Free The Ravagers by Donald Hamilton Page B

didn’t stay in there kind of a long time, maybe? She had no chance to slip away? No, that’s right, you said you were watching her every minute. Through the restroom keyhole, maybe?”
    I’d been wondering how Genevieve, under constant surveillance, had managed to talk to Ruyter unseen when she needed help, but I had my answer. They’d presumably arranged to meet at a certain time at a certain filling station where the restrooms were side by side around the corner of the building. He could have been waiting in either section with the door locked, until she signaled by knocking a certain way. Or they could have talked through the wall. But I wasn’t about to let these men know what I’d been trying to find out. Ruyter was my secret, my fairhaired boy, to be protected and cherished.
    I regarded Larry grimly. He was silent, flushing. He was really pretty young for this business, I saw. The bald head fooled you. It was a kind of patchy baldness, and he’d shaved off the remaining hair with some idea of looking like Yul Brynner, maybe, or just making a virtue of necessity. He was pale and thin, and the hairlessness made his head look skull-like and old, but he really wasn’t very far into his twenties.
    I decided that he must have been sick or badly wounded recently. This was probably his first job since leaving the hospital. I suppose I should have made allowances. Maybe he was a good man who’d been sent into the field again too soon after a terrible experience of some kind, but I couldn’t really believe he’d ever been a ball of fire. I judged him as a green trainee who’d got himself clobbered the first or second time out, and who was going to get clobbered again if he wasn’t very lucky. I might even have to do the job myself.
    “Well,” I said dryly, “she’s stacked, I’ll say that for Madame Drilling. It must have been interesting to watch.”
    Larry hesitated. “Well, I didn’t really watch —” He stopped and turned to Johnston quickly. “She couldn’t have slipped out, I swear it, Marcus! And the filling station was on the other side of town from Elaine’s motel. She couldn’t possibly have got there and back... He stopped.
    I said, “If she couldn’t have got away from you, what difference does it make how far she had to go? The fact is, she could have backdoored you, and you obviously know it, or you wouldn’t be talking so fast to cover up.”
    Johnston said, “Are you trying to fit Mrs. Drilling for the job, Clevenger? I thought you were the man who said it was suicide.”
    “I still say it. It’s Sonny, here, who keeps trying to make it murder. I’m just pointing out to him that if it is murder, I’m not the only candidate, thanks.”
    There was some more talk along these lines, getting us nowhere. I didn’t convince Larry of my innocence, and Johnston, I soon realized, didn’t need convincing. He was just letting Larry test me with the murder gag. Apparently I checked out okay, because at last he had Larry search me perfunctorily, and then he put his gun away. Pretty soon he was telling me how he wanted me to cooperate and what would happen to me if I didn’t.
    “There’s really no place for a private dick in this operation,” he said, “but since you’re here...”
    “Sure,” I said. “But you stay away from me, both of you. I’ve got troubles enough without being seen associating with a couple of government men. If I learn anything, I’ll get in touch.”
    “See that you do. Come on, Larry.”
    I watched them go off into the darkness. Then I rubbed the bruised side of my jaw and grimaced. Well, I’d managed to keep them off Ruyter’s track for the time being. I lit the Coleman stove and put on a frying pan and cooked a little steak I’d picked up in town. It was stringy and tough. After washing up, I walked over to the rich trailer-folks’ part of the camp. There were lights in the silver trailer with the state of Washington plates. I knocked on the