"Doctor-"
"There will be no further postponement," Rennenkamp said. "That is final, Doctor."
The dark-haired man glared at him and flung away, coming towards us briefly so that I could see his face, quite swarthy, with rather small rimless glasses perched on a rather large bony nose. He snatched out a key and started to unlock the door of one of the motel units, and for a moment I caught a view of the back of his head from an angle-the same angle from which I had once viewed the head of a man with black hair through the smoky air of the Club Chihuahua while a girl in a yellow satin dress came teasingly along the edge of the stage.
Then he was gone. I suppose it was my duty to tell Peyton, who was watching the white-haired figure of Dr. Rennenkamp stride firmly across the driveway. I did consider it.
"I said, "That was Henry Naldi, wasn't it? The black haired guy?"
Peyton wheeled to face me. "That was Doctor Alexander Naldi-" He checked himself abruptly.
I grinned. "Alexander," I said. "Thanks. And Rennenkamp's first name-Excuse me, Doctor Rennenkamp's first name is Louis, I believe." I took out my notebook and wrote. "And yours, Mr. Peyton?"
He snatched the notebook from me. It was too bad. He'd put his hand on me once, but I was willing to overlook that, reluctantly. But he wasn't acting at all like a man who wanted help with his little problems, and his problems weren't my problems… Having my notebook, he took me by the arm. Considering the cultivated way he was dressed, he had a very rude way of dealing with people. It was too bad.
"This way, you," he said grimly. "I have some questions for you… Bronkovic, take a look through that vehicle."
"Yes, sir," the big man said. "What about the lady?"
"The lady?"
It must have been a blow to Gail; she wasn't used to being overlooked. That he hadn't even noticed her face at the cab window showed the dedicated nature of Mr. Peyton; he'd been too busy glowering at the rest of us. He looked now and wasn't particularly impressed. His expression said no pretty face would ever deflect him from his duty by a fraction of a degree.
He started to speak. Then he hesitated, and looked again, and something changed in his pale eyes. He surveyed the truck briefly, as if he hadn't really seen it before. He glanced at the California license plate. He glanced at me. After a moment, he cleared his throat and released my arm.
"On second thought," he said, "on second thought, maybe I've been a little hasty."
For him, that was like an ordinary person's confessing to killing his mother with a stolen axe. I tried not to look surprised, but succeeded only fairly well.
"Yes," Peyton said thoughtfully, "a little hasty. As Mr. McKenna pointed out, you fellows do have a living to make." He handed back my notebook. "I suppose the headlines will read, SCIENTISTS STRANDED IN SNOW. Well, it's legitimate news, and even if it makes us look a little foolish, I see no reason to suppress it. I'm Paul Peyton, security officer in charge. This is Dan Bronkovic, one of my assistants. I'm sorry that I am not permitted to authorize any interview or pictures at this time. You'll have to do the best you can with what you have."
He paused, surveyed us briefly as if committing us to memory, made a gesture towards raising his snappy little hat to Gail and stalked away. Bronkovic, looking puzzled, followed. I walked around the truck and got in and drove away, not fast, but as fast as I could without looking too much like a man with a guilty conscience.
"Well!" Gail said. "What was that? Why did he let us go?"
"I don't know exactly," I said, "but he had our description from somewhere, once he got around to thinking about it, that's obvious. I guess various people in Washington have decided to cooperate after all, and the word's gone out to lay off a tall, skinny man, a beautiful woman and a truck with California plates."
"I must say it's a relief," I said with a grin. "He didn't have what you'd call a reasonable attitude, and he was a little too free with his hands. If he hadn't already had the official word, I might have run into trouble trying to make him listen to my explanation of what I was doing with a loaded revolver and an illicit film capsule in my boot."
I felt a little guilty saying it, now that we were back on a moderately friendly basis again, but there were some things she was better off not knowing-and after all, it wasn't really a lie. I hadn't said there was any film in the capsule.
XV
They pulled out a little after eleven. We could see them go from the window of a tourist court near the highway junction. Security or no security, nobody could have missed the caravan of government cars heading out across the valley.
"Well," I said, "I guess there's no doubt about who won the argument. Okay, let's get to work. I didn't want to risk bumping into any of Peyton's minions-no sense pushing our luck-but now they're gone, let's grab some lunch and take this town apart. We'll do it on foot this time, street by street. If you've got anything in the way of boots or overshoes, you'd better put them on. It's getting pretty damn slushy out there…"
It was a rough afternoon, and the snow didn't help a bit. When we weren't wading through the slush, it was being splashed on us by passing cars. At dinner time, the tally stood at no Wigwams, one Tepee, two telephone subscribers named Hogan-a hogan is a Navajo hut-and a small Eskimo igloo constructed by a bunch of Spanish-American kids with happy dark faces. They thought the snow was real great. It had closed the schools for the day.
We checked every name and every structure that could possibly be taken to represent an Indian dwelling of any kind, and finally, at dusk, we stumbled into the Cholla Bar and Grill defeated and so tired that we couldn't even talk until we'd polished off the first round of Martinis.
"I still think," Gail said, "that our best bet is The Teepee."
The Teepee was a tent-shaped drive-in we'd discovered on the edge of town that apparently served ice cream and kindred products in summer. "It's closed up tight," I said.
"Well, it's just the sort of mistake a… a dying person might make. Teepee-Wigwam. Wigwam-Teepee. Janie was trying to tell me, but she just got confused…"
I said, "Gail, the joint was boarded up. The folks who run the place are in El Paso for the winter. We checked; nobody's been around for months. It's no damn good." She didn't speak, and I said, "You're still quite sure your sister said Wigwam?"
"You keep asking me that. Of course I'm not absolutely sure. There was a lot of noise and… well she was dying. I've never seen a person die before. But I know what I think I heard. I can't help it if-"
"Okay," I said, cutting her off. "Suppose it is Wigwam, are you quite sure she said Carrizozo?"
She set her glass down so quickly that part of her drink slopped out. "Why don't you say what you really think?" she demanded with sudden violence. "Why don't you say that you still think I… I'm lying, leading you on a wild-goose chase for some… some sinister purpose…!" Her voice broke. "Oh, God, I wish I'd never come on this fantastic expedition! Just look at me! I haven't had my clothes off for two days, and I'm so t-tired and d-dirty I could cry! I wish I'd just told that nasty old b-boss of yours what he could do with his lousy blackmailing… Ouch!"
She leaned down and rubbed her shin where I had kicked her, glaring at me across the tabletop.
"Keep your voice down," I said. "Don't go hysterical on me, glamor girl. Finish your drink and read your menu."
She straightened up. "One of these days," she breathed, "one of these days somebody's going to take a baseball bat to you, and I hope I'm there to see it!"