And, she thought, he might actually leave with her, as he says. Then he really must be involved with her, she thought. They can’t have just met: it wouldn’t be reasonable for anyone to go so far in giving help to a stranger . . . except that in this case the stranger is beautiful, small and helpless. And men are that way. There is a weakness in their structure which comes out in situations like this. They no longer think or act reasonably; they do what they think of as “chivalry”. At whatever cost to themselves, and, in this case, to their wife and child.
“You can stay,” she said to Charlotte, following after her into the hall, as the girl stood struggling to get her coat back on; Nick stood blankly, as if he could no longer follow—and hence participate in—the situation.
“No,” Charlotte said. “Goodbye.” She ran, then, in full flight down the corridor, like a wild bird.
“God damn you,” Nick said to Kleo.
“God damn you, too,” Kleo said, “trying to bring her in here to get us bursted. God damn you for not telling me.”
“I would have told you when the opportunity arose,” he said.
“Aren’t you going after her?” Kleo asked. “You said you would.”
He stared at her, his face mobile with wrath, his eyes small and crammed with darkness. “You’ve sentenced her to forty years in a work camp on Luna; she’ll roam the streets with no money and no place to go, and eventually a prowl car will stop and they’ll question her.”
“She’s a smart girl; she’ll get rid of the pamphlets,” Kleo said.
“They’ll still get her. For something.”
“Then go on and make sure she’s all right. Forget us; forget Bobby and me and go see if she’s okay. Go ahead. Go!”
His jaw retracted, as if, she thought, he is going to hit me. Look what he has learned already from his new girl friend, she thought. Brutality.
However, he did not hit her. Instead, turning, he ran up the corridor after Charlotte.
“You bastard!” Kleo yelled after him, giving not a damn who in the building heard her. Then, returning to the apartment, she slammed and locked the door; she put the night bolt in place, so that even with his key he could not open the door again.
They walked hand-in-hand along the busy street with its many shops, through heavy sidewalk traffic, neither of them speaking.
“I wrecked your marriage,” Charley said after a time.
“No you didn’t,” Nick said. And it was true: his showing up with the girl had brought to the surface only that which was already there. We lived a life of scrabbling fear, he thought, a life of worry and pitiful terrors. Fear Bobby wouldn’t pass his test; fear of the police. And now—the Purple Sea Cow, he thought. All we have to do is worry about it strafing us. Thinking that, he laughed.
“What’s funny?” Charley said.
“I was imagining Denny dive-bombing us. Like with one of those old Stukas they used back in World War Two. And everybody scattering to get out of the way, thinking war had broken out with North−West Germany.”
Hand-in-hand they walked, each wrapped for a time in his own thoughts. Then, all at once, Charley said, “You don’t have to hang around me, Nick. Let’s cut the cord; you go back to Kleo—she’ll be glad to see you. I know women; I know how fast they get over being mad, especially at something like that, where what menaces her—in other words, me—is gone. Right?”
It was probably true, but he did not answer; he had not as yet found his way out of the tangle of his own thoughts. What, in toto, had happened to him today? He had discovered that his boss Earl Zeta was an Under Man; he had joined with Zeta in drinking alcohol; they had gone to Charley’s—or Denny’s—apartment; there had been a fight, and he had gotten out of there with Charley, rescuing her, a complete stranger, with the help of his bulky, strong boss.
And then the business with Kleo.
“Are you sure the PSS doesn’t know about your apartment?” he asked Charley. In other words, he thought, have they picked me as a suspect, yet?
“We’re very careful,” Charley said.
“Are you? You left that pamphlet in your coat for Kleo to find. That wasn’t very frosty.”
“I was all unhooked. From slipping the Purple Sea Cow. I never do things like that, usually.”
“Do you have any more on you? In your purse?”
“No.”
He took her purse from her and looked through it. It was true. He then searched the pockets of her coat, as they walked along. True of her coat, too. But Cordon’s writing also circulated in the form of microdots; she could have several of them on her, and, if they picked her up, the track boys of the PSS would find them.
I guess I don’t trust her, he decided. After she let that happen with Kleo. Obviously, if she could do it once—
He thought, then. Probably the tracks are watching the apartment, monitoring it in some way. Who comes in; who goes out. I came in; I went out. So, if that’s the case, I’m listed.
So it’s already too late to go back to Bobby and Kleo.
“You look so grim,” Charley said, in a merry, what-the-hell voice.
“Christ,” he said, “I’ve crossed the line.”
“Yes, you’re an Under Man.”
“Wouldn’t that make anybody look grim?”
Charley said, “It should fill you with joy.”
“I don’t want to go to a detention work camp on—”
“But it’s not going to end that way, Nick. Provoni is coming back and everything will be okay.” Holding his hand, she swung her head, cocked it, peered at him birdwise. “Cheer up, and stand up straight! Look happy! Be happy!”
My family, he thought, is broken and by her. We have nowhere we can go—they’d find us in a motel easily—and—
Zeta, he thought. He can help me. And the responsibility, to a great extent, is his: Zeta set off everything that’s happened today.
“Oh,” Charley said, blinking as he tugged her to a ped overpass. “Where are we going?”
“To the United Front Slightly Used Squibs lot,” Nick said.
“Oh, you mean to Earl Zeta. Maybe he’s back at the apartment, fighting with Denny. No, I guess Denny must have gotten away by now; anyhow, that’s what we thought when you were driving, because of that one sight of him on the roof. Oh, good; now I can enjoy some more of your driving ability. Do you know, as good as Denny is, and he’s really good, you’re better? Have I told you that before? Yes, I guess I did.” She seemed rattled. And, all at once, ill at ease.
“What’s the matter?” he asked as they entered the up-ramp which would take them to the fiftieth level lot where he had parked his squib.
“Well,” she said, “I’m afraid Denny will be looking there. Hanging around, skulking, watching. Just watching.” She snarled out the word, savagely, startling him—he hadn’t seen this side of her before. “No,” she said, “I can’t go there. You go alone. Let me off somewhere, or I’ll just take the down-ramp and—” She made a whisking motion with the flat of her hand. “Out of your life forever.” Once more she laughed, in the manner that she had always before. “But we can still be friends. We can communicate by postcard.” She laughed. “We’ll always know one another, even if we never meet again. Our souls have meshed, and when souls have meshed, one can’t be destroyed without the other dying.” She was laughing uncontrollably, now, virtually hysterically; she pawed at her eyes, giggling through her flattened hands. “That’s what Cordon teaches and it’s so funny; it’s just so goddam funny.”