“I graduated second in my class. Ahead of the Harvard guy and right behind a guy who’d been in the navy for years, who’d been a senior enlisted noncom before. Nobody came to my graduation.”
Kate looked at me strangely. “You didn’t go to the funeral?”
“No. Funerals are only for those left behind. Even then I thought them too public. My parents were both dead. I had the grief, but I didn’t have anyone to share it with. I held my own private ceremony for her. It’s only important when you remember the person who has gone.”
“Have you been in love since?”
“In lust a couple of times.”
Kate’s hands gently cradled my face, turning my gaze from the window until our noses were almost touching. I looked deeply into her eyes. “You’ve never told that story to anyone before, have you?”
“Nobody ever asked …”
She kissed my forehead and released me. My scalp tingled where she touched me. “You are a strange man, John Caine. Is that why you became a SEAL?”
“Yeah.”
“Because you wanted to test yourself?”
“Nothing like that. They were the best and I wanted to be the best.”
“You still love her.”
“I always will.”
Kate got up and refilled my glass. I didn’t remember draining it. She poured herself another, too, killing the bottle. “We haven’t discussed sleeping arrangements,” she said, her voice husky. “Since you’re the invalid you’ll take the bed. It’s comfortable and you’ll sleep better there. I’ll sleep on the couch.
“I get up every morning at five-thirty and I run for thirty minutes. While I’m gone you can shower. When I come back the bathroom is mine. All mine. For an hour. It’s my time of the day. Coffee is on a timer. Any questions?”
“Thank you, Kate. This has been an unexpected surprise.”
“For what? Taking the lead out of your butt?”
“No,” I said, smiling. “For taking me in.”
She reached across the space between us and patted my hand. “I realized I could trust you. You’re one of the few men I’ve known who hasn’t lied to me, or who hasn’t tried to use me or use my position. I haven’t known you long, but I know you well. I trust you. And I guess I realized that we’ve been friends all along and I didn’t know it.”
25
I had a difficult time getting to sleep. I couldn’t find a comfortable position in the bed. Any way I turned hurt something. But it wasn’t because of my injuries alone. Thoughts of Kate on her couch intruded. Memory of her touch lingered. I replayed the views I’d had of her face in profile. I recalled every word of our conversation. Eventually I drifted off, dreaming of pink silk pajamas.
I woke as weight was applied to the mattress, still in the dream I was having just before waking. Kate, dressed in pink silk, had been trying to tell me something. I couldn’t understand what she wanted no matter how much I tried. We were both frustrated. I opened my eyes.
Kate, minus the pink pajamas, was crouched beside the bed. In the light-shadowed darkness I saw her breasts sway sweetly as she leaned over to open the covers.
I was in the middle of the bed, deep in the valley Kate’s body had made from her single nights on the old mattress. I rolled to one side, accepting her embrace.
“Does this hurt?” she asked, touching me.
“Yes,” I said. “Don’t stop.”
“Don’t make anything out of this, okay?”
I looked at her face. It was lovely to watch her eyes looking back into mine. I never thought I’d see that look again on any woman’s face.
“Sure,” I said. “It means nothing.”
Her hands explored my skin, skirting the wounds and the welts. I let her take the lead, allowing her anything she wanted. Her touch was gentle, as if she were afraid I might break. Ignoring the pain was not difficult. Most of it came from the welts and was of no consequence. I concentrated on the pleasure of touching another human being, a sensation lost for so long I’d nearly forgotten what it was like.
She became more demanding and I responded. This first time can be a clumsy affair, seldom satisfying to either party, but it wasn’t that way for us. There was no urgency to join as we found the little places to linger. The longer we delayed, the better the anticipation.
Neither of us worried about my injuries.
She directed us, made me lie on my back and mounted me. The soft, sliding pleasure of it brought both of us to the brink, caused her to stiffen, then soften again. I looked up at her face, beautiful now that all protection had fallen. Tears were silently flowing down her cheeks. I held her as she began rocking to her own drumbeat, dancing to that most ancient of rhythms.
She stepped up the tempo of her dance, racing something inside of her, reaching for and finally grasping what she had been chasing. I followed, allowing her the freedom to take us wherever she wanted to go.
She collapsed on top of me. She felt me still inside of her and understood at once that I hadn’t followed her over the edge.
She smiled. It was the mischievous grin I’d seen before.
“Nice guys finish last, huh?”
“Something like that,” I said.
We rolled over as one, face to face, and moving inside of her I found myself hypnotized by her eyes. Our mouths came together, mirroring that other joining. Now I followed my own path and Kate found the rhythm and followed. This time we arrived at the same place at the same time. I made it a point to look into her eyes when it happened, watching her face. It increased my pleasure to watch her pleasure.
Icing on the cake.
Afterward we lay together, still joined. Her arms reached around me, holding me tightly to her as if I would float away if she didn’t hold me down. I held her head, stroking her fine black hair, still watching her face. It made me think of rainbows. I am a confessed rainbow junkie. Each one is different, and I could stand and watch the brilliant pastels for hours if they’d last. I get a foolish smile on my face when I look at them. I felt the same way about Kate’s face. It made me feel peaceful and happy.
She stiffened and released me.
“My God, doesn’t that hurt?”
“What?”
“Touching your skin?”
I thought about it. I hadn’t been aware of any pain. Now that she mentioned it, there was some, but it wasn’t much. “Nothing that’s not worth what I’m getting in return.”
She hugged me again. Gently.
“You’re a very strange man,” she said again. “You’re smart, smart enough to be president of General Motors. Yet you live out here and do nothing.”
“I never could have been president of General Motors,” I said. “They wouldn’t have me and I wouldn’t want them. I’m too independent and I can’t eat that much shit or kiss that much ass. Jayne has nothing to do with what I do now. And what I do is not nothing. Long ago I decided there had to be someone who will not bend over and take it. There had to be someone people can turn to for justice when all other routes have been closed to them. Someone not connected to the bureaucratic machinery that inhibits it.”
Still inside of Kate, I brushed the hair from her eyes.
“You make it sound so noble,” she said. “Yet you described yourself as a retriever.”
“Some parts of it are noble. Most of it is not.”
“What happened to the man who killed her?” Kate’s eyes bored into mine. I was keenly aware of her skills, and just as aware that we were still physically connected to each other. This was neither a time nor a place for sliding the truth.
“He died,” I said.
She stared at me, expecting more.
“What did the courts do?”
“Gave him a suspended sentence. He was a thirty-year man in the navy, a senior chief. He’d been through World War Two and Korea. They didn’t want to ruin his career.”
The silence built. Kate could put two and two together faster than most.
“You killed
him,” she said after a while, her voice a quiet indictment.
“You don’t want to know.”
“There’s no statute of limitations—”
“Don’t ask questions of me if you don’t want to know the answers. I′ll tell you everything.”
“I have to know, John.”
I kissed her eyes. Tears trickled from their corners. I licked the tear tracks, tasting her salt.
“You know. That’s enough.”
She nodded and held me tightly to her, and wept.
Sometime in the night we found each other again, our bodies melding together as if we had been lovers for years and not hours. I took the lead this time, waiting for Kate to find her source of joy once, twice, three times before I shifted our bodies so we could come together. And we did, bodies clasped, two organic machines in harmonic rhythm, two sets of eyes fixed upon the other, two hungry mouths responding to identical needs. I spent myself into her as she writhed against me, calling my name through the kiss.
We didn’t talk afterward. Kate nestled inside my arms, protected from the world by my body. My face was buried against her hair. I finally fell off the end of the world smelling her scent, feeling no pain at all. Of any kind.
26
I woke again when Kate got out of bed. Early morning light filtered through the blinds. She closed the bathroom door, but did not lock it.
I lay awake and calculated that I’d spent nearly thirty hours in this apartment. By now Thompson should be convinced I had drowned, died of a gunshot wound or been eaten by sharks. I’d have to give it another day to be certain the watchers were called off. Until I was ready to make my move I couldn’t risk going outside. Even with a population of nearly a million souls, Oahu is a tiny island. You’ll run into the people you know everywhere you go. It’s like a small town in that respect. It’s nice, running into friends. If you make an enemy, you’ll keep running into that person too. I’m convinced that’s one of the reasons why people are so friendly in Hawaii. The Aloha Spirit is the child of necessity. You can’t go anywhere else. You can’t hide within the crowd as you can in a city on the mainland. There’s a crowd here, but the faces are all too familiar.
If I went out, the chances were good that one of Thompson’s people might see me. Thompson might not run if he thought I was dead. But if he knew I was alive there was no predicting what he might do. It would be more difficult and dangerous to approach him.
Which was just what I planned on doing when I felt a little better.
I needed some things off Duchess but there was no way I could get to them. My boat would be safe at the marina, even from Thompson’s people. I could get along without anything as long as I remained here but once I started moving around again my needs would be more complicated.
I decided to keep it simple and stay where I’d been told to stay.
Kate came out of the bathroom, a towel in front of her, another turbaned in her hair. “I’m going for my run. How do you feel?” She came to the bed and kissed me and the towel fell away.
“I feel wonderful,” I said, and it was true.
“You’ll be all right?”
I assured her I was fine and sat back to watch her dress. It had been a long time since a woman had been so comfortable with me she felt she could dress in my presence. It had a familiar intimacy I liked and had missed.
She tied her shoes. “Don’t go out for any reason. I’ll bring a morning paper back with me.” She kissed me again. “Coffee’s ready when you want some.”
She unlocked the door and was gone.
I got out of bed and tried my exercises. Putting my feet on the chair for my push-ups made the top of my head feel like someone was hitting me behind the ear with a hammer. I tried sit-ups and found they strained my leg and sent stabs of white pain that went right off the dolorometer. I decided to let my body rest for a couple of days.
I showered, mindful of Kate’s warning that the bathroom was her sole territory when she returned. She had been explicit and I respected her honesty.
I was drying off, patting my skin rather than rubbing, when she came back carrying a newspaper and humming something from South Pacific. She smiled at me, dark eyes flashing, communicating her feelings across the room. She stripped off her sweaty clothes and hung them on a wicker frame near the open window, then went to the kitchen. It gave me pleasure to watch her walk across the room, her lithe figure sparkling with sweat. She seemed so healthy her skin glowed.
“You take anything in your coffee?” Kate’s voice floated from the kitchen. I was still rooted in the same place I’d been standing when she’d come bounding into the room, so full of energy even inanimate objects such as the furniture soaked up her vitality.
“No.”
She returned to the bedroom bearing two steaming mugs. I couldn’t take my eyes from her body while she set the mugs on the dresser.
“It’s all yours,” I said, meaning the bathroom.
She smiled and turned to me.
“It’s all yours,” she replied, spreading her arms toward me. I knew what she meant. I stood closer to her, inhaling her fragrance. Her perspiration had a sweet tang to it. It made me want to taste it.
“You’re going to make me late for work,” she murmured.
I knelt in front of her, my hands against the backs of her thighs, feeling smooth muscles tighten beneath my palms. “How many times have you been late for work?”
There was a silence, as if she were actually considering the question.
“Not once,” she said. “Not yet.” And she pressed her body to my hungry mouth.
“If I jump into the shower right now and hurry I might even make it,” said Kate, glancing toward her clock radio.
I rolled away as she bounded across the bedroom into the bathroom, leaving the door open.
I heard the shower door open and close and the spray start. She squealed from the shock of the cold water. She’d be out of the shower before the water warmed. Feeling silly padding naked around her place, I put on the white robe and took the coffee mugs to the kitchen, poured the cold coffee down the sink and refilled both mugs.
When I came back to the bedroom she was already out of the shower. I handed her a cup.
“Thanks,” she said, and took a quick sip and set it down. “Ouch! Hot!” She began dressing. I watched every snap, every roll of the nylon.
“I’m not sure you’re good for me,” she said. “Yes! I am sure. You might hurt my career but you’re good for me!” She ran back to the bathroom.
She came out five minutes later, completely dressed, her hair and makeup in place. There was no hint she’d been engaged in physical pleasures less than fifteen minutes before. I was impressed and a little disappointed.
“Don’t leave the apartment for any reason!” she said, grabbing her purse and briefcase.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I mean it.”
“Don’t forget your coffee,” I said, feeling like a housewife.
She took the mug, kissed me and closed the door. All the energy left the apartment. I took off the robe and took another shower. I shampooed my hair and face. This was the second day I hadn’t shaved and there was the beginning of heavy beard growth. I found a pink plastic razor and scraped my face as well as I could, using shampoo as shaving cream. I was careful but I cut myself twice. More of my already depleted blood supply leaked down the drain.
That was going to have to stop or I’d be nearly white from loss of blood.
I decided to call Max. It was time to let him know what had been going on and to ask for his help. Just a little help, nothing serious to get him in trouble. There were some things I wanted off Duchess, some things I’d feel better about having with me once I left the confines of my mink-lined prison. If Max didn’t know someone who could get on and off my boat without being seen, the navy had become seriously deficient since my tenure.
A young voice with a heavy Southern drawl answered the telephone, giving me the unit ident
ification and warning me that it was not a secure line.
“This is John Caine. Is Senior Chief White available?”
“Yes, sir. He said to connect you as soon as you called. Can you hold, sir?”
“Of course.”
I didn’t have to wait long.
“John. I heard you had some trouble.”
“Not much. I know what I need to know. The first part of the operation is over.” I sketched out the basics of what I’d learned, partly for him, partly for me. “I’m in hiding now, getting my strength back.”
“I heard you got shot again.”
“You’ve got a source at HPD?”
“Same leg, I heard,” he replied, not answering my question.
“It’s got a lead magnet, Max. Nothing serious.”
“What do you need?”
“A face-to-face would be nice.”
“Can’t do that right now. Two days.”
“A couple pints of blood wouldn’t hurt, then.”
“What can I really do for you?”
I decided not to reveal the information Thompson had given me until I had my face-to-face with Max. “Can you get someone aboard Duchess today? Without being seen?”
He laughed. “I’ll run it as an exercise. The boys’ll love it.”
“Thompson may have somebody watching the marina.”
“Whatever. They’ll never know. What do you need?”
I told him, giving him the whole list.
“I’ll have one of the local boys from Ford Island deliver it. Where are you?”
I told him. “It’s a high-security building. You can’t get in without keys and electronic security cards.”
“You have been out of harness for a long time. Would it stop you?”
“No.”
“My boys are young, John, but they’re not babies. Even the ones who look like babies can bite. They’ll be there with what you need in two hours.”
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