"A 0-man?" I said. "Now, do I look like one of Mr. Hoover's fine, upstanding, clean-cut young men? Why those fellows are selected for character and integrity. If I'd been one of them, you'd never have seduced me in a million years. I'd have been a rock, I tell you: solid, immovable, granite."

She smiled at me across the table. "All right, Matt, I'll try not to ask questions. Anyway, I wasn't thinking of the FBI. I had in mind-" She hesitated, and looked down at her glass, containing something that was supposed to be a martini-well, there probably was some gin in it, somewhere, judging by my own specimen. I won't answer for the vermouth. She looked up quickly. "I had in mind a certain branch of the Treasury Department."

I said, "I've never investigated an income tax in my life."

She frowned slightly, withdrawing her hand. "You're ducking awfully hard, baby."

"You're pushing hard. Why can't I just be Mrs. Logan's cast-off husband?"

"With those scars? And the way you looked when you heard the name Fredericks, and-" She looked down. "You can't blame me for wanting to know. As a matter of fact-"

"What?" I said when she hesitated.

"As a matter of fact, I didn't come to your motel just because I was lonely. I was… well, kind of curious too."

Her face was pink. I grinned. "You were going to place, Mata Hari, is that it?"

She said, with some stiffness in her voice, "I haven' done too badly, baby. You're her ex-husband, all right I don't suppose there's any doubt about that. But you're something else, too. Something-" She hesitated.

"Something what?"

"Something kind of special, in a gruesome sort o way." She didn't smile. "I've met a lot of them, you know I've spent my whole life, it seems, falling over snooper of one kind or another trying to get something on Dad Half of them had their hands out wanting to be bough off-ninety per cent is closer, I guess-and the rest were so sincere they made you sick, saving suffering humans. manity, for God's sake. Those I can spot a mile off, both kinds. But I don't dig you, baby. You're not hungry and you're not particularly sincere. It makes me wonder just what you're after."

I hesitated, and asked, "How much do you care for your old man, Moira?"

"I hate his guts," she said readily enough. "He put my mother away in an… in a home, I guess you'd call it. Some home! She could probably have been cured, lots of alcoholics are, but he couldn't take the trouble. I guess he just didn't want her around drinking tomato juice at his parties and reminding people that Sal Fredericks' wife had been a helpless lush; anyway, she wasn't very pretty any more, and he likes his women decorative. So he had her put away, in a nice friendly place where she could drink herself to death without disturbing anybody. She hasn't quite made it yet, but she's working on it…" Her eyes were intent on my face. "That's the answer to your question. But if you're asking what I think you're asking… Don't get any wrong ideas, Matt. I didn't pick him and he didn't pick me, but there are certain things you can't do a damn thing about. He's my pop and I'm stuck with him, if you know what I mean."

"I know," I said. "I know what you mean."

"It's corny," she said. "I know, these days if your best friend turns out to be a Red or a crook or something, you're supposed to turn him in right now; it's your duty to society and to hell with friendship and personal loyalty and all that crap-people used to die for it, but nowadays it's crap. And as for family ties, I went to college, I learned all about it. I know it's perfectly all right if Junior takes an axe to ma and pa. He's just getting rid of his repressions, the dear little thing. But the plain lousy fact, Matt, is that I'm not one of those complex types, and I'm just a real lousy citizen; I don't give a damn about my duty to society. I'm a dumb and simple country girl, and my old man is my old man. Even if he's a sonofabitch, he's my sonofabitch." She drew a long breath. "What I'm trying to say is-"

I said, "It's all right, kid. I know what you're trying to say. Even if the situation should arise, I won't ask you for help. And I'm really not very interested in your old man. Honest Injun."

She ignored this. "What I'm trying to say is, maybe you're ~a swell guy and maybe you're saving the country, but I'm not going to be a stool pigeon or a judas goat for anybody."

"I read you loud and clear," I said. "Drink your martini; you'll never find another like it, I hope."

She hesitated. After a moment, she said, "Matt."

"Yes?"

"I was coming back from Mexico a couple of weeks ago. They stopped me at the border. You know, usually they don't pay much attention to you, coming out of Juarez. You tell them you haven't bought much of anything except some cheap liquor, and they send you over to pay that lousy hold-up tax to the state of Texas, and that's it. But this time they gave me the works. They practically took the car apart. I thought they were even going to get a matron or something and make me strip, but I guess whatever they were looking for was bigger than that. When Dad heard about it, he almost blew his safety circuits."

"So?"

She looked at me steadily and said, "Damn you! It's dope, isn't it?"

There was a little pause. The waiter picked that moment to come up and stick his elbow in my face so he could put some food in front of her. Then he stuck his elbow in her face so he could put some food in front of me. He went away, proud that he'd remembered to serve us in the right order.

"Isn't it?" she said. "He's tried every other lousy racket; he was bound to get to it sooner or later. It's dope, and they're expecting him to receive a… a shipment, perhaps, and they thought maybe I was running it across the border for him?" She waited a little. I didn't say anything. She said, "Well?"

I said, "You're doing the guessing. Don't expect any help from me."

She sighed. "No. Of course not. But I think I'm right. That would explain why Duke Logan left him. The Duke always said he'd run guns to anybody who'd pay-he'd done it, too-but he drew the line at trafficking in dope and women."

"Good for old Duke," I said.

"Don't sound so cynical."

I said, "These guys who keep drawing lines never impress me very much. I know a dozen fishermen who'll let a trout fight its heart out against a nylon leader, but who are real proud of themselves because they've never shot anything in their lives. And then there's a man I know who'll shoot any bird that flies-ducks, geese, quail, doves, you name it-but he feels quite moral because he's never killed a big animal like a deer or an elk. And I even know a deer hunter who gets his. buck every fall but who'd never dream of going to Africa and murdering a great big elephant just for sport, he thinks that's terrible. They've all got something they won't do, and it makes them feel swell."

She studied my face for a moment. "And you?" she murmured. "What won't you do, Matt?"

"Nothing," I said. "I draw no lines, kid."

She said, "We were talking about dope-"

"You were talking about dope."

"It's a lousy business, isn't it?"

I moved my shoulders. "I never could get very excited about saving people from themselves, but some folks seem to."

She said, "You're a funny man. You ought to be giving me a lecture on the evils of this horrible trade, showing me where my duty lies."

"I should worry about your duty," I said. "I've got trouble enough with my own."

"Yes," she said. "I just wish I knew what the hell it was." After a moment, she said, "There's something that worries me. I'm going to tell you about it. Probably I shouldn't, but I'm going to anyway."

"Think it over first," 1 said.

She laughed, a little sharply. "Don't overdo it," she said. "It's the old reverse-English technique, isn't it? Pretend you're not interested and they'll spill their guts. Particularly if you've gone to bed with them first."