While they had been sleeping Troy had switched off the light on the top of the canopy. The only light on their faces now was the reflection from the moon. They continued to look at each other in silence. Nick had not said very much to Carol about Monique, but it had been more than he had ever told anyone else, including his parents. Carol knew how much of an effort it had been for him to answer her question honestly. She rolled over on her back again and extended her hand to Nick.
“So here we are, Mr. Williams. Two solitary voyagers on the sea of life. Both of us are now past thirty. Many of our friends and classmates have already settled down into that house in the suburbs with the two kids and a dog. Why not us? What’s different about us?”
The moon was accelerating its downward arc through the sky above them. As it descended, more stars could be seen on the opposite horizon. Nick thought he saw a shooting star. There would be no way to hide from feelings. Nick was jumping ahead of the conversation, imagining for the moment that he was going to be involved with Carol. She would not permit it. At least I would not have any doubts about where we stood.
“When I was over at her house on Friday morning,” Nick finally replied to her question, “Amanda Winchester told me that I’m looking for a fantasy woman, someone absolutely perfect. And that mere mortals always come up short in my estimation.” He propped his head up and looked at Carol. “But I think it’s something else. I think maybe I’m not willing to make a commitment because of fear of rejection.”
Did I really say that? wondered Nick, shocked at himself. Instantly he felt as if he never should have shared the thought. His defenses began to build and he braced himself for a flippant or insensitive reply.
But it did not come. Instead Carol was quiet and thoughtful. At length she spoke. “My protection is different from yours,” she said. “I always play it safe. I pick men I admire and respect, intellectual pals if you will, but for whom I do not have any passion. When I meet a man who sets off the banjos and bells, I run the other way.”
Because I’m afraid, she thought. Afraid that I might love him as much as I did my father. And I could not survive if I were abandoned like that again.
She felt Nick’s hand on her cheek. He was caressing her gently. She reached up, took his hand, and squeezed it. He pulled himself up on his side where he could see her better. She could tell that he wanted to kiss her. She squeezed his hand again. Slowly, tentatively, he dropped his mouth on hers. It was a tender, adoring kiss, without pressure or overt passion, a subtle, artful question that could have been either the beginning of a love affair or the sole kiss exchanged between two people whose paths just happened to cross in life. Carol heard banjos and bells.
2
WINTERS stood on the deck by himself, smoking quietly. It was not a large boat, this converted trawler, but it was very fast. They had not left the dock until after four o’clock and they had almost caught up with their prey already. The commander rubbed his eyes and yawned. He was tired. He blew smoke out over the ocean. On the eastern horizon there was just a faint suggestion of dawn. To the west, in the direction of the moon, Winters thought he saw the dim light of another boat.
These young people must all be crazy, he thought to himself as he reflected back on the events of the evening. Why the hell did they leave? Did they push Todd down those stairs without his knowing it? It would have been so much easier if they had just stayed there until we returned.
He remembered the look on Lieutenant Ramirez’ face when he had interrupted the telephone conversation that Winters had been having with his wife, Betty. “Excuse me. Commander,” Ramirez had said. He had been out of breath. “You must come quickly Lieutenant Todd is injured and our prisoners have escaped.”
He had told his wife that he had no idea when he would be home and then joined Ramirez for the short walk back to the administration annex. On the way Winters had been thinking about Tiffani, about the difficulty he had had in explaining to the seventeen-year-old why he could not just drop everything and meet her at the party. “But you can work any day or night, Vernon,” she had said. “This is our only time to be together.” She had already drunk too much champagne. Later in the conversation, when Winters had made it clear to her that he almost certainly would not make it to the party at all, and that he would probably ask Melvin and Marc to take her home, Tiffani had become petulant and angry. She had stopped calling him Vernon. “All right, Commander,” she had said, “I guess I’ll see you at the theater on Tuesday night.”
The phone had clicked off and Winters had felt an ache tearing through his heart. Oh fuck, he had thought for a moment, I’ve blown it. He had imagined himself jumping in the car, forgetting Todd and Ramirez and the Panther missile, and driving over to the party to sweep Tiffani into his arms. But he had not done it. Despite his incredible longing, he was not able to pull himself away from his duty. If it was meant to be, he told himself consolingly, then those flames of passion will burn again. But even with his limited romantic experience Winters knew better. Timing is everything in a love affair. If momentum is lost at a critical moment, especially when the rhythm of the passion is heading for a climax, it will never be regained.
Ramirez had already called the doctor on the base and he had arrived at the annex just after the two officers. While they were standing there together, Ramirez had insisted to Winters that it must have been foul play, that Todd could not have fallen so hard unless he had either been pushed or thrown down the concrete steps. The lieutenant had begun to stir during the doctor’s examination. “He has a bad concussion,” the doctor had said after he first checked Todd’s eyes. “He’ll probably be all right but he’ll have a ferocious headache in the morning. Meanwhile, we’ll take him over to the infirmary and sew up that gash in his head.”
To Winters it didn’t make sense. While he was waiting patiently in an adjoining room for the doctors and nurses to finish the stitches in the lieutenant’s head, Winters tried to figure out what possible motive Nick and Carol and Troy could have had for attacking Todd and then escaping. The Dawson woman is smart and successful. Why would she do it? He wondered if perhaps the trio might have been involved in some kind of big drug transaction. That would at least explain all the gold. But Todd and Ramirez did not find any indication of drugs. So what the hell is happening?
Lieutenant Todd had been kept awake during the procedure in the emergency room. He had been given only a local anesthetic to reduce his pain. But he had not been very lucid in response to the doctor’s simple questions. “That sometimes happens with a concussion,” the medical officer had told Winters afterward. “He may not be very coherent for the next day or two.”
Nevertheless, around two o’clock, immediately after Todd’s head had been shaven, stitched, and bandaged, Commander Winters and Lieutenant Ramirez had decided to ask him about what had occurred at the annex. The commander could not accept Todd’s answer, even though the lieutenant repeated it twice verbatim. Todd had insisted that a six-foot carrot with vertical slits in its face had hidden in the bathroom and had jumped him while he was trying to take a piss. He had escaped that first assault, but the giant carrot had then followed him into the main room at the annex.
“And just how did this thing—”
“Carrot,” interrupted Todd.
“And how did this carrot attack you?” continued Winters. Jesus, he had thought, this man has cracked. One bump on he head and he has finally flipped.