Donald Hamilton: The Ravagers

I said, "Okay, I'll be angry tomorrow, or some other day when my conscience hurts me about the kid I was supposed to protect. That I never even got to see. Right now I'm tickled pink. Hell, I thought I was going to have to go clear to Nova Scotia and find this Gaston Muir character to make a deal about getting out of the country."

She hesitated. "And now you think you can make your deal with me?"

"Why, sure," I said. "With Ruyter gone, you're running this show, aren't you? I don't see anybody else in the picture, aside from this Muir, and I gather all he really does is run a boat."

"Yes, I'm running the show," Naomi said coolly. "And I may be dense, but I fail to see what you have to deal with, Mr. Clevenger. We've known all along the town where the documents are waiting; we told Mummy-dear to send them there. All I didn't know was the name of the fictitious person to whom they are addressed-she held out on us to that extent-but you've just given it to me. Thank you very much, Mr. Clevenger, and thank you in advance for the use of your car, and now if you and Mummy-dear will just get out… Keep your hands in sight, Mr. Clevenger!"

"Hell, I was just putting my hanky away… Okay, okay. Be careful with that damn thing!" I faced her over the back of the seat. "Listen, you can't just leave us here…"

I had the handkerchief ready. I shoved it up against the muzzle of the acid-gun, and got her wrist with my left hand, I in a way that made her fingers open before she realized I what was happening. Then I reversed the weapon and aimed it at her left-handed. She stared at me wordlessly, with hate in her eyes.

"Stay still if you want to stay pretty!" I snapped. "Irish!"

"Yes?"

I flung the damp handkerchief away from me, out of the car. I thought I could feel the flesh peeling from my b hand, but it could be just imagination. I didn't take my it eyes off Naomi.

"On the double, Irish. Take the keys, open the trunk-up front, remember. There's a two-gallon canteen full of water. Come around to my side and rinse off my hand, real quick."

I stuck my hand out the open window and waited until I could feel cold water running over it. I still seemed to have four fingers and a thumb.

"I think I've got it all off," Jenny said. "I don't think you got much on you. The handkerchief must have caught most of it."

I brought my hand back inside, under the light. A glance told me she was right. There wasn't even a blister visible. I looked at the girl in the back seat.

"Does that metal scaffolding come off your teeth?" I asked. She nodded silently. I said, "Well, take it off, then. Let's see what you really look like."

She put her hands to her mouth and worked for a moment, and took them down. She was really quite attractive, in a diminutive, fragile way. Well, so is a coral snake. I remembered what Greg had looked like after she'd got through with him. It occurred to me that Hans Ruyter's death might not have been entirely due to inefficiency on her part. He'd bawled her out; he was the boss. Now he was dead and she was the boss. Perhaps she had wanted it to happen that way. I didn't put it past her.

I said, "Let us reconsider, doll. Would you still say I have nothing to deal with?"

She looked at me for a moment, and at the glass gun I held. Then she smiled slowly. "You are a very resourceful man, Mr. Clevenger."

"I can be a very useful man," I said. "I want out of the country. A little money would come in handy, too, but I won't be greedy about it. Do we have a deal, Naomi?"

I heard Jenny, still standing outside the car, give an indignant little gasp of surprise and protest. To hell with her. She'd made her contribution. It was between the kid and me now.

Naomi's smile widened. "We have a deal… Dave."

I did one of the hardest things I've done in my life. I turned the vicious acid pistol around once more and gave it back to her butt first.

JENNY AND I waited in the car outside the lone general store in a small town named after some saint or other. I suppose it was a kind of loyalty test. If we waited obediently where Naomi had put us, we proved one thing. If we drove off and left her, we proved something else, and she'd get on the phone and prepare a suitable reception for us at the Nova Scotia end of the line. She might do that anyway. In fact, I didn't think there was much chance she wouldn't.

Waiting, I amused myself by reading the various metal signs nailed up around the place. It was better than, for instance, worrying about cops and corpses and what Mac might or might not have been able to accomplish in the way of clearing trail for us. If anything can make Madison Avenue's cigarette and soft-drink slogans seem even cornier, it's being translated literally into French. Jenny stirred beside me.

"Dave."

"What is it, Irish?"

"You're not really going to… I mean, you can't possibly trust her!"

I glanced at my companion. She looked pretty good for having spent a hectic night in her clothes-well, mostly in her clothes. She looked attractive and resilient and, for an amateur, reasonably competent. It was a relief not to have to think of her in connection with a jug of acid. It was an association that had never seemed very plausible.

I told myself that mother love excused, or at least explained, most of her far-out behavior to date. I even considered trying to enlist her as a working ally. Acting together, systematically, we were much more likely to get the job done and get out alive afterward, than if we struggled along independently, hoping for individual breaks.

I was tempted. There's always the risk, in the business, that you'll get so damn wary and smart and suspicious that you won't take a chance on anybody, not even when it may mean the difference between failure and success. It was a mistake I didn't want to make here. On the other hand, I had my orders. Security was paramount. I was not allowed to take anybody into my confidence; I couldn't tell Jenny enough of the truth to sound convincing and persuasive after everything that had happened. And there was a conflict of interest. She was presumably concerned most of all with the safety of her daughter, while I had strict instructions to strangle any young girls who got in my way.

I said, as Clevenger, "Have I got a choice? Who else is going to get me out of this now? You?"

"She's a vicious, sadistic little monster," Jenny said. "You don't know what it's been like, driving with her all that way, living with her, pretending to be her mother, for God's sake! If I had a child like that, I'd dump it out of the crib and squash it underfoot! Like a tarantula!"

"Sure," I said. "What's the story on Penny, the real Penny?"

Jenny's expression changed. "They're holding her somewhere, somewhere out where we were a couple of weeks back. A mean-looking, farmer-type couple took her away. That's all I know. I could go crazy thinking about it, Dave. She's kind of a sensitive kid. Not a typical teenager at all. A shy, bright, studious fifteen-year-old, not really very pretty but awfully sweet. I suppose I should have left her home, as you keep saying, but my husband… well, it takes a special kind of man to make a reasonable home for a child all by himself. I knew Howard wouldn't even try. He'd be too busy with his light rays. I thought she'd be better off with me." Jenny moved her shoulders jerkily. "The way it turned out, I guess I was wrong. I was brought up too civilized. I didn't expect all this violence. Dave?"

"Yes."

"Will you try to help? Hans was supposed to call long distance after I'd turned over the papers and… and he'd made sure they were okay. He was supposed to call and have Penny set free. Naomi knows how to get in touch with them back there. Maybe you can persuade her… Oh, hell, here comes the little bitch now. What do you bet she didn't get anything for me to wear, just for herself." Jenny hesitated, seemed to go through a mental struggle, and said very quickly in a low voice, "Dave, there's something you'd better know. Don't count too much on what we'll find in Inverness."