Persuader

said. "They couldn't make them work under the blacktop. But there's a camera on the lodge. And there's a motion alarm on the gate itself. Do you know what an NSV is?"
    "Soviet tank-turret machine gun," I said.
    "Paulie's got one," she said. "He keeps it by the side door. He's been told to use it if he hears the motion alarm." I breathed in, and then I breathed out. An NSV is more than five feet long and weighs more than fifty-five pounds. It uses cartridges four and a half inches long and a half-inch wide. It can fire twelve of them in a second. It has no safety mechanism. The combination of Paulie and an NSV would be nobody's idea of fun.
    "But I think you swam," she said. "I can smell the sea on your shirt. Very faintly. You didn't dry yourself properly when you got back." We passed a sign for a town called Saco. I coasted to the shoulder and stopped again.
    Cars and trucks whined past us.
    "You were incredibly lucky," she said. "There are some bad riptides off the point. Strong undertow. But I expect you went in behind the garages. In which case you missed them by about ten feet."
    "I don't work for the government," I said.
    "Don't you?"
    "Don't you think you're taking a hell of a chance?" I said. "Let's say I wasn't exactly what I appeared to be. Just for the sake of argument. Let's say I was from a rival organization, for instance. Don't you see the risk? You think you would make it back to the house alive? Saying what you're saying?" She looked away.
    "Then I guess that will be the test," she said. "If you're a government man, you won't kill me. If you're not, you will."
    "I'm just a guy," I said. "You could get me in trouble."
    "Let's find coffee," she said. "Saco is a nice town. All the big mill owners lived there, way back." We ended up on an island in the middle of the Saco River. There was an enormous brick building on it that had been a gigantic mill, way back in history. Now it was being gentrified into hundreds of offices and stores. We found a glass-and-chrome coffee shop called Café Café. A pun in French, I guessed. But the smell alone was worth the trip. I ignored the lattes and the flavored foamy stuff and ordered regular coffee, hot, black, large. Then I turned to Elizabeth Beck. She shook her head.
    "You stay," she said. "I've decided to go shopping. Alone. I'll meet you back here in four hours." I said nothing.
    "I don't need your permission," she said. "You're just my driver."
    "I don't have any money," I said.
    She gave me twenty bucks from her purse. I paid for the coffee and carried it to a table.
    She came with me and watched me sit down.
    "Four hours," she said. "Maybe a little more, but no less. In case there's something you need to do."
    "I've got nothing to do," I said. "I'm just your driver." She looked at me. Zipped her purse. The space around my table was tight. She twisted a little to get the strap of her purse square on her shoulder. Jackknifed slightly to avoid touching the table and spilling my coffee. There was a clunk, like plastic hitting the floor.
    I looked down. Something had fallen out from under her skirt. She stared at it and her face slowly turned a deep shade of red. She bent and picked the thing up and clutched it in her hand. Fumbled her way onto the chair opposite me like all the strength had gone out of her. Like she was utterly humiliated. She was holding a pager. It was a black plastic rectangle a little smaller than my own e-mail device. She stared at it. Her neck was bright red all the way down under her sweater. She spoke in a low rueful whisper.
    "He makes me carry it there," she said. "Inside my underpants. He likes it to have what he calls the appropriate effect when it buzzes. He checks that it's there every time I go through the gate. Normally I take it out and put it in my bag afterward. But I didn't want to do that, you know, this time, with you watching." I said nothing. She stood up. Blinked twice and took a breath and swallowed.
    "Four hours," she said. "In case there's something you need to do." Then she walked away. I watched her go. She turned left outside the door and disappeared. An elaborate con game? It was possible that they could try to set me up with her story. Possible that she could carry a pager in her pants to back it up. Possible that she could contrive to shake it loose at exactly the right moment. All possible. But what wasn't even remotely possible was that she could manufacture a deep red blush, right on cue. Nobody can do that.