"How about I just hold you for a while?"
"That would be good."
And then we shut up for a while. Whatever else we had to say wasn't important. It could wait.
She had the smoothest skin. Touching her was a luxury.
I felt like the man named O'Quinn-with an inordinate interest in skin . . .
After a bit, I started laughing again.
Lizard levered herself up on one arm. With her other hand she brushed the hair back from her face. "What?"
"Limericks. "
"Limericks?"
"Yeah. Limericks."
She blinked in confusion. "They told me you were crazy, Jim, but...."
"They were right. I am crazy. Totally bugfuck. I've been hearing voices in my head and having hallucinations ever since that worm fell on me three years ago."
"-But everybody's crazy these days. It's a given. So that's no excuse. Why limericks?"
"I dunno. I just keep thinking up limericks."
She grabbed my hand and bent several of my fingers backward. "Why now?"
"Ouch! Okay, okay. I was thinking of the one I wrote about you."
"You wrote a limerick about me?"
I shrugged, sort of embarrassed. "Yeah."
"Nobody's ever written a poem about me ever." She leaned over and kissed me.
"I think you should hear the limerick before you thank me."
"It's the thought that counts-" Then her expression clouded. She frowned suspiciously. "Let's hear the limerick."
"Okay, but don't say you weren't warned." She reached for my fingers again. I recited quickly,
"There was a mad pilot named Lizzy,
whose manners were said to be skizzy.
She could loop, she could twirl;
she could make your head whirl.
She left all her men fucking dizzy."
"Dizzy who?" asked Lizard.
"I don't explain 'em. I only write 'em."
"Hmm," she said. "Tell me another."
"Okay." I told her the one about Chuck-
who expressed a great fondness for duck.
Whether gravied or roasted, pressed, ,sauced or toasted.
--And he never got down on his luck."
Lizard looked at me blankly. "I don't get it."
"Down. You know, as in: 'How do you get down off an elephant?' "
"Huh?"
"You don't get down off an elephant. You get down off a duck."
"Oh," she said. "That's cute."
"Cute?" I sighed. Loudly. "All right. Try this one instead. Ahem-'He was held in regard for his pluck."'
She made a face.
"'-and once he made headlines while stuck?' "
"Mmm," she jiggled her hand sideways to indicate iffyness.
"Okay, one more try: 'Tho he liked it well-seasoned, he was oft heard to reason, I haven't the thyme for a . . . "
And then the phone went off. Lizard's face froze.
She reached over and grabbed the instrument with a frightened expression. "Tirelli."
She listened intently for a moment, then her face went gray. "She did? When?" She sat up quickly and switched on the light. I looked at her questioningly. She waved to me to keep silent. She was listening very hard. Her expression was grim. "Now? Couldn't you have given me a little more warning? Oh, is that what that was? Do I have time for a shower?"
I didn't wait. I rolled out of bed, padded to the bathroom and punched up a steaming spray. When I came back into the room, she was saying to the phone, "He's already on his way? All right-I'll meet him downstairs." She hung up.
"Meet who?"
"My driver. Lay out my clothes-?" She was already on her way to the bathroom.
"A clean uniform?"
"No, a jumpsuit. I'm flying tonight."
"What's going on?" I followed her into the shower, picked up a loofa and started scrubbing her back-and lower.
"Stop that. I'm in a hurry."
"To do what?"
"I can't tell you." She turned around under the spray, rinsing herself off. "You'll have to see it on TV."
"See what?"
"As of ten minutes ago, it's official. The president is moving the capital to Hawaii."
"And you're flying her?"
"Oh, no, she's got her own pilot. And they're already on their way, as of ten minutes ago. They didn't release my orders until Air Force One left the ground." She was already out of the shower and toweling herself off. "There's a driver on his way to pick me up. My plane is fueled and waiting."
"Who are you flying?"
She didn't answer. She just shook her head and walked away from me.
I followed her back into the bedroom. I watched her get dressed. She pulled on the jumpsuit quickly.
"What's going on, Lizard."
She straightened and pulled up her zipper. When she looked at me, her face was ashen. Suddenly, she was in my arms and she was shaking. "I can't tell you-"
"Huh?"
"That asshole on the phone! There're no fucking secrets in this city! He said, 'Don't even tell the little boy you're sleeping with where Mommy's going!"'
"I'm not little," I said.
"I know," she sniffed again. She was holding me tight. "Do you really love me?"
"Yes, I do." I held her as tightly as she was holding me. "More than I've ever loved anyone." I buried my face in her hair. I loved the smell of her, the warmth of her.
We stood that way for a long moment.
"I've got to go," she said. She didn't move.
"I know," I said. I didn't let her go.
"No, really." She pulled away. She looked at me. "I don't know how long I'll be gone. Will you wait for me?"
I nodded. "It'll take a nuclear weapon to get me out of your bed."
She went ashen. "I wish you hadn't put it that way." She kissed me. Hard. And then she was gone.
66
It Looked Like Dawn
"It doesn't matter where you stand, it's still going to look like the middle."
-SOLOMON SHORT
What the bloody hell?
I padded back to the bed and switched on the TV.
The president's face filled half the wall. She looked old.
". . . clear and certain proof of our willingness to win. We arc tonight giving ourselves again to the battles ahead. We are rolling, up our sleeves and saying, 'We will fight.'
"With your support, your partnership, and your prayers, we shall inevitably triumph.
"I thank you, and good night."
Her image faded, and an announcer came on. "That was the statement released by the president of the United States just fifteen minutes ago. For those of you who may have just joined us, we will be repeating the president's statement throughout the evening."
I picked up the phone, and stopped. I didn't have anyone to call.
I put the phone down again.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States." The presidential seal dissolved to the president herself.
"My fellow Americans, twenty-eight months ago, when I assumed this office-under tragic circumstances-I knew that I was assuming a great responsibility. This is the greatest nation on this Earth-and this is the most perilous moment of our history.
"The human race is caught in a war we barely understand. Even our best advisors are stunned at the scope of this invasion, this ecological infestation. This nation, the United States of America, is perhaps humanity's last best hope for victory in that war. "When I accepted this responsibility, I knew that the size of the lusk confronting me-and all of us-was an awesome one. I did not shrink from that responsibility. Nor do I think that any American shrinks from the responsibilities ahead. We are all together committed. Whatever must be done, will be done.