The knock on the door didn't make me jump very high. I'd already heard her footsteps in the hall. I walked over and let her in. When I turned, after closing the door behind her, she was taking advantage of the light to examine her stockings for runs and her dress for dust and woods debris. It was the same smoothly fitting jersey dress she'd worn to dinner in Stockholm, with the big bunch of satin at the hip.
"I thought you were asleep." Her voice was flat.
"I was heading that way, but you woke me up by going out," I said. "What's that Wellington character doing up here in Kiruna, anyway?"
She stalled briefly. "So you recognized him?"
I said, "A man that size is hard to miss."
It occurred to me suddenly that of all the people involved to date, Jim Wellington was the only one big enough to stick on a phony beard and give a rumbling laugh and bear a reasonable resemblance to Hal Taylor's description of Caselus.
Lou Taylor had turned away from me. She reached out absently and rearranged the films on the dresser before speaking. "What if I were to tell you it's none of your damn business what he's doing here?" she said at last.
I said, "I might not agree with you. But there wouldn't be much I could do about it, would there?"
She glanced at me over her shoulder. After a moment, she reached out and picked up one of the film cartridges. "Are all these from today? I didn't know we'd taken so many."
"That's not many," I said. "You should see me go through the stuff when I really get warmed up."
"What will you do with them now? Are you going to develop them right away?"
"No," I said. "The color has to go to a lab in Stockholm, anyway. I can't do that myself. The black-and-white
I I'll save until I have a place with reasonable facilities to work in. Maybe I can scare up somebody in Stockholm with a real darkroom I can use. I hate working out of a hotel closet." After a moment, I asked, "Do you owe this Wellington character anything?"
She put the film down and turned slowly to face me. Everything was sharp and clear. We were two people who'd been around. I'd caught her out, and I could now waste a lot of time asking a bunch of silly questions and forcing her to think up a bunch of equally silly answers. The end would be the same. We'd wind up facing each other like this, neither knowing any more about the other than before. There was really only one thing we needed to know, and only one way of finding it out.
"Why, no," she said slowly, "I wouldn't say I owe Jim Wellington a thing." Then, still watching me carefully, she said, "You've been pretending not to like me much, haven't you?"
"Yes," I said. "That's right. Pretending. I had some thought of keeping this strictly business."
"That," she said, coming forward, "was a very silly idea, wasn't it?"
Chapter Sixteen
THIS WAS the land of the Midnight Sun, and while it was past the season for that particular display- it happens only around midsummer-the evenings were still late and the mornings were still early. Presently the long winter night would descend over the land, but not quite yet. It seemed very soon that there was light at the window.
She said, "I'd better get back to my room, darling."
"No hurry," I said. "It's early, and the Swedes are a tolerant people, anyway."
She said, "I was awfully lonely, darling." After a while she said, "Matt?"
"Yes?"
"How do you think we ought to run this?"
I thought that over for a moment. "You mean, like strictly for laughs?"
"Yes. Like that, or like some other way. How do you want it?"
"I don't know," I said. "It'll take some thought. I haven't had too much experience along these lines." -
"I'm glad. I haven't, either." After a little, she said, "I suppose we could act cool and sophisticated about the whole thing."
"That's it," I said. "That's me. Cool. Sophisticated."
"Matt."
"Yes."
"It's a lousy business, isn't it?"
She shouldn't have said that. It admitted everything, about both of us. It gave everything away, and we'd been doing fine. It had been a smooth, polished act on both sides, one move leading to the next without a stumble or a missed cue; and then, like a sentimental amateur, she went and deliberately tossed the whole slick routine overboard. Suddenly we weren't actors any longer. We weren't dedicated agents, either, robots operating expertly in that kind of unreal borderland that exists on the edge of violence. We were just two real people without any clothes on lying in the same bed.
I raised my head to look at her. Her face was a pale shape against the whiter pillow. Her dark hair was no longer brushed smoothly back over her small, exposed ears. It was kind of tousled now, and she looked cute that way.
She was really a hell of a nice-looking girl, in a slim and economical sort of way. Her bare shoulders looked very naked in the cold room. I pulled up the blanket and tucked it around her.
"Yes," I said, "but we don't have to make it any lousier than necessary."
She said, "Don't trust me, Matt. And don't ask me any questions."
"You took the words right out of my mouth."
"All right," she said. "As long as we both understand."
I said, "You're green, kid. You're real smart, but you're an amateur, aren't you? A pro wouldn't have given it all away like you just did. She'd have left me guessing."
She said, "You gave yourself away, too."
"Sure," I. said, "but you knew about me. You've known about me all along. I still wasn't quite sure about you."
"Well, now you know," she said, "something. But are you sure what?" she laughed softly. "I really have to go.
Where's my dress?"
"I don't know," I said, "but there seems to be some-body's brassiere hanging on the foot of the bed."
"The hell with thy brassiere," she said. "I'm not going to a formal reception, just across the hall."
I lay and watched her get up and turn on the light. She
– found her dress on a chair, shook it out, examined it, pulled it on, fastened it up, and stepped into her shoes. She went to the dresser, looked at herself in the mirror, and pushed helplessly at her hair. She gave that up, and came back to the bed to gather up the rest of her clothes.
"Matt."
"Yes?"
"I'll double-cross you without blinking an eye, darling. You know that, don't you?"
"Don't talk so tough," I said lazily. "You'll scare me. Reach in my right pants pocket."
She glanced at me, picked up my pants, and did as I'd asked. She fumbled around among some change and came out with the knife. I sat up, took it from her, and did the flick-it-open trick. Her eyes widened slightly at sight of the sharp, slender blade.
"Meet Baby," I said. "Don't kid yourself, Lou. If you know anything about me at all, you know what I'm here for. It's in the open now, that's all. This doesn't change anything. Don't get in my way. I'd hate to have to hurt you."
We'd had a moment of honesty, but it was slipping away from us fast. We were starting to hedge on our bets. We were falling enthusiastically into our new roles as star-crossed lovers, a jet-age Romeo and Juliet, on opposite sides of the fence. Too much frankness can be as much a lie as too little. Her speech about double-crossing had been unnecessary; she'd already warned me not to trust her. If you say "Don't trust me, darling" often enough, you can make the warning lose its effect.
As for me, I was brandishing a knife and making bloodcurdling speeches: good old bone-headed, fist-fighting Secret Agent Helm flexing his muscles before a lady he'd just laid.
I think we both felt a kind of sadness as we looked at each other, knowing we were losing something we might never find again. I closed the knife abruptly and tossed it on top of my pants on the chair.