man's but giving me a pup that, aside from being black and a Labrador, hardly resembled the dead dog at all.
Mac had called me into the San Francisco office he was using temporarily, to ask for a progress report. This was at the end of the third and final day of indoctrination and general remodeling, designed to make me think, look, and act like Grant Nystrom. More study would have been useful-on other occasions I've taken weeks, even months, to work up a character properly-but Nystrom's schedule didn't allow it. I had to be on the banks of the Columbia on time.
As always, Mac had managed to pick an office with a bright window behind his chair, but after working with him for quite a few years, I didn't need to see him clearly. I knew what he looked like, crisp gray hair, black eyebrows, and all. I knew his business expressions by heart. He doesn't have too many that he uses in the line of duty. You could call him poker-faced and get no argument from me. What he's like at home, if he's got a home, I wouldn't know.
"Well, Eric?" he said.
"Just a minute, sir," I said, and turned to the pup, who was showing signs of wanting to investigate the office, perhaps with ulterior motives. "Hank, sit! Now stay there.
Stay!"
I sat down and looked across the desk apologetically. "I'm supposed to take him everywhere I go. He even sleeps in my hotel room. It plays hell with my love life-or would, if they gave me time for a love life."
"I gathered they were keeping you pretty busy."
"Yes, sir," I said. "They're trying hard, all those bright young characters working for Mr. Smith. But it isn't going to work, sir."
There was a little pause. When he spoke, the tone of the voice told me that the black eyebrows had lifted a fraction of an inch. "Why not? They seem to have done a good job on your hair. It's a close match for that of the man we were taken to see in their private morgue. And I gather they have been able to give you a thorough knowledge of the late Mr. Nystrom's likes and dislikes, his personal habits, and his current identification routines and itinerary."
"Yes, sir," I said. "They know more about Grant Nystrom's private life than seems quite reasonable; more than they could possibly have got from simple surveillance, and they won't tell me how they got it. Another thing they won't tell me is why the guy was killed, although it's a subject in which I have, I feel, a legitimate interest."
"Maybe they don't know."
"Maybe," I said. "But maybe they do know and just aren't saying. They're very selective about telling me things. The story I got was that the agent tailing the guy heard a couple of rifle shots. He'd been waiting in his car out of sight while Nystrom worked at training the pup out in the country somewhere. Hearing the shots, the agent decided he'd better drive up and take a look. He found them lying out in the field dead, man and dog both. As he got out and hurried over to them, a guy took off through the brush, jumped into a car, and drove away."
Mac grimaced; he dislikes inefficiency. "Maybe Mr. Smith should teach his people a little more common sense and a little less security."
"Yes, sir," I said. "It was a pretty sloppy performance, all right. Maybe the agent in question couldn't keep his subject from getting shot-maybe he wasn't even supposed to.-but he could at least have refrained from barging in clumsily until he'd got a good look at the murderer and learned what the guy was up to. Incidentally, the rifle was a.243, a pretty small caliber for a pro. It may be significant. I don't know."
"It seems to have been a professional enough job of shooting, Eric. Two shots; two dead bodies."
"Yes, sir. But most pros would prefer to stack the deck in their favor by using somewhat bigger bullets. That six-millimeter rifle is pretty light. You've got more leeway with, say, a seven-millimeter or thirty-caliber gun. You've got some extra power in reserve, in case you don't put the shot in exactly the right place." I shrugged. "Anyway, after letting the murderer get away unseen, the agent started behaving with reasonable intelligence for a change. He quickly bundled both stiffs, human and canine, into Nystrom's pickup camper and drove it out of sight. Then he came back for his own car, taking time to clean up the premises. So the only people besides us who know Nystrom is dead, we hope, are the people involved in having him killed. At least we're gambling that the outfit we're trying to get the goods on-the Communist spy ring for which he was playing courier-hasn't got the word."