Never Look Back

by Ridley Pearson

  Her blond hair hung in thick curls. She closed the door and took his coat. Her speckled eye glistened in the light of a prismed chandelier.

  Hanging up his coat in a narrow closet, she offered tentatively, “The booze is over there, if you want one. Please make mine a Perrier and twist. You’ll be happy to know that after you left me I managed to just about kill myself with my drinking.”

  He suddenly had nothing to say. He wondered where to begin. Too much in the way. Moods. Misunderstandings. Their past. He walked over to the wrought-iron, glass-topped bar cart and located two bottles of Perrier and two highball glasses.

  “But no longer,” she continued, heading to the couch and sitting down. “I’m back with the living. Look out.” The couch was behind him. Standing with his back to her bothered him greatly. As they opened, both bottles hissed at him like a snake. The kitchen was a small efficiency, extremely clean. In the freezer he found ice. The cubes cracked loudly when he poured the sparkling water over them.

  “I’m sorry I never called you.” He walked around the couch and handed her the glass. Only then did he sense her nervousness.

  “So am I. I’m sorry about the whole mess,” she explained softly and sincerely.

  “Me, too,” he returned redundantly. He wondered, Is that all? Is that all we’re going to talk about—it? Do we just pick up and start again? “I’m confused,” he complained, feeling the familiar golf ball lodge in his throat and suddenly feeling uneasy and sorry for himself. “What the hell, Mari?”

  “Sit down.”

  She noted he chose to sit in a chair facing her, rather than next to her on the couch. He brought the chair closer and sat down, resting his glass on a coaster atop the coffee table.

  She lifted her glass to her lips and sipped, peering over the rim at him, her one speckled eye catching the light.

  “Who was he?” he asked out of the blue.

  She knew whom he was referring to.

  “Talk about one of life’s big mistakes. I never blamed you for how you reacted, only for not returning my calls. What a stupid thing to do—to let happen. I just allowed the whole damn thing to happen.” Now she whispered, her voice strained. “I’m sooooo sorry. I can’t tell you…”

  His temptation was to comfort her, to take her into his arms. But he resisted the urge.

  After a while she said, “I threw away my one great joy in life. You were the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me.”

  “And you, me,” he admitted.

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes. Absolutely.”

  She stood and found a Kleenex in the kitchen, and he heard her blow her nose. When she returned, her mascara was streaked. She touched his jaw affectionately before sitting down. She told him, “I waited for your call. Several days. Then I started drinking really heavily.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

  “Are you really?” she asked incredulously. “I think I got what I deserved.”

  “I could have been more understanding, though. I took it personally.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” she said sarcastically, blowing some hair from her eyes with a huff.

  “It was several weeks before I saw it for what it was.”

  “And what was that?” she asked curiously.

  “In my opinion, it was all a result of my refusal to make a commitment. I imagine what was going through your head was: ‘If I’m not committed, then I can screw anyone I choose to.’”

  “What was going through my head was Chianti.”

  He ignored the comment and continued. “Would I have ever known about it, if I hadn’t walked in unannounced? I doubt it. No. Hopefully, you would have woken up the next day, kicked that guy out, and kept it as one of those secrets better left untold. It was my fault for barging in on you.”

  “It’s funny how the same incident can have two totally different perspectives.”

  “Such is the nature of life. Is it not?”

  She smiled. “Yes. Maybe even the substance of life. I need another hug.” She stood up, and there was no refusing her.

  Tentative at first, their embrace lasted for a long time and grew more affectionate.

  He pressed her head against his chest; his heart beat quickly. She reached around him, locked her hands, and squeezed.

  “I’ve missed you terribly.” A few of her tears ran onto his sweater and rested there. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever be able to start over, will we, Drew?” she asked, disappointed.

  He thought about this and said, “No. We’ll never start over,” and then added, “but maybe we can continue from where we left off.”

  And she squeezed him strongly.

  There was no attempt on his part to remove her clothes or to touch her skin, or to make advances, and had it been anyone but Andy Clayton, this might have worried her. But she knew this man. If intimacy was ever to happen again, it would take some time.

  They released each other slowly. He went back to his chair. She went into the kitchen.

  As she explored the refrigerator she talked him into a good stiff drink. While she warmed up some leftover soup, he excused himself to the privacy of her bedroom phone and, due to the late hour, sent an overnight letter to Terry Stone at the SIA. In soft code he outlined his near-abduction in the park, but requested that Stone—or someone—attempt to arrange another meeting with Testler. He closed with Mari’s address and apartment number, but left no name.

  While he ate three helpings of soup, they sat together on the couch and stared out the windows at the city. The bottoms of the clouds were lit by the glow of the city and looked more like the inside of a gigantic circus tent.

  Andy finally said, “Tell me about the booze.”

  “It was terrible.”

  He waited patiently. She collected her thoughts for a moment and explained, “I stopped eating. I didn’t even notice. I’d been drinking my meals. Mornings were the worst… always my chance to stop…. I was hospitalized five times. Thrown out of two for smuggling in a bottle.” She tried to smile. “I was wild. Too wild. My father even visited me! Imagine that. I bet some doctor asked him to do that,” she added as an afterthought and laughed privately. “The doctor who treated me was a recovered alcoholic. He put me in touch with an organization… and I started over.

  “I learned how to get by a minute at a time. I found my own sense of… of… faith.” She winced, expecting a negative reaction.

  “Religion?” he wondered aloud.

  “Loosely termed.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “You honestly think so? Or are you being sarcastic?”

  “Honestly.”

  “I thought you might laugh.”

  “No. Whatever it is, it suits you. You seem content. Stable.”

  “Boring?”

  “Only time will tell.” He flashed her a little smile, and for no apparent reason, she suddenly felt isolated and removed from him.

  She said, “There’s an expression I’ve picked up that I think you’d understand. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Probably not.”

  “It goes: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change; the courage to change those things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.’” She paused.

  “Are you trying to make a point, Mari?”

  “Am I?”

  “About Duncan?”

  “Yes, I am, Drew.”

  “Let’s not forget I’m on assignment.”

  “It’s his killer, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “I can’t say,” he interjected sincerely. “I’d like to, but I simply can’t.”

  She nodded, and he saw in her a strength he had never seen. She wasn’t going to ask again. She told him, “You could use a little wisdom.”

  “No doubt about that.”

  “Do you actually think you can do anything? It’s not possible, Drew. It’s behind you.” She stared into his eyes, but he was off on a train of thought with a l
ong hill to climb.

  He finally said, “I go back and forth. For a long time I wanted to kill him.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I’m not sure.”

  “That’s an improvement.”

  He glared at her.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  “I’ve killed before…. I was working surveillance, hunting VC who had infiltrated Saigon. I convinced myself it was self-defense. To this day, I have not forgiven myself those deaths. Others gave me reasons. I was told they were doubles, or terrorists, or they were running drugs to our troops… things like that. But once, I stabbed a man who simply walked around the wrong corner at the wrong time. I don’t know if I killed him…” He paused. “But I tried to; and I left him there; and he had nothing to do with anything.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “It was war, right? That’s what everybody kept saying. War. It was Asia. Worse things came before and worse things were to follow… but I was there….”

  She remained silent.

  He said, “I’ve killed five men in my life. Five that I know of… and I remember each as clearly as I remember anything. It’s not a pleasant thing, no matter what the justification. ‘There but for the grace of God, go I,’ and all that. It was wrong. And it doesn’t get any easier. At least for me it never did. It gets harder. You take an extra second before squeezing the trigger or plunging the knife…”

  “Drew!”

  He was lost. “…a second longer each time. And then you realize that someday soon that extra second is going to cost you.”

  “Drew. You have to take yourself off this assignment.”

  “In that second of time,” he continued, “they’ll kill you, instead of the other way around. And then it’s all over.”

  She couldn’t look at him. He wasn’t with her.

  “So, you see? I’m not all that anxious to kill him. I’m not saying I won’t, because I… hate him.” He looked directly at her, but she saw only the loops in the fabric of the rug. “I had trouble with that. With hate. I had never fully acknowledged its existence in my life. I was the kind of person who held ‘an extreme dislike’ for another. Never hate.

  “Not anymore,” he continued. “I’ve learned to hate him, and it feels much more honest.” She finally looked up at him, as he continued. “But one thought did occur to me: What if he has a brother? What if I become his target?

  “I’ve been writing this damn report on the Middle East, and I can’t help but see the parallel between the senseless killing there… and how I feel. Young men killing other young men because their fathers killed each other. What possible good comes of that? Still, it’s been going on for two thousand years, and it will continue another two thousand….”

  “Listen to what you’re telling me, Drew. There’s no point to it.”

  “To his death, perhaps not. But Borikowski has been connected to the American Embassy bombing in Beirut. Fifty-four lives, Mari. Thirty-seven of them were intelligence officers! My brethren! Now he’s on our ground—unfamiliar ground to him. But where is he? Is he here in Detroit? Is he planning another bombing… an assassination? Today? Tomorrow?” He looked at her wildly. “Do we just let him go? Let him do whatever it is they sent him here for? Is that what we’re supposed to do?”

  She ran her hands through her hair.

  He said, “On one level, Mari, we’re at war. We’ll always be.” He paused and sat up straight. “I’m on orders to find him. Who knows what that may involve? I’ll tell you one thing: hate is an oppressive bedfellow. And I hate the man.”

  She seemed drained and ten years older. Their talk had crushed her. “Speaking of beds… I’m exhausted.” She looked curiously at him. “Where would you like to sleep?”

  8:00 A.M.

  Williamstown, Ohio

  The white truck pulled up in front of his house as it always did, exactly at eight o’clock.

  Mellissa Sherman sat next to him on the ride into the country. She was plump and pale and younger than she looked. And brilliant.

  “Good morning, Doctor.”

  “Morning.”

  “How was it?”

  “Last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Terrible. It’s that child. She’s her father’s blood. She does what she wants. She thinks she knows everything. It was terrible.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes. And so am I. I have failed him. With all the excitement at the lab… I should have given her more of my time.”

  “It was she who moved out, don’t forget.”

  “She told me she was going to move back in, quote, ‘when you need me, Uncle.’ I told her I need her now.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She laughed. She said, ‘I mean when you really need me.’”

  “And?”

  “And then I laughed—chuckled is more honest. She amused me. She still amuses me.”

  “That’s healthy.”

  “I suppose.”

  Mellissa Sherman’s eyes sparkled when she spoke to him; she had so much respect for the man. She had never dreamed she would be this close to him, had never dreamed they might work together. And now it had been nearly two years.

  She said, “The visit is on.”

  He perked up immediately. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. It’s set for Sunday.”

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow morning. You’ll pick him up on the way in.”

  “Splendid! You know, I thought that the confusion of a few weeks ago would ruin everything. I thought the FBI might prevent him from coming.” He thought a moment and she did not interrupt. “It’s probably because of my age. They probably think I’m going to die.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing: I won’t die before I see this project through. I’ve never felt so confident and so… so… proud of any work, like I do with this.”

  “It shows. You look younger every day.”

  “I doubt that, Mellissa, though you’re kind to say so.” He smiled. “No. I doubt that. It’s just that so much of my life has been study, theory, you know. And now a contribution. Something tangible and real, not numbers or words. It lives and it does what we want it to. It’s exciting. You see! Even an old man can still get excited.”

  Mellissa Sherman smiled back at him.

  She was excited too.

  11:00 A.M.

  Detroit, Michigan

  Andy awakened at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning on the couch in Mari’s living room. He found her note in the kitchen explaining, with much regret, that a previous commitment with a youth drug program would hold her until after three, and that she hoped he would be there upon her return. Next to her signature was drawn the smiling face of a cat. He phoned Hugh Long, who put him in touch with Parker Lyell. Lyell had flown in early morning: still no word on a second meeting with Testler. Lyell did, however, arrange for Andy’s suitcase to be transferred from the Ramada to the back seat of a taxi; and to Andy’s delight, the bag arrived an hour later. Not willing to risk being spotted on the streets, he put in his miles by running in place for ninety minutes, and then killed the early afternoon in the first five chapters of a paperback.

  4:41 P.M.

  Arlington, Ohio

  Borikowski guided the Buick along route 68 south toward Williamstown. Lydia, asleep in the passenger seat with her head against the window of the locked door and her hands folded in her lap, woke as he nudged her. Her almond eyes slowly crept open, fixing on Borikowski. She reached over, touched his arm tenderly, and mumbled a hello.

  “We’ll be there any minute now,” he explained. “Wake up if you can.”

  Lydia sat up, withdrew a hairbrush from her purse, and brushed her hair, using a small mirror attached to the back of the visor for reference. “It’s strange, Leonid,” she said. “Since you called me, since we met at the Basilica of Mary, I haven’t known what the next minute will bring. You’re t
he only one who knows where we’re going or what we’re doing….”

  “For this, I am sorry.”

  She laughed vigorously. “Sorry? I was going to thank you. Each moment is only what it is. Tomorrow means little… an hour from now means little… because for me there’s only the moment. It’s a refreshing change from holding oneself to a demanding schedule. I should live this way more often.”

  “But…” He somehow knew her next word.

  “But, all of a sudden… I can’t explain… it’s not important.”

  “Tell me, please.”

  “I shouldn’t…”

  He hesitated, but he could not avoid telling her. “I’m interested. I want to know what you’re thinking.” He paused. “Tell me. What were you going to say?”

  She explained sheepishly, “It’s nothing.”

  Silence.

  He searched a pocket, lit a cigarette—something she had not seen him do. Then he said somewhat apologetically, “We are to separate today.” Inside, he felt guilt for having had sex with her.

  “Oh…” Her dark brown eyes darted back and forth. “I see.” She pushed her black hair from her eyes and continued to brush, though out of nervousness, not necessity. Her hair looked lovely. “We should have made love again.” She forced a smile.

  He asked sarcastically, “Did we make love, or did we have sex?”

  She glared at him.

  He felt miserable for having made the remark, and blamed it on nerves and anxieties. Still, he reasoned, she had acted like an animal—certainly the most stimulating sexual partner he had ever experienced, bar none. It was almost as if… almost as if… she couldn’t control it! That was it. It was wild abandon.

  She told him, “There is little I can say to you, Leonid. I wish this didn’t have to end right now. I enjoy your company. I enjoyed last night.” She leaned across the seat, intentionally placing a hand on his thigh, and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “You’re a wonderful lover.” She hoped this might change his mind.

  “We’re to separate. That is that. Orders,” he explained caustically.