'Don't rush me, darling,' she said. 'You're a dreadful cold-blooded, ruthless person, but I had to find you tonight. Do you understand? You're the only person I'd care to be with tonight, whatever happens.'
'Sure,' I said. 'I don't think much of you, either, glamor girl You're unreliable and treacherous and arrogant and selfish. If you happen to think a man's done you a bad turn, you can't even be trusted tied hand and foot. You're mean and vengeful, and the only reason I love you is that I can't hurt you, and even if I do you've had it coming for years. Besides, I know you'll always get back at me somehow.'
She was smiling happily at the end of this recital. 'But you do love me, don't you?'
'Hell,' I said. 'You know I do. I-'
Somebody was tapping me on the shoulder. It was the young lieutenant. 'Pardon me, sir,' he said politely. 'You're wanted on the telephone. You were being paged in the dining room. I thought I'd better tell you.'
I sighed. 'Sure. It might be some important officer wanting to know the exact number of stones in that damn church tower.'
But it wasn't. It was Mac, calling from Washington. 'Deckhoff,' he said, 'Stanislaus Deckhoff, unlikely though the name may sound.'
'Well, it doesn't really matter now,' I said. I'd asked him to run a make on Wegmann, giving him what I knew.
'The agency responsible for the file wants to know if the card should be removed to inactive.'
'I'd say so,' I said, 'but you'd better warn them they'll never get a firm post-mortem identification. Wegmann-Deckhoff and some other guys and a church and some other buildings are scattered all over the side of a mountain. But, yes, I guess it's safe to call him inactive.'
'How is the local situation?' he asked.
'Tapering off,' I said.
'If I clear you with the authorities, is there any reason you can't start for Washington at once?'
'Yes, sir,' I said. 'One. She's waiting in the bar.'
He was human after all. He said, 'Very well, make it tomorrow morning.'
I went back to Gail. In the morning, the world was still there, unchanged. Well, almost unchanged.
