"Well, I've ridden in them, of course, and driven a few, but they're mostly so dreadfully uncomfortable and impractical-"
"Sure," I said. It was no time for an argument on that subject. I pointed to the worn rubber mat under our feet. "Well, there's your storm cellar. I want you to have your coat buttoned and your hood up; that'll give you some protection. If we start to go and I give the word, you dive for the floor and cover your face with your arms. Got it?"
She had turned pale. "If we start to… What do you mean?"
I said patiently, "Look, glamor girl, we'll cross a pass, San Agustin pass, elevation damn close to six thousand feet." I pointed. "It's up there somewhere, but you can't see it for the clouds. Beyond, there's a nice stretch of mountain road heading into the other valley, with quite a steep drop-off on the outside, the side we'll be on going down. It'll probably be snowing pretty heavily up there. There'll be fog by the looks of it. The visibility will be real lousy, so a gent with criminal intentions won't have to worry much about witnesses. We're carrying something somebody's supposed to want, remember? Looking at it one way, this is a very encouraging sign, that they're taking such an interest in us already."
"But-"
"That lad behind us has a big, heavy, powerful car," I said. "If he's got orders to do something about this old pickup of mine, something that looks accidental, say, so he'll have a chance to search the bodies.-up there's where he'll probably make his play."
"You mean-" Her voice was strained. "You mean he'll try to run us off the road up there?"
I glanced at her and saw something that surprised me
– she had freckles. It was completely out of character, but there they were, a faint dusting of color across the bridge of her nose.
I said, "Your freckles show when you're scared, Gail. It's kind of cute.
As murder attempts go, it was kind of pitiful. The Olds was in sight behind us during the long grind up the pass until the murk got too thick to see anything. I turned on my lights to make things easy for him. We topped out at just under six thousand feet and started down through the clouds on the other side. He waited until the road emerged on the open flank of the mountain. Then he came roaring out of the snow and mist behind us and swung over to give us the nudge that would send us off the edge-blasting away with his horn to terrify us, I suppose, or to make us stop and get out of the car with our hands up.
I hit the brakes and my tire chains took hold at once. With nothing but rubber to stop him, he was past before he could connect, skidding badly. I saw his face looking at us. The glass was blurred with condensed moisture, but I recognized the sallow face and thin black moustache of the M.C. of the Club Chihuahua.
I threw a fast downshift into second gear and fed power to the rear wheels. The chains found traction in the new direction, and the old truck lurched forward, digging out hard downhill. For a moment, the touch, as we call it in the business, looked possible. He was right in position ahead, now in a bad slide to the left, having over-corrected his first wild skid. The whole flank of the big car was open and vulnerable. If I could only gain enough relative speed before the impact, it ought to slew him around broadside in front of me and also swing the truck around to the right just about the proper amount. I was ready then to slam the lever into that stump-pulling reserve low-gear that comes with a heavy-duty truck transmission and bulldoze him right off the edge.
"Down," I said, without turning my head. "Hit the basement. Cover your face."
I mean, there was bound to be a bump, and there was even a possibility that we'd go over with him if I miscalculated. Then the little man got off his brake. Only a flatlander would have braked so hard in the first place, coming down a slick mountain road without chains. The glowing taillights went out, and the big sedan, wheels no longer locked, straightened out and surged ahead, presenting me with nothing but a massive chrome bumper to shoot at.
Hitting him there was useless, even if I could catch up with him-I'd just be shoving him down the road ahead of me. So I eased up on the gas and watched him pull away into the mist. Gail, I realized, had made no move towards the floor.
I said, "Sixty-one Olds hard-top four-door, gray, one aboard. Texas license DD 2109. Write it down, please. There's a pad and pencil in the glove compartment." After quite a long time, she reached out and opened the compartment clumsily. I said, "We may see more of him later. I suppose he was after the films-unless he's just one of those unreasonable guys who get sore when you kick them in a certain place. You recognized him from the club, I suppose-the little runt of an M.C. with a Spanish accent who was telling the girls to take it off."
Her voice was shaky. "No. No, I didn't see him. I.. I wasn't looking." She hesitated, then said with a show of defiance, "As a matter of fact, I had my eyes closed."
"Your ears, too?" I said. "I told you to get down."
"I… I couldn't move," she said. ~'I just couldn't, Matt!"
"Sure," I said. "Well, we'll stop for lunch in Alamogordo. You can change into dry panties there."
Her face came around sharply. She gave me a glance of pure hatred, started to speak but checked herself with an effort. After a moment, she turned away, looking straight ahead.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, stiff-lipped. "I know I'm not very… Don't be too hard on me, darling. I'm not used to this sort of thing."
Her meekness was as phony as a drunk's New Year's resolution. She would have loved to cut my throat with a dull knife, but she was saving me for a more elaborate and excruciating fate. At least I hoped that was what was behind the phony humility.
A woman who hates you, Mac had said. Then he continued thoughtfully, Of course you can't trust her, but untrustworthy people can sometimes be very useful. There was a case during the war, if you recall, where the whole operation hinged upon one agent's known weakness..
We were being very clever, not to say diabolical. We were counting on this woman to hate, despise, and, given the opportunity, betray me-it was a desperate plan, but there was no time to be careful. I couldn't take a chance on lousing up the job by letting her develop any respect or affection for me. Well, there wasn't much chance of that.
XI
In Alamogordo, the cafe that served us lunch made up a stack of sandwiches for us and filled a Thermos with coffee. What with the gin and tequila I'd bought in Juarez, I figured we were well prepared to cope with any blizzard straying this far south. Up North, of course, where they blow for days and involve temperatures far below zero, you have to take them more seriously.
The weather was getting mean when we came outside. Snow, driven by a rising wind, was falling heavily. When we got out of town, we discovered that every damn fool in the country with a slick set of tires and no brains had picked this stretch of highway to demonstrate his stupidity. It took us almost an hour to cover the twelve miles from Alamogordo to Tularosa, mainly because of the stalled traffic. That left us with forty-five miles to go to Carrizozo. By five o'clock we still hadn't made it, and I was getting pretty tired of fighting it. The snow was nothing, but the morons blocking the road were enough to drive you crazy.
I found a ranch road leading off to the right. The unbroken snow indicated that nobody'd been over it since the storm started. I turned off the highway and headed in. Progress was slow, and coming out again would be a problem if the weather held, but on the other hand, nobody was going to follow us through that stuff in an ordinary passenger car, with or without chains. I had no intention of standing guard all night. I'd worry about getting out when the time came.