Judge Me Not by John D. MacDonald Page A

go out of town like this?”
    “Hardly. But you were vouched for. Highly recommended, I suppose is the right way to say it.” She smiled, and then her mood changed with surprising rapidity. “And, of course,” she said, “I am also filled with curiosity. You look like one of those precious and indomitable males who go around swelling out their chests and telling their less favored brethren that they never have to pay for it.”
    It was the first hint of coarseness, but the shot was very well aimed.
    “Ouch,” he said. “One of that same type must have bitten you once upon a time.”
    “Now I say ouch,” she said. “Never lead with your right, Barbara.”
    “We better call a truce before somebody gets battered. Ready?”
    She nodded. He paid the check. She had a small overnight bag on the bench beside her. He carried it out, placed it on the back seat of the car, held the car door for her.
    As he got behind the wheel he said, “Shall I leave the top down?”
    “Please,” she said. She took her hat off. Her hair was a cap of brown curls. When they drove up out of the valley the last rays of the setting sun touched her hair and brought out red touches that were like hidden flame.
    “Teed?”
    “Yes, Barbara.”
    “What do you think of pacts?”
    He grinned. “Diplomatic, suicide? What color?”
    “Pull over and stop for a minute. Let’s whip up a pact.”
    He stopped the car, turned to face her, his left arm resting on the top of the wheel, right arm along the seat back. She turned in the seat to face him, and all the light had gone out of her blue eyes. They looked dead, long buried.
    “It is a standard gambit, Teed, that sooner or later you will ask me how I got into the oldest profession. Men seem to have a compulsion to ask that question. So, let’s have a pact. Don’t ask me, and you won’t make it necessary for me to invent some tragic song and dance just to satisfy your curiosity. Teed, just take me for … granted.”
    “Any pact involves a concession on both sides, Barbara. I think I probably would have asked you. Now I won’t. But you have to agree to something too. You have to promisenot to pretend to any emotion or any excitement that isn’t genuine.”
    “Aren’t you being stupid? Aren’t you cheating yourself, Teed?”
    “How so?”
    “I’m as cold as those monsters they dig out of glaciers. You’re the first … customer I’ve ever told that to. Now that I’ve said it, I think maybe you better take me back to the hotel. I don’t want to cheat you.”
    “I’d rather keep on with it, Barbara, and have each of us keep our side of the pact. Maybe this will be a little platonic jaunt into the country. I really don’t care, one way or the other.”
    “Then don’t pay me until I ask you to,” she said harshly.
    “It’s a deal, Barbara.”
    Her smile came slowly. She rested her cheek for a moment against the back of his hand. “Drive the car, mister.”
    He drove into the first village just as the market was about to close. She came in with him and they selected steaks and frozen vegetables. He was amused by the way she watched the meat scale as the steaks were weighed.
    Teed carried the bag of groceries out. It was cooler in the hills, so he put the top up.
    “Barbara, a confession. Willing to listen?”
    “Of course.”
    “I’ve got a devious motive for taking you to the camp. I want you to do something for me. When we leave, I want the camp to look as though you had been there. Lipstick on the towels, bobby pins on the floor, nail polish on the bathroom shelf.”
    It was too dark to see her face. “Thanks for being honest.”
    “You’ll do it?”
    “Of course, Teed.”
    “Then there’s no question of my not paying you, of course. I’m paying you for agreeing to leave your imprint on the place.”
    “If you say so.” She was silent for a few minutes. “You’re using me to make someone jealous, I suppose?”
    “No, Barbara.”
    “Then you’re using me to