"What?"
"She was a hooker."
Jim heard Carol gasp beside him. His anger grew, fueled by Becker's taunting tone.
"Very funny."
"No. It's true. I have it on reliable authority—first from a Sergeant Kelly, N.Y.P.D., and later from an old pal of his who used to work vice—that she was midtown's finest piece of ass in the late thirties and on through the war. Except for a period of time right before the war when she dropped out of sight for almost a year. Some people say that in her final years, when she was shooting smack like I drink Pepsi, she talked about having a baby someplace, but no one ever saw the kid. The timing's right. Think that kid might be you, Stevens?"
Anger had ballooned into barely suppressed rage. Jim could see how much Becker was enjoying this. He forced himself to speak calmly.
"That's all you've got?"
"Nope. Got a picture of her when she was a stripper." He pulled a photo out of a manila envelope and handed it to Jim. "What do you say? Think this could be Mama?"
Jim stared at the photo of a shapely young woman in a rhinestone G-string. She was beautiful, but there was no way in the world she could be his mother. Because she was black—very black.
Becker guffawed. "Had you going there, didn't I? I really thought I'd tracked her down, and turns out she's as black as the ace of spades! Is that a riot or what?"
Something exploded in Jim. He shifted the photo to his left hand, cocked his right arm, and belted Becker in the face. His arms windmilling for balance, Becker stumbled backward out the door and landed flat on his back on the front porch. Blood began to drip from his nose as he looked up at Jim in shock.
"What—?"
"That's for being a malicious bastard!" Jim said through his clenched teeth.
"Can't you take a joke?"
"Not funny, jerk! Now get the hell out of here and don't come back!"
He slammed the door closed and turned to see Carol's shocked expression.
"Sorry," he said.
"It's okay," she said, slipping her arms around him. "That was a really rotten thing to do to you. But did you have to—"
"Hit him?" Jim shook his head. "No, I suppose not." He hadn't even enjoyed it. Maybe that was a good sign. "You know what they say."
"I know. 'Violence is the first resort of the mentally inferior party.' "
"I'd have to beg an exception to that rule."
"Granted," Carol said.
"I'd also like to beg a drink."
"Also granted."
Jim looked again at the photo of Jazzy Cordeau's slim, sensuous black body and seductive smile.
"Sheesh! Make it a double!"
5
"I'm back!"
Carol carried the bag of Cokes, fries, and burgers into the library and found Jim just where she had left him, slumped in the wing chair, engrossed in one of the newfound Hanley journals.
"Yoo hoo," she said. "I'm home. And don't get too comfortable there. That's my chair."
Jim looked up but didn't smile. His expression was troubled, and his eyes had a faraway look.
"Something wrong?" Carol said.
"Hmm?" he said, straightening up. "Oh, no. No, everything's fine. I'm just having a little trouble with some of this scientific stuff, is all."
He wasn't much company during dinner—if indeed the cooling, soggy cheeseburgers from Wetson's deserved to be called dinner—and she noticed that he poured his glass of Scotch into his Coke before he drank it. He initiated no conversation, which was highly unusual for him. Jim always had something to talk about—a wild idea or a diatribe about some aspect of the current political and social scene. But he was definitely preoccupied tonight, answering her attempts at conversation in monosyllables.
As soon as he gobbled down his third and last burger, he stood up and drained his Coke.
"Look, I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to get back to those new journals."
"Sure. Go ahead. Come across any good stuff yet?"
His expression was bleak as he turned away toward the library.
"No. No good stuff."
Carol finished her second cheeseburger and swept all the wrappers and fries bags back into the sack. Then she wandered into the library. Jim didn't look up from his hunched posture over the journal. Carol wandered along the shelves, looking for something to read. There were lots of classics, from Aeschylus to Wyss, but she wasn't in the mood for anything long or heavy. She stopped by the wing chair where Jim sat and noticed a small black journal on the table next to him. She remembered seeing it in the safe when they'd opened it earlier.
She picked it up and opened the cover. A title was block-printed in capitals on the first page:
PROJECT GENESIS
"What's this about?" she asked.
Jim's head snapped up.
"What?"
His eyes widened when he saw the journal in her hand, and he snatched it away.
"Give me that!"
"Jim!" Carol cried, shocked.
"I'm sorry," he said, obviously flustered. "I… I'm just trying to put all the pieces together and I… I can't if… the pieces start wandering away. You know? Sorry I snapped. Really."
She noticed that as he was speaking he closed the journal he had been reading and slipped the black one under it. She had never seen him so distracted, so tentative, and it made her uneasy.
"Jim, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, Carol," he said, rising from the chair.
"I don't buy that. Something in those journals is upsetting you. Tell me. Share it."
"No, no, I'm not upset. It's just heavy going, that's all. When I get it straight in my head, I'll lay it out for you. Right now… I've got to concentrate. I'll take these upstairs and you take the chair and read or watch TV."
"Jim, please!"
He turned and headed for the stairs.
"It's okay, Carol. Just give me a little time alone with this stuff."
She noticed that he grabbed the Scotch decanter on his way out of the room.
Time crawled.
Carol tried to occupy herself but it wasn't easy. The disquiet over Jim's obsession with these journals and his past gnawed at her, making it impossible to read, or even to involve herself in the new color TV in the corner of the library. She spent most of the night spinning the dial. The Avengers seemed vapid, The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres were more annoying than usual, and even The Jonathan Winters Show couldn't wring a smile from her.
By eleven o'clock she couldn't take any more. She went upstairs to the science library to pull Jim away from those damn journals.
The door was locked.
Alarmed now, she pounded on it.
"Jim! Are you all right?"
She heard papers shuffling within, then Jim opened the door —but only part way. He stood in the opening, blocking her from entering. His eyes had a haunted look.
"What is it?" he mumbled.
She could smell the Scotch on his breath.
"It's late," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "Let's call it a night."
He shook his head. "Can't. Gotta keep after this."
"Come back in the morning when you're fresh. You might get a whole new—"
"No! I can't leave this now! Not yet! You go home. Take the car and leave me here. I'll come home later."
"You're going to walk home? You can't be serious! You'll freeze!"
"It's only a mile or so. The exercise will do me good."
"Jim, this is crazy! What's wrong? Why can't you tell me what's—"