by Barry Eisler
She didn’t follow him. Was he telling her not to worry? He wouldn’t … hurt her?
“How do you know that?” she said.
“I just know. This is all weird to you. Like something that’s happening to someone else. When it’s over and you’re back to your life, it’ll be like waking up from a dream.”
She looked at him, trying to read his expression. “You’re right,” she said. “It does feel like that. But … how do you know?”
He shook his head and looked away, and she thought, Because you never woke up.
The waitress brought their drinks and Sarah paid for them. They sipped in silence for a few minutes.
“Why do you speak such good Farsi?” Sarah asked, switching languages.
“You already know why,” Ben said, also in Farsi.
“I don’t like what you do,” Sarah said, switching back to English.
Ben laughed. “That’s okay. I like it fine.”
“You like violence?”
He shrugged. “It’s a tool for a job.”
“The craftsman doesn’t enjoy his tools?
“Why did you become a lawyer? Because you enjoy lawyering?”
She looked at him, surprised at the way the question went to the heart of her own doubts. “I don’t really know why. Maybe just because I was good at it. Why did you get into your line of work?”
For a moment his expression was oddly blank, and then he looked away. “It’s a long story.”
They were quiet again. Sarah said, “Tell me something about yourself.”
“Like what?”
Actually, she didn’t know. The words had just come out. She hadn’t planned them, and didn’t know what she was asking exactly.
“I don’t know. Just … something you can tell me. Not something about work. Something personal. So I’ll feel like I at least know you a little.”
He shrugged. “I like to pull the wings off flies. It’s just a hobby, but I’m thinking about going pro.”
She shook her head, realizing it was a waste of time, feeling foolish for even having tried. “Are you married?” she asked. “Do you have a family?”
There was a pause, and she thought he wouldn’t answer. But then he said, “Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. She was Filipina. I met her in Manila. When we got back to the States, I found out she wasn’t who I thought she was.”
“Maybe she found out the same thing about you.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“Kids?”
A long moment went by. He said, “A daughter. They live in Manila.”
She couldn’t help being intrigued at his obvious reluctance, and more by his ultimate willingness to answer. “You don’t see them?”
He shrugged. “It’s a long way away.”
“But that’s not why you don’t see them.”
He took a long swallow of gin. “What about you? Boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “There was someone in law school. But not now.”
“Why not? They must go crazy for you at your law firm.”
“Why do you say that?”
He looked at her. “Are you fishing for a compliment, or are you really that blind?”
She felt herself blushing, half in anger, half in embarrassment. “I just haven’t met anyone.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“What do you mean, that’s not it? How would you know? You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know a lot about you. It’s my job to know things about people.”
“Yeah? What do you know?”
“I know that when a woman as beautiful as you is unattached, it’s not because she hasn’t met anyone. It’s because she doesn’t want to.”
“And why wouldn’t I want to?” she asked, resisting the urge to shift in her seat.
“A lot of reasons. You got to the office at, what, seven o’clock this morning? So you want to make a big splash as a lawyer. A boyfriend would be a distraction. And if people in the office knew you had a boyfriend, they wouldn’t hope as hard. If they didn’t hope as hard, you couldn’t subtly manipulate them as much.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“You asked.”
“What else?”
He took another swallow of gin. “You know any guy you get involved with is going to lose his perspective. You know because it’s happened before. He’ll probably want to get married right away to lock you in while he can. You can’t abide that because you want to keep your options open. Not about men, about your life. You don’t know what you really want to do. What you want to be when you grow up.”
“Yeah?” she said, ignoring the provocation. “And what do I want to be?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not a lawyer.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because if you wanted to be a lawyer, you wouldn’t have responded so quickly.”
She shook her head, saying nothing. His cockiness enraged her … but at the same time, she had to admit the things he was saying weren’t so far off.
“You want to know why you don’t see your family?” she asked.
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“It’s because you can’t stand an attachment. You can’t bear to have someone depend on you. Why is that? Did you disappoint someone along the way, let someone down?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I do. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have been so quick to argue. It was a departure from your usual style of smug silence.”
He smiled. She couldn’t tell if it was the usual condescension, or if he was saying, Touché.
“What is it? You think your daughter is better off with no father than with one who might be unreliable? What is it, a kind of inoculation? Preemptive disappointment?”
He took a sip from his glass. “Just drop it.”
“Why? More fun to get in someone else’s head than to have her get in yours?”
“You’re not in my head.”
“Tell yourself again. Maybe it’ll help you believe it.”
He looked at her, his expression baleful, and she thought again of tremendous pressure and tremendous control. What was it about him that made her want to know what was behind the control, that made her want to increase the pressure to the point where the control would crack? Why had she become so invested in stirring him up? Because he had belittled her? Made some arguably racist remarks? He was petty, and she was allowing him to make her petty, too.
She knew the words were right. Yet they were having no impact at all on her feelings.
Ben drained his glass. “Another?”
She polished hers off, too, fighting the urge to grimace. “Your turn to buy.”
He ordered them two more. She wondered if it was a good idea. She was already buzzed from the first. But there had been a challenge in his offer, and she wasn’t going to back away from it.
You see how stupid you’re being? she thought. But once again the words had no effect.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. The waitress brought their drinks and moved off. Sarah took a sip and glanced out the window, musing, enjoying her buzz. She liked the bar. She liked sitting in the gloom, watching the street outside as though from some kind of secret aerie. Pearl’s was right across the street; she could see the entrance clearly.
And then it hit her. Damn him. Goddamn him.
“You never went to Pearl’s,” she said. “You announced you were going there because you thought I might follow you. You came here to watch and see if I did.”
He shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Something like that … I get it, it wasn’t me you were expecting, it was what, the other bad people? The Iranian terrorists I work for?”
“I have a suspicious nature, remember?”
“You know what? You’re full of shit. N
o one’s suspicious of everyone, not even someone like you.”
“You need to get out more often.”
“I get out plenty. You spent time here when you were a kid, didn’t you? It’s why you wanted to stay in the city instead of at an airport hotel. And you wanted proximity to North Beach, too, right? Because you know the layout, you knew you could set something like this up. You expect me to believe this is just routine for you? You do it for everyone?”
“I do it when I need to.”
“You’d be doing it if I weren’t Iranian?”
“Like I said, I do it when I need to.”
“Why don’t you just admit it’s because I’m Iranian, that you have a problem with that?”
“I don’t have to admit anything to you.”
“Of course you don’t. You don’t even have to admit it to yourself. Not if you don’t have the balls.”
He put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Listen, honey. You don’t live in the real world. You live in a fantasy. And if something intrudes on your little delusion—if you actually have to acknowledge one of the serving class that makes your lifestyle possible, if you get even a hint of a notion of what has to be done on your behalf so you can live the way you think you deserve to—you have a moral-outrage hissy fit. Forgive me if I find it hard to take you seriously.”
He leaned back and finished his gin in one long swallow.
“You’re right,” she said. “What I really need to do is wander the earth unfettered and alone, killing people along the way who need killing, wallowing in the tragic nobility of my sacrifice. Oh, and I’ll have to abandon my family, of course. That’s obviously part of enlightenment.”
She leaned back and emptied her glass as he had his. The gin scorched her throat and burned its way into her belly. She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered with the effort not to cough.
When she opened her eyes, he was looking at her. He was extremely still and she had no idea what he was thinking. Had she hurt him? She’d been trying to and suddenly regretted it. What he’d said to her had been mean, no doubt, but she wondered if what she had just done in response hadn’t been outright cruel. The one didn’t justify the other. She wanted to apologize but sensed that doing so would make it worse. Acting as though she knew she had hurt him, and was now trying to make him feel better, would be twisting the knife.
“I think I’ve had too much to drink,” she said, hoping he would read it as the oblique apology she intended.
“I’ll walk you back to the hotel,” he said. She’d been expecting an insult, something about her inability to hold her liquor, maybe, and the fact that he seemed to have lost any enthusiasm for that made her wonder again if she’d gone too far.
They headed down Columbus, then into Chinatown. The moon was higher now, the wind colder than it had been earlier. In the useless, yellowish glow of the streetlamps, objects seemed indistinct, insubstantial; cars and signs and storefronts melded together, tenebrous elements possessed by the dark.
She noticed his head moving as they walked, looking left and right, even checking behind them when they crossed a street or turned a corner. You could never sneak up on him, she thought. You’d have to hit him head-on. The thought felt odd to her and she realized she was drunk.
The hotel was pleasantly warm, the glow of light from chandeliers and wall sconces fuzzy at its edges, the sound of their footfalls on the carpet like muffled heartbeats in the silence. In the elevator they said nothing, and she was very aware of his closeness. He walked her to her room and waited while she fished her key card from her jeans. She opened the door and turned to him. “I want to ask you something,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Does Alex even know?”
“Know what?”
“That he has a niece.”
There was a pause. He said, “I don’t know why he would.”
“You never told him, then.”
“We don’t talk.”
“Why not?”
“Do you have brothers or sisters?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Well, it would be hard to explain, then.”
“Try.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Do we not have time?”
“We don’t. You need to get a good night’s sleep so you can work on Obsidian tomorrow. And I have something to do tonight.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning.”
She wanted to say more. More than that, she wanted him to come in. Really wanted him to. But she was afraid to ask.
They stood there for a moment. He looked away and said, “You know Alex is in love with you.”
Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “What? He is not.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“He told you that?”
“No. He would never tell me.”
“Then how do you know?”
He sighed. “He’s my brother.”
Why was he telling her this? Was he saying … he wanted to come in but didn’t want to hurt Alex? They were so out of touch Alex didn’t even know about Ben’s child. Why would he care? And anyway, Alex wasn’t in love with her, that was ridiculous.
“I have no idea what to say to that,” she said.
He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Say good night.”
She looked at him, waiting. Then she said, “Good night.”
And then he was walking away. His arms moved, and suddenly he had a key card in one hand and a gun in the other. She thought, What the hell? He opened the door and in one fluid movement was gone, the clack of the lock closing behind him the only evidence that an instant before he’d been there.
She stood for a moment, feeling drunk and confused and oddly bereft. He needed his gun to go into his hotel room at night? He was crazy. He must be crazy.
She waited a moment, but he didn’t come back out.
She went inside. Nothing had happened. She told herself that was a good thing.
22 INFINITE LOOP
Alex had left the room as Ben told him, and it took Ben only a minute to confirm that he was alone. Everyone had bedtime rituals. Some needed a bath; others, a cup of tea. Some liked to read in bed; others, to listen to music. Ben preferred a room sweep with a Glock in a two-handed, chest-level grip.
He sat at the edge of the bed and thought about what to do. Damn it, what had he been thinking? He’d almost … Christ, he didn’t know what he’d almost done.
It’s the pressure, man. The shit outside the Four Seasons this morning … It was just a delayed combat hard-on, that’s all. And two straight-up all-gin martinis.
Yeah, maybe. But that didn’t change the fact that he’d been a nanosecond from kissing her. Kissing her. Hell, if he hadn’t managed to walk away there was a better-than-even chance he’d be in her room right now and kissing would be the least of it.
He glanced over at the common door. She was right there, on the other side, probably looking at the door herself. If he knocked, she would answer. The way she’d been looking at him …
He scrubbed a hand across his face. He was being criminally stupid. He’d heard of guys getting caught in honey traps. He’d always thought of them as fools, and now he was on the verge of being one.
She’d gotten to him. Somehow she had. The shit she’d said about his family … half of him wanted to fuck her, the other half to smack her. What did she know? He didn’t see his daughter—What are you, afraid to say her name? Ami. Your daughter’s name is Ami—he didn’t see Ami because what kind of father could he have been to her? The things he did could be lived with only in silence and solitude. What was he supposed to do, just wash the blood off his hands and then come home to Hi, honey, how was your day? Fine, sweetie, killed two terrorist moneymen in Algiers and got away clean. Lucky, too, because if I ever fuck up, the U.S. government will disavow all knowledge of my activities, and if I haven’t managed to swallow a cyanide capsule, I’ll certainly
be imprisoned and tortured to death. What’s for dinner?
Please. It was best for them. He was no kind of husband, and he wasn’t going to be any kind of father, either. He couldn’t have people depending on him. He just needed to be alone.
So why did it bother him so much that Sarah was afraid of him? He should welcome her fear; it was his best chance of keeping her in line, of keeping her mouth shut about what had happened at the Four Seasons that morning. Oderint dum metuant. And why had he been so moved by the way she had admitted her fear to him? He should have done something to reinforce it, and instead had wound up stammering out some horseshit about how it would be like none of this had ever happened. Comforting her. For Christ’s sake, he had … he’d actually tried to comfort her. He must be out of his mind.
The bottom line was that he didn’t know the first thing about her. Not really. Treating her with anything other than skepticism and suspicion was his dick talking and nothing more. What he needed to do was jerk off and go to sleep and forget what had almost happened tonight.
Almost. That was the key word. Okay, he’d been tempted, who wouldn’t be? She was beautiful, there was no sense denying it. And there was something about her that … affected him—that, one minute, made him want to protect her; and the next, made him want to shove her up against the wall and put his hands on her and shut her up by covering her mouth with his own.
Put his hands on her. He hadn’t meant anything by it when he’d patted her down in the bar—he’d been too focused on the possibility she might have a weapon. But as soon as he was satisfied she wasn’t carrying, he’d relaxed, and it was as though some other guard had dropped, too, because the way she’d looked into his eyes while running her hands up his sides and down his legs …
He blew out a long, hot breath. But he hadn’t acted on it. No harm, no foul.
On top of it all, he felt guilty. But why? It wasn’t as though there was anything between Alex and Sarah, and even if there was, he didn’t owe his brother anything.
So why had he told her about Alex? Maybe he’d been trying to distract her. Maybe he’d been trying to explain why even though he wanted to, he couldn’t.
The room phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said, “Yeah,” thinking, Sarah?
