Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (22 page)

 
          
She
did not look at him. After a long pause, she whispered, “I have to say that,
don’t I? I have to think that.”

 
          
“Do
you know that your father claims to have proof you betrayed them?”

 
          
He
heard the sharp hissing intake of her breath. Then she had struck him across
the face with what must have been just about all the strength she could muster;
he felt the blow drive tears into his eyes.

 
          
“…
always
…!” she gasped “…
to shock me, hurt me…
!”

 
          
He
rubbed his stinging cheek without answering. He found that he was glad of the
pain; it was as if it paid off a debt he had owed her since that afternoon when
he had struck her. The thought was irrelevant and he put it aside. He saw her
eyes waver, and the anger go out of them. “Proof?” she whispered.

 
          
He
nodded.

 
          
“I
thought… they didn’t even guess…”

 
          
Emmett
did not say anything. The girl beside him put both hands to her mouth in a
curious abrupt gesture; she was staring at him with an expression he did not
try to understand. Then he saw that her shoulders were shaking. She was
laughing. She bent over, hiding her face from him, shaken by the silent,
frightening laughter. He heard the coyote howling far away. The distant sound
of life seemed to make the place where they were more deserted and lonely. When
he spoke, telling her to snap out of it, his voice sounded helpless and scared.
He kneeled beside her and lifted her and held her. After a long time he felt
her bring herself under control with an effort that left her exhausted.

 
          
“…
sorry…!” she breathed weakly, “… couldn’t help…”

 
          
“What
was so damn funny?” His mouth was dry.

 
          
“…
just seemed… trying so hard… years… to keep it secret… and they’ve known all
the time… She swallowed with difficulty. “… handkerchief?”

 
          
He
pressed his into her hand, and found himself, without thinking, stroking the
disheveled light hair back from her temple; and suddenly she had raised her
head to look at him.

 
          
“Don’t
do that.”

 
          
“Sorry.”

 
          
He
let his hand fall. He would have released her, had there been any way of doing
it without making a point of it. He could feel himself flushing.

 
          
She
whispered, “If… you want to leave g-guns around to see if I’m going to shoot
you, and spring information on me like that to see… to study my reactions…” She
drew a long ragged breath. “I mean, until you make up your mind about me, you
haven’t any right to kiss me as you did this morning, or touch me as you did
just now. As if you liked me. That’s dirty.”

 
          
He
did not say anything. He looked past her at the moon setting toward the distant
low black rim of the mountains to the west. He thought it must be well past
midnight
. The buttes looked cold and bleak and
hostile in the shimmering semidarkness. He had the sudden thought that probably
things would have looked pretty much the same had they been on the moon
watching the earth set. Then he recalled that the same side of the moon always
faced the earth, so that, from the moon, the earth should never set. He tried
to visualize the problem, to see if this were correct, but it got all mixed up
inside his head.

 
          
“I’m
sorry,” Ann’s voice said. “I didn’t mean to be nasty.”

 
          
He
could see the pattern of her shirt in the moonlight, and the shape of her face,
but he could not make out her expression. There was no resistance when he
kissed her, nor was there at first any response, and he saw her eyes open,
studying him gravely; then she made a small sound like a sob and came to him,
her mouth to his mouth, her body to his body, her hands holding him. Then she
had turned sharply away.

 
          
“You
mustn’t ever hit me again,” she breathed. “It was like dying.”

 
          
He
could feel his heart beating. He heard the coyote’s voice in the distance,
answered closer. It occurred to him that this was a strange place to be making
love; then he thought that probably one place was as good as another. He
watched her averted face, waiting for her to look at him again.

 
          
He
shaved from a cup of water, crouching a little to use his reflection in the
side window of the convertible as a guide. It was still just barely morning.
There was a heavy dawn mist that looked as if it might very well become rain
later on; you could not feel the sun behind it. The plains were flat and gray,
the buttes colorless in the weak directionless light. He knew when she came
around the car and when she stopped behind him. He found himself thinking that
if she were to come quite silently into a perfectly dark room where he was
waiting, he would know when she was near him. Then he thought that this was
really getting pretty corny.

 
          
“I
thought you were going to change into your suit,” he said, glancing at her to
find her still in the checkered wool shirt and the brown gabardine slacks that
somehow, although creased and dusty, managed to retain a hint of the stiff
sized look of newness.

 
          
“It
had got too wrinkled in the suitcase,” she said. “And I don’t seem to have a
whole stocking to my name.”

 
          
He
turned back to his shaving. He could see her in the window, but she would not
meet his eyes, even in the glass. “We’ll stop at the first town we come to,” he
said.

 
          
She
said without expression, “It doesn’t really matter, unless you think I look too
disreputable. After all, I looked worse than this the last time he saw me. He
might not recognize me all dressed up.”

 
          
He
was startled to realize that he had almost forgotten that within a few hours
she would be meeting the man she had started out to see almost a week ago.

 
          
The
rain caught them on the road, but lasted less than ten minutes. Half an hour
later there was no indication that it had rained at all. By the time they
reached the town of
Numa
, a little early, the sun was as hot as it had been the previous day.
Emmett drove slowly through the town until he saw the sign: NUMA BIDS YOU
GOOD-BYE—COME AGAIN, and beyond it the graded gravel highways leading out
across the plain.

 
          
A
Chevrolet sedan painted olive-green with army numbers in black was waiting by
the sign. The front door was open and a corporal sat behind the wheel. A
sergeant and a lieutenant squatted in the shade of the car. They looked as if
they had been talking some time earlier, but had run out of conversation and
were merely waiting to finish their cigarettes before rising. When Emmett stopped
the convertible they both pitched their butts away and stood up, the sergeant
taking a hitch to the belt that held his service automatic. The officer came
back along his car to the convertible. His silver bars were bright in the
sunlight. He had sweated through his shirt under the armpits.

 
          
He
glanced at the license number of the Mercury as he passed it, came to the door,
introduced himself, and got in beside Ann when she moved over to make room for
him. He told Emmett to keep straight on the way he was heading. As they
gathered speed again, Emmett could see the army sedan in the rear-view mirror,
following. After some miles, he was told to turn left on a narrow but
well-paved asphalt road. There was a mesa purple in the distance, but no sign
of anything living and no markers along the road until they came to a neat
placard: U.S. ARMY—NO THOROUGHFARE.

 
          
They
could see the village of steel huts for a long time before they reached it. At
the gate a sentry stopped them, and a big man came out to meet them. The
lieutenant got out and Kirkpatrick got in. The difference in the amount of room
occupied by the two men was noticeable. The federal man had the hot rumpled
look of any large man in a
palm beach
suit after the first hour of a warm day; his brown face was shiny. He
told Emmett to drive ahead; obeying, Emmett saw in the mirror the army car pick
up the officer and fall in behind.

 
          
“Your
father’s already here, Miss Nicholson,” Kirkpatrick said.

 
          
“Yes?”
Ann did not look at him, or correct him as to her name or title. She was
watching the huts, like great halfsections of corrugated drainpipe laid in
geometrical patterns in the dust, slide past the windows. Squeezed between the
two men, she had to lean forward a little to look to the sides.

 
          
Kirkpatrick
said, a little pointedly, “The secret work is handled in another area. This
section is just for routine clerical and filing, and quarters for the army
personnel.”

 
          
“I
see.” Ann smiled and sat back. “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to look.”

 
          
“It’s
perfectly all right, Miss Nicholson. I was just explaining why there was
nothing to see.” The big man cleared his throat. “My name is Kirkpatrick. Mr.
Emmett has probably told you about me.” Ann turned the green lenses of her
sunglasses toward him, but did not speak. Kirkpatrick went on, “I’m with the
FBI. We’ve got the job of protecting Dr. Reinhard Kissel, the man you want to
see; cooperating with the army, of course. I don’t know if Emmett has
explained, but Dr. Kissel saw some things in a Nazi laboratory during the war
that our scientists are very interested in having him reconstruct for them.
Certain other parties seem to be just as interested in keeping him from
finishing the job…”

 
          
Ann
hesitated. “I shouldn’t think they’d have much chance, in here,” she said.

 
          
“Dr.
Kissel is a rather independent old man. He says that he spent enough of his
life behind barbed wire already that he sees no reason for living behind it
now. He refuses to take up quarters on the project, it reminds him of a
concentration camp, he says.”

 
          
Ann
said softly, “I can sympathize with his point of view.”

 
          
“Turn
right at the next corner, Mr. Emmett,” the big man said. “Miss Nicholson, I’m
just telling you all this to warn you; if anything happens, get down on the
floor and crawl behind some furniture. We’ve taken all the precautions we can,
and I don’t expect any trouble. Nevertheless, this interview wasn’t my idea;
and with all due respect to you and your father—” He glanced past her. “—and to
Mr. Emmett, whom I understand to be the moving spirit behind the occasion, I
still don’t like it. I’ve been forced into it against my better judgment, Miss
Nicholson, and I want to make my position very clear: Beside Dr. Kissel’s
safety, your life, or that of your father or doctor or nurse, or of Mr. Emmett
here, doesn’t mean a damn thing to me.” He paused, and went on, “If it’s
necessary to start shooting, I’ll shoot. It’s up to you to get out of the way…
That goes for you, too,” he said curtly to Emmett. “This building here. Number
twenty-seven.”

 
          
Between
the metal buildings the sunlight seemed to be focused as if by mirrors, and the
heat gave an air of shimmering unreality to the semicircular fronts of the
quonset huts lining the street. Emmett got out of the car on his side, and Ann
slid behind the wheel to stand beside him. He glanced at her; she was tugging
down her halter. He could not see her expression for the dark glasses. He
wished he would not be so acutely aware, every time he looked at her, of being
in love with her. He hoped it did not show. Kirkpatrick came around the car and
led them inside.

 
          
Some
of the girls typing in the outer office looked up as they passed through, but
most of them paid no attention; nevertheless Emmett was suddenly aware that his
sports shirt was soiled and his slacks needed pressing, and that Ann, in slacks
and halter, looked no more respectable. It had not seemed to matter, driving,
but now it made him uneasy and uncomfortable.

 
          
Kirkpatrick
ushered them through a brief corridor and an open door into a conference room
mainly occupied by a large wooden table surrounded by chairs. Six evenly spaced
microphones, hanging from the ceiling, formed a straight line down the center
of the long table, about two feet above it. There was a portable blackboard, on
castors, pushed back against the far wall, and more chairs lined the long walls
of the room. Dr. Kaufman, Helene Bethke, and Ann’s father were waiting to the
right of the door. They looked dwarfed and unimportant occupying only three
chairs out of thirty in the room. The older man rose at once as his daughter
came in with Emmett. Kirkpatrick pressed a catch and let the door sigh closed
behind them, taking up his station against it, as if to keep them from
escaping.

 
          
As
her father came forward, Ann took off her sunglasses, folded them carefully,
and then seemed baffled by the fact that there was no pocket in her scanty
halter. She faced Mr. Nicholson with the glasses in her hand.

 
          
“Hello,
Sister,” Mr. Nicholson said. He looked her over and smiled. “Where did you get
those pants?”

 
          
She
explained her appearance carefully. “We’ve been camping out. On the desert.”

 
          
Emmett
felt the older man’s glance touch him, and he felt himself flush a little. It
seemed like a stupid and immature reaction, but he could not help it. Mr. Nicholson
did not seem to have noticed it.

 
          
“We
were worried about you, Sister,” he said gravely to Ann. “What made you run off
like that? You don’t really think any of us would hurt you, do you?”

 
          
Ann
was not looking at him any longer. She hesitated, watching Dr. Kaufman come
forward, and Emmett, beside her, could sense her sudden panic.

 
          
“No,”
she whispered. “No, of course I don’t.”

 
          
Dr.
Kaufman’s stocky figure was neat in tan gabardine; his thick dark hair was
brushed back, smooth and glossy, from his forehead. He was the only person in
the room who did not seem to be perspiring. Ann watched him approach, and the
glasses in her hand seemed to bother her. She shifted them from one hand to the
other, unable to find a natural way to hold them. Emmett wanted to reach out
and take them from her, but he could not bring himself to call attention to her
nervousness. It reminded him startlingly, however, that she was facing a man
she knew to have tried to kill her.

 
          
Her
father said, “Emmett asked me over the phone to find out where Doc was last
Sunday night when you—” He avoided the word “suicide.” “—when you were alone in
the hotel in
Boyne
. I just got a report from the office this
morning; Plaice had called in that he checked Doc’s story completely.” Mr.
Nicholson looked at Emmett. “You don’t have to take my word for it, young man.
He’ll be meeting us in
Santa Fe
after we’re through here. You can ask him.” He turned back to his
daughter. “You see, Sister? Dr. Kaufman didn’t leave
Denver
that night until well after
midnight
, long after Emmett had already found you
unconscious.”

 
          
Ann’s
face was expressionless. She held the sunglasses firmly between both hands. “I
see,” she murmured, and faced the doctor. “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly.

 
          
Dr.
Kaufman smiled. “That’s quite all right, Ann,” he said cheerfully. “We’re used
to it. I’ve had patients accuse me of worse than trying to kill them. It’s
readily explained; you felt that my probing and questioning had driven you to
the point of taking your own life. You blamed me for your act; it was a simple
matter for your mind to clear you of all guilt by transferring it to me.”

 
          
“Yes,”
Ann said. “Of course.”

 
          
Dr.
Kaufman laughed. “You don’t believe a word of it, naturally. Would you rather I
left the room?”

 
          
She
hesitated again, then, without speaking, shook her head. Dr. Kaufman reached
out and gently disengaged the sunglasses from her fingers. Then he led her to
one of the chairs at the side of the room. He gave the glasses to Helene
Bethke; and then passed his hand rapidly in front of the eyes of the girl in
the chair; then, with his hand on her forehead, drew back first one eyelid and
then the other. The nurse passed him a thermometer.