“Sure,” he said, with no lift in his voice.
When they were in the car he said, “I’m always grabbing hold of females. Sort of a reflex. Hope you don’t mind.”
The car lights cut a bright tunnel through the wet night. “I didn’t mind that. It was the sultry tone of voice that got me.”
“Look. Slap me down when I get out of line.”
“Wouldn’t that leave the responsibility up to me, and make you a free agent? You keep yourself in line, Mr. Administrative Assistant.”
“After the movies, to change the subject, we meet Osborne.”
“It frightens me, having those people around. Suppose the Jacksons catch on.”
“To everybody except you and me and Cudahy, they’re new personnel on the project. And they’re careful.”
The movie was a dull musical. The crowd was very slim and no one sat within twenty feet of them.
“I can’t help it, Francie,” he said suddenly, blurting it out like a small boy. “I—”
“Clint. Please listen to me. You told me once that you would never do anything to hurt me. This whole thing has torn me completely in half. I don’t know who I am or where I am. I’m attracted to you, Clint, and I don’t like that. I’m going to ignore it, get over it.”
For a long time he did not answer. When he spoke again, the familiar light note had come back into his voice: “If you will permit me, Madame, I shall finish my statement. Quote: I can’t help it, Francie. I’ve got to have some popcorn. End quote.”
She touched his arm. “Much better.” “What’s better than popcorn?”
The movie ended and they filed out with the others. As they walked toward the car a match flared startlingly close, and the flame-light touched the high, hard cheekbones of the face of Stewart Jackson. Betty was a shadow beside him. Francie caught hard at Clint’s arm, stumbling a little, her breathing suddenly shallow.
“Evening, Francie,” Stewart said, a mild, sly triumph in his tone.
“Hello, Stewart; hello, Betty,” she forced herself to say, proud that her voice did not shake, knowing that the presence of Clint had given her strength.
Once they were in the car and had turned out of the small parking area, she said, “Oh, Clint, they were—”
“They just went to a movie. That’s all. A movie. And found a chance to rattle you.”
Clint turned off the main road onto a narrower one, and turned off lights and motor and waited for a time. No car followed them. He drove slowly up the hill and parked in a graveled space near some picnic tables. He gave Francie a cigarette, and she rolled her window down a few inches to let the smoke out.
When Osborne spoke, directly outside her window, he startled both of them: “Let me in before I freeze, kids.”
She opened the door and slid over close to Clint. Osborne piled in and shut the door. “Let’s have it, Mrs. Aintrell.”
“They seemed pleased. Mr. Jackson told me that he’d already sent word to have Bob looked after, knowing in advance that I’d co-operate. And he gave me sixty dollars. He made me take it. Here it is.”
“Keep it all together. He’ll give you more. Very typical. They love to pay off. They take some poor, idealistic fool who wants to help the Commies because he was nuts about Das Kapital when he was a college sophomore. When the fool finds out what kind of dictatorship he’s dealing with and wants out, they sweetly remind him that he has accepted the money and he thereby established his own motive, and it is going to make him look very, very bad in court. So bad he better keep right on helping. By the way, thanks for the loan of the letters. The boys are tabulating them tonight.”
“What do I—?”
“Keep doing what you’re doing. Feed them dope from the Sherra file.”
“Oh, I forgot. Jackson mentioned that Sherra was contacted once. Is that important?”
“We know about it. Sherra reported it.”
“Can I have that last letter back? The one from the prison camp?”
“You’ll find it in the box with the others. I’ll get a report from the handwriting experts soon.”
“That’s a waste of time. I know Bob wrote it. It sounds like him. Nobody else could sound like him.”
“Take her home, Clint, before she convinces me,” Osborne said, getting out of the car. “ ’Night, people.” The blackness of the night swallowed him at once...
On Wednesday and Thursday she turned more copies of the Sherra file data over to the Jacksons, receiving, each time, an additional twenty-dollar bill, given her with utmost casualness and good cheer by Stew Jackson. On Friday afternoon Francie was called into Dr. Cudahy’s office by Clint. Cudahy was not there. Just Osborne. He looked weary. As Clint paused uncertainly in the doorway Osborne said, “Sit in on this, Reese.”
Clint pulled the door shut and sat down. Osborne was in Cudahy’s chair.
“What have you found out?” Francie demanded.
“How long can you keep playing this little game of ours, Mrs. Aintrell?”
“Forever, if it will help Bob.”
He picked up a report sheet and looked at it, his expression remote. “There’s this. Report of the handwriting. They say it could be his writing, or could be a clever forgery. There are certain changes, but they might be the result of fatigue or illness.”
“I told you he wrote it.”
Osborne studied her in silence. He looked more than ever like a prosperous Midwestern farmer worried about the Chicago grain market.
“Now can you take it on the chin?”
Francie looked down at her locked hands. “I... I guess so.”
He picked up another sheet. “Tabulation report. It has a cross reference of the words in the prison letter to the words in previous letters. We have numbered all his letters chronologically. Letter 4 uses the term ‘crumb-bum.’ In Letter 16 there is a sentence as follows: ‘Put old Satchmo on the turntable, baby, and when he sings Blueberry Hill, make like I’m with you in front of a fireplace.’ Letter 18 has a reference to Willy in it. And Letter 3 mentions... uh... the green housecoat.” Osborne colored a bit, and Francie flushed violently as she remembered the passage to which he referred.
“What are you trying to tell me?” she asked in a low voice.
“There are no new words or phrases or references in that letter Jackson gave you. They can all be isolated in previous letters. We can assume that Jackson had access to those letters during the first few weeks you worked here.”
“I don’t see how that means anything,” Francie said. “Of course, Bob would write as he always writes, and talk about the same things in letters that he always talked about.”
“Could be. But please let us consider it sufficient grounds — that and the handwriting report — to at least question the authenticity of the letter Jackson gave you. Remember, the handwriting report said that it could be a forgery.”
Francie jumped up. “Why are you saying all this to me? I go through every day thinking, every minute, that if you slip up, just a little, Bob is going to die, and die in a horrible way. I’m doing the very best I can to keep him alive. If you keep trying to prove to me that he’s been dead all the time, it takes away my reasons to go through all this — and I just can’t...”
She covered her eyes and sat down, not trying to fight against the harsh sobs.
Osborne said, “I’m telling you this, Mrs. Aintrell, because I want you to do something that may end all this before you crack up under the strain. And I never like to have anybody follow orders without knowing the reason behind the orders.”
Francie uncovered her eyes, but she could not answer.