“Because they had to have a reason to kill you.”
“Yes,” she said, almost in a trance, reaching back into her memory, “I did tell him. I had forgotten.”
“Did you tell him that Tunney would give it to you?”
“No. I didn’t know yet.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then someone is beginning to panic. Everyone is blowing his cover. They waited and waited so patiently. Why blow it now?” He stepped back inside the darkened room but left the glass door open.
“What are you talking about?”
“Miracles. The business with the miracles. This woman, Lu Ann Carter. They’ve become frightened, something has happened none of them planned on. There’s too much attention on Tunney, they’ll never be able to keep him quiet. And you’ve been the most persistent reporter. You were an easy person to get rid of. You weren’t even part of a paper or a news agency. And they have Kaiser in their pocket. Kaiser wouldn’t say anything. Except that he decided to warn you off, just as he did before, in Washington.”
She shivered but he did not see it. He was staring into his own thoughts, trying to make sense of the new pieces of the puzzle.
“Who are they?” Rita said at last.
“I don’t know.”
“You. ‘They’ is you. The CIA or whatever you belong to.”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“I trusted you. I told you about my brother, about him dying, and I feel so dirty now. You make it so dirty—”
He turned, looked at her, slapped her with his harsh voice: “Dirty. Yes. All of it. That’s the way of it.” He glanced at his hands; he was trembling and he did not want to feel what he felt. Not for her, not for anyone. More softly: “As long as you know I’m in the dirty business, I can tell you I ran a check on your brother. Cross-Agency. To see if he had been one of ours.”
“No! Don’t tell me—”
“Two approaches were made to him. Once here, once in Laos. He turned Uncle down. He was pure as you wanted him to be.”
“And he died—”
“It was never clear. It might have been fever. It might have been the Pathet Lao. You see, they were not too exact. If you were white, you might be a spy.”
“They killed him?”
“It’s not clear. But if he died, he died for the wrong reason.” His voice was bitter. “Does that salve your conscience? That he wasn’t in this dirty business? That he wasn’t like me? Or your father?”
“Yes,” she said, “it makes it better. It makes it all right now that you betrayed me. That you used me. I think of your dirty hands on me but that’s all right. It’s fine because I know that Tommy wasn’t one of you. You’re scum, all of you.”
“Rita.”
But it was no use.
I love you, he thought. As soon as he thought it, he realized how foolish he had become. He did not love or hate; it was enough to survive. He had allowed himself a luxury that was not for him anymore.
He opened the closet and pulled out a shirt and buttoned it. He pulled on his corduroy jacket. He reached for the pistol in the case on the shelf.
The pistol was seated in a black leather holster that could be attached to a belt. He removed the pistol, a black Colt Python .357 magnum six-shot revolver.
It was an accurate weapon and reliable. The long, hollow-point bullets could tear a man’s belly open.
He set the pistol in the belt of his trousers, behind the corduroy jacket, and buttoned the jacket.
He glanced at her but she stood motionless at the window.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
“Stay here, Rita. It isn’t safe to leave now. I’ll be back by morning. However long it takes, stay here. They won’t come back to the hotel.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. If I don’t get back by afternoon, call the Tampa office of the FBI — it’s in the telephone book. Tell them everything that’s happened.”
“Fuck you. Fuck the FBI, you can’t—”
“Rita.” The voice was soft, tinged with sadness. “This is not between us now.” But he knew she would only see it that way. He had to keep her out of the way.
He opened his scuffed bag and removed a small green plastic box. He opened it. His pharmacopoeia, the drugs that made him awake after an all-night flight from Tehran, the drugs that put him to sleep when his body could not function anymore without sleep.
He removed a white pill.
“I won’t take that, you can’t make me—”
“Rita. I want you to sleep.”
“You want to kill me.”
“Rita.” He touched her arm, held her. “It’s only a sleeping pill.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“Let go of my arm.” She punched him then, quickly, expertly, in the right side of the belly, below the rib cage. He felt a flare of pain and stepped into it, twisting her arm back and down in one motion.
She fell to the bed and he was on top of her.
She opened her mouth to scream.
He hit her very hard on the side of the head. The blow stunned her for a moment. He pushed her over on her back. She stared at him, her eyes glazed with pain.
He shoved the knuckles of his first two fingers in her mouth and felt her teeth sink against the skin. But because he had doubled his fingers, she could not bite effectively; she only broke the skin.
He dropped the pill down her throat and waited for the reflex to swallow it. She swallowed as she gasped for air.
“You bastard,” she said when he removed his hand. He held her down.
“You dirty bastard, you dirty son of a bitch.”
He waited.
“Are you going to hold me down like this all night? I’ll vomit as soon as I get up—”
He stared at her, straddling her body with his legs and holding down her arms beneath his hands. He was cold again, he was himself — Hanley might say that — he was without emotion. He did not love or hate; his instincts for survival were whole again.
She cursed him again. She said he was hurting her.
He did not move. He pressed her down, scissoring her body with his legs, pushing against her arms.
The clock moved slowly, minute by minute. The room was silent except for her labored breathing.
She yawned.
He stared at her green eyes and did not feel anything; he could not even imagine making love to her that morning.
After more minutes, he felt the body slacken beneath him, the muscles stretching into an involuntary relaxed position. She was sleeping then.
He got off the bed and covered her gently and then closed the doors of the balcony and pulled the drapes across the glass.
Devereaux went to the door of the room, listened at it and then slowly opened it.
The hall was empty and bright. He removed the pistol from his belt and cocked the hammer. Slowly, he walked down the hall.
He paused at the elevator doors and listened but he heard no sound. He walked down to the end of the hall and looked inside the alcove with ice and vending machines.
Empty.
He finally reached the staircase door marked by a large glowing “Exit” sign.
He pushed the door open suddenly and violently and it banged against the stucco wall behind it.
Nothing.
Down the fireproof iron and concrete staircase, slowly.
All the way to the lobby.
He pushed open the door and saw the policeman at the desk. He went out the side door and down the steps.
A police car sat in the parking entrance with its red light slowly rotating.
Answer an alert: burglars in the hotel. She would be safe for a little while in his room.
He waited in the shadows, near some bushes and trees sprouting in a little garden at the curb.
Nothing.
And then he saw it, turning the corner, the same gray car that had followed Rita, the gray car he had been unable to trace.