But Gresham had asked her for a description and the description had made it clear. The boat was a former Soviet
Alfa-class missile sub, which had been sold years ago, to the
African nation of Djibouti, and reported sunk with all hands.
Of course it had not sunk at all-the hapless crew had been gassed by FACT saboteurs onboard as mercenaries, and the whole sub captured intact.
Almost the whole story was out now, new bits and pieces coming in every day. They had the FACT computer files, captured in Bamako. FACT agents overseas were surrender- ing right and left, naming their associates, ruining their for- mer employers in a septic orgy of confession.
The Countess herself was dead. She had shot herself in her bunker at Bamako and had her remains cremated, leaving a long, rambling, lunatic testament about her vindication by history. So they claimed, anyway. No genuine proof of her death. She'd seen to that.
They still weren't even sure of the woman's true identity.
There were at least five solid candidates. wealthy right-wing women who had vanished at one point or another into the underworld of data piracy and global spookdom. That didn't even count the hundreds of goofy folk tales and bullshit conspiracy theories.
The weird, sick thing was that people liked it. They liked the idea of an evil countess and her minions, even though the testimony and confessions were showing how squalid it was..
The woman had been mentally ill. Old and trembling and out of it, and surrounded by people. who were part zealot and part profiteer.
But people couldn't see it like that-they couldn't grasp the genuine banality of corruption. On some deep unconscious level people liked the political upheaval, the insecurity, the perverse tang of nuclear terror. The fear was an aphrodisiac, a chance to chuck the longterm view and live for the moment.
Once it had always been like that. Now that she was living it, hearing people talk it, she knew.
Someone had invited the mayor. Magruder began explain- ing to her the complex legal niceties of reopening the Lodge.
He was defensive about what he'd done, in his own aggres- sive way. She fended him off with empty pleasantries. "Oh, wait," she said, "there's someone I simply must meet," and she left him and walked at random toward a stranger. A black woman with a short fringed haircut, standing alone in the corner, sipping a soda-and-ricewater.
It was Emily Donato. She saw Laura coming and looked up with an expression of pure animal terror. Laura stopped short, jolted. "Emily," she said. "Hi."
"Hello, Laura." She was going to be civilized. Laura saw the resolve for it stiffen her face, saw her control the urge to flee.
The hubbub of conversation dropped an octave. People were watching them over their drinks, from the comers of their eyes. "I need a drink," Laura said. A meaningless utterance, she had to say something.
"I'll get you one."
"No, let's get the hell out of here." She pushed open the door and stepped out onto the walkway. A few people out on the landing, leaning on the rail, watching seagulls. Laura walked through them. Emily tagged after her, reluctantly.
They walked around the rampart, under the awning. It was getting cold and Emily, in her simple short-sleeved dress, clutched her bare brown arms. "I forgot my windbreaker....
No, it's okay. Really. " She put her drink on the wooden railing.
"You cut your hair," Laura said.
"Yeah," Emily said, "I travel pretty light these days."
Thudding silence. "Did you see Arthur's trial?"
Laura shook her head. "But I'm glad now you, never introduced me to the son-of-a-bitch."
"He made me feel like a whore," Emily said. Simple, abject. "He was F.A.C.T.! I still can't believe that some- times. That I was sleeping with the enemy, that I spilled the whole fucking thing, that it was all my fault." She burst into tears. "And then this! I don't know why I even showed my face here. I wish we were back in Mexico. I wish we were in hell!"
"For God's sake, Emily, don't talk like that."
"I disgraced my office. I disgraced the company. And God knows what I've done with my personal life." She was sobbing. "Now look what I've done-I've betrayed my best friend. You were in prison and I was sleeping with your goddamned husband! You must wish I was dead."
"No, I don't!" Laura blurted. "I know-I've been there.
It's no good at all."
Emily stared at her. The remark had stunned her. "I used to know you really well," she said. "I used to depend on you. You were the best pal I ever had.... Y'know, when I first came down here, to see David, I thought I was doing you a favor. I mean, I liked him, but he wasn't exactly doing
Rizome morale much good. Complaining, abusing people, drinking too much. I said, my dead pal would want me to look after David. I tried to do something really good, and it was the worst thing I've ever done."
"I'd have done it too," Laura said.
Emily sat in one of the folding lounge chairs and pulled in her legs. "That's not what I want," she said. "I want you to tell me how much you hate me. I can't stand it if you're so much nobler than I am."
"Okay, Emily." The truth burst out of her like an abcess.
"When I think of you and David sleeping together, I want to tear your fucking throat out."
Emily sat there and took it. She shuddered and flung it off.
"I can't make up for it. But I can run away."
"Don't run, Emily. He doesn't need that. He's a good man. He doesn't love me anymore, but he can't help that.
We're just too far apart now."
Emily looked up. Hope dawned. "So it's true? You're not gonna take him away from me?"
"No." She forced the words to come lightly. "We'll get the divorce. It won't be that much -trouble.... Except for the journalists."
Emily looked at her feet. She accepted it. The gift. "I do love him, you know. I mean, he's simple, and kind of dizzy sometimes, but he does have his good points." She had nothing left to hide. "I don't even need the pills. I just love him. I'm used to him. We're even talking about having a baby."
"Oh, really?" Laura sat down. It was such a strange thought that it somehow failed to touch her. It seemed pleasant somehow, homey. "Are you trying?"
"Not yet but ..." She paused. "Laura? We're gonna survive this, aren't we? I mean it won't be like it was, but we won't have to kill ourselves. We'll be okay."
"Yeah." Long silence.
She leaned toward Emily. Now that it was out between them some ghost of the old vibe was coming back. A kind of subterranean tingle as their buried friendship stirred.
Emily brightened. She could feel it too.
It lasted long enough for them to go back in with their arms around each other.
Everyone smiled.
She spent Christmas at her mother's place in. Dallas. And there was Loretta. A little girl who ran when she saw the lady in the hat and-sunglasses, and hid her face in her grandmoth- er's dress.
She was such a cute little thing. Spiky blond pigtails, greenish eyes. Quite a talker, too, once she got going. She said, "Gramma spill the milk," and laughed. She sang a little song about Christmas in which most of the verses were "na na na na" at top volume. After she got used to her, she sat in
Laura's lap and called her "Rarra."
"She's wonderful," Laura told her mother. "You've done really well with her."
"She's such a joy to me," said Margaret Alice Day Garfield
Nakamura Simpson. "I lost you-then I had her-now I have both of you. It's like a miracle. Not a day passes that I don't marvel at it. I've never been this happy in my life."
"Really, Mother?"
"I've had good times, and I've had bad times-this is the best time, for me. Since I've retired-shrugged the yoke off-it's me and Loretta. We're a family-it's like we're a little team."
"You must have been happy when you and Dad were together. I remember it. I always thought we were happy."