“Thank you, Cindy.”
Manville noticed, but thought that Cindy did not, that his smile to her was patronizing, that it said, thank you for your sympathy, but you’re too shallow to know what I really went through. He holds himself aloof from the human race, Manville thought, and that’s why he can be so dangerous.
Curtis turned back to Manville to say, “It was because I missed Isabel so much that I married again, which was probably the biggest mistake of my life, and I know you know I’ve made a number of mistakes.”
“We all do,” Manville said.
“But I don’t get mad at other people’s mistakes,” Curtis said. “Not the way I get mad at my own. The thing is, George, it’s too goddam easy for a man to be an idiot. I married Rita because she looked like Isabel. Looked like. They couldn’t have been more different, they— I’ll let it go at that. When I realized— Well. I’ll let it go at that.”
Manville said, “Is Rita still alive?”
Curtis laughed. He seemed genuinely amused. He said, “I’m not Henry the Eighth, George. Rita and I divorced, seven months into the marriage. She got a damn good settlement. She doesn’t think so, of course, but she did.”
Curtis turned away, the veneer of friendliness gone, his attention back on the food on his plate, and Manville picked up his knife and fork as well; it was time to quit, while he was ahead.
At the end of the meal, as though a sudden gong had gone off, though in fact there had been no signal at all that Manville could see, both Farrellys thanked their employer, told Manville and Cindy how lovely it had been to meet them both, patted their mouths with their napkins, rose, said good night, and left the room, through a wide doorway down at the living room end.
Manville, starting to rise, said, “I should go, too. Thank you—”
“Wait, George,” Curtis said. “Cindy, George and I have a little boring business to talk over, and then I’ll be up.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be reading.” And she too on her way out assured Manville it had been a pleasure to meet him.
Once they were alone, Curtis gestured toward the living room. “Let’s get comfortable over there, let them clear this away.”
“All right.”
As they walked across the long room, Curtis said, “Brandy? A cordial? After-dinner drink?”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
Curtis patted Manville’s shoulder. “Come on, George, you don’t have to be wary with me.”
Manville looked at him, astonished. “Of course I do.”
Curtis shrugged and shook his head, as though abashed. “Well, I suppose you do,” he said. “Or you have reason to think you do, which is the same thing. Take that chair, it’s comfortable and it isn’t impossible to get out of.”
They sat at right angles, and Curtis seemed to be thinking for a minute how to phrase himself. Then he said, “I owe you an apology, George. And I offer it.”
“Thank you,” Manville said, wondering what on earth was coming next.
“With an explanation,” Curtis said, and grinned at him. “Mea culpa, but with an explanation. Okay?”
“Fine,” Manville said.
“You know the situation I’m in, I told you some of it.”
“You told me some,” Manville agreed. “I guess you thought you told me too much.”
“I was running on panic, George,” Curtis said, “what should have been a perfect day was completely destroyed. Your technique on Kanowit Island was perfect, it showed me I can do it again when I need to. My investors were happy, very impressed. But all of a sudden there was Jerry Diedrich, that son of a bitch, spoiling my day yet again. And I realized, the man would find some way to trip me up when I was ready to make the move, the real move. Don’t worry, George, I’m not going to tell you any more about that move. I maybe didn’t tell you too much, out there on the Mallory, but I almost did. It’ll be better for both of us if you don’t know any more than you know now.”
“Fine by me.”
“The thing is, I panicked,” Curtis said. “And then one damn thing led to another. First, Diedrich is going to destroy me. But no, he killed a diver and I can destroy him. No, the goddam girl’s alive, I’m back to square one. But she should be dead, She’s beat up enough, maybe she’ll die. Maybe there’s no reason for her to live. And you know, if you hadn’t intervened, between us, Captain Zhang and me, we would have finished her off.”
“I know you would.”
“And we would have been wrong. I would have been wrong, completely wrong. But I didn’t realize that then. And I was damn angry at you when you interfered, as you know.”
“You made it pretty plain,” Manville said. “The people you sent out made it plain.”
“You astonished me, George,” Curtis said. “I admit it, I was astonished. You’re a handier man than I gave you credit for. But the point is, you did handle it. You handled me, and you handled the men I sent out, and now you and the girl are both still alive, and I realize I’m in no worse shape than I was before, I can still go ahead the same as ever. I can defuse Jerry Diedrich some other way, and I’ve got nothing to get in my way except my own damn foolishness. I didn’t have to panic, I didn’t have to make you an enemy, it was foolish of me, and I regret it. When I was trying to do you harm, George, you knew I wasn’t in my right mind, didn’t you?”
“I suspected,” Manville said.
“All right, George,” Curtis said. “I’d like us to start all over, from now. And I have a deal to offer.”
“A deal?”
“I’d like you to stay here a few days,” Curtis said. “A week or two at the most. Think of it as a vacation.”
“Why?”
“So I can find you if I need you.” Now Curtis was intense again, leaning forward in his own soft low chair, saying, “George, you know I’m going to do something big, and you know it’s going to be soon, and you know I’m going to use the soliton.”
“That’s what you told me.”
“I felt I could trust you, George. In a funny way, I still do.” He gave Manville a keen look, and a rueful smile, and said, “You probably think the question of trust goes the other way.”
“If it’s a question,” Manville said.
“Oh, it is, George, it is. But here’s the thing. I think I can pull this off on my own, but there may be questions I can’t answer. The people I’m working with aren’t your caliber, George. I’d like to think, if I got stuck, I could give you a call, right here, and ask you a question in a general way, not too specific, nothing that makes you a collaborator or an accessory or any of that, and you would answer it.”
“For the ten million in gold, again?”
Curtis shook his head. “I don’t know why money doesn’t interest you, George, that’s one thing I can’t figure out.”
“It interests me,” Manville said.
“Then there’s hope. Look, George, if you stay here, no more than two weeks, I promise, probably a lot less, I’ll give you whatever it is you want. Money, no money, that’s all right with me. The first thing, though...” His smile this time was sly, pleased with itself. “You know about the industrial espionage?”
“I’ve been in a number of newspapers,” Manville told him. “Yes, I know about it.”
“I’ll get rid of it,” Curtis said. “Guaranteed. I’ll explain it was my error, you weren’t the guy, sorry I blackened your name, a public apology and you’re cleared and as good as new. All right?”
This was important. If Curtis did this, whatever else happened, Manville would be able to get on with his life. As it now stood, no one on earth would hire him. He said, “When?”