We searched through the house, looked in all the rooms, all the nooks and crannies. There was no one left. We went out the way we had come in and stopped on the veranda in sight of the dead man in the yard. It had grown bitter cold and the snow was turning hard.
“You lied to me,” I said. “You said you wouldn’t get involved.”
Vanilla put her gun inside her coat and looked at me. “I didn’t know I was getting involved until I started drawing that map for you. Jimson, like I said, that was personal.”
“I presume the map you gave me isn’t really the easiest way for me to get here, is it?”
“I gave you quite a trial, didn’t I?”
“You think I’d give up and go home?”
“I thought if I gave you the long and hard way here, I’d get here first, in plenty of time. Still, I didn’t want you not to be a part of it. I wanted you to know it was done.”
A part of me wished I had been late. From what I could see, she hadn’t needed me at all.
“What made you do it?” I said.
She looked at me like that was a question that didn’t immediately compute. Finally, she said, “I don’t know. I learned a lot in that big room back there so long ago, the one with the mats. I learned how to fight and use a knife, ice pick, most anything I could lay my hands on. There’s also a gun range farther in. Everything nice and padded and silent. There’s also a bedroom that wasn’t my room and it wasn’t their room. You didn’t see it. It’s a large room, and it’s silent too. I learned a lot there from Mr. Kincaid.”
“I’m sorry, Vanilla.”
“All part of the drill, I suppose. The males got the same.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“I suppose I had to close things out. I believe that’s why I came, more than for you.”
“How do you feel?” I said.
“Just the same.”
“What now?”
“I’ll show you to my car, drive you around to yours, and we go our separate ways.”
“I mean what now for you?”
She shrugged and started walking across the yard. I slung the shotgun strap over my shoulder, followed, our feet crunching on the snow-covered grass. We went out through the open front gate and I swung the shotgun off my shoulder, and we got in her black Volkswagen Beetle. The one I had passed when I drove over to No Enterprise and found Jimson and his goons.
Vanilla had merely driven straight up the drive and gone inside. I don’t know how she had gotten through the gate. Maybe it was open. Maybe she knew a code. After that, it had been easy. Drop the guard and the dog, and then I showed up. I’m sure she had answers to those questions, but at that point in time, I didn’t really care.
As she started up the Volkswagen, I said, “I thought you were like James Bond till I saw this car. Does it have machine guns in the headlights?”
“It’s maneuverable and dependable,” she said. “Just like me. Did I ever tell you how maneuverable I am?”
“It’s best I don’t hear,” I said, and she wheeled us out of there.