“I don’t know.” Chelle shrugged. “Does it matter?”
A waiter asked whether they were ready to order. Skip explained that they were waiting for another couple, and Chelle ordered a bottle of champagne.
“The man with the beard shot Rick Johnson,” Skip said when the waiter had gone.
“Right.” Chelle nodded. “He grabbed the woman’s gun. I told the captain about it.”
“Rick blew when he was shot. He was a cyborg.”
“I remember you saying something about that. I guess the bullet hit his reactor or whatever.”
“Not necessarily, but that’s not to the point. The flash burned Trinity. She fell down, and you and Virginia went to help her.”
Chelle nodded again.
“She’s a big woman, and you couldn’t get her on her feet. Gary Oberdorf and I got her up with your help and walked her to the elevator. I believe I can name all the people who were on that elevator with us. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Your memory’s probably better than mine,” Chelle said. “Who do you think?”
“Gary Oberdorf, Jerry, and Trinity herself.”
“You’re right. I’d forgotten the kid, but he was there.”
“Who wasn’t there?” Skip’s forefinger doodled on the immaculate table cloth.
“Everybody else in the world. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Who wasn’t on the elevator whom you would expect to be there?”
There was a long silence. The champagne arrived, Skip sampled it and nodded, and the waiter poured a glass for each of them. Chelle sipped hers twice before she spoke. “Mother. Mother wasn’t there.”
Skip nodded.
“When Rick blew up, he was damn near in Trinity’s face. She got burned. Her clothes were on fire a little bit. Remember?”
“No,” Skip said. “I’d forgotten that.”
“They were, smoking and a little flame. Mother and I had to slap them out. So Trinity was hurt pretty bad, and we were worried about her.” Chelle hesitated. “Trinity was on that elevator going to the doctor.”
“So were you. On the elevator, I mean.”
“Yeah, I was. I’m her daughter and those spies had been holding me. Did you know they were spies?”
“I guessed it.”
“Good for you. Someday you’re going to have to tell me how. But they’d been holding me, her daughter, and she’d been helping you look for me. Is that right? Or were you helping her?”
“I enlisted her help.”
“So why wasn’t she with me? And Trinity? Why wasn’t she there with us?”
“Because she didn’t want to be, obviously.”
Chelle put down her glass. “You’re going to have to explain that. I think somebody grabbed her.”
Skip sighed. “And I think that’s rubbish. Shall we quarrel?”
“No. I’d win, but what good would that do? Why wasn’t she grabbed?”
“Who was in that room with you before we came? Name them.”
“I don’t know the blonde’s name. Maybe somebody told me once, but I’ve forgotten.”
“Susan.”
“Okay, she was there. Rick, of course, and the guy with the white whiskers.”
“Now it’s my turn. When our party started up to A Deck, it consisted of Achille, Oberdorf, Jerry, your mother, and me. Rick shot me as soon as the door opened. Achille was gone when I recovered consciousness. Do you know anything about that?”
“I don’t think I even saw him.”
“Then I have another question, one I think you can answer. Why is this a table for four?”
“The captain?”
Skip shook his head. “Your mother talked to me on your phone in our stateroom. Remember? She asked me, quite specifically, not to mention the captain during dinner.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. I named the people who came with me. When the stateroom door opened, who was in there? I remember nothing after that, but you had been in there for some time. Who were they?”
“Susan. I said that.”
Skip nodded.
“Plus Rick, the old man, and me.”
“That was what I had assumed; all four of you were present when I returned to consciousness. When we left to take Trinity to the doctor, Jerry and Gary Oberdorf went with us. Rick was dead. Susan was in the lavatory slicing her arms with broken glass.”
Chelle winced.
“Exactly. But who could have grabbed your mother? Only the old man, and even then she would have had to linger. I think he must have said something that made her remain behind. Something I didn’t hear.”
“I didn’t either. I wasn’t paying attention to them. What was it?”
“I think I know,” Skip said, “but we may be able to ask them in a minute or two. Or we may learn it without asking.” He nodded slightly in the direction of the couple threading their way through the tables toward them, and stood up.
REFLECTION 16: Couples
Here they come, he tall and very straight despite his age, she a full head shorter in the highest of high heels. Her arm’s through his; she is in possession. In her free hand, a tiny bag bright with synthetic gems, a little gold bag that speaks loud for her, telling the world she won’t have to pay, that a handkerchief, a lipstick, and a mirror are all she’ll need tonight.
There’s a bond between them stronger than Vanessa’s frail arm, or stronger (as I should say) than the arm that she has been loaned by the woman named Edith Eckhart. In this world, it is the invisible things that are strongest.
What forges that bond?
Not intercourse, though it is tempting to say it is. It forms, sometimes, between couples who have not so much as kissed, and once formed is stronger than steel, a bond that cannot be broken, though it can rust away.
There was, God knows, such a bond between Susan and me. I doubt that there was a person in our office who failed to sense it. I was Skip—when I was alone. Alone, she was Susan. Put us in the same room, be it as big as a banquet hall, and we became SkipandSusan.
Sometimes SusanandSkip. I should not forget that because it is as true as a human thought can be. In that infirmary room we were SusanandSkip, though Dr. Ueda was not there long enough to sense it—or I don’t think she did.
Look! Here in the air between us, Dr. Ueda. That is the bond, still bright, though others are brighter. Not yet red with rust, though it is rusting. It had begun to rust last year, in fact.
And now I know, or think I know, why Susan joined the suicide ring.
Can I have meant more than life to her? It seems incredible, but without me what did she have? No daughter and no son, because I never gave her any.
Virginia waves, and Chelle waves back. Do they sense the bond between Chelle and me?
Is there any bond there to sense?
17. THE DOUBLE AGENT
Vanessa waved. “We’re late, and it’s all my fault. I was silly as a girl, trying on dresses and shoes. I wanted to wear this, but my shoes didn’t match. Charles took them away from me—why are you staring, Chelle dear?”
“I—I didn’t recognize Charlie. All the time we were in that room…”
The white-bearded man pulled out a chair for Vanessa. “It’s the beard, of course. The beard and the simple fact that you haven’t seen me for almost three years that have been nearer twenty-three for me.” He sat. “I’m a great deal older, even if you’re not. A great deal older and a good deal thinner.”
Vanessa said, “I wanted to make it a big surprise, darling, but Charles thought it might be unpleasant and fall ever so flat. So we didn’t.”
The white-bearded man said, “Is it unpleasant, honey? You divorced me, so I’m no longer your father. Will you accept me as a friend of your mother’s?”
“She isn’t. I divorced her, too. You—you’re just a couple I know now. You’re her date.”