“A little while ago,” Spode said. “Why?”
“Oh—nothing.”
But Forrester saw her shoulders stir, almost as if with relief. He pushed the plate away; abruptly he felt no hunger at all.
She had been like that last night too, even while she was alone with him: distant, polite. Like a relative on a visit. She had tried to explain last night: It’s all happened too fast, hasn’t it, Alan? Don’t we need a little more time to get our feelings about each other sorted out? I had my life neatly compartmentalized until just the other day and now overnight everything’s changed—I need a chance to get my breath but I can’t right now. You’ve sprung this horrible Russian murderer business on me and I know it’s unreasonable, I know it’s not your fault, but I just can’t.… She had cried out and shut herself into the bathroom.
She seemed to feel their eyes on her; she said by way of explanation, “I just thought Les might know something that would help.”
She had always tended to lean on Les Suffield. It was Suffield who had first brought her into his organization. Forrester had always found it slightly odd; Ronnie in her way hated the devious mechanisms of politics and yet she seemed to have extraordinarily high regard for Suffield, who epitomized the back-room philosophy she deplored. It was possible she had had an affair with him but somehow Forrester found it hard to credit, for reasons he couldn’t articulate.
He reached for the coffee and squeezed his eyes shut; he was tired, his mind was wandering. Spode had picked up a newspaper and it rustled like submachine-gun fire. Forrester said irritably, “It must be something to do with the missile factories; nothing else seems to explain Belsky’s being here. If only Ross Trumble were alive to explain—”
The edge of the same fast-traveling thought struck them all and Forrester saw Spode sit bolt upright. Ronnie came into the sitting room again with her fingers at her throat and Spode said with vast self-disgust, “Oh Christ. The damned letter.”
Ronnie said something, not a word, and Spode got to his feet so fast his knees knocked the chair back against the radiator. “Orozco’s man said it was addressed to you at the ranch.”
“Then let’s get it,” Forrester said, on his way to the door.
Ronnie said, “Wait—don’t go.”
When he looked back she said quickly, “Suppose he’s waiting for you to show yourself? The Russian.”
“I can’t spend the next week hidden away here—I’d start climbing the walls. And I have to know what’s in that letter.”
“But it’s probably only a copy of the Phaeton specifications—the ones Jaime’s already photographed. You asked him for them and he told you he might send them to you. Isn’t that what you said?”
Spode said, “Whatever’s in that letter it’s not the Phaeton specs. Trumble wrote it out longhand in the hotel lobby. It was a letter—a long one.”
Ronnie had crossed the space between them; she reached for Forrester’s sleeve. “I just don’t want you to risk being hurt. Why can’t you stay here while Jaime and I drive down and get the letter?” She gave a sudden smile—tremble-lipped, pale.
“I don’t understand you, Ronnie.”
“Is it worth exposing yourself just for a letter that probably has nothing in it?”
“Nothing in it? The man wrote it less than twenty-four hours before he died. We’ve got to assume it’s vitally important.”
“But it may not even have arrived yet. It’s only Saturday morning—he didn’t mail it till Thursday afternoon, in Phoenix, and you know how slow rural deliveries are.…”
Spode said, “What time does the mail come in down there?”
“About one in the afternoon,” Forrester answered.
“Then there’s a good chance it’ll show up today.”
Ronnie was shaking her head. “I can’t explain it, Alan, I just have a terrible feeling. I’m frightened for you—I keep having visions of that awful man waiting for you with a gun.”
Spode said, “I expect he’s got better things to do with his time than hang around out in the boondocks waiting to set up an ambush. We ought to be secure as soon as we get out of town. I can pull my car around back of the hotel in the alley here.”
“But they might recognize your car.” She flicked her eyes back and forth, and Forrester frowned with incomprehension. When she realized it was no good trying to dissuade him she turned to Spode and implored, “At least let’s get help. Les Suffield has a pistol. Call him—ask him to come pick us up in his car. They won’t be looking for his car. And they wouldn’t attack four of us, would they?”
Spode shrugged. But Forrester said, “It might be a good idea, Top. Not necessarily for protection but I think Les ought to be in on this.”
“If you say so. I’ll call him.”
The morning sky was misty with the promise of rain; a diaphanous halo surrounded the sun, and heavy clouds were building up over the Tucson Mountains west of town. The air itself seemed to have thickened and been stunned; even though the streets were filled with the usual noises of traffic there was a muted sense of great silence. Now and then in the distance thunder clattered like bowling alley pins.
When they reached the freeway Suffield buzzed up the electric windows and switched on the air-conditioner to diminish the roar of wind and make conversation possible. In the front seat with Suffield, Top Spode did the talking, giving it to Suffield in summary doses.
Suffield was dubious to the extent of glancing at Forrester in the mirror at one point and saying, “I cite Mark Twain—‘Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.’ End of citation. You’ve got a talent for finding absurd situations.”
Forrester made no reply and Top proceeded with his précis. Forrester sat uneasy in the corner and felt isolated, detached in the sealed car as it hurtled through the morning on the straight highway that four-laned toward the mountains. Beer cans and half-buried bottles glinted along the desert roadside. Ronnie sat far over on her side of the back seat, her lips parted amd heavy in repose; she had covered her eyes with dark harlequin glasses. She was looking out her window, tense as if she were waiting for something. She seemed consumed by irrational fears; he had never seen her like that before. Perhaps she had been right: perhaps they had let it all come together too fast, perhaps they needed to back away and learn each other. He was beginning to realize the scope of his ignorance about her.
Suffield stopped by the gate and Jaime Spode got out. They all watched him open the mailbox. Catching Les Suffield’s profile, Forrester saw the jaw hinge bunch up and something struggle fiercely behind Suffield’s eyes. But the voice was very controlled. “It appears the postman dallieth.”
Spode slid into the car. “Not due yet anyhow—let’s go up to the house and wait.”
The banality of the exchange made it all seem unreal. Ronnie bit a thumbnail. Forrester was vexatiously alert to the tension in the car. He felt responsible for it but he did not understand it because they all seemed disproportionately apprehensive. When they reached the house Ronnie went up to the door with her marvelous flowing walk—nothing would change that—but once inside she began to flutter, opening blinds and putting coffee on to boil and plumping up cushions, never alighting, never looking directly at Forrester. Finally it was too much for him: “Will all of you just sit down for one minute? You’re all acting as if I’ve committed some unforgivable faux pas and you’re making a belabored point of ignoring it.”
“Oh nonsense,” Ronnie said crossly. “But you’ve made me so nervous I’m waiting for spies to come crawling out of the woodwork with great gleaming knives between their teeth.”
Les Suffield was at the front window looking out and Spode said, “You can’t see the mailbox from up here.”