Donald Hamilton - The Betrayers

"Yes, sir," I said, and went down to let Smitty run off his films for me.

I won't say I learned a great deal. My powers of concentration weren't at their highest peak. Having done my duty, I limped out of the projection room and started down the hail, but stopped abruptly, hearing a voice I remembered.

"I think that shiny one looks very pretty," Isobel was saying to the supply man when I came in. "I'll take that one."

She turned, hearing me, and we stood for a moment looking at each other. She was a stranger again, nicely dressed in a light summer suit, with her hair done in the smooth way I remembered. She looked polished and expensive, and it was hard to remember the exact details of what had happened on a tropical beach and by a pool in the jungle.

"Hello, Mart," she said. "You look terrible."

"I'm glad I can't say the same for you." I looked at the attractive woman in front of me, remembering how I'd seen her last. "So you made Kalaupapa in spite of the calm," I said.

"Kalaupapa?" she said. "Why should I sail fifteen miles to Kalaupapa when there was a road and a car only a couple of miles back along the shore? I was there before the wind dropped. The only trouble was, all the nice people kept telling me to rest instead of listening to me; it was almost dawn before I could get somebody to pick up a telephone." She smiled. "You're a nice person even if you are a terrible sailor, darling. I want to thank you for putting all that money in trust for Kenneth. But you shouldn't have given it all away."

"It wasn't really my money," I said. "Claire-Winnie – would have wanted her brother to have it."

"I think so. She was just prejudiced against me," Isobel said. "But she doesn't have to worry. I'm divorcing Kenneth as soon as I can. Don't look so surprised, darling. What do you think I wanted the money for? I couldn't divorce him when he was broke, could I? But now that he's all set, to hell with him." She glanced at the man behind the desk. "Well, I'd better finish my business and get out of here. I have the feeling I'm intruding on realms of desperate security.

Oh, you'd better wrap it. I can't very well go through the streets carrying it in my hand."

"Yes, ma'am," the man said.

I looked at the stainless steel revolver, and at the handsome woman in front of me. "What's that for?" I asked.

"Why, you know I've always wanted one," she said. "When the man upstairs asked me how he could repay me for everything, I just asked him to give me a gun with all the proper documents to make it legal." She hesitated, and gave me a questioning, smiling glance. "Oh, and he did say something about finding a man who'd teach me how to shoot it. Are you… are you the man?"

"I guess I could be," I said.

I was.