The Betrayers (19 page)

We knew our vessel pretty well by now, however, and it took us only a moment to right her, scramble back aboard, and get her going again. Then we were sailing into a deep cove between towering black cliffs. There was
a pretty bit of white beach at the end and a stream. Lush jungle led back up a spectacularly beautiful valley to high mountains boasting a sparkling waterfall just touched by the first rays of the sun.

I mean, it was an unreal place and an unreal situation. Coming there by motorboat properly equipped for exploration would have been one thing. Sailing up to the beach on a glorified surfboard, with nothing but the clothes we’d put on for dinner the night before, was something else again. It was crazy enough to give the whole business a vague, dreamlike quality.

I pulled up the centerboard. We slid off into the water on opposite sides of our faithful little ship and carried her reverently up on shore. Then we turned to face each other in the growing light. There were all kinds of questions still to be settled between us, but one thing was certain: between us we’d licked the Pacific Ocean, or a small part of it. That was a bond that couldn’t be ignored.

Isobel made a gesture of pushing the tangled wet hair out of her eyes. In a sense, I knew her very well after what we’d just been through together. In another sense, she was an utter stranger, standing there barefoot with her careful makeup washed away and her expensive cocktail dress soaked and disorganized. The funny thing was, she looked kind of soft and pretty and appealing that way. In the tropics, I realized, being wet wasn’t really a social disaster, particularly on a deserted beach at daybreak. You merely had to discard a few stodgy, civilized notions about smoothly ironed dresses and sharply creased pants.

“Well, we made it,” Isobel said in a strangely gentle voice. “You and your Viking ancestors! If you’d been aboard, Leif Ericson would surely have drowned before he got halfway to Vinland.”

I grinned. “Why is it that the most insufferably conceited people in the world are invariably those who’ve managed to learn the difference between a sheet and a halyard?”

What we were saying had, of course, nothing to do with what we were thinking; and what we were thinking—what I was thinking, at least—had very little to do with danger and duty and my reasons for coming here in the first place. To hell with Monk. If he wanted me, he could come and get me, and save me the trouble of searching for him.

In the meantime, there was other business to be transacted. Tired and bruised as we both were after the long, rough sail, we still knew what this place was for. I mean, who can mistake the Garden of Eden? But there had been some misunderstandings in the past and we had to feel our way.

I said rather tritely, like any movie hero confronted by a damp movie heroine, “Well, you’d better get out of those wet clothes while I scout around a bit.”

She smiled at this. “Don’t be corny,” she murmured. “I’m not cold. I’ll be dry in a few minutes, as soon as the sun gets up a little higher.” Her smile grew stronger. “If you really want my dress off, Matt, you’ll have to think up a better reason.”

I did.

It was highly unprofessional behavior, of course, and it would undoubtedly have served me right if I’d been caught there playing Adam to dark-haired Eve on an open beach in broad daylight, but I wasn’t. Afterward I did what I should have done first: I hid the boat carefully up the stream, and I scouted around for traces of hostile life forms—or any human life at all.

I reflected on what a ridiculous, impulsive, schoolboy act it had been, but I didn’t think of it with any great amount of shame or regret. Hell, I’d got away with it, hadn’t I? And after all, I was more or less planning on getting myself caught, somehow, although not necessarily here and preferably with my pants on.

There were no indications that any human being had passed this way since the invention of the beer bottle and the tin can. The little inlet quickly dwindled to a jungle brook that was definitely no secret small-boat harbor, and the valley was too narrow to hide any sinister installations.
K was apparently farther down the coast, maybe just around the cliff to the west, maybe miles away.

All I found was a couple of talkative mynah birds, a lot of brilliant flowers, and a pretty pool with some fish in it, reminding me that I was getting hungry. Unfortunately, hunting is my sport; I’ve never been much of a fisherman. While I stood there, considering the problem, I heard Isobel’s voice.

“Matt? Matt, where are you?”

“Up here,” I called. “Just follow the creek.”

She came into sight on the other bank, carrying some gear that seemed to be mostly mine—I’d put on only my shoes and slacks for exploring.

“Damn you, don’t run off like that,” she said a little breathlessly. “I was starting to get worried. This is a lovely spot, darling, but I’d rather not have it
all
to myself. Here are your things; they’re practically dry.” She dumped her burden by a rock and looked down at the clear water. “It looks almost good enough to drink. Is it?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been sampling it. It hasn’t killed me yet.”

She knelt on the rock and bent over to drink from her cupped hands. Straightening up, she dried her hands on her dress in a slightly defiant way, as if to emphasize that she was a nature girl now, and no longer the fastidious, well-groomed lady of yesterday. Well her dress was hardly the smooth, bright, smart silk sheath of yesterday either. However, considered just as a garment and not as a status symbol, it had sustained remarkably little real
damage. It was sea-stained and badly faded, of course, and it had a puckered and rough-dried look, but it was essentially intact: it even retained a hint of style in the provocative draping of the bodice.

In a way, it was disappointing. I mean, this was just the spot for some real shipwrecked-looking, peekaboo, desert-island-type rags. By way of partial compensation was the fact that she quite obviously wasn’t wearing a damn thing but her dress and shoes and glasses. I guess she’d left the rest of her stuff hanging up to dry somewhere.

I said, “Lady, you’re not decent. If you don’t watch out, bending over like that, you’re going to fall right out of the top of that beat-up garment.”

She sighed: “The man’s insatiable… If they arouse you so violently, darling, why don’t you come over here and do something about it.” When I made no move to accept this wanton challenge, she laughed and looked down at herself with clinical interest. “My husband should see me now. He has an idea that I’m incapable of existing more than a hundred feet from a beauty parlor.”

I said, “This is a hell of a time to be talking about husbands.”

I waded over to her and sat down on the rock beside her. We didn’t speak for a little. Presently she slipped off her still damp pumps, with a sigh of relief, and dipped her feet in the pool. There are areas of the female anatomy that fascinate me more than feet, but she looked kind of cute sitting there like a kid, trailing her toes in the water. It scared me to realize once more that I was getting
quite fond of her. I cleared my throat and started to say something business-like, to dispel the dreamy atmosphere of the place, but she was already speaking.

“Do you want to know a funny thing, Matt,” she said very quietly. “Don’t laugh, but I’m happy. It won’t last, of course, but for the moment I feel beautifully irresponsible and very happy. I don’t have to worry if my stockings are straight or the bank account is overdrawn. I don’t have to wonder what we’re going to do when Kenneth puts it all on the red and the black comes up. It’s not that I’m in love with you, darling, you understand that, of course.”

“Sure,” I said. “Of course.”

“I think you’re a nice enough man in your way—a kind of cold-blooded and ruthless way. Did you really kill those men you were scaring me with last night? No, don’t tell me, I don’t really want to know. And you’re certainly a brave man or a very foolhardy one to put to sea on a poker chip without knowing how to sail. And making love with you is very pleasant, and being here without you wouldn’t be the same thing at all. But that doesn’t mean I’m yearning to marry you and spend the rest of my life mending your socks and shoulder holsters.”

“I told you,” I said. “I don’t wear them. Holsters, I mean.”

She patted my arm, smiling. “Am I hurting your feelings, Matt? Isn’t it enough that I’m happy for a moment in this crazy place? Do I have to pretend to be passionately mad for you, too?” She laughed quickly, as if embarrassed, and spoke in normal tones: “And if anybody’d ever told me that one day I’d be sitting on a rock
in the jungle with a wrinkled dress and stringy hair and no undies on, talking sentimentally about happiness…!” She broke off and drew a long breath. “Hadn’t you better do something about that gun?”

“What?”

I’d actually forgotten about the weapon. I don’t forget loaded guns, but my subconscious mind apparently refused to be bothered with keeping close track of a gun that wouldn’t really shoot.

“Your gun, Mr. Secret Agent,” Isobel said. “There in the jacket I just brought you. It got all wet and salty, remember?” She reached down and picked up the wrinkled coat and pulled out the revolver and looked at it curiously. “How do you break it, Matt?”

I said, “Throw it against a rock. Or hit it with a hammer. It’s a very light model. You ought to be able to smash it without too much trouble.”

She made a face at me. “Don’t make fun of me, just because I used the wrong word. I meant, how do you open it?”

“You push the latch at the side and swing the cylinder out… That’s the way.”

“Why, it only holds five. I thought they all had six shots. Will it shoot after being wet?”

“Sure it’ll shoot.” The lie made me feel a little guilty, and I went on quickly, “Modern ammunition is pretty well waterproof and oilproof.”

She snapped the cylinder back into place. “How do you work it?”

“You put a big wad of cotton in each ear, and then you hold it out right-handed—if you are right-handed—and brace your right hand with your left and pull the trigger back smoothly until all hell breaks loose. You do that five times. Then you throw the thing away and get a baseball bat and walk up and hit the guy on the head until he dies.”

She laughed. “You don’t seem to have a great deal of faith in the tools of your trade, Mr. Helm.” She used a corner of her skirt to wipe the weapon clean. “How far will it shoot? Accurately, I mean?”

“Having worked at it for a few years, I might be able to hit a man at fifty yards if he stood real still. You probably couldn’t hit a man at ten feet, unless you were lucky.” She made me nervous, playing with the gimmicked gun, or I probably wouldn’t have said it: “Or unless you’re faking.”

She glanced at me quickly. “Faking?”

I asked flatly, “Just what is this thing you have about guns, Mrs. Marner?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was cool now. “What is this thing you have about bosoms, Mr. Helm? Guns make me feel all funny inside. I’ve always wanted to know how to use one, but whenever I asked somebody, they thought I was joking or planning to murder my husband. Maybe it’s a fetish I have, or something. They’re such perfect phallic symbols, aren’t they?”

I grinned. “You really are a screwball. Put that phallic symbol down before you hurt somebody with it.”

She laid it gently on top of my jacket. She wasn’t
smiling. She drew a long breath. “Well, now we know, don’t we?” she murmured.

“Know what?”

“You weren’t quite sure I wasn’t going to turn it on you. Were you?”

I said, “Any experienced man is afraid of a gun in the hands of a novice or a kook, doll. But okay, let’s put the cards on the table. Am I supposed to have implicit faith in you now, just because we’ve made beautiful music under a tropical sky? Am I supposed to forget that you trafficked, as the saying goes, with my enemies?”

She said, “Those enemies were U.S. agents, Matt.” Before I could speak, she went on swiftly, “I asked you! Remember that I asked you. You wouldn’t tell me. If I couldn’t get the answer from you, I had to get it from them, didn’t I?”

I looked at her for a moment. “How did you know they were American agents?”

“I… I played detective. At that porpoise place. When you were talking to that boy, the one you put to sleep later, I sneaked up behind the tree and listened. I had to. You wouldn’t tell me what was going on. I had to know what I was getting involved in. And you or he, I don’t remember which, said something to indicate that you were all American agents. Only you had done something bad, something to make the others watch you and follow you. That’s why I asked you that, later. Whether… whether I’d be a traitor to my country if I helped you. And you wouldn’t tell me.”

I said grimly, “But Pressman was glad to tell you, I have no doubt. And of course you believed him. And spilled your guts to him.”

She licked her lips. “I had to, Matt. Everything fitted. Everything except the fact that I rather liked you.”

I sighed. “You know, Duchess, the funny thing about this racket, full of suspicion and deceit, is how many times you just damn well have to haul off and take somebody on faith. But all right. You tricked me and I tricked you. We’re even. Now if you still want to hear the words said, I’ll say them. But first tell me one thing: where did you learn to sail?”

“Well, we do a bit of it around San Francisco, but I learned on Chesapeake Bay, when I was a child. I told you I was born there.”

“It’s a good place for it. That’s where I picked up what little I know. Then you are Isobel Marner?”

“Yes, of course.” She looked startled. “Did you really think I wasn’t?”

“When I saw you playing footsie with the opposition, I didn’t know what to think. Okay. Now what do you want to know?”

In response to her questions, I told her everything I dared, everything that wouldn’t involve anybody else in danger, if she let something slip later or was made to talk. When I’d finished, she shook her head in a bewildered way.

“All this, so many people dead, and you still don’t know where you’re going, or what you’ll be trying to stop when you get there! Why, you don’t even know that Mr. Rath—this
man you call Monk—is up to anything very reprehensible.”