“So where are we going?” Tauber said as we drove away. “Washington surely doesn’t give a shit.”
“I’ll get the list together and you can decide what you want to do.”
“What we can do is the question,” Tauber said. “I can’t defend myself against an attack; I’m totally out o’ practice.”
“That’s up to you,” Max answered. “Dave wanted me to get you together so I’ll do that. Then you’re on your own.”
“How do you know what he wanted?”
Max turned to me. “What’s the next nearest?”
“Miriam Fine, Durham, North Carolina” came out of my mouth like a belch, a reflex. Max reached for the glovebox; I pulled out the map and unfolded it for him.
“Miriam! Oh hell,” Tauber said. “Now we’re in for it.”
Three
We drove for about ten miles and nobody said a thing.
“Okay, tell me what the fuck’s going on,” I burst finally.
“You don’t need to know,” Dulles said.
“They would have arrested him too.”
“Nobody’s getting arrested.”
“What the hell-I’m just a vessel anyway.” Dulles shot me a look and swiveled in his seat, which would have flipped me out if I hadn’t already seen him drive with his eyes closed.
“You’re fortunate to be a vessel. Everything you know about us can be used to hurt you.” He turned to Tauber. “If you’re so concerned about his welfare, you tell him-am I lying?”
“No,” Tauber said, his face reddening. “That’s true.”
“If they catch us at this point, you can claim you’re a hostage. Once you know what’s going on, that excuse goes out the window.”
“Why? How would they know what you told me if I don’t tell them?”
“These people would know.”
“How?”
He threw his hand in the air. “If I answer that, I have to answer the rest. It’s no good.”
“I have to know,” I said and I meant it. I’d been stuck away in the Everglades for a year or more and what was the point of knowing anything there? But now, I was loose in the world again and all that was left of the reporter I’d once been was the hunger to know. To know what, in this case, I hadn’t a clue-hunger’s unthinking, whether for food or sex. Or knowledge. Whatever is hidden in my sight must be uncovered. I had to know.
“What about the landlady? You weren’t at any party with her. You didn’t get into her dress.”
“That was a lie,” Max said, relieved that it was.
“No, it’s a lie if you knew there was a party and pretended you were there. How did you even know there was a party?”
I turned to Tauber. “Did she wear a green dress?” He nodded. “Was there a pocket inside?” He shrugged.
I turned back to Mr. Dulles. “If he doesn’t know, how do you? Is she some kind of enemy agent?”
Tauber burst out laughing. “God help the country that employs her.” He turned to Max. “You’ve got to let him in.”
Max scowled. “You know the answer. You got most of it while I was talking to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“What were you thinking-back then, while we were talking?”
I tried to take myself back, to recover what was going on in my head at the time. “I knew you were lying.”
“Right and that’s good,” he grinned. Most people don’t get all happy when you catch them lying, but I’d gotten over expecting anything sensible out of him. “But, after that? When I told her about the party? When I mentioned the green dress?”
“I got confused then. I couldn’t figure out-”
“Don’t do that,” he jumped. “These are rationalizations you made up after the fact. What did you think right then? In the moment?”
I tried to remember. I fished back for the look on the landlady’s face right then, her confusion-and for the expectant, offering expression on his face at the same time. “I was thinking…I was thinking you were reading…what to say…”
“How?” he encouraged, like he knew what was coming.
“Like you were reading it off her face.” It felt stupid to say it. It didn’t make any sense, but it was what I’d been thinking.
“Good! Except I couldn’t read a green dress off the expression on her face, could I?” Was he making fun of me? It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“I’m not making fun,” he added a second later and I shivered even before I realized I hadn’t said it out loud. “Gregor, you did great. You got as much of it as you could. You just explained it away instead of accepting the strangeness of what you knew.” He was giving me the stare but this time, the back of my skull was just tingling, not burning. “I couldn’t read a green dress in her expression, could I?”
“No.”
“So where’s the only place I could have gotten it?” His eyes were as big as the moon over the Gulf, when it’s clipping the horizon, shimmering the size of a container ship.
“Just tell him,” Tauber interrupted.
“No! It’s crucial that he knows what he knows!” Mr. Dulles spit, suddenly fierce. “Don’t worry about making sense. Don’t worry about sounding foolish. You know the answer. Know what you know. Take ownership of what your senses are telling you, even if it flies in the face of everything you believe. Where did I get the information? Where’s the only place I could have gotten it?”
“Her head.” It burped out of me the same as the agent names, the same way I’d known where the box was in Dave’s office-autopilot, no thought behind the words, presentation before understanding.
“That’s it,” he said. “You’ve got it,” as though everything was settled.
“Got what? What have I got?”
“We read minds, son,” Tauber answered, with a weary smile. “It’s what they paid us for, for a while.”
“Oh, come on,” I moaned. It was such a comedown, after thinking they were going to explain. Tauber shrugged so I turned back to Mr. Dulles. “Okay, fine-read my mind,” I demanded.
“Jesus, give me a break, I’m not a carnival barker.” I just stared back. If he could read minds, let him do it or shut up.
“Okay, you’re thinking that I can’t read your mind, of course. You’re thinking you never trusted me, even when I hung around Dave’s because I wouldn’t play cards and I didn’t really take part in things. You’re thinking about the Burger King billboard when we got off the highway-you’re not really hungry but you want a Double Whopper with Cheese anyhow. There’s a part of your mind that’s singing ‘I Want to be Sedated’ and there’s a part that’s still in Fallujah, in a firefight. The machine guns and rockets are echoing in the background behind everything else.”
“I’m not in Fallujah,” I said but he turned back to driving without a reply. It took a few seconds to hear them-the guns, the rockets, the shouting and screaming and all the rest, everything he’d described, all there, all at once, once I listened. I realized I didn’t really listen a whole lot. Especially to the Fallujah part. I didn’t want to listen to that.
“Don’t be stubborn,” Mr. Dulles said. “You saw me do it with the landlady and you knew it for what it was. Your rational mind resists but your instinct knew, right then and there- he’s reading it in her face. That’s what you told yourself and you were 90 % right. A minute ago, when I told you I wasn’t making fun of you-you hadn’t accused me out loud. I’ve done that several times before, though maybe not so openly.” He leaned in and I waited for my head to heat up but he only wanted to talk. “The most important thing is: you knew. You not only knew I was reading the landlady, you knew she damned her memory that she couldn’t remember me. You knew when Mark was standing at the peephole of his door. You knew he was still drunk from the night before.”
“I could hear him slurring,” I said. I shrugged, apologetic, in Tauber’s direction and he shrugged back. I’ve known other people over the years who drank from habit-after a while, their dignity gets pretty flexible.
“Some people slur all the time,” Max said. “Some people have speech impediments. You weren’t guessing-you knew.”
“What are you saying-I’m a mindreader?”