Martell licked his lips, however. Even Joey was interested, in his stolid way. Martell said, "Well, go on, Duchess."

She didn't look at him. She was examining a fistful of white silk, obviously closing her mind to the fact that it had very recently been a garment and forcing herself to think of it only as suitable raw material… She tore it into strips, bandaged her husband's leg quite competently, and wiped her hands clean.

"There should be a splint to immobilize it," she said, straightening up.

"We won't bother with that," Martell said. "He's not going very far, if you know what I mean." He took her by the arm, clearly pleased that there was no longer a sleeve, even a thin one, to interfere with his enjoyment. In some ways, he was a man of very simple pleasures, Martell. "Now," he said, "you and I, Duchess, are going in the other room. We're going to have a lot of fun in there, until your husband chooses to wake up and tell us what he did with that tire-"

Beth's face had an incredulous and horrified look. I don't know why; she must have known it was coming. Maybe she'd closed her mind to that, too. She gave a sudden, frantic jerk and pulled away; then she was running for the door. With amateurs, it could have been a break, and I braced myself to come out of the chair, but Martell was no amateur. He had a weakness, serious for a man in his line of work, but he knew his business. He didn't waste a moment looking after Beth. His gun came out smoothly, and he took a backward step to a point from which he could cover both Logan and me.

He said, "Got her, Joey?"

Joey said, "Yeah, I've got her."

"Slap her down," Martell said without turning his head.

"Sure."

It had been a neat bit of team-play, Martell taking over responsibility for Logan and me while Joey, closer, instantly covered the door. Beth had run right into him. Now he held her off a bit with his left hand, and slapped her hard, twice.

Martell said, "That's enough. We don't want to spoil her looks, eh, Joey? Don't worry. You'll get your turn. Now watch these two cute ones while I take her back in there and-"

Beth was sobbing helplessly, less with pain than with sheer terror. The sound annoyed me. I don't want to sound hard-boiled or anything, but I'd been taking a beating for several hours. Logan was on the cot with a badly injured leg. We all stood a good chance of dying if we didn't work together properly, and here she was making a big fuss about something of relatively little importance.

I mean, she was obviously going to be raped anyway. It had been inevitable since early that morning when she'd let them take the shotgun from her. I'd assumed she'd known it-hell, all she had to do was look at the guy-and was planning on it, figuring how best to make use of the fact that she was female, for the common good. I mean, it wasn't as if she were an innocent young virgin. She was a woman who'd had two husbands and three children. Why did she think I'd wigwagged her to play up to him, anyway?

I guess the fact is that I'd been counting on her as I'd have counted on a good female agent in the same spot-or any woman with courage and good sense, for that matter. I'd been depending on her to take Martell out of the play and be real nice to him when the opportunity presented itself, like now, long enough for me to put in some propaganda work on Joey, who was long on experience and know-how, but a little short on brains.

But it was fast becoming obvious that the thought hadn't crossed her mind, or that if it had, she'd dismissed it as something too horrible to be seriously considered. A provocative glance or two, maybe, even a smile, perhaps, but if anybody seriously expected her to go into that room with this vile man and entertain him… Well! How disgusting could you get, anyway? I wasn't going to get any help from her, that was abundantly clear.

At the moment, I would gladly have traded her, and three more like her, for just one kid I could remember, named Tina, who'd have put up a fight, sure, who'd have sobbed and pleaded, perhaps, but who would have yielded at just the right moment, reluctantly at first and then enthusiastically, as if she couldn't help herself, making Martell feel big and strong and virile and irresistible, keeping him busy and happy until she could get her hands on his gun and blow his brains out. With Tina, I'd have had nothing to worry about except Joey. Martell would never have come out of that room alive.

Well, Tina was dead. As a matter of fact, I'd had to kill her myself, under orders, the way you kill a savage female watchdog that starts biting the wrong people. It was Tina's death last year, and Beth's stumbling upon the unpleasant scene although she'd been warned to stay away, that had led to the break up of our marriage. At the moment, disappointed and disillusioned and a little scared, knowing it all depended on me now, I couldn't really see how I'd come to marry the fool woman in the first place.

Joey had us men covered. Martell had Beth by the arm again, and was pulling her across the room.

"Please!" she was crying, holding back desperately, "oh, please…

I mean, it was really kind of a silly performance, from a grown woman. I'd known teen-aged girls in France, nice, sheltered young girls, who'd done much better when the Nazis came, without a fraction of Beth's knowledge and experience. Her terror was too much for the Duke. Whatever he'd had in mind, playing dead-it was a gambit with good possibilities-he gave it up right then.

"That won't be necessary," he said, opening his eyes and pushing himself up on the cot. "The spare wheel you want is five miles back down the road, five-point-three by my odometer. Look for a ravine on the south side. You may have to climb down a ways. Wheels roll, don't you know?"

Chapter Twenty-four

J0EY MADE IT in about half an hour. It seemed longer, and I won't guarantee that it wasn't, since I didn't feel like attracting Martell's attention by moving my arm unnecessarily to check my wristwatch-but as a photographer I used to be able to call off intervals of time with fair accuracy, and I'd say half an hour.

At the end of it, even Martell was showing signs of strain. After all, a Jaguar uses a fairly large wheel, and a Jag spare tire can hold a lot of heroin which can be sold for a lot of money, a fact which might percolate even into Joey's dim brain. Of course, Martell had had no choice. If he'd gone after it himself, that would have left us free to work on Joey with threats and blandishments.

The rest of us weren't very relaxed and cheerful, either. I kept my attention more or less on Logan. The guy was supposed to be good, and if he had any ideas, I didn't want to miss them, but all he did was lie on his back and stare at the ceiling. His face was shiny with sweat. I guess his leg was starting to give him hell.

On the other side of me, in a chair, Beth sat barearmed and bare-shouldered, trying to assume the casual look of the girls in the corset and girdle ads who float around in their underwear as naturally as if nobody ever wore anything else. I'd paid some attention to her at the start, wondering if I'd misjudged her and if she could have been putting on a deliberate panic act for some reason, but all I saw in her eyes was a dull terror too real to be assumed. There weren't going to be any bright ideas from her.

There weren't going to be any bright ideas from anybody. The age of miracles was over. It was all up to Mrs. Helm's little boy Matthew, who sometimes played cops and robbers under the code name Eric.

We heard the Chrysler turn in from the canyon road and come crashing up to the cabin. Joey hurried inside, holding the Jag's spare wire wheel in a loving embrace. He carried it forward tenderly and placed it on the table.