Of all the billions in the world there was only one person who understood, and that imperfectly, what and who Nick Carter really was, what he became when he was alone and in the dark. That man was his boss, Hawk, who loved him and admired him and respected him — taking great pains to conceal all these things — and in the end could not really help him. Aloneness is the key, the protection and the reason for being and, all too often, the reason for dying, of the undercover agent.
Peg cuddled against him. She ran a finger over the cruel, thin red scars that covered his chest and belly and thighs. She kissed a scar, her lips moist and cool, and said, very softly: "You've been whipped, badly whipped, since I saw you last."
Killmaster welcomed her words. He came back to present reality with a jolt. It was not good for a man like him to wander so far afield in imagination. Imagination was all right in its place, in the line of duty, when you needed it to save your skin. Brooding was something else, and Nick had enough of the black Celt in him to know and recognize the dangers.
Now he pulled Peg to him, holding her tenderly in his big muscled arms, kissing the softness of her eyelids. "Yes. I was whipped. By an irate husband. He caught me in the act. I was lucky he didn't shoot me."
"Liar. You're always getting hurt somehow. You never tell me how, of course. But I counted your scars once, remember. You had thirty odd then — I would hate to count them now. But let's not talk about that. I've given up. I know that you'll never tell me, really tell me the truth, about what you do. Where you go and how you get hurt all the time. Sometimes I think, darling, that I don't really know you at all. Not any more. Not really. So I make up things about you."
Nick smiled down at her. Her hair was jet black, as were her somewhat heavy brows and lashes. She had a milky complexion with a few entrancing freckles sprayed here and there. Now, in the dimpled light of a stray sunbeam, the lashes made little shadows on her cheekbones. Women. Strange creatures. So different, all of them. Some could love not at all, some could love forever without question. Give all and ask nothing. Pity was a rare emotion for Nick Carter, yet he felt it now. For Peg — and for her husband. The man must have some dark thoughts of his own when Peg disappeared at rare intervals. He had never questioned Peg about that and never would. However she handled it, she did it well and with no evidence of guilt.
Only once had Peg said: "I loved you, Nick, long before I ever met and loved Harry. I love you both. In different ways. I know I can never have you, but I can have Harry. And you, Nick darling, are the only man I ever have been, or ever will be, unfaithful with. I think Harry understands — a little. He knows, of course. Not who you are, or how it is with us, but he knows. And he'll never try to spoil it for me — for us."
Now Nick kissed her soft mouth and said, "Tell me about some of those dark thoughts of yours. This day is entirely too golden and lovely to bear — it needs a somber note for contrast."
"Ummmm — must I?"
"Yes." He took her cigarette, now only a nub, and pressed it out in the ashtray. "But first get me another drink, huh? Lots of scotch and ice, not much water. I might just get mildly plastered this afternoon."
"Hah!" Peg snorted as she slid off the bed and went to the sink. "You drunk? I'll never see the day. You know you can drink a gallon and never show it."
"I know," said Nick. "And I'm working on it. I'm really trying hard. I'm tired of spending a fortune on booze and never even taking a trip, as the LSD set puts it. I've got to let myself go more."
"Fool!" Peg came back with his glass and handed it to him. "You're the most self-disciplined person in the world and you know it. All muscles and will power. Sometimes you frighten me, Nick."
Nick pulled her down beside him. "Like now?"
She nestled her dark head on his big chest. "No. Not right now. Right now is fine. But it never lasts." She began to trace a finger over his scars again.
Nick's smile was a little grim. "Nothing lasts forever, sweetheart. And, to coin an old cliché, nobody lives forever. The world is based on an orderly progression of life and death, of living and dying, with the old making way for the new."
Peg giggled. "My God! You sound like old Mr. Wright, my philosophy prof in college. This is a new side to you, my darling."
Nick frowned at her and, with mock pompousness, said: "I have many facets unsuspected by you, my girl. And some of the most ancient of wisdom is expressed in corn, by cliché."
Peg laved a scarlet cicatrix with her warm wet tongue. "I just said I've never seen you drunk — I've never known you to be serious, either."
God forbid, thought Nick. He reserved his serious moments for his work. A sense of humor, a gift for nonsense, was a must for a man in his line of work. A killer, an official executioner — never in his own mind did he gloss it over — such a man must have an escape, a safety valve, or soon wander over the line into madness.
He kissed her lightly. "You were going to tell me about your dark thoughts."
Peg had been lying with her eyes closed. Now she opened one eye and peered up at him with an expression of mingled mischief and desire. "I don't really want to tell you — but if I do, will you do something for me?"
Killmaster stifled a groan that was not altogether simulated. "You're an insatiable wench. But okay. It's a deal. You first."
She pouted. "You don't have to sound like such a martyr, you know. I know a lot of men who would leap at the chance to go to bed with me. Anyway it's your fault — I see you so seldom. Once every two or three years if I'm lucky. It's no wonder I can't get enough of you. And what little I do have has to last a long time. So you just be nice and do what mama wants."
There was nothing reticent about Peg. Nick watched with a half smile as she rolled the tee shirt up above her breasts. He reached to tickle her stomach. "Too bad they can't find a way to store orgasms. In test tubes, you know, kept in the fridge. For use as needed."
Her deep brown eyes were kindling as she stared up at him. She pulled his face down on her warm bare bosom. "Don't be nasty and clinical. Just kiss me. There — and there! Oh my God!"
Nick let his face rest in the soft white valley of her flesh, filling his nostrils with the womanly effluvia. Peg's skin was closely grained, finely textured. Her breasts were large and firm, round globes of creamy flesh laced with faint blue veins. In repose, as she now was, they were collapsed ripe melons against her rib cage, her nipples the smallest of pink buttons.
The AXEman felt a nipple stir and rise against his lips as he caressed her. Peg moaned and ran her fingers through his hair. She held his head against her breasts as though he were a child and said, very softly, "I dream of you a lot, darling. Nearly every night. Lately they have been terrible dreams. I keep seeing you dead. Dead at the bottom of the sea, all tangled up in seaweed. You're floating and drifting, with fish all around you, and always the seaweed. And your eyes! Your poor eyes! They're open and you're staring at something. And sometimes, in my dream, you come drifting at me, straight at me, and you seem to see me and you try to speak. But you can't! Bubbles come from your mouth instead of words — only bubbles. Oh, Nick! Nick! I get so afraid sometimes. Every time I see you I keep wondering if it's the last time, if I'll ever see you or hear your voice again. We have a little time together, like now. A few days, then you vanish. You disappear for months, even years, and I don't know, I…"
Peg began to weep. A tear trickled from her closed eyes and salted Nick's lips and he felt absurdly guilty. And made a resolve — he would not see Peg again. He would not come to this place again. He would sell it, forget it. It was rather ridiculous anyway — he had long conceded this, but not acted on it — to try to retain this last link with his youth and roots. Every molecule, every atom, of his flesh and brain had changed since he had been young in this country and had first loved Peg. His heart had long ago suffered a sea change, into stony coral, and the youth had died and long been buried. Every man he had killed — and there had been many — buried the boy a little deeper. He had been a fool to come back this time, to laze and dream like an idiot, but it was the last time. It was as though his last refuge had been liquefied, dissolved, in Peg's tears.