“I hope that’s not true. He’ll end up going to jail for stealing computer time.”
“That would be delicious. Unfortunately, the truth is more prosaic.”
“May I know?”
“Nope.”
He could respect that. She was into a substantial bank of Riverside’s enormous computing power. The fewer who knew, the better. Not to mention the safety there was in ignorance.
They didn’t talk on the way down in the elevator. The lobby was quiet as they crossed to the door. He hailed a cab on York Avenue. “How about making this a catered affair?”
“Chinese food?”
“It’s a deal.” He couldn’t face some depressing bar right now. He wanted Sarah very badly. The thought of losing her came cold into his mind. He loved her so much. Right now he wanted to slide across the seat, to put his arm around her, to melt the barrier between them. During the day she was so crisp and professional and cool. At night he wanted another Sarah, one who would shelter him. He watched her gentle, tense face, the soft curve of her bosom, smelled her faint perfume and longed for her.
The harsh words she had spoken in his office returned to mind now. ‘You use everything. Me. Yourself.’ Was it really true? Did he have to think that about himself? If it was true, it was not something he could help.
“I love you,” he said softly so the cabdriver wouldn’t hear. Public intimacies annoyed Sarah.
She smiled briefly, allowed him to cover her hand with his.
“Love solves problems,” he said.
She was silent a long moment. “It survives them.”
He wished so very much for her happiness and success. She had made an extraordinary discovery, he was sure of it. He wanted her to taste the sweetness of recognition, to receive all the benefits such a thing could bring. “I want to help you, Sarah,” he said, “I want to so badly!”
She smiled broadly. “I wish Hutch could hear you. He’d be terrified.”
“Left side or right side,” the cabdriver asked.
“Building on the left. The high-rise.”
The big blue “Excelsior Towers” sign glowed in the deepening night. An elderly woman with a dog came out, the spiderlike creature trotting along beside her. Alex seasoned a cigar at his post by the door. He lit it, took a deep puff. Tom watched with the avidity of the denied, envied the man his indifference to his health. They got out of the cab.
“Good evening, Doctors,” Alex said around the cigar. Tom couldn’t bear to smell the billow of smoke that came toward him. At least it was a cheap one, it lacked the fetching aroma of a good Montecristo. Thank God.
“A habit is an agonizing thing,” Tom said as the elevator doors closed behind them.
“I wondered how you were taking that.”
“Badly.”
“How many have you had so far today?”
He raised one finger. She reached up, took his hand and shook it. “It’s surprisingly hard to do,” he said. “The body demands its fix.”
“I know. It took me two years to give up cigarettes. That and my father.”
Tom had never met Samuel Roberts. His death had occurred before he and Sarah really knew each other. Lung cancer, she had said.
Sarah followed him into the apartment, pausing to put her raincoat in the closet. He turned on the lights in the living room. She came up beside him. “I like our place,” he said. She nodded. “Sarah, can I kiss you?” She turned to him, put her hands on his shoulders. He bent to her, looked for a long few seconds into her eyes, then sought her lips. The warm sweetness of her kisses always renewed him. It was as if his body wanted to do what his heart could not, and once and for all seal their love.
“Do you really believe I love you?” he suddenly asked. The question had popped out before he had even thought about it. He wished that he didn’t do things like that. It was a question he might not want answered.
“I know you do.”
He tried to kiss her again but she turned away. His impulse was to force her. Angry with himself, he quelled it. She had sensed his anger, though, and stood still and small, her chin jutting out, her hands twisted together. “Now now,” she said.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She laughed as if to reassure him that she trusted him. “Tom, if our careers didn’t mesh the way they do — if mine was in the way — what would you do?”
He reached out, took her hand. “They do mesh, so why worry about it? We’re in a perfect position. By saving your career I’m going to make my own.”
“But what if it was the opposite? That’s the question you won’t answer.”
“I’m jeopardizing myself as it is.”
She shook her head. “I love you, Tom. God help me but I do.” She came to him, her forehead was at eye level. He kissed it, then drew her to him, feeling the smallness of her body, disturbed by her vulnerability, obscurely pleased.
She let him lift her off her feet, bend to her upraised face. He kissed her long and hard, as if to kiss away the space between them, wishing he could, wanting his love to sweep her doubts aside and draw her to him forever.
“Oh, Sarah. You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe a woman so beautiful would be interested in me.”
“Put me down, and don’t sell yourself short. You aren’t exactly ugly.”
He smiled. “Not exactly.” Gently, she brushed his cheek with her hand, an admonitory gesture. “I wasn’t referring to my physical appearance. I can’t quite —” He stopped, found he didn’t want to say that he could not command her love.
“I do love you. That isn’t something I say lightly.”
He nodded, kissed her briefly. “Let’s go to bed,” he murmured into the warmth of her hair.
“I want to order up Chinese food. Then we can do it.”
“Now.”
Laughing, she pushed him away. “Prolong our pleasure. Let’s anticipate a little.”
He felt subtly rejected. “I’ll go take my shower,” he said, covering his hurt. If she really wanted him, she would not have been able to resist his invitation. Leaving her to work out the menu for their Chinese meal, he went into the bedroom and stripped off his clothes.
He felt better when he was standing in the warm shower, clouds of steam coming up around him, making his skin tingle. In the shower he could forget his disappointments, his problems, his fears. His mind went back to the clinic, however. Was her discovery going to grow and grow until it consumed her and eclipsed him? Their love had never seemed so frail, or so terribly important.
A shadow moved on the other side of the shower curtain. Then she was there, happiness again, slipping in naked, water bouncing against her marvelously beautiful body, running down its curves, flowing between her breasts, bouncing off her nipples. “I thought you might need a little help,” she said, taking the soap from the dish and picking up the washcloth.
She had come to him. He almost laughed aloud. But he didn’t, instead he let himself fall into the familiar little game they played in the shower. “Only one part of me is dirty.”
“What part?” Prim, eyebrows raised, face glowing.
He had been hiding himself behind his hands. Now he removed them.
“Oh! It looks like a bratwurst.”
“Then eat it.”
“And get my hair wet? Not on your life. I’ll clean it up, though, since you say it’s dirty.”
He enjoyed these showers enormously. She washed him slowly, sensuously, concentrating on the most sensitive parts, on her face the gentlest, sweetest expression imaginable. And when he washed her, touching her whole body, feeling the life of her flesh beneath his hands, it was like a miracle.
Afterward she was flushed, her eyes sparkling. He knew that she was terribly excited and he teased her. “Did you order the Chinese food?”
“Sure. Oh, damn. I guess we’ll have to wait.”
“Really?” He went to her, lifted her up and leaned back.
“Tom, don’t,” she said. He noticed that she did
n’t struggle. Doubtless she was afraid he’d lose his balance if she did. “To-o-m.” He entered her standing, his legs spread, his arms around her waist. Her feet dangled inches from the floor. “Tom, you madman, let me down!”
“The Chinese food’s going to come.”
“Oh, Tom.”
He couldn’t stand it anymore. He put her down, but only because it was impossible to remain standing together as they were long enough to consummate the act. “Get in that bed,” he said gruffly. She ran to the bedside.
“Tom —” She put her hands on his cheeks. “Never think I don’t love you.” She kissed him hungrily, drew him down on her. They made love slowly for a few moments, then became more intense. The act grew more fierce by stages. Sarah sweated, screwed her eyes closed, cried, and dug her fingers into his back. He went on, driving, relentless, pacing a steady rhythm. At last she shouted aloud, stared wildly, her legs pumping furiously, cried out again, and was quiet. He followed her in this surging, innocent act, sinking down into her hot, sweaty flesh, calling her name in an ecstasy of completion and . . . longing.
The barrier remained.
He looked at her, now lying by his side. “Sarah —”
“Sh!” She giggled a little, kissed the tip of his nose. She also must feel the barrier; there were tears in her eyes that proved it. “Tom, I love you.”
It could be repeated forever, this invocation of a false magic. He wanted to ask, to demand she tell him, what was missing. It hurt like hell to think how very much of himself he had given, how very much of herself she had given — and this was what resulted. A good time in bed, a lot of fun together. Fine, but if they loved each other, why didn’t either of them really believe it?
Tom was grateful when the buzzer rang. “We just made it,” he said. “Here comes the food.”
“We should have waited.”
“We couldn’t.”
She laughed, got up, and threw on a robe. “Where’s your wallet? I haven’t got a penny.”
“In my pants.” He watched her rummage on the floor, take out the money. She got the food and laid it out on the table in their small dining room. He followed her in, still naked. They were hungry and they ate all of it even though she had as usual ordered too much.
Tom got cold and put on his robe. They sat awhile after dinner trying without success to watch TV. “You’re very quiet,” he said at last. He was obscurely afraid, almost unwilling to break the silence. Yet he was more afraid to let it go on.
“I’m thinking about the lab,” she said, drawing her knees up to her chin and clasping her hands around them.“Thinking about what in the name of God happened to that rhesus.”
“Even now?”
She looked at him, her face wide with curiosity. “Why not now? We’re finished making love, aren’t we?”
“If you say so.”
“Tom, I’m always ready for you. Don’t you ever think I’m not.”
“I know I’m more physical.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t welcome your love. It’s just that we were finished. Naturally, I want to talk about the lab. It’s the rest of my life. And if Hutch —”
“I’ve got him beat. This thing is so big they’re going to roll right over him. You’ll get your appropriation.”
“I hope.”
“Trust me. I’ll put it all back together again.”
“I trust you.” She slid along the couch, snuggled into the crook of his arm. “I trust you implicitly.”
There was such sincerity in her tone that his fears were almost defeated. “You have every reason to,” he said. “I’d rather die than let you down.”
She kissed his hand. “That’s what’s so beautiful about you. That’s really true, every word of it.”
At that moment, at least, he did not doubt it. “It is true,” he said.
They sat in silence, close together. The only sounds came from outside, sirens in the distance, an occasional horn, the sighing of the wind. “I think we’ve sort of been avoiding talking about the lab,” Sarah said at last. “I know I have.”
Tom knew exactly what she meant. The lab was a place of death. He nodded, remaining silent.
“I still can’t believe it. As a phenomenon, I mean. What agent could have caused such profound decay? And it was so fast! It was a horrible thing to see.”
“It’s going to be a great breakthrough, Sarah. A great advance.”
“Yes, but toward what? At the end — before he died, I mean — that ape was the most totally brutal thing I have ever seen. I saw the look on his face. I looked right into those eyes. Tom, the hatred I saw there wasn’t an animal hatred — not a human hatred either. It was something alien, something beyond all that we know or have ever experienced. It was the hatred of the monster for the normal.”
“Aren’t you imagining just a little?”
She shook her head vehemently. “I turned that rhesus monkey into something savage. I’d hardly call that imagining.”
It was three A.M. when the Sleep released Miriam. Once again she was in the attic room, its door locked. She opened her eyes. The room was thick was darkness. Absolute blackness, but not quite absolute silence. There was creaking movement all around her, whispering, shifting sound, the noise of ceaseless tiny motions. It was horrible to think of them in their chests, of how close to them she had Slept. She turned on the light.
Despite the bright light and the obvious tightness of the chests, claustrophobic fear overcame her. She clambered out of the tiny room, crossed the attic, and hurried downstairs. Now she paused to listen. Before she continued farther she had to locate John.
Miriam’s hearing was acute. She had no doubt that he was gone. The firebox in the basement was not yet cool, and he was off hunting again. She glanced at her watch. It had been less than eighteen hours since he had taken the neighborhood child. Soon he would be as frail as paper, and easily confined in his chest.
She hoped that he would be more responsible on this hunt. The first rule of survival was to take only the unwanted. Otherwise the police just never let go. It was especially foolish to take young children of this era.
She went down to the library and opened the wall panel that gave her access to the security system. The perimeter alarms were on but the electrostatic shields were not. She activated them. If he slipped up and tried to come through the door they would stun him long enough for her to do what had to be done.
Now she pulled out some information about Excelsior Towers she had obtained from the renting agent. She looked carefully at the floor plan of an apartment identical to Sarah Roberts’, memorizing the layout.
The next step in the infiltration of Sarah’s life was to touch her. The human sense of touch had atrophied. They called it extrasensory perception, wrongly assuming it to be a means of reading thoughts. It was rather a means of sharing emotions. Touch could be a beautiful communion of hearts, or if the controlling partner wished it, the meeting of nightmares.
To awaken Sarah’s sensitivity to touch, close physical contact, the kind that around passion, would be necessary. Miriam folded up the floor plan and mentally reviewed her intended access to the building itself. Except for the extraordinarily difficult few minutes in the apartment, the whole entry and exit would be routine.
Miriam walked to avoid the exposure that a taxi or bus would entail. At this hour the risk of accidents in the streets was low, the risk of being remembered by a driver high. As for muggers, she was indifferent to them. Occasionally, she had consumed them while they tried to rob her. Man was rarely a threat to her, at least not on a simple physical level.
Dawn would come in two hours and fourteen minutes, first light about twenty minutes earlier. She walked briskly, keeping to a schedule that would get her back home just before sunrise. Her black hat and raincoat gleamed with mist, her boots splashed in the dark puddles. The walk would take half an hour. Fifteen minutes would be spent getting into the building. She would have another fifteen minutes in the
apartment itself. It was going to be just a little close; she might have some light on the way back. She went under the Queensborough Bridge, leaving Sutton Place and going north on York Avenue. The sound of a lone truck crossing the bridge echoed in the street. The blocks swept past; she kept up a quick pace. Once a figure appeared far ahead, but aside from him the street remained empty. She passed dark stores, locked doorways, parked cars. Overhead the moon had given way to heavy clouds. Although the air was motionless, the clouds raced northward, their bottoms sweeping the pinnacles of the city. Another storm was coming, this one from the south.
It was easy to break into these “secure” luxury buildings, and she quickly established a good method of penetrating this one. There was a maintenance door at the end of a narrow alley. It was locked, of course, but Miriam would have no trouble with the familiar Loktite spring-loaded bolt.
She slipped into the pool of light before the door, working swiftly until she heard the click of the lock. She entered the building’s machine room. It was dim, almost dark. Holding her hands out at eye level to ward off low-hanging pipes, she moved carefully until she was across the room, then let herself into the basement proper. Here the light was bright and harsh. She climbed the stairs for a few floors — calling an elevator to a basement at this hour would certainly alert building security. She felt the fourth floor was high enough not to cause suspicion and took an elevator from there.
When she got to Sarah’s floor she opened the door to the fire stairs so that there wouldn’t be a click if she had to use it. The hallway was silent. Her feet whispered on the brown carpet, her shadow preceded and then followed her as she passed under the lights.
She leaned close to the door of the apartment and took out her cylinder pick, a three-inch length of Number Two piano wire. With her eyes closed she worked the wire into the lock, lifting the tamper shields and rolling the cylinders. A lock such as this was somewhat more delicate than the crude mechanism on the back door. She could picture the structure of any model of any brand of lock used in the United States. Some of them might slow her down and a few would even stop her. But most yielded soon enough, as this one did.
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