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“
New
Jersey.” She tossed the atlas on the armchair. “I’ve
driven through it. It’s in northwestern New Jersey. Copper
mines, I think.” She stirred her coffee. “So what?
Somebody named Tilly in Badmont. You know more than that. You know
somebody named George Moon in Brooklyn.”

I
didn’t reply. I drank my coffee down black without sugar and
poured myself a second cup. She was not a gabbling woman; she knew
when a man wanted to be alone with his thoughts. She sat watching me
as if waiting for something to happen. After a while she rose to
clear the table. I lit the last cigarette in my pack and watched the
smoke drifting away from my face.

She
came out of the kitchenette and stood beside my chair with her legs
apart, like a man. Her hands would have been in her pockets, if she
had had pockets. “What are you cooking up, Adam?”

I
stubbed out my cigarette. “I’m going to Badmont
tomorrow.”

Molly
nodded as if she had expected that. “And what do you think
you’ll do there?”

“
Running
away is no good,” I said. “I don’t know how far
I’ll have to run or how long, and what will happen to Carol and
Esther while I’m gone. I know what it is to be away from them.
I had too much of it in the army. I’m going to fight back.”

“
What
are you going to fight in Badmont?”

“
Whatever
is there,” I said. “Find the bag or learn who has it, or
why it’s so valuable, or who killed Jasper Vital, or anything
else that , will help me get out from under. Something ought to be
there. Larry was almost as interested in Tilly and the Badmont place
as in the bag. I think it’s some kind of headquarters, probably
Moon’s.”

“
If
it’s Moon’s headquarters, where does that get you? You
know Moon doesn’t have the bag.”

I
was pulling the empty cigarette pack apart, not looking at Molly, but
at what my hands were doing. “Moon hasn’t got it and
Larry hasn’t got it, but somebody has it who knew its value,
and that Raymond Teacher was carrying it when the car struck him.
That means somebody in Moon’s organization or close to it. It’s
possible that Vital and Larry weren’t the only ones to decide
to doublecross Moon.”

“
You’re
groping in the dark, Adam.”

“
What
can you do m the dark but grope? I’m leaving town anyway. I’ve
nothing to lose by going to Badmont.”

“
Except
perhaps your life,” she said dryly.

“
What
the hell, there’s always danger in a fight.” I flattened
the empty cigarette pack wrapper. “Not so much danger if I just
go to Badmont and look around. Moon never saw me. As far as I know,
only one member of his gang ever did — Weaver, the guy who came
to the showroom this afternoon. There’s Crooked Nose, but I
don’t know where he fits in, for or against Moon. The odds are
that the Brooklyn people won’t come up to Badmont while I’m
there.”

Molly
walked away from me as if she had lost interest in the conversation.
She picked up the highball she had left on the end table, but she
didn’t raise it to her mouth.

“
Okay,
Adam, a mysterious woman stole you from the detective, and they’ll
never learn from me who it really was.” She turned to me with
the rich, warm smile that had made a hard-boiled desk sergeant
simper. “And you might as well spend the night here on the
couch.”

“
You’re
swell,” I said.

“
No,
I’m just a sucker for tall lads with cowlicks.” She put
down the glass. “I don’t know how you feel, but I can use
some sleep.”

She
brought a sheet and a blanket and a pillow out of the bedroom. When
she had arranged them on the couch, she eyed the result dubiously.
“You’ll never fit on it.”

“
I’m
used to cramped beds,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

She
went as far as the bedroom door and turned and looked at me a long
time with those unblinking gray eyes. She had two faces, one which
glowed with the warmest smile on earth and the other frozen and
remote. Whenever she stared at me like that, something inside of me
squirmed. She was, I thought, a little screwy.

“
Good-night,”
she said suddenly and stepped into the bedroom.

I
stripped down to my underwear and put out the light and climbed under
the blanket. I lay between the two arms of the couch with knees
raised. The glow of a street lamp spread up through the two windows
and revealed the phone not ten feet from where I lay. It was close to
two o’clock. Esther would still be up, waiting to hear from the
police that they found me. And tomorrow she would wait, and the day
after. And

Carol
who had known so little of me, except for this last year, I would
wait.

I
heard Molly move about in her room. The slit of light under the
closed bedroom door vanished and a moment later bedsprings creaked. I
closed my eyes. There was no sleep for me, because of the nap or the
two cups of coffee or the tumult in my brain.

I
got out of bed and went into the kitchenette and drank water. Then I
wanted a cigarette. I had smoked my last one, but Molly would have
some around. She hadn’t, not in that room.

I
found myself staring down at the phone. I stuck my finger into the
dial hole which would start the connection to my home. Savagely I
turned away and felt that I would tear things apart if I didn’t
have a cigarette.

I
put on my pants and tapped lightly on the bedroom door. There was no
response. I pushed the door open, and by the light which flowed from
the living room I saw Molly lying in a maple bed with her bare arms
over the cover and her face soft and relaxed in sleep. Her handbag
was on the maple dresser, and beside it lay an ashtray and a pack of
cigarettes and matches. It was a very small room. Five steps took me
across. I reached for the cigarettes.

“
What
do you want?” Molly said sharply.

I
spun toward the bed as guilty as a man caught with his hand in
somebody else’s pocket. She was sitting up. Her left hand
reached sideways to snap on the bedside lamp. Her right hand held a
small pearl-handled automatic.

The
depreciating laugh which started in my throat came out as a nervous
giggle. “I wanted to borrow a cigarette.” I explained.

“
Yes?”
she said.

She
wore a peach nightgown with almost no bodice. An Amazon queen beyond
doubt, and the gun was an adequate modern substitute for a spear. She
held it pointed at me, competently.

I
said: “Do you always sleep with a gun under your pillow?”

“
I
do when there’s a strange man sleeping in my apartment and I’ve
lost the key to the bedroom door.”

I
shook my head. “You wouldn’t have any reason to be afraid
of me except if I’m somebody who murdered a man a couple of
nights ago and stole a valuable bag. If I'm capable of that, there’s
no telling what I’m capable of with only an unlocked door
between myself and a beautiful woman in bed.”

She
looked down at the gun and at herself, and she spoiled the picture
somewhat by pulling the blanket up to her bare shoulders. The gun
lowered to her thigh and she smiled. Not her deluxe smile. This one
hardly plucked the corners of her mouth. “I think you’re
what you pretend to be, a respectable lad who blundered into
something too big for him, but I prefer to play safe. You might want
to make sure that I wouldn’t be able to tell anybody how you
really disappeared to night”

“
But
you invited me to spend the night here.”

“
I
felt sorry for you,” she said. “And I feel safe enough
with a gun. A newspaper reporter sometimes goes places where it is
convenient to be armed.”

“
Sorry
I disturbed your sleep,” I said stiffly and turned to go.

“
You
were supposed to have come for cigarettes,” she called after
me. I wasn’t sure that her voice was mocking.

I
returned to the dresser and shook two cigarettes from the pack and
went to the door. She sat against the headboard with the cover held
to her throat and the gun on her thigh.

Her
gray eyes showed nothing that was behind them.

“
Good-night,”
I said and closed the door between us.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

My
wristwatch said five minutes to nine. Sun streamers filtered in
through dusty windows and lay across the rug and touched my bare feet
propped up on the arm of the couch. I 'turned my cheek against the
pillow and looked at the phone on its table on the other side of the
room. It had waited all night for me.

The
bedroom door was open. I could see the rumpled empty bed. I didn’t
hear her in the bathroom. I lay on the couch and looked at the phone.

A
key turned in the lock. Molly Crane came in with a couple of
packages. She wore a suit of brown-and-white checks, and many men
would have envied those broad shoulders and the tall, erect carriage.
But there was nothing mannish about the way her copper-colored jersey
sweater molded her fine breasts.

“
I
let you sleep while I went down for rolls,” she explained. “How
do you feel this morning?”

I
pulled my bare feet out of sight under the blanket. “Physically
I’m all right. I’ve been thinking about the wild ideas I
had last night.”

She
glanced at the phone as if it could tell her something. “So you
phoned your wife?”

“
Not
yet, but I’m going to.”

“
That’s
up to you.” Molly placed the bag of rolls on the table arid
turned back to me with a small package wrapped in blue paper. “I
had a look at the-morning papers while I was downstairs. There wasn’t
a thing about you. Then I phoned my paper and I learned that a story
had gone on the wire a couple of hours ago. I guess the police waited
until they’d spent the night hunting for you before they gave
anything to the press.”

“
What
did they give out?”

“
Witness
in Brooklyn murder vanishes. Believed kidnaped. That was what you
wanted wasn’t it?”

“
Yes.”
I turned my face from the phone. “Esther is sitting at home
waiting, not knowing if I’m dead or alive. It’s a
terrible thing to do to her.”

She
waited for me to go on. When I didn’t, she dropped the small
package on my blanket and said: “I bought you a toothbrush and
a razor and shaving cream.”

“
You’re
swell.”

Her
shoulder-length hair swung with the tossing of her head. “Better
save it till you’re sure you mean it. I’ll turn my back
till you dress.” She went into the kitchenette.

I
gathered up my clothes and the package, and in my underwear sprinted
into the bathroom. A hot shower and .a shave set me up and made me
look presentable — or almost so, for the bruise on my cheek had
darkened and produced a thuggish effect. It hurt only when I pressed
my finger against it.

When
I came out, breakfast was ready. I sat down opposite Molly and drank
canned grapefruit juice.

“
I’m
going through with it,” I said, putting the glass down.

“
I
was sure you would. You made too many arguments last night not to
have convinced yourself. We ought to get an early start.”

“
We?”
I said.

She
flashed that dazzling smile of hers. “I told you not to thank
me for anything I did for you. I was thinking of myself when I
brought you here and let you spend the night. I’m a newspaper
woman.”

“
It
might be dangerous.”

“
It
might be for you, but I’ll merely be an outsider looking in.
This is my chance to get the whale of a story I’ve been after.”

“
No,”
I said.

“
I’ve
been around, Adam. I know a little something, about criminals.
Possibly I could be of help.”

“
I've
taken enough favors from you. This is my job.”

Her
head dipped as she leaned across the table to pour my coffee. “Get
it out of your head that I’ve done you any favors, or will. All
the help I want is to help myself to an exclusive story.” She
sat back and the gold in her eyes sparkled. “You can’t
stop me. My car is downstairs; I’ve already taken it out of the
garage. I can beat you to Badmont. You can go with me or meet me
there.”

I
drank my coffee, thinking it over, and then laughed mildly, “You’re
quite a woman.”

“
I’ve
been told that.”

“
I
don’t only mean physically.”

“
I’ve
been told, that too. Would you like another slice of toast?”

Twenty
minutes later we left in her car. She drove all the way.

We
were like the bear climbing over the mountain. When we reached the
other side there was always another mountain, or a rib of the same
mountain, and between the ribs lay rolling valleys. Occasionally we
saw a farmhouse in the distance, but not often. Once we passed a
bearded man trudging along the road. For the rest, the valleys:
belonged to grazing cows.

Shortly
before noon Molly stopped the car just after we had started another
descent. “There it is.”