man in the duffel coat had, and her blue eyes opened wide. Robin jabbed her again.
With a muffled roar, Candy turned on her, her thick arms enveloping the dark woman, who screamed. The younger man drew a forty-five automatic from beneath his coat and flourished it uselessly.
“Shut up!” The man in the duffel coat leaned into the Cadillac and tried to grasp the struggling women, then drew back a bleeding hand.
As though the car had spit them out, the two fell through the open door and onto the snow, Robin under Candy, whose fingers were tangled in her hair. Kip took her huge revolver from her purse and struck Candy’s head with the butt twice in rapid succession, the impacts of steel on bone nearly merging, like the left-right blows of a good welterweight at the speed bag. The younger man and the waiter rolled Candy off Robin and helped Robin up.
“Christ almighty,” she gasped, “I thought she was going to kill me.” Flapping her arms, she tried to dust the snow from her coat.
The waiter got her purse from the back of the Cadillac and handed it to her.
“You did it!” Kip exclaimed. “What did you stick her with, Robbie? A knife?”
“Nail file.” Robin was still panting, her dark cheeks flushed with blood under her makeup. “She came down on top, knocked the wind out. I didn’t have any more grit than a kitten.”
The man in the duffel coat was looking at Candy. “Two hundred and eighty, perhaps,” he said. “Divided by four, it’s still close to a hundred pounds each. You men are lucky you didn’t have to carry her out of that restaurant.”
Sweet had knelt beside Candy. “Is she hurt?”
“Possibly. Kip has a good forehand, and that’s a big gun. If she hit her in the temple with it, she may have done some real damage.”
“Behind the ear, Daddy,” Kip said. She had put her revolver back into her purse.
“Lieutenant, take one leg; I’ll get the other. Sweet, take one arm and try to get your hand under her shoulder. Pearson, you take the other shoulder.”
All four straightened as well as they could, and Candy’s head and feet rose.
“You’re not getting her derriere up,” Kip told them.
The younger man grunted, “We can’t.”
The man in the duffel coat bent for a moment as he might have to see if the muffler and tail pipe of a car were dragging. “Try to move her. It should slide over the snow.”
It did.
“Where we taking her?” the waiter gasped.
“Around the far side of the building, then back to the plane.”
Having tested his engines, the pilot had shut them off. The plane stood angular and silent at the beginning of a snowdusted runway, its propellers motionless. The leggy blonde painted on its dark fuselage looked a trifle embarrassed by the folding steps pushed against its side.
The man in the duffel coat motioned for them to stop. “Sweet, Pearson, thank you again, on behalf of this country. Goodbye, and remember that loose lips sink ships.”
They nodded and hurried away.
Kip and Robin stood guard over Candy while the man in the duffel coat and the younger man went inside and brought out Stubb, Barnes, and the witch.
“You’re going to have to carry her onto the plane,” he told them.
“We can’t,” Barnes protested, looking down at her.
“If you don’t,” the man in the duffel coat said, “we’ll shoot you down where you stand.” He raised the Thompson. “And if you do, I’ll tell you what became of your son.”
Wordlessly, Barnes stooped to take Candy’s ankles.
Stubb had knelt in the snow beside her. “We don’t have to carry her,” he said. “She’s awake.”
Her eyes were still closed, but there were tears at the corners. Slowly, one small, plump hand came up to touch the side of her head.
“Where’s Little Ozzie?” Barnes demanded.
Robin said, “You didn’t care so much about him a couple of hours ago.”
Kip added to Stubb, “And you didn’t care so much about her. I saw the way you looked at me. You would have dropped her for me any time I wiggled a finger.”
The man in the duffel coat murmured, “You see, you are all traitors—as are we who betray ourselves.” His mouth twisted in a smile. “It’s the truth. The simple truth.”
“And I?” asked the witch. “Have I been false to any goal, to any promise? I never promised these three anything, nor have I betrayed any of them. You don’t need to lecture us about that poor girl there. We know she would give up Mr. Stubb or any other to follow her belly. But what of me?”
The man in the duffel coat was still smiling. “You’ve remained faithful, you say? To what?”
“To knowledge! To the ideal of ultimate truth.”
“You’ve followed every lying spirit, no matter how wilful or how weak. When you were at the end of your search
