“Whatever pleases you.”
“No, Harry. Whatever pleases you.”
She has fantasized about this midafternoon scene. It will be insane, passionate, and lustful. Spiced by the searching light of the sun. There is nothing they will not do: he to her, she to him.
But now, the time arrived, she feels a curious lassitude. Warm languor. She is bundled, swathed in light and the heat of her own inchoate want. She floats. Realizing, mistily, that if he is to strangle her at that moment, she will offer no resistance. But might bend her head to kiss his tensed knuckles.
“Whatever…” she murmurs.
She is conscious of his hands. Mouth. Total surrender is a blessing. She is in a white dream. Drifting. Until the glow begins. At first no larger than the flicker of a match. Deep within her. Then a flame that crimsons the white.
Conflagration grows. Concentrating her mind, her energies. She begins to tremble. Twisting in the fire. Consumed and vitalized at once. The man says something, but she does not hear. She listens only to the roaring of the holocaust within her. And sobs in welcome.
She cannot know how long it lasts. Until the flames begin to dwindle. Bloodred fades. Pales. White returns. Sun. Light. She is alive. Unconsumed. And stirs. Except, except down inside a flame still flutters.
“Pilot light,” she says. Aloud.
“What?” Harry Dancer says. “You said, ‘Pilot light.’ What on earth does that mean?”
“Nothing on earth,” she says. Smiling. Turning on her side to touch him. “Are we still in Florida? I thought it might be another planet.”
“Still Florida. Are you all right, Ev?”
“I’m fine. Marvelous. Super.”
“Your eyes are wet. You haven’t been crying, have you?”
“If I have, it’s from gratitude. Thank you, darling.”
He laughs. “Did I pay for my lunch?”
“Overpaid.”
“If you’re willing to wait a little while, I could leave a tip.”
“Oh yes,” she says, “you must give me a tip. Better yet, let me take it.”
Later, they lie listless and content. Mesmerized by the radiant light. Hands covering each other’s secrets.
“I feel guilty,” he announces.
“Guilty? Whatever for?”
“I don’t know. Just a vague feeling.”
“Well, don’t feel it. I’m an adult female. You didn’t seduce me with wild promises.”
“I know. But still…”
“Harry, let me tell you what you’ve done for me. Are doing. Escape. That’s the word. To another world.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve been so—so structured. Definite. Sure. Disciplined, you could say. But all that’s changing. I know it.”
“Florida,” he tells her. “Blue skies. Hot sun. Beach. Ocean. I said you were going native.”
“That’s part of it, I suppose.” Turns onto her hip to embrace him. “And you’re part of it. Initiation rites into a new life.”
“Hey,” he says, “wait a minute. I make no claim to being a demon lover. You’ve been with men before.”
“Yes. I have. But you’re you, and it’s different. I don’t want you feeling guilty. No obligations whatsoever. What’s happening is happening to me. You didn’t plan it. As a matter of fact, I didn’t either. But it is happening. I’ll never ask you for anything, Harry. Never! Except to keep seeing you. Spending afternoons and nights like this. Am I shameless for saying that? Yes, I’m shameless. I don’t care.”
“Ev, do you know what you’re doing?”
“I know. More than you can ever guess. I’m shedding an old skin, Harry.”
“Like a snake?”
She nods. “Just like a snake.”
He ponders. “You tell me I have no obligations. But that’s really my decision to make, isn’t it? If I feel a debt…”
“All right,” she says, “if it will make you feel any better, if it wasn’t you, it would be another man. And if you leave me, I’ll find another. There. Does that soothe your conscience?”
“Soothes my conscience and deflates my ego.”
She strokes his cheek. “I’m just trying to convince you that you’re blameless. I take full responsibility. For everything.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“You,” she says. Rolling atop him.
31
Tony Glitner, in his role as case officer, has run a number of field agents over the years. He understands the pressures they endure. Skittish people, for the most part. Prima donnas. They must be coddled, nursed. Given confidence. Their faith in what they are doing constantly reinforced.
He has had failed agents. But never lost one to the Others. He has no intention of ruining that record. He does not like to imagine the consequences.
Evelyn Heimdall has become a problem. Her debriefings are unsatisfactory. With no hard evidence, Glitner senses that the Heimdall-Dancer relationship has changed. It is not as the agent describes it. She is holding back intelligence that Glitner must know if he is to do his job. She may not be lying, but she is dissembling.
He is aware of a new lightness about her. Almost frivolity. He notes it in little things: brighter clothing, more frequent laughter, heavier make-up, a looser way of moving. When she sits, she makes no effort to conceal her good legs. She greets her case officer with a kiss. Departs with a kiss.
Everything about her now suggests self-indulgence. She claims to appreciate the importance of what they are trying to do. But Glitner sees shocking levity. Irresponsibility. She is no longer serious about their assignment. Makes jokes and cynical asides.
These the case officer omits from his daily reports to the Chief of Operations. He wants to be sure before he condemns her. Because her expulsion from the Corporation will be his failure.
He mentions his suspicions to no one on his team. But takes it upon himself to conduct a personal investigation. Follows her from her apartment on Saturday morning to the Boca tennis club. Sees her play. Watches her join Harry Dancer. Tails them back to her apartment. Glitner waits several hours, but Dancer doesn’t appear.
At the debriefing, he says, “How did you make out on Saturday?”
“Not so good,” Evelyn Heimdall says. “Harry wasn’t feeling well. Hangover, I think. Anyway, he drove me back to my place and then split. No hits, no runs, no errors.”
“Uh-huh,” the case officer says. “When are you going to see him again?”
“We left it open. He’ll call me or I’ll call him.”
Glitner lets her go. He doesn’t know how to handle this. He’s losing her—that’s evident. But is she beyond reclamation? The thought occurs to him that possibly the Department is trying to debase her. Just as the Corporation hopes to elevate Sally Abaddon.
He decides that, in his own self-interest, he can no longer withhold this development from the Chief of Operations. He calls Washington to set up an appointment. But the Chief is at a Board of Directors meeting in New York.
Now convinced that the situation cannot be allowed to deteriorate further, Glitner calls New York. Finally locates the Chief. Asks permission to fly up to discuss a matter of the “utmost urgency.”
He hears a small belch on the other end of the line.
“All right,” the Chief says. “Come ahead. I can give you an hour. No more.”
The two men meet in a lavish suite at the Helmsley Palace.
“The Corporation takes care of its own,” the Chief says. Wry smile. “Whatever happened to the sanctity of poverty? Well…never mind. What’s the problem, Tony?”
Glitner spells it out. Admitting he has nothing that would hold up at an official hearing. But there is Heimdall’s new persona. Her failure to submit a complete report on her activities with the subject on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s just my opinion,” the case officer says. “My impressions really. But I think we’re losing her.”
The Chief sighs. “I trust your judg
ment, Tony, but she has a fine record. No suggestion of backsliding.”
“I know that, sir. This is as big a shock to me as it is to you. And I like the woman. She’s warm, personable, and—I thought—steady and dependable. The perfect agent to bring Dancer around. I’m afraid it’s not going to work out that way.”
The Chief goes into the bathroom. Takes a swig of Maalox from the bottle. Comes out again. Wiping his lips.
“Let’s consider our options,” he says. “We don’t have enough evidence even to justify a reprimand. Let alone an official hearing. You can keep tailing her, hoping to get something solid. Or we can pull her off the case immediately, and assign another agent.”
“Then all the time we’ve put in would be wasted,” Glitner says. “We’d have to start over from square one. Making contact with the subject, and so forth. The Department is ahead of us already. A new agent is a prescription for disaster.”
“I concur,” the Chief says. “I think the first step is to prove out Heimdall, one way or another. Following her around won’t do it. As you said, all you have are impressions.”
“Then what’s the solution?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Nasty, but obvious. I’m returning to Washington tomorrow afternoon. I’ll talk to Tommy Salvo in Counterintelligence. I think he better assign a man to Evelyn Heimdall. A devil’s advocate, so to speak. He’ll operate completely outside your team. You won’t even know who he is. You recognize the need for that, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. He’ll be reporting directly to Counterintelligence?”
“That’s correct. And through them to me.”
“But you’ll keep me in the picture, Chief?”
“Of course. As much as you need to know.”
Next day the Chief of Operations meets with Tommy Salvo. Man who wears tweed jackets, flannel slacks, and smokes a yellowed meerschaum pipe. The Chief explains the problem.
Salvo puffs thoughtfully: college professor without tenure.
“Yes,” he says. Making that one word sound pontifical. “I believe I grasp the situation. You’re looking for an agent provocateur. Am I correct?”
“No,” the Chief says, “you are not correct. We have no desire to entrap this woman. We wish only to make certain of her loyalty. It is a test. Not a deliberate attempt to seduce her. Is that distinction clear?”
“Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. I understand completely. I think I have just the man for you. Young, handsome, virile. Excellent record. Completely trustworthy. His name is Martin Frey.”
“All right,” the Chief says. “Brief him, and get him down to Florida as soon as possible. I have no idea how he’ll make contact with Evelyn Heimdall.”
“Martin will know how,” Tommy Salvo says. Smiling.
32
Harry Dancer, confused, trying to find meaning in his life, turns back to memory.
He knows he is sometimes a dour man. With a taste for solitude. Not gloomy, but reflective. Silent moods. Sylvia could jolly him out. That woman was everything he is not: light, capricious, with a love of laughter and a zest for whims. She was the yeast in his life.
He can only remember the good times. Happiness recalled grows stronger. It seems to him now that they never exchanged a cross word, sulked, or barked at each other. He knows that cannot be true, but his memory allows only sunshine in. If there was pain and hurt, he refuses to acknowledge it.
Sally Abaddon and Evelyn Heimdall are disorder. They jumble him; he cannot think straight. What are they to him? What is he to them? He rummages, but can find no answers. Only the memory of his dead wife is simple, neat, clean. She was his touchstone.
His marriage was a better time. He had a role to play then. He knew his lines. He knew who he was.
33
Sally Abaddon’s physical beauty is as much curse as blessing. Her roguish father spelled it out for her before she was sixteen.
“You’re going to break a lot of hearts,” he told her. “You can make a career of it—if that’s what you want. I know you’ve got a good brain. The question is: Do you want to use it? You can become a rich man’s darling or a poor man’s slave—and wither away from boredom and the realization of lost opportunities and a wasted life.”
“Then what shall I do? Tell me.”
He looked at her speculatively. Head cocked to one side. “You might think about joining my company. Important work, and the rewards can be enormous.”
“But I’ve had no experience.”
“They’ll teach you, Sal,” her father said.
It turned out to be an exciting world. Filled with mystery and delight. Travel. Meeting new people. Becoming an expert at what she was trained to do. And as her father had said, the benefits were tremendous. The only catch was that you had to be perfect at your job; failures were not tolerated. Her father had found out. He was gone now.
Her successful career went on. And on and on. With never a qualm or doubt. She was convinced she had enlisted in a service for which she was uniquely qualified. She was, as the Department had promised, supremely satisfied. Then she was assigned to the Harry Dancer case.
Now qualms and doubts assail her. She struggles to understand what is happening. She tells herself it is not Dancer himself, the physical man. It is what he represents. Verities that were anathema to her. But which have suddenly become alluring, partly because they are forbidden to Department personnel.
She has always been an addicted risk-taker. More danger, more pleasure. But now she is courting the greatest peril of her life. Knows it, and cannot resist.
“Harry,” she says, “tell me the story of your life. What you did when you were a kid and growing up and where you lived and everything.”
“That would take a month of Sundays.”
“I want to know.”
They are driving up the coast to have dinner at Palm Beach. She is wearing her tailored suit of ashy linen, with a single strand of black pearls. Her hair is up, and she is not using the approved scent. She is turned sideways in the passenger seat so she can look at him as he speaks.
He tells her some things, trying to keep it light and amusing. But she is not appeased. Keeps asking questions about his parents, schools, church, girlfriends, loves, hobbies, habits. His marriage to Sylvia.
“It sounds like a wonderful life,” she says.
“Yes,” he says, surprised. “I guess it was. Maybe not wonderful, but a good life. Ordinary. Nothing very dramatic about it. But now that I look back, I realize how satisfying it was.”
“Was? It’s not over, Harry.”
“I know that, but since Sylvia’s death, things have changed. I can see how lucky I was. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”
“You’ll still be lucky. We’ll be lucky.”
A moment later, they stop for a traffic light. Black Mercedes pulls up alongside. Sally glances, sees Briscoe and Shelby Yama staring at her. She looks away.
“What I’d like to do,” she tells Dancer, “is to forget about dinner and just keep driving and driving.”
“Whereto?”
“The ends of the earth,” she says.
He laughs. “Great idea. But I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Yes,” she is about to say, “so do I.” But she says nothing.
They have a leisurely dinner at the Breakers. Window-shop along the Via Mizner. Stop at a tiny outdoor cafe. Have a champagne kir.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Sal,” he says. Taking her hand.
“Bored?”
“Lord, no. I’m never bored when I’m with you. But it seems to me I’ve been doing all the talking. You’ve hardly said a word.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Deep, deep thoughts?” he asks.
“Very deep,” she says. Turning to him with a smile. “Can we go back to my place?”
“Sure, but I’ll have to leave early.”
“Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”
“Am I?” he says. Looking at her
strangely. “Sometimes I wonder.”
On the return trip, she turns briefly to glance out the rear window. Black Mercedes two cars back. She is suddenly fearful. Not of failing the Department so much as losing Dancer if she doesn’t continue to play her assigned role. But that would represent a personal betrayal.
In the parking lot, she puts a hand on his arm to stay him. “You know what I’d like to do tonight? Just for kicks? Keep all the lights off. Lower the Venetian blinds. We’ll make love in complete darkness. You’ll love it.”
“I said you were a wild one.”
“Trust me,” she says.
In the blacked-out motel suite they move cautiously. Trying not to stumble. Undress awkwardly. Find the bed. She gropes, finds him. Presses his shoulders. Makes him sit on the edge. Kneels in front of him.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Let me, Harry,” she says. “Please.”
He bends to peer. Touches. Discovers her hair is down. Feels her cool fingers on him. Both are silent in the darkness.
“Slowly,” she whispers.
“I wish I could see you, Sal.”
“Later. Just lie back.”
He does as she orders. Stares up into the black. Clenches his fists as she begins.
“Something new,” she says. “You like?”
“You are a witch,” he says. Gasping.
She falters. Then continues. Bringing him along.
“Lover,” she says, “am I good for you?”
He doesn’t answer. Can’t answer.
“Just let me love you,” she murmurs. “My way. You promised.”
He reaches down. Entwines his fingers in her hair. Clutches tightly.
“Pull,” she says. “Hard.”
He cannot understand what she wants. Feels her sharp teeth and wonders if she means to devour him. Mouth. Lips. Tongue. And prying fingers. She turns him upside down and inside out.
He lurches. Sobs. Pumps. Releases her hair to hold her face. Wetness. But whether it is her tears or his juices, he does not know. And, at the moment, does not care.
The Loves of Harry Dancer Page 10
