He glanced at her for a moment as though deciding something. His face was cold, a face for winter, creased with lines around the gray eyes.
He decided.
He reached in the closet for his bag and removed an object from it.
She saw that it was a gun.
Now, standing pressed against the sliding patio doors, she trembled. Who was he? Who had followed her? The entire world had suddenly exploded into betrayal. A sense of madness overcame her. This was what it was to be frightened, she thought, as though she had never been frightened before in her life.
The knob on the door jiggled.
Devereaux put his fingers to his lips. He raised the gun.
“What the hell is going on down here, can’t get no goddam sleep or what?”
“Hey, what are those guys doing down there. That guy’s got a gun, John, he’s got a fucking gun—”
Sounds in the corridor.
Muffled sounds.
Feet running.
Doors were slammed.
“Damned guys had guns—”
Devereaux waited, still, pressed against the wall, gun drawn.
“Burglars,” one of the voices, bleary with drink or sleep, said. “Got goddam burglars in the hotel.”
“I knew we should have gone to the Holiday Inn, I told you—”
“Burglars, ought to call down to the desk—”
“Right here, I never saw anything like it—”
“Like that movie we saw once, that time, with Cary Grant, remember—”
“He didn’t have no gun—”
“What the hell is all that noise—”
“Burglars down there—”
“What? What did you say?”
Devereaux slowly lowered his hand. After a moment of stillness, he turned and replaced the gun in the bag.
The telephone rang.
He picked up the phone and listened and looked at Rita who stood pressed against the glass door that led to the balcony. She was trembling. Her hands were flat against the glass. She stared at him with an expression of horror.
He felt nothing, he thought, but that wasn’t true. He felt the coldness in him again, overwhelming him again.
“No. Not here. I think it was down the hall. No. About fourteen fifteen or so. Yes. That’s all right. Good night.”
He turned and stared at her.
They could not find any words.
Slowly, a humming silence returned — the silence of night in a large hotel. Doors were slammed, shut, water gurgled in the bathroom pipes that connected the rooms, voices were muted and then, finally, stilled.
So he would not have to betray Rita after all, he thought as he stared at her.
Any more than he had.
24
“Who are you?”
Rita stood still against the glass doors, her arms folded defensively in front of her.
Devereaux did not answer. He walked across the thick carpeting and stood in front of her for a moment. He stared into her green eyes that were angry and set against him.
There was nothing to say.
Slowly, he moved past her and slid open the glass door. At this height, the gentle Gulf breeze was cooler and a little stronger. He stepped onto the concrete balcony and looked over the cast-iron railing. No one waited on the well-lit section of the beach in front of the hotel; in the parking lot, the last teenagers in the last panel van of the night were being chased away by a Clearwater cop. The van, with rumbling music and rumbling exhaust pipes, slowly pulled onto Gulf View Boulevard and moved away.
“Who are you?” Rita repeated, still standing in the room, staring.
“What you suspect.”
“Not a reporter.”
“No.”
“I didn’t even check you and you were lying from the first moment.”
He waited.
“You’re with them. The CIA.”
“No.”
“I can’t believe you.” Her voice was flat.
“Not the CIA.”
“But you’re in the government,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And you used me. What’s your name, even? Your real name?”
“The name is real.”
“I was so stupid, I was just like a farm girl, you think I would have smartened up in Washington, you—”
“You weren’t stupid. Everything wasn’t a lie.”
“You had it set up. To use me to get the journal. For God’s sake.” Her voice caught, she might be on the edge of tears. He did not turn to look at her. He considered the darkness beyond the balcony, the darkness of the infinite water. Gulf led to Caribbean and that led to the ocean and to all the oceans of the world, stretching away from this little moment of hell.
“I told you about that, about the journal. God, I’m sick, I want to throw up. I told you about… about Tommy. I even told you that.”
He waited for the words like blows.
“I trusted you,” she said. “I trusted Kaiser. And Kaiser—” Her voice caught again. “Kaiser knew. Just like you knew.”
He turned then and stared at her. “What did Kaiser know?”
“I won’t tell you anything.”
He waited.
“Damn you. Both of you.” She slammed her fist against the jamb of the glass doors. “Damn. He called me tonight and told me to get out. He knew I was in danger.”
Kaiser knew, he thought.
“Who were they?” he asked.
“I should ask you. You probably know, you know everything, you set everything up. This is all part of your game, isn’t it? None of it meant anything. God. I made love to you.”
His eyes were gray, flat, cold; nothing could penetrate him if he stood perfectly still, if he took all that she said and let the blows fall on him.
“Who were they?” he said at last.
“They came from that car, it followed me—”
“A gray car, Ford Fairmont.” It was not a question.
“You know them, you set everything up—”
“I don’t know them, Rita.” His voice was calm and, strangely, it seemed to calm her as well.
For a moment, they stared at each other without speaking.
“Who are they then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you were in the government.”
“Yes.”
“Not the CIA.”
“No.”
“Who are you then?”
“I can’t say,” he said.
“I hate you. I despise you.”
“Why did Kaiser know them?”
“He didn’t—”
“He called you, he warned you away. Why did Kaiser know them?”
“Kaiser said to get out. He said he didn’t want me to get into it. He said…” She paused.
“He said,” Devereaux continued, “that was the reason he warned you off the story to begin with. To protect you. He knew what was going to happen.”
“No. He didn’t know—”
“But he didn’t take you off the story before, when you were trying to get to Tunney in Washington. At the Watergate. He didn’t know it was dangerous then.” Devereaux spoke aloud but he was only thinking, the computer of memory and logic spinning new answers onto the screen in his mind.
“You know all this though, don’t you?” she said.
“No. None of it. I know this is very dangerous now, Rita, I know that.” He paused. They both understood the game had changed; what was in the journal that Father Tunney was keeping? What was worth killing for?
But how would he get the journal now, now that he was blown?
“Why did they want to kill me?” she said.
He considered it calmly but there did not seem to be an answer. Unless.
“When did you tell Kaiser about the journal?”
“I just told you.”
“No, Rita. You told Kaiser as well.”
“I didn’t.”
“You had to.”
“Why?”