Then, lying there together like that, sprawled across the big iron bed, breathing heavily, we were both still, listening to a racketing sound outside: somebody in the railroad station had started up one of the small motorized bikes of which the Swedes are so fond. They're kind of weak in the muffler department, and you can hear them a long way off. This fellow seemed to be right under the window. He was having trouble, apparently. The thing coughed, spat, choked, and died. He kicked it again, and it caught, and he revved it up until the noise was a high shrieking whine, and I couldn't see how he could keep from losing a valve or two, except that those damn little two-cycle motors don't have any valves. Then he rode away, sputtering, leaving silence behind him.

I raised myself slightly and looked down at Lou. She had relaxed; her face showed a kind of peace under her disordered hair.

"All right, Matt," she whispered. "All right. Go ahead. You've got that much coming."

She'd promised something-implied if not spoken-and she was going to pay off, even if she'd just heard the all-clear signal and knew there was no further need to keep me occupied. Suddenly I was neither drunk nor. angry. I just felt kind of foolish and ineffectual, stopped in the middle of ripping the clothes off a woman I couldn't bring myself to hurt and didn't, I realized, particularly want to rape. I mean, sex shouldn't be a weapon, an instrument of hate. It's something you share with a woman you like. At least you can try to keep it that way.

I got up slowly, and looked at her lying there across the bed, tangled in some inadequate wreckage that no longer bore much resemblance to clothing. I found myself, for some reason, remembering how Sara Lundgren had looked after Caselius and his boys got through with her. Well, at least Lou was still alive; and I'd never claimed that Caselius and I weren't pretty much on the same level, morally speaking. It remained only to see which of us was tougher, which was smarter.

I started to say something bright and clever, and stopped. Then I started to say something apologetic, which was even sillier. It wasn't a time or place for speeches, anyway. I just turned and walked out of the room.

Chapter Twenty-two

IN THE HALL outside my room, I had the key in the lock. I was ready to push the door open and step inside, when it occurred to me that was the way people went and got themselves killed. They got themselves all upset about a woman or something, and forgot to take stock of a changed situation that might hold danger.

If everything had gone according to plan, my situation had changed drastically-at least Caselius would be thinking it had, which was what counted-and I remembered very clearly what had happened to Sara Lundgren when our boy decided he had no further use for her.

I reached in my pocket, got the Solingen knife, and flicked it open. Standing aside, I gave the door a push and waited for it to swing all the way back. Then I waited a little more. If there was anyone inside, he could watch that lighted dorway for a while and wonder whether the first object through would be a human being or a hand grenade. It would do his nerves good, from my point of view.

When I went in, I went in fast and low, at a slant. It would have taken a very good man to pick me off in the brief moment I was silhouetted against the light. I hit the floor inside and kept rolling, and nothing happened. You feel kind of silly, getting yourself bruised and dusty for nothing, but it's better than being dead. I lay there in the dark long enough to decide that if I wasn't alone in the room, the other guy must have passed out from holding his breath. Then I got up and moved cautiously to the window to pull the blind, keeping well to one side, before I turned on the light. I didn't look out. A white face makes a swell target, and I wasn't curious. If there was a sniper outside, that was a good place for him to be. He didn't bother me a bit, out there.

With the window safely covered, I went back and closed the door and hit the light switch. The Swedes go in for large push buttons, like overgrown doorbell buttons. You hit them once for light, and once again-the same button

– for darkness. Then I looked at the dresser top, which was empty. The films were gone. The surprise wasn't exactly what you'd call paralyzing.

I went behind the bathroom curtain and looked at myself in the mirror. I had a streak of her lipstick across one cheek and more on my shirt collar; I had her face powder on my lapels. I had some scratches on my wrist where she'd tried to hold me off. Otherwise she'd done me no visible harm. Damage-wise, as the Madison Avenue boys would say, it had been strictly a one-way proposition.

My image in the mirror had that dead-fish look that your mirror image always gets after you've drunk too much. I was beginning to need a shave, I noticed. I needed a bath. I needed a good beating-up or the firm application of an old-fashioned horsewhip. I needed a new face and a new personality. I needed twelve hours' sleep.

I settled for washing my face and taking some aspirin. When someone knocked on the door, the sound was barely audible, but it made me jump a foot. I took out the knife again and went to the door and opened it, taking the routine precautions. Outside was the last person in the world I expected to see right then. You'd have thought she'd had enough of me for a while. I folded the knife and put it away. It was getting lots of fresh air tonight, but no exercise.

"Come in, Lou," I said. She didn't move at once. She was watching my face. "Yes," I said, "your friends have been here. Congratulations."

She drew a deep breath. "Matt, I-"

"Come in," I said. "It's safe. I never maul the same woman twice in one night."

She stepped inside. I closed the door and turned to look at her. She'd done a quick restoration job; you wouldn't have known this was a girl I'd just left lying across her bed in rags. She had her old beatnik costume on-the tight black pants, the bulky black sweater-and her hair was brushed and her lipstick was bright and straight. There was a small red area on her chin, that was all.

We faced each other in silence; then I said, "Everything okay?" She nodded. "Yes," she said. "I… I'm all right."

I reached out and touched the mark on her chin. "Whisker burns?" She nodded again. I said, "I'll have to remember to shave for the next young lady I ravish."

She said, "You didn't finish ravishing this one, Matt." There was a spell of silence. She said, "It wasn't… wasn't very nice, what I had to do to you, what we did to each other. I don't blame you for hating me and wanting to hurt me."

I didn't want her damn understanding. "That's nice of you," I said. "I appreciate that."

She shook her head quickly. "Don't be sarcastic, please. Some day, maybe soon, you'll understand why…" Her voice ran out. After a little, she said, "If there's anything anything I can do to make up for tricking you…" l~ said, "I figured we came out pretty even."

She glanced toward the empty dresser top. "Still?"

"Still," I said.

She grimaced. "I don't seem to have much luck selling myself tonight, do I?"

"Oh, is that what you were doing?" I asked. I looked her up and down briefly. "Well, I never could get excited over a woman in pants, doll."

She said, completely without expression: "That's easily remedied. They come off, you know."

It was no use. I couldn't out-tough her. I admitted defeat. "Let's cut it out, Lou. I've had just about enough of this smart-and-dirty dialogue."

She said, stiffly, "I just don't want you to feel… well, cheated. At least not in that way. And I don't want you to feel noble and forgiving, either. I want to have all our accounts settled when I go out of here. We probably won't meet again. If you think you've got something coming, damn you, now's the time to collect." Then she started to cry.