“This is pathetic,” Oscar said. “You’ve really lost it!”
“I’m strong.” Moira lifted her chin. “My love has made me strong.”
“What the hell are you carrying on about, anyway? You haven’t even been near the guy in six weeks.”
Her eyes brimmed with triumphant tears. “We trade email!”
Oscar groaned. “So that’s it. Well, we’ll soon put a stop to that. You’re completely irrational! I can’t have you blackmailing me, just so that you can ruin the career of the man that I put into office. It’s unconscionable! To hell with you! Do your worst.”
“I’ll do it! I will! I’ll wipe you out.”
Oscar stopped short on the sidewalk. She stamped onward, then turned on her heel, her eyes wild.
“This is my house,” Oscar pointed out.
“Oh.”
“Look, why don’t you come inside? Let’s have a cup of coffee. I know it hurts to have a bad love affair. You can get over that. Just concentrate on something else.”
“What do you think I am, a wax dummy?” She shoved him. “You creep.”
There was a loud banging noise from across the street. Oscar ignored it. He had one last pitch here, and he thought it would work. If he could get her inside the house with him, she’d sit down and cry. If she cried, she’d confess everything. She’d pass her crisis. She’d get over it.
Another loud bang. A big chip of brick flew from his arched doorway. “Oh hell!” he complained. “Look at my house!”
Another bang. “Ouch,” Moira remarked. Her purse had spun off her shoulder. She picked it up and looked at it. A hole had been punched through it. She turned and stared across the street. “He shot me!” she realized aloud. “He shot me in the purse!”
A gray-haired old man with a metal walker was standing across the street. He was firing at them with a handgun. He was extremely visible now, because the local streetlights, attracted by the highly ille-gal sound of firearms, had all swiveled on their metal necks and framed him in a torrent of glare.
Two batlike police drones detached themselves from a utility pole. They swooped at him like sonic cutouts of black construction paper, and as they passed him, he fell.
Oscar opened his door. He jumped through, lunged back out, caught Moira’s wrist, and dragged her inside. He slammed the door behind them.
“Are you hurt?” he asked her.
“He shot my purse!”
She was trembling violently. Oscar looked her over carefully.
Tights, skirt, hat, jacket. No holes, no blood anywhere.
Moira’s knees buckled suddenly and she slumped to the floor.
The street beyond the door suddenly filled with the sound of sirens.
Oscar hung his hat with care and sat down companionably, hooking his elbows over his knees. It was great to be in his own house; it was cold and dusty, but it smelled like his house, it was comforting. “It’s okay, it’s over now,” he said. “This is a very secure street. Those police drones have got him. Let me turn on my house system, and we’ll have a look outside.”
Moira had gone green.
“Moira, it’s okay now. I’m sure they’ve caught him. Don’t worry, I’ll stay here with you.”
No answer. She was utterly terrified. There was a little bubble of spit on her lower lip.
“I’m truly sorry about this,” he said. “It’s that netwar harassment again. See, it’s just like it was at the Collaboratory. I should have known that one of those lunatics would be staking out my home address. If I’d had Fontenot with me, this would never have hap-pened.”
Moira toppled backward, hitting the wainscoting with a thump. Oscar reached out and tapped his solid front door with his knuckles. “Bulletproof,” he explained. “We’re perfectly safe now, it’s fine. I need a new security director, that’s all. I should have hired one right away. I misplaced my priorities. Sorry…”
“They tried to kill me…”
“No, Moira, not you. Me. Never you, okay? Just me.”
“I feel sick!” she wailed. “I’m gonna faint!”
“I’ll get you something. Brandy? Some antacid?”
There was a loud, repeated knock on the door. Moira shrank back, losing a shoe. “Oh my God! Don’t! Don’t open it!”
Oscar flicked on his doorbug. A lozenge of exterior video flashed on, showing a flashing police bicycle and a female Boston police of-ficer in badge, helmet, and blue woolen jacket. Oscar thumbed the intercom. “May I help you, Officer?”
The cop examined the glowing screen of her notepad. “Is this Mr. Valparaiso?”
“Yes it is, Officer.”
“Open your door, please. Police.”
“May I see some ID, please?”
The officer complied with a holographic ID card. It identified her as Sergeant Mary Elizabeth O’Reilly.
Oscar opened the door, which bumped against Moira’s kneecap. Moira flinched violently and scrambled to her feet, fists clenched.
“Please come in, Sergeant O’Reilly. Thank you for being so quick in your response.”
“I was in the neighborhood,” the policewoman said, stepping inside. She twisted her helmeted head, methodically scanning the en-trance hall with video. “Are there injuries?”
“No.”
“The system has tracked those projectiles. They seem to have been aimed at you. I took the liberty of backrunning the nearest re-cordings. You and this female were involved in a dispute.”
“Actually, that’s not the case. I’m a federal Senate employee, and this was an attempted political assassination.” Oscar gestured at Moira. “Our so-called dispute was strictly a private matter.”
“Would you show me some identification, please.”
“Certainly. ” Oscar reached for his wallet.
“No, not you, Mr. Valparaiso. I mean this nonresident white female.”
Moira pawed by reflex at her purse. “He shot my purse…”
Oscar tried some gentle coaxing. “But your ID’s still in there, isn’t it? This is a legal request from a public safety officer. You do need to show her some ID.”
Moira stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You’re completely insane. You’re completely insane!”
Oscar turned to the cop. “I can vouch for her, Officer. Her name’s Moira Matarazzo, she’s my guest.”
“You can’t act like this!” Moira screeched. She shoved him sud-denly, pushing at his shoulder. “He tried to kill you!”
“Well, he missed.”
Moira swung up her purse, two-handed, and walloped him. “Be scared, stupid! Be scared, like me! Act normal!”
“Don’t do that,” the cop commanded. “Stop hitting him.”
“Are you nude out of ice? You can’t act like this! Nobody thinks that fast!” She whacked him with the purse again. Oscar ducked back, raising his arms to shield his face.
“Stop that,” said the cop, in a level no-nonsense tone. “Stop hitting him.”
“She’s hysterical,” Oscar gasped. He ducked another swing. The cop pulled her spraygun and fired. There was a hiss of high-speed mist. Moira’s eyelids flicked upward like electric shutters. She collapsed to the floor.
“She was really in a state,” Oscar said, rubbing his elbow. “You have to allow her some leeway.”
“Mr. Valparaiso, I understand that sentiment,” Officer O’Reilly said. “But I’m on live helmetcam. She disobeyed two direct orders to stop battering you. That is not acceptable. City policy is very strict regarding domestic disputes. If we have to take action to break up a physical quarrel, the offending party is gonna spend the night in the cooler. You understand me, sir? That’s city policy. No ifs, ands, or buts. She’s under arrest.”