"Do you know they don't have any jeans in this forsaken country?" she asked brightly. "Why, it's practically subversive. All right, Dave, let's go. Stop in the first patch of woods. I want to get out of this droopy teen-age outfit before I'm picked up for playing hooky from junior high."
She sounded brisk and cheerful. You'd never know, listening to her, that she'd committed murder and had a few other crimes in mind. I drove out of town and found a track running down into a stand of pines and stopped when we were out of sight of the highway.
"Your dressing room, ma'am," I said, and got out so she could tilt the seat forward. She reached back for her package and straightened up beside me.
"Come with me, Dave. I want to talk with you."
"Sure."
"Take the keys. We wouldn't want Mummy-dear driving a car all by herself. She might hurt herself."
I took the keys and followed Naomi. She moved off a little ways but stopped where we could still see, and be seen from, the car. She put her package on the ground and turned her back to me.
"I'm told you're a great button-and-zipper man. Demonstrate."
"Always happy to oblige."
I got to work on the familiar fastenings, reflecting that I was getting in a rut. If I wasn't bullying them for information, I was helping them take their damn clothes off.
"I'll just bet you're happy." Naomi's voice was tart. "Is she any good in bed?"
"Who, Jenny? You never gave me a chance to find out!"
"She's an awful pill, really. She was going to chicken out, you know. But Hans was way ahead of her. He never really expected her to go through with it all the way, voluntarily. That's why he had me ready to step into the kid's shoes, so he'd have something on Mummy-dear that would keep her in line until we got out of the country."
She pulled her dress and blouse off her shoulders and let them drop at her feet. Then she kicked off her shoes, peeled off her stockings, whipped her slip off over her head, and stood before me in nothing but a little pantie-girdle and a very tight, flat brassiere.
"Unhook me," she said, and when I'd done so she pulled the brassiere off and threw it as far as she could, and drew a long breath, turning to face me. "God, it's nice to breathe again. And eat. Did you ever try chewing a steak with a mouth full of stainless steel? There's another bra in the package. Get it out for me, will you? The next brat I impersonate, I hope she won't be so damn flatchested. Dave?"
"Yes?"
"Do you like it?"
"What?"
"What you see, stupid!" She laughed. "What I mean is, we can have a lot of fun together, but first we've got to get rid of Mummy-dear. I mean, once we've made sure she isn't playing any tricks. I called Gaston Muir from that store back there. I told him to expect two passengers on his boat. Just two."
It was no time to act shocked or high-principled. And it was no time to act curious about where the proposed boatride might end. I merely shrugged.
"Very cozy," I said. "Just so it's the right two passengers, doll. Don't you try any tricks. I wasn't born yesterday."
She smiled up at me approvingly. "What a suspicious tall man it is! Don't worry, darling. We're going to have a swell time together. We'll have a million kicks, a million laughs. Hand me that shirt, will you?"
I handed her a dark print shirt and a pair of tight black pants and she put on a pair of sandals all by herself and we went back to the car where Jenny was sitting with a disinterested, disdainful look on her pretty, freckled, adult face, that was supposed to tell us she hadn't even noticed the striptease that had been performed under her nose, and mine. Fourteen hours later we were in Inverness, having stopped for no policemen-we'd hardly seen any; I wondered if Mac had somehow managed to get them clear off the roads-and for nothing else, either, except food and gas.
XXI
IT WAS as easy as… well, as getting mail from General Delivery usually is. First, of course, we had to wait hours for the post office to open next morning, but once that ordeal was over, it was a breeze. There wasn't even anybody in line ahead of us. Jenny went up to the window, gave the fictitious name to the clerk, and turned back to us holding a big manila envelope bound with heavy cord. We closed in on her, Naomi and I, and escorted her back to the car. Naomi snatched the envelope and scrambled into the back seat.
"I saw a pay phone back on the main street by the gas station," she said breathlessly. "Drive us there while I see what Mummy-dear has for us. Damn. She's got it all tied up with string like she was afraid it would jump out and run away. Lend me your knife, Dave."
"To hell with you, doll," I said, driving. "You want my knife, you know how to get it. First you call in six strong friends to help you. You keep your toy gun. I'll keep my knife."
She made an impatient sound. "All right, you open it, damn you!"
I parked the car by the phone booth, took the envelope, cut the strings, and slit it open for her. She grabbed it back and pulled out the papers far enough for a look. I heard her breath go out in a long sigh of satisfaction as she saw the big red stamp on the top sheet. I could only read the one glaring word SECRET from where I sat, but I found it a great relief.
Jenny said quietly. "There's a policeman."
We looked up. An unmistakable officer of the law was strolling up the main street toward us. He wasn't a local cop, but a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police-in riding breeches, no less. I didn't see a horse. He didn't seem to be looking for any murderers or seeing any. Behind me, I heard Naomi stuff the documents hastily back into the envelope.
"What are you waiting for?" she breathed. "Drive!"
"Don't be silly," I said. "You want us all to spit on him as we go by, so he'll be sure to notice us? He's just getting a bite to eat. Go make your phone call."
The Mountie turned into a restaurant a block away. Naomi drew a shaky breath, squeezed out of the car, and entered the phone booth, clutching her envelope. When she was busy talking, I glanced at Jenny, beside me.
"Okay, Irish," I said. "What was that all about? That scare talk you gave me back while she was buying clothes?"
Jenny shook her head quickly. "Never mind," she breathed. "It's all right. Whom do you think she's calling?"
"A gent called Gaston Muir, I presume," I said. "But don't ask me what I think she's telling him. I could be wrong, and I wouldn't want to slander a sweet girl by mistake."
Jenny glanced at me, studied my face for a moment, but did not speak. Then Naomi was coming back to the car. I leaned forward to let her in.
"Drive on up the coast," she said. "I'll tell you where to turn."
I said, "I thought we were all set to make contact tonight in a restaurant in French Harbor."
She wasn't a very good actress. She met my eyes too candidly. "The plans have been changed," she said. "I got hold of Gaston and told him we already had the stuff. He can't get away immediately, he's got something to do with the boat, but he wants to meet us early this afternoon and make arrangements; in the meantime we're to go to a certain place and stay out of sight. I've got the directions."
"Sure."
The ocean was to our left as we came out of town. Well, actually the map said we were looking at the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and that the real ocean was way off to the north and east past the end of land, but it was enough salt water to impress an innocent New Mexico lad. Jenny drew a long breath, beside me.
"It's beautiful," she said, "but kind of scary. I always wonder what's out there under the surface."
"Fishes," I said. "And dead men's bones."
"Watch where you're driving," Naomi said behind me. "Don't turn here. We stay on the pavement for another couple of miles."
We followed the pavement past a bunch of deserted coal mines, and then we followed the gravel for a way, and then we were on dirt, and finally we wound up at another mine way out in the woods. It looked like any little old mine, east or west. I suppose an expert can tell at a glance what came out of them, but to me they all look alike, whether they once produced gold, silver, copper, or coal. There are the same dumps, the same wandering rusty tracks that once made sense to somebody, the same picturesque, crumbling hoists and elevators, and the same weathered shacks.