The Ravagers (12 page)

“It’s impossible to convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced, Penny,” I said, sounding pompous and fatherly.

“And it’s very easy to convince somebody who does want to be convinced, isn’t it? Particularly if they’re... well, kind of young.”

She was still watching me closely. She was a bright little girl. She was also, I thought, a lonely little girl, needing reassurance badly.

I said, “If you want to call your father long distance, there’s the phone. Of course, if I’m lying, then he’ll have been briefed to lie, too, won’t he?”

She made a face. “That’s not much help.”

I said, “Hell, honey, there’s never any help of the kind you’re looking for. It’s up to you. Either I’m a liar and a phony or I’m not. Don’t ask me to make up your damn little mind for you.”

After a moment she grinned. “It’s hardly a question of my damn little mind, Mr. Clevenger. It’s a question of my mother’s damn little mind, isn’t it? She’s the one you want to convince.” Penny drew a long breath. “Well, come to dinner with us and convince her.”

I guess I looked surprised, which was all right. I was supposed to look surprised. I said, “What?”

“That’s what I came to tell you. Maybe you’re a phony and maybe you aren’t, but if you did help us, back there in the woods, then you deserve a hearing. Well, you’ve got one. I pestered Mummy until she agreed to sit down and talk it over with you in a civilized way. We’re all having dinner downstairs in the Voyageur Club at seven-thirty.” She glanced at the little gold watch on her wrist. “That gives you just about half an hour to dig up some good evidence, Mr. Clevenger. Don’t be late.”

The Voyageur Club is to Montreal, I guess, what Stallmästaregården is to Stockholm or Antoine’s is to New Orleans—to drop the names of a couple of classy restaurants I’ve been forced to visit in the line of duty. I found it a large, rambling, dimly-lighted room on the ground floor of the hotel. The waiters were dressed like oldtime French-Canadians about to embark on a fur-trading expedition into the primitive American wilderness. There were old utensils and weapons hanging on the walls.

It was the kind of atmosphere that could seem either contrived and fakey, or just pleasantly and comfortably old-fashioned, depending on the skill with which it was handled and whether or not it was used to cover up deficiencies in the culinary department. My first impression was favorable, but I reserved judgment until I could see the service and taste the food.

Mrs. Drilling and Miss Drilling were already established at a table when I entered from the lobby. Before my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I had a little trouble telling them apart from across the room. They were dressed identically: Genevieve was wearing a jumper and blouse just like Penny’s, and her hair was also combed up big. In theory, I suppose these mother-and-daughter outfits are a cute idea. In practice they never seem to work out well except on magazine covers; I suppose because a thirty-five-year-old woman isn’t likely to look her best in something that makes a fifteen-year-old kid look like a living doll.

Genevieve looked up when I stopped by the table. Her eyes didn’t exactly display the warm light of eager hospitality. She waited for me to speak.

I said, “This is real kind of you, ma’am.”

She said in a neutral voice, “It wasn’t my idea. My gullible daughter seems to be suffering from an acute attack of hero-worship. She’s at the impressionable age.”

“Oh, Mummy!” said Penny, pained.

“Sit down, Mr. Clevenger,” Genevieve said. “The counsel for the defense has made me promise you a fair hearing, but maybe we should have a drink before you present your evidence and your arguments to the court.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, seating myself between the two ladies. “Reckon I could go for a martini, ma’am.”

“Oh, no!” Genevieve protested. “Not a martini, Mr. Clevenger! That doesn’t go with your Western act at all. Bourbon and branch water should be your tipple, or corn whiskey straight from the jug.”

“Oh, Denver is a real modern city these days,” I said. “We’ve got martinis and juvenile delinquents just like the rest of the country. And you don’t sound as if you were approaching my case with an open mind, Judge Drilling, ma’am.”

Penny said, “That’s right, Mummy. You could at least
try
to sound unprejudiced.”

Genevieve laughed. She was quite a pretty woman, I realized again, and her little-girl jumper costume didn’t really go so badly with her wholesome, freckled type of good looks.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll try. Order me a martini, too, please, Mr. Clevenger, and a coke for Penny. Is it still raining out? I must say, it would be nice to see a little sunshine for a change...”

We talked about the weather, and the country, and the roads we’d covered, and the fierce competitive spirit that seemed to burn, torch-like, in all Canadian drivers.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d just get out ahead and
stay
there!” Genevieve complained. “The minute you pass one, he’s got to get back around you—but then he goes right to sleep again! So you’ve got to pass him again or poke along behind him at forty. By the time I’ve maneuvered sixteen feet of trailer around the same motorized cluck for the third time in ten miles, I’m ready to run him right off the road.”

“Well, you handle that rig like an expert, ma’am,” I said.

“I ought to,” she said. “My father was a contractor. There wasn’t a piece of machinery he used that I wasn’t checked out on, Mr. Clevenger—that is, until we got rich and respectable and I was supposed to stay off the trucks and cats and look ladylike in a pale blue convertible with an automatic shift—” She broke off, and gave me a sharp glance. “You’re a real confidence man, aren’t you? You know just how to flatter a woman and get her talking about herself.”

“Sure,” I said. “Nothing softens them up like telling them they’re swell truck-drivers. I’ve found the technique infallible, ma’am.”

She laughed reluctantly, and stopped laughing. “Well, let’s have it,” she said. “I suppose you have a lot of phony identification cards and things that are supposed to convince me you aren’t working for Uncle Sam in some clever and underhanded way.”

Penny said, “Oh, Mummy! You promised you’d—”

“It’s all right, darling,” Genevieve said. “Mr. Clevenger has a tough hide, I’m sure. He doesn’t mind my needling him a little. Well, Mr. Clevenger? Should we start with your private detective’s license or permit or whatever you call it?” I showed it to her. She glanced at it and said, “A very handsome piece of work. Now, how about a pistol permit? You do have one, don’t you, even though you don’t have the gun with you? And a few credit cards, perhaps. Although that’s pretty weak. Even I could get myself a credit card in the name of Clevenger if I wanted to.”

Penny stirred uncomfortably. “Mummy, you’re not being
fair
.”

“Oh, I’m being very fair,” her mother said. “Mr. Clevenger knows perfectly well that his documents mean nothing because any government agent could have them made up for any character he cared to impersonate. He’s going to have to come up with better evidence than this.” She smiled and patted her daughter’s hand. “The fact that his Douglas Fairbanks routine is irresistible to teen-age girls hardly constitutes proof of his good intentions, darling.”

I said, “Well, what about this, Mrs. Drilling?”

She looked at the paper I held out—a folded newspaper clipping—and at me. Then she took the clipping and unfolded it, frowned, studied it carefully, and looked up again suspiciously.

“I didn’t see this item anywhere,” she said. “I’d certainly have noticed it.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking at the right Winnipeg paper shortly after that little ruckus in the woods, ma’am. I just happened to come across it. Somebody’d left it behind at a roadside cafe.”

This wasn’t true, of course. Figuring I might have a chance to use it sooner or later, I’d phoned Mac to put somebody at tracking down all published news items bearing on the subject. They’d been rushed to a pickup spot—drop, if you want to be technical—here in Montreal as soon as it became clear we’d be passing through the city.

Penny was frowning at us. “What is it?”

“Oh, a little item I just knocked out on my portable printing press,” I said. “It purports to be a news picture of two convicts who were recaptured in a rather battered state a few days after their escape from the penitentiary at Brandon. Strictly counterfeit, of course, like all my documents. As your mother said back there, sooner or later we’ll hear of the
real
escapees being taken in Labrador or British Columbia.”

“Let me see!” The girl took the clipping from her mother’s hand. “But those
are
the two men who tried to—”

I said, “Honey, don’t look now but you’re being naïve. Naturally, if I’m going to fake a picture, I’ll use faces you’ll recognize. Look at your ma. She doesn’t believe a word of it. And don’t think she’ll go hunting through old newspaper files to check it, either. She knows what she knows, and nothing’s going to convince her otherwise.” I sighed. “It’s no use, Penny. I thank you for your good offices, but the court has already passed judgment and isn’t about to reverse its verdict.”

Penny turned indignantly to Genevieve. “But
Mummy
—”

“Let me see that again,” Genevieve said. She frowned at the clipping for several seconds. Then she looked at me. “If that picture
is
genuine, I owe you an apology, don’t I, Mr. Clevenger?”

“If,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “is it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It is.”

She hesitated. “I don’t trust you,” she said at last. “I don’t trust you one little bit.” Then she drew a long breath. “But I’ll admit it begins to look as if I’d been a little hasty. What Penny had to say about those men, and now this clipping... maybe you really did help us out of a very nasty situation, Mr. Clevenger. If so, please forgive me for jumping to conclusions.”

It was a pretty good apology, as apologies go. I mean, she’d hedged a little, but on the whole I should have been pleased and satisfied—and I would have been, if I hadn’t found myself wondering just how long she’d been sitting on that speech before she’d found an excuse to deliver it. I had a sudden strong feeling that the whole scene had been planned in advance: that I’d been brought here by the daughter so the mother could apologize to me on one pretext or another, if not a newspaper clipping then something else.

It was a snide thought, but I found confirmation when I glanced at Penny’s face. Instead of jumping up and down happily because her hero had been vindicated, she was looking uncomfortable and embarrassed, as if she wished herself miles away where she wouldn’t have to watch her mother putting on a humble act for a man for some obscure adult reason.

I didn’t spend too much time worrying about the reason. It promised to be an interesting evening, and it was starting out well. Once we got over the little awkwardness that followed Genevieve’s apology, everything went gracefully. The service was smooth and efficient and the drinks were excellent. The salmon was as good as a fish can be, and you forget how good that is when you live away from the ocean for a while.

Penny was allowed a glass of wine with her meal, and presently, not much to my surprise, she showed signs of getting sleepy and was given the room key and sent up to bed. I ordered a cognac and Genevieve took something green and sweet and minty. She raised her glass to me.

“Well, Mr. Clevenger?” she murmured.

“Well what, Mrs. Drilling?” I said.

She was smiling wryly. “Were we too obvious? We haven’t had much practice at intrigue, you know. I think Penny did rather well, don’t you?”

I studied her face for a moment. I said, “With a little practice, she’ll be another Mata Hari—but don’t forget that lady got shot. Two people have already died on this operation. Why not let me take the kid back to papa before she gets hurt playing in a grownup game?”

Genevieve grimaced. “You’re a stubborn man, Clevenger. You’re still pretending to be a silly private eye. Please stop it.”

I said, “I thought we decided—”

“We decided that those men back there may have been real convicts, and you may have saved us from them very bravely and skillfully. That satisfied Penny, but you and I both know that it has nothing to do with what kind of an agency you’re working for, public or private. In fact, if it
was
a real fight, and you’re so good you can take on two desperate criminals practically barehanded and dispose of them without even breathing hard, then you’re too good to be working for some cheap little Denver detective bureau, Mr. Clevenger or whatever your name is. No matter how you slice it, it comes up stamped U.S.”

“Your flattering estimate of government men might surprise a few people,” I said. “And in that case, why the humble apology and the free meal?”

“Because I still need help,” she said. “Or maybe I should say that I need help again, very badly, and again you’re the only man I can turn to. I don’t care who you’re working for. If you’re a government man, you may even be able to talk me into giving your lousy scientific papers back, but first you have to do something for me.”

It was a real swifty. The last thing I wanted was to be handed Dr. Drilling’s papers: they had to be delivered by her and Ruyter.

I said, “Take the proposition to Johnston and his sidekick, ma’am. They’ll snap at it. Me, I’m not being paid to hunt secret documents, any more than escaped convicts. My experience is that any private character who gets mixed up with stuff like that, winds up in trouble, even if he’s trying to be helpful. Johnston and Fenton are the names. You’ve undoubtedly seen them along the road. If you want, I’ll bring them around for a conference.”

She shook her head impatiently. “Oh, why don’t you stop that stupid pretense... I couldn’t talk to those two clowns and you know it.”

I said, “Johnston’s no clown. I won’t say as much for his partner, but Johnston’s a smart operative, don’t kid yourself.”

“Just the same, he wouldn’t deal. I know the type. He’d make no concessions. He’d just start waving the flag and telling me about my patriotic duty, in between threats.”