"What else could I do? I suppose I should have rent my garments and poured ashes on my head and gone in to the security people to make confession, or something, but it didn't seem necessary." She'd sat down to roll wrecked stockings to the ankles; she didn't look at me. "But my God, the way they watched me after Hans was gone! And then I got his phone call. It was too ridiculous even to get angry at. As if I'd rifle my husband's desk and go chasing off into Canada for him-I mean, the man had delusions of grandeur!"
I said, "But on the record, that's just about what you did do, Irish."
She grimaced. "Damn them, they drove rue to it! They made me so mad! They couldn't ask me! Do you understand? They never came up and said, please, Mrs. Drilling, will you cooperate? Will you help us set a trap for this man-that's all I thought they were after. But no, I'd breathed some subversive air, I was contaminated, I couldn't be trusted. So they tried to be clever. And Howard, my own husband, helped them. Can you imagine how that made me feel? There he was with his damn briefcase, telling me how important it was, practically shoving it into my hands. I realized that he really expected me to steal it. They all did. They were counting on it." She looked up at last. "So I stole it, Dave. I stole it, and took it out to the garage, and took out everything marked secret or confidential, and shoved it all down into a big bag of garden fertilizer, except the top sheet. I knew Howard would never look there. He can't stand the smell of it. It's mostly dry sheep manure."
"And then you made up an envelope and stuffed it with the single cover sheet clipped to some correspondence you'd found in the briefcase, and mailed it to yourself here, like Hans had told you on the phone."
She said, "Of course. If they were going to play games, I'd play games. I'd lead them around by their long snooping noses, and then at the right moment I'd laugh at them and tell them where their priceless phony documents really were-they were phony, weren't they? I mean, they surely wouldn't have let me near any real ones. And then I'd go off with Penny and find a place to live where nobody's ever heard the word security. Only… only, when I got to Hans, up in Canada, it turned out it wasn't a game after all. I was stuck with it. All I could do was stall and hope something would happen before my little trick came to light." She drew a long, shaky breath. "I'm sorry, Dave. I guess it was an irresponsible, childish thing to do, but I just got so mad I had to do something. I mean, using my own husband to entrap me, for God's sake! I hope I haven't ruined everything for you."
I thought of three dead men and a dead girl, not to mention another girl who wasn't quite dead-at least I didn't think she was. Then I thought about a continent three thousand miles wide and jet planes flying at so and so many miles per hour, and telephones, and radios, and all the other marvels of modern science. And suppose we got the right stuff out here-by rocket, perhaps-how would we go about getting it into the right hands now? It was too late for a new deal. We'd just have to play the cards we had, or let them play themselves.
I said, "Let's just see how the stick floats, as the old mountain men used to say. Why don't you see if you can find a brook to wash your face in, while I pay a visit to a sick friend?"
Jenny looked startled. "Oh! I'd almost forgotten-" She glanced at the black mouth of the mine with distaste. "Is there really anything we can do for her now? Wouldn't it be better just to get help here fast?"
I said, "It's not a question of what we can do for her, Irish. It's a question of what she can do for us. And nobody invited you."
She was bright enough to catch my meaning. She said quickly, "Don't be silly. Just let me dump some dirt out of my shoes so I'll have room for more."
The mine didn't bother me this time. I had nothing else left to do; I might as well be crawling through the bowels of the earth looking for something I didn't particularly want to find. The first thing I found, beyond the point where the shooting had occurred, was a scrap of acid-stained cloth caught on a nail. The next thing was my own knife. It lay at the side of the tunnel, unopened. It had blood and stuff on it as if it had been handled before being dropped.
I didn't ask myself what Naomi had been wanting with a knife. I just wiped it on my shirt tail and dropped it into my pocket. Below were more signs of her progress. Finally, I found her. She was lying face down between the rusty rails, small, torn, dusty, and motionless, but I could hear her painful breathing.
If you can do it, you'd damn well better be able to look at it. I put the lantern down and turned her over gently. I heard Jenny gasp and turn away, gagging. Well, I'd seen it once before; I'd known what to expect. I guess you could say Greg was avenged. I found her good hand and checked her pulse, for no very sensible reason. After all, if she could breathe, she was alive, The small hand I was holding closed on mine.
"Dave?"
The voice was strange and kind of thick. It seemed to come from deep down and far away. I said, "That's who."
"Kill me," the voice said.
I said, "Sure. Just hang on while I find a suitable rock. Do you prefer having your brains bashed out from front or rear?"
"I mean it. You did this to me. Well, finish it. Kill me."
"Take it easy, doll."
She clung to my hand. "Don't let them save me! Don't let them take me to a hospital and… and wash me off and transfuse me and… I saw what it did to Mike Green. I don't want to live like that. I'd be a freak, a blind, faceless freak with a claw for a hand. Kill me!"
"Sure," I said. "Sure, doll. But it will cost you."
I heard Jenny draw in her breath sharply. Naomi said pleadingly, "It hurts, Dave! God, how it hurts!" I didn't say anything. She spoke in a different voice, almost businesslike: "What do you want?"
"Information," I said. "Penelope Drilling. Where's she being held? Who's holding her?"
Naomi whispered, "You'd blackmail me for that, damn you, after what you've already done to me?"
I started to rise. "So long, baby. I'll send the doctors out when I get to town. They'll take good care of you."
She gripped my hand tightly. "I love you, Clevenger. You're almost as mean as I am."
"Meaner," I said. "I'll come visit you in the hospital. See how you're coming with your left handed Braille."
I heard Jenny stir behind me. I guess she thought I was terrible, even though it was her child I was fighting for. She didn't count here. She didn't know how it was. She wasn't a pro, like the two of us.
Naomi laughed harshly. "You're a darling," she gasped. "You're a wonderful, coldblooded beast. There isn't a drop of sympathy in you, is there?"
"Not a drop."
"I couldn't stand sympathy. That's another reason why… they'd be full of sympathy, all the kookie doctors and nurses. What do they know? Who wants their damn sympathy? Try a town called Greenwich. Greenwich, British Columbia. The house is about three miles west of town. A little farm. The brat's there if she's still alive. That I can't guarantee. The name on the mailbox is Turley. Mr. and Mrs. Claude Turley. Okay?"
"Okay," I said. "I've got a pill for you. Just a minute while I get at it."
"Oh, one of those," she breathed. "I had one, but I dropped it back there and couldn't find it again. Then I tried your knife but I couldn't get it open one-handed."
"It takes practice," I said. "Here you are. You know the drill. Get it between your teeth and bite down. If you really want it."
She said softly, "Chicken. You're going to make me decide, so you can tell yourself it wasn't you who did it."
I said, "Hell, I'll cut your throat if you want me to, doll. But this way's clean and painless, they tell me."
"Give it to me. It's beginning to hurt again. I can't stand much more."
"Open your mouth," I said.
"So long," she whispered. "I hope you have nightmares about me. In Technicolor. Give it to me now."