“No,” she said, and she shook her head. “No, we’re talking about you—”
“Not any more, we’re talking about you now. Come on, what are you afraid of? Why are you running? Come on, Jana.”
“No,” she said.
“Yes, it’s easy. Just open your mouth and say it, that’s what I did, let’s play with your guts for a while.”
“No. No.”
Lennox moved closer to her. He felt confused and angry; she had touched and opened something deep inside him with her words and what he had glimpsed within that fissure was repulsive. He wanted to strike back at her, unreasoningly, childishly. “Come on, Jana, talk to me, tell me all about it. I’m a good listener too, you know, I’ve got a good analytical mind—”
“No.” Jana turned away from him, hugging herself, shivering in the cold wind that blew down into the tank. “No!”
He reached out and took her shoulders, firmly, and turned her back to him. He was very close to her now, his eyes looking into hers, his breath warm on her face, his hands pressing her nearer so that her breasts almost touched the ragged front of his shirt. “Tell me about it, Jana! Tell me what you’re afraid of, tell me!”
She struggled in his grip, and in the reflection of bright moonlight he saw raw terror brimming in her eyes. A frown creased his forehead and he released her. She fell away from him, sprawling into the dust, and cradled her head in her arms; her shoulders trembled as if she were crying, but she made no sound.
The anger, the demand for retribution, left him and he felt an immediate return of the compassion that he had experienced throughout the day, the protectiveness; he didn’t want to hurt her, not really, for God’s sake, what was the matter with him? He moved to her side, and his fingers were gentle on her arms this time as he brought her over onto her side, exposing her face to the shine of the moon again. Her features were twisted, a veil of despair.
“Jana,” he said in a low, soft voice, “Jana, what is it?”
He saw the word no form on her lips, but she did not put voice to it. It was, then, as if all her inner defenses crumbled, as if — as with him — the incubus had become too much and the levees had ceased to wall it in. A shuddering sob tremored through her body; and in a voice that was a half-whisper barely audible above the murmuring wind she said:
“I’m a lesbian. God forgive me, God help me, I’m a lesbian!”
Ten
It took Brackeen more than two hours to obtain a promise of action from the State Highway Patrol.
Most of that time was spent in locating Fred Gottlieb, the man in charge of the murder investigation; Gottlieb had all the facts, he was told by both Kehoe City and the main Patrol office in the capital, and there could be no authorizations based on speculative evidence — no matter how well it all dovetailed — without his approval. Once Brackeen found him, at the home of a married sister in a nearby community, and outlined the facts and the conclusions he had drawn from those facts, Gottlieb did not require much convincing. He listened attentively, asked several questions, confided that he and his partner, Dick Sanchez, had been looking into the possibility of Perrins/Lassiter’s death being a contracted Organization hit, and agreed without reluctance that the theory had considerable merit. Brackeen’s opinion of the State Highway Patrol went up considerably; he was dealing with a good, competent officer here, not fools like Lydell and the bright-face, Forester.
It was past dark by this time, and both men decided that there was not much that could be done until the daylight hours. Brackeen suggested an airplane or helicopter reconnaissance of the desert area to the east, south, and west of Cuenca Seco, and Gottlieb told him that he would have machines in the air at dawn. He said also that he would contact the county office in Kehoe City and have Lydell arrange for a team of experienced men on standby in Cuenca Seco, in the event the air reconnaissance uncovered anything; even if it didn’t, Gottlieb concurred that a careful foot search should be made of the area surrounding the location of the wrecked Triumph and the rental Buick.
Brackeen said, “Will you be coming down yourself?”
“As soon as I can get back to Kehoe City and round up Sanchez,” Gottlieb answered. “Where will you be?”
“Here in the substation.”
“I might be pretty late.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Okay,” Gottlieb said. “Listen, Brackeen, you did a hell of a job putting all this together. We’d have got it eventually, but probably not in time; there may still be a chance, now, for Lennox and the Hennessey girl.”
Brackeen said, “There are some things you can’t forget.”
“How’s that?”
“Never mind. You going to want to take charge of things when you get here?”
“Officially, yes,” Gottlieb said. “Unofficially, it’s your district and you’ve got a free wheel.”
“Thanks, Gottlieb.”
“Sure. Later, huh?”
“Later.”
Brackeen put down the phone and stared at it. He should have felt relieved now, or pleased, or satisfied, but he was more keyed up than he had been before the long-distance call from the girl’s New York agent, Klein. He had proven something to the world, which did not matter — and something to himself, which did matter — but that was somehow not enough; this thing wasn’t done with yet, none of it was done with yet, and he knew that the tenseness would not leave him until it was, if it was.
He picked up the phone and called Marge for the second time in the past several hours and told her he would not be home, that he was spending the night in the substation. She didn’t protest; that was one thing about Marge, she never complained, never sat heavy on his back. Talking to her, he felt a trace of guilt — an emotion new to him — for all the times he had cheated on her with the plump young whores in Kehoe City. She was a good woman, she was too goddamn good a woman to have to put up with that kind of thing. Well, she wouldn’t have to put up with it any more, he told himself. Not any more.
There was a lot of time between now and the arrival of Gottlieb and Sanchez — between now and dawn — and Brackeen felt nervous and edgy with inactivity. He left the cubicle, told Demeter that he was going out for a while, and picked up his cruiser. He drove east through the bright moonlight and stopped at the junction of the county road and the abandoned dead end; the special deputy he had stationed there several hours earlier was alert and eager, but he had seen nothing. Brackeen sat with him for a time, debating the idea of patrolling the abandoned road, and then decided against it; wherever they were on the desert, they would not be moving in the darkness — even with the drenching light from the moon. If Lennox and Jana Hennessey were still alive, they would be hiding now, waiting for dawn. Half dead from hunger and thirst, from the burning sun, from fear and from running.
If they were still alive.
Brackeen drove back to the substation to await the arrival of Gottlieb and Sanchez.
Eleven
Jana saw shock and disbelief register on Lennox’s face, and she thought: No, no, I didn’t want to say it, why did you make me say it? She pulled away from him again, rolling her body into a tight cocoon, withdrawing from the sick pain that the almost involuntary revelation had unleashed inside her. But the shell she had so carefully constructed these past ten days was cracked and broken now, irreparably, and she had no defenses. It was in the open now, the word — the fear — had been spoken, he knew, somebody knew. God, oh God, why had she pried into his soul and he into hers, they were like leeches sucking at one another, and for what reason? Strength? Succor? Or was it just that each of them sought to lessen his own misery by exposing that of the other?