There was a lengthy silence before the man out there spoke. "All right, tell him to come out with his hands in plain sight. If he flashes a gun, the kid is dead, understand?"
"Yes. Yes, of course. Come out, Mr. Clevenger. Please be careful. He's got a knife in Penny's back."
I opened the door and stepped down to the ground. "Drop the stick!" said the youth holding Penny.
I could see him now, and his companion, and the girl. She was still wearing yesterday's short divided skirt and grubby white shirt. She was kind of mussed and dirty, with mud on her sneakers and bobbysox. Her hairnet was missing and the rollers and curlers were coming unwound, snake-like, here and there. Nevertheless, she didn't look to be fundamentally damaged, although her face was pale and scared behind the big glasses.
The men were in dungarees and work shirts. They were a mean-looking pair: one handsome, murderous young delinquent, and one aging sneak-thief with obvious alcoholic predilections.
"Drop the stick!" the younger one snarled.
"Go to hell, punk," I said pleasantly. "What are you afraid of, that I'll point it at you and say bang-bang-you're-dead?" I took a couple of steps away from the trailer door. "You with the bloodshot eyes," I said. "Come over here and take a look through this mobile home. Make sure I didn't bring any cops before your friend wets his pants worrying."
The younger one tightened his arm across Penny's throat. "Watch your lip, Mister," he said. He hesitated, and said reluctantly, "All right, Mousie. Go ahead and look in there like I told you in the first place."
A signal passed between them that I guess I wasn't supposed to see or understand; then Mousie sidled past me. I heard him enter the trailer and come back out.
"Okay, Frankie. It's empty."
"All right, you," said Frankie. "What did you have to say to us?"
"Let the kid go and we'll forget we ever saw you," I said, pretending not to hear the old thief slipping up behind me. The clumsy way he moved, it was no wonder he'd wound up in jail. I kept talking to help him out: "What do you say, Frankie? Turn her loose and we won't bother you. You can go where you damn well please."
Frankie said, "Bother? Tall man, you don't bother me a bit." Apparently American gangster movies had formed a large part of his education: or maybe all prisons turn out the same product the world over-well, the English-speaking world over. He had that tough, lipless, convict way of talking. "You mean we should let you drive off and leave us here on foot? That would be a hell of a deal, now. We might as well have stayed in Brandon."
I said, "All right, take the damn truck. Take the trailer. Just turn the kid loose. I promise..
I pivoted on the word, and my timing was right. Mousie was right there, with the big kitchen knife raised as if to chip ice for a highball. I suppose he was really hoping to plant it between my shoulder blades. He might be a professional thief, but as a murderer he was strictly amateur talent.
The high-held knife was out of position for any kind of thrust or parry. I was perfectly safe as I lunged with the stick and drove it into him just below the ribs. He doubled up, offering me the back of his head, and I whipped my little pine tree across the base of his skull, not too hard, and he fell down unconscious.
I swung back and said casually, "Like I was saying, Frankie, turn her loose. Before I come over there and spank you.',
It had been a gamble, of course. I might not have tried it if Frankie had been holding a gun. Startled, he might have fired by mistake. But it's hard to do serious damage with a knife by mistake. The kid was still standing, biting her lip against the pain of the nervous knifepoint in her back.
"You shouldn't have done that, Mister!" Frankie's face was shiny. "Drop the stick! I won't tell you again. Drop it or I'll-,'
"You'll do what?" I said. "Kill her? What'll that get you?"
I spat on the ground between us. "I'll tell you what it'll get you, punk. It'll get very dead. I've got longer legs than you and I know the woods real good. You so much as break the skin with that knife you're holding and I'll run you down and kill you. Now make up your mind. Turn her loose and I won't hurt you. Make me wait any longer and I'll take you apart and throw the pieces in the lake. Come on, Junior, don't just stand there trying to look tough. You may be tough for here, but down around Denver where I come from, little boys like you don't go out without their mothers." I looked at him for a moment longer, and made a sound of disgust. I threw the stick away from me. "There. No stick. Now what are you going to do, Sonnyboy?"
It worked. Not only had I knocked his partner unconscious, I'd also hurt his pride. I'd belittled him in front of two females. Furthermore, even his limited brain was capable of understanding, at last, that nothing he did to Penny was going to help him get the truck he badly needed to get away. It was me he had to kill, and he stepped around her to do it.
He came in with the knife. Unlike Mousie, he knew enough to hold it like a sword, not an icepick, but that was about all he knew. He came in cautiously at first, but when I gave ground he gained courage and tried a rush. I did it strictly by the book, moving quickly to his right and using a circular karate kick to disarm him. It's better to use the feet when dealing with a knife, since feet generally have shoes on them-in this case a fairly heavy boot, since I was dressed for camping.
The knife flew out of his grasp. The force of the kick spun him away from me, grasping his bruised hand. I kicked again, since I was in the footwork groove, and cut his legs out from under him. Then I stepped up and kicked him carefully in the head. I went over and got his knife and threw it into the lake. It wasn't worth saving: one of those crude imitation Bowies sold to the kind of hunters who think they need a big knife for protection from deer and rabbits.
I picked up the instrument Mousie had dropped and went over to where Genevieve stood with her arms about her daughter.
"I guess this belongs to you, ma'am," I said, holding out the long-bladed kitchen knife.
She patted the little girl on the shoulder and came forward to face me. There was a funny little pause. I put out of my mind all thought of the jug of acid I'd discovered in the trailer. Like Greg's death, or Elaine's, it had no real bearing on my mission here, which was to gain this woman's respect and friendship, and help her get wherever she wanted to go.
I had time to think that it couldn't have worked out better. Running into a pair of escaped prisoners had been a wild coincidence, but it had given me a chance to do my stuff- and whether Genevieve Drilling thought me a private dick or a secret agent, she couldn't help but feel a certain sense of obligation, I reflected, that might form the basis of a very satisfactory relationship.
She said, "You're quite a hero, Mr. Clevenger. That was quite a performance." Her voice had an odd, strained sound, as if she was balanced between tears and hysterical laughter. I was completely unprepared when she swung her arm and slapped me hard across the face. "You damn phony!" she cried.
XII
LIKE THE Marines and Boy Scouts, we're always supposed to be prepared for anything, but I'll admit I was startled enough that I stepped back with my hand to my face. Maybe I even looked hurt, like a boy who'd thought himself entitled to a goodnight kiss and found that his young lady had contrary notions.
"Just what," I asked, "was that for?"
Genevieve laughed sharply. "Come now, Mr. Clevenger, let's not carry the farce any farther. Do you really think I'm stupid enough to believe in that little ballet you just put on for my benefit?"
"But-"
"You're not really much of an actor, you know. It was so obviously rehearsed! You should have made it look harder."
I said, "Look, ma'am-"
"You can skip the country accent, too," she snapped. She looked at the two figures sprawled on the grass. "Your friends must be very uncomfortable, lying there. Why don't you tell them to get up and take their bows? They were quite good; they really had me believing they were escaped convicts, for a while. Until the sham battle started. That was most unconvincing, Mr. Clevenger. Do you know what it reminded me of? A story I read as a girl, by Sabatini or somebody. The crude villain wanted to gain the confidence of the highborn heroine, so he got a couple of his henchmen to fake an attack on her, after which he whipped out his trusty rapier and came charging to the rescue. The girl, being an ingenue type, fell into his arms oozing gratitude and admiration. Well, I'm not an ingenue type! I know a staged fight when I see one. You shouldn't have been so serenely confident beforehand, for one thing. You and that silly pine stick! And the way you turned at just the right moment, when that man was going to stab you from behind. I was about to scream a warning, but I suppose he gave you a signal of some kind."