Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

XIV

We were back in the kitchen, half an eye on the terminal, our attention on each other and on highballs Ian had served, discussing what if anything to do now. Ian was saying,

“Marj, if you will just sit tight this silly season will be over and you can then go home comfortably. If there is another flap, you can dive down the Hole. At worst you have to stay indoors. Meanwhile Georges can paint nudes of you, as Betty ordered. Okay, Georges?”

“That would be most pleasing.”

“Well, Marj?”

“Ian, if I tell my boss that I couldn’t come back when I was supposed to because a twenty-five-hundred kilometer stretch of border was nominally closed he simply would not believe me.” (Tell them that I am a trained courier? No need to. Or not yet.)

“What are you going to do?”

“I think I have been enough trouble to you folks.” (Ian dear, I think you are still in shock from seeing a man killed in your living room. Even though you straightened up afterward and behaved like a pro.) “I now know where your back door is. When you get up tomorrow morning it is possible that I won’t be here. Then you can forget a disturbance in your life.”

“No!”

“Jan, once this mess is over, I will call you. Then, if you want me to, I’ll come back to visit just as soon as I have some vacation time. But now I must leave and get back to work. I’ve said so all along.”

Janet simply would not hear of my setting out alone to crack the border (whereas I needed someone with me the way a snake needs shoes). But she did have a plan.

She pointed out that Georges and I could travel on their passports-I was her size, near enough, and Georges matched Ian in size and weight. Our faces did not match but the differences weren’t major-and who really looks at passport pictures anyhow?

“You could use them and mail them back . . . but that may not be the easiest way. You could go to Vancouver, then cross into the California Confederacy simply on tourists’ cards-but as us. You can go all the way to Vancouver on our credit cards. Once across the border into California you are almost certainly home free- Marj, your credit card should be good, you shouldn’t have trouble phoning your employer, and the cops won’t be trying to intern either one of you. Is that any help?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I think the tourist-card dodge is safer than trying to use your passports-safer for everyone. If I reach a place where my credit card is valid, my troubles should be over.” (I would draw cash at once and never again let myself be caught away from home without plenty of cash-money greases anything. Especially in California, a place loaded with scams, whereas in British Canada officials are sometimes disconcertingly honest.)

I added, “I can’t possibly be worse off in Bellingham than I am here-then I’ve got all the way down to the Lone Star Republic to try to cross if there is any holdup. Has there been any word on Texas and Chicago? Are they on speaking terms?”

“Okay so far as I’ve seen in the news,” Ian answered. “Shall I key the computer for a search?”

“Yes, before I leave please do. If I had to, I could go through Texas to Vicksburg. One can always go up the river for cash because smugglers run so steadily.”

“Before we leave,” Georges corrected me gently.

“Georges, I think this route would work, for me. For you, all it would do is get you farther and farther away from Québec. Didn’t you say that McGill is your other base?”

“Dear lady, I have no wish to go to McGill. Since the police are being difficult here, my true home, I can think of nothing I would

rather do than travel with you. Once we cross into Washington Province of California you can change your name from Mrs. Tormey to Mrs. Perreault, as it is certain, I think, that both my Maple Leaf card and my Credit Québec card will be accepted.”