Lucky Bastard

by Charles McCarry

  5 Danny and Morgan became lovers—or partners in lust, depending on your point of view—on the night Cindy’s mother died of pancreatic cancer in Tannery Falls. It was a hard death; Cindy held her mother’s hand until the life went out of it. Then she closed the corpse’s eyelids, and tried to reach Danny from the bedside phone. It was two-thirty in the morning. She got the answering machine, her own businesslike voice. She tried the office and got no answer. She went to the nurse’s station and told them that her mother was gone. Two nurses rushed down the hall, as if in their familiarity with death they might yet catch the old lady before her boat left shore. At four in the morning, having signed all the necessary papers and talked to the undertaker, she got into her car and started to drive to Columbus, pressing redial over and over on the car phone as she sped down the long, straight north-south highway through villages in which the only sign of human life was the blue-white flicker of television screens in bedroom windows. Was Danny dead, too? She saw a vision of him throwing himself between Jack and an assassin’s bullet: not the fleeting real-life event itself on a distant stage over the heads of a crowd, but close-up television images in slo-mo. A highway patrol car passed her; she thought of chasing it, blinking her lights, asking the trooper to find out if anything like that had happened. Or if there had been any fatal accidents involving anyone named Miller.

  She arrived home at six. Danny came in at six-thirty.

  He said, “Your mother is gone?”

  Cindy nodded, unable to speak. She embraced him, burying her face in the pocket between his shoulder and his neck, then recoiled.

  “You smell like cunt,” she said.

  Danny told her everything.

  Cindy said, “Morgan Adams? You’re telling me that you’re fucking Morgan Adams?”

  “Tonight was the first time,” Danny said. “Cindy, I’m so ashamed, so sor—”

  She slapped him hard. “Shut up,” she said. “I can’t talk to you when you smell like this. Go take a shower.”

  Half an hour later Danny found her at the kitchen table, hands folded, back erect, feet on the floor—exactly, he thought, like the good girl she had been in the fifth grade, waiting for the teacher to come into the classroom, ignoring the hell-raising boys. Danny had shaved; his face shone. His hair was wet. He began to weep.

  Cindy said, “I don’t think we’ll have a funeral. Picture ops for Jack and Morgan at the graveside is a little more than I want to handle.”

  Danny spoke her name. His voice broke, tears flowed. She said, “Stop that.”

  Danny went to the kitchen sink and washed his face. Then he said, “What do you want to know?”

  “What more is there to know? If you want to let it all hang out so you’ll feel better, see a priest. What do you want to do?”

  “I want to come back.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “It’s what I need to do.”

  “That’s not quite the answer to my question.”

  Danny said, “Cindy, I promise you. It will never happen again.”

  Feeling the faint nausea that follows a sleepless night, but blocking everything else from memory except—as she remembered later on—a bright isolated image of Danny dribbling a basketball, faking, shooting, grinning, shining with sweat, and then another image of him as he had been in that locked room at Walter Reed, Cindy sat in silence for a long moment.

  Then she said, “All right.” She looked at the clock. “I have to be in court in an hour.”

  And when, the very next day in the deep cottony silence of Morgan’s room, Danny told a wise-eyed Morgan about his promise to his wife, she said, “What kind of soap do you use at home?”

  “Dove. Why?”

  “If Cindy’s got such a great sense of smell, we’ll have to get you some for the shower here.”

  Then, though Danny resisted, she seduced him and, in the weeks that followed, seduced him many times more. Danny lived in guilt and a fear of discovery that was worse than any emotion he had ever felt in Vietnam. Cindy never referred to his adultery again.

  6 Before she lost the power of speech, Cindy’s mother had asked her to have a child: “Oh, Cindy, it was wrong to let you wear that thing. Your father wouldn’t listen to me, but God punished us. If you’d had a child, that boy would have gone away. A second you, a beautiful little girl, would have been so wonderful.”

  Another daughter might have taken the old woman’s ramblings for delirium, but Cindy recognized the barely audible monologue for what it had been, a confession of unhappiness so great—unhappiness caused by Cindy—that her mother preferred death to its continuation. Cindy understood how such a state of mind, produced by a single mistake, a single violation of the rules by which she lived, might take control of a woman. Even though she never used contraceptives with Danny after he was drafted, she had conceived no child except the son she aborted.

  Danny had offered many times to have himself tested, to do whatever was necessary for them to have a child of their own. Cindy declined. She did not want to know. If Danny proved to be sterile, that would mean that Jack had made her pregnant. She did not want to confirm this darkest suspicion of her life. But now she realized that at long last she had no choice but to face facts, seek medical help, and conceive a child with Danny, no matter by what means and with what consequences.

  She and Danny did not resume physical relations—another sign, he thought, that she knew what was going on—but went to a specialist in fertility problems who, after several attempts to artificially impregnate Cindy with Danny’s sperm, suggested the last resort of in vitro fertilization. By now this was a common procedure, though it often resulted in multiple births.

  Cindy said, “You mean twins?”

  “I mean multiple fetuses. But all but one—or two, if you wish—can be terminated.”

  “A multiple abortion?”

  “We avoid that term.”

  “I know,” Cindy said. “No thanks.”

  After that she dreamed often about the doctor. In her dream the doctor, a stringy humorless woman, was conspiring with Morgan to use Jack’s sperm instead of Danny’s. She woke up to find herself alone in the bed. Danny was sitting downstairs in the dark, weeping.

  She went downstairs as she was, naked. He told her that the affair with Morgan had resumed. She asked for a divorce.

  Danny said, “I can’t. It would ruin Jack’s chances to be president.”

  “What?”

  “It would destroy his candidacy.”

  “You bet it would,” Cindy said. “Let me ask you something. Do you love that freak?” She saw that Danny did not know which Adams she meant. She said, “I mean Morgan.”

  “No. It’s not that at all. But I’m—”

  “Besotted by her? Isn’t that the word they use in books?”

  “Yes. She—”

  “Never mind. I’m filing for divorce tomorrow.”

  “Cindy, please don’t.”

  “Merriwether Street will be my lawyer.”

  “Cindy, for God’s sake!”

  “Talk to my lawyer. Now get out of here.”

  Danny gave her the most devastated look Cindy had ever seen on a human face.

  He said, “I wish I had died over there.”

  “Me too,” Cindy said.

  Danny turned to go. Limping. As if he were slipping back into the past, she saw him again as he once had been, an angel in bed, a god on the playing field. She saw him wounded, in despair, then rising back up into his sweet nature; she had always been able to imagine the explosion of the phosphorus grenade as if she had been there herself. The first time they had made love, afterward she had smelled him burning. She had never loved him physically, not with the same part of her heart, after he came back to her ruined by fire. She saw the child she had destroyed, and as if from above, just as she supposed Danny would see it on Judgment Day, she saw in all its details the drunken, spiteful sin she had committed with Jack and knew that that was the real cause of everything beca
use it had killed her capacity to love.

  For the first time Cindy noticed that he was fully dressed—shirt, tie, suit. He took his house keys from his pocket and laid them on the table.

  Cindy said, “Wait. I have no right to do this.”

  Danny said, “No right?”

  Cindy’s chin trembled. She shook her head, unable to speak. The dam broke. She wept like an injured child. Danny comforted her, with the same result he had achieved with the last brokenhearted woman he had taken into his arms without a sexual thought in his head.

  His body was a stranger to Cindy’s. Morgan had changed him. That morning, after Danny left for work, Cindy moved out of their split-level home and into her mother’s vast empty house in Tannery Falls. She set up an office in her father’s old den, communicating with her secretary by telephone and driving the two hours to Columbus when she needed to see a client. By prearrangement, Danny was always absent when she visited the offices of Miller, Adams & Miller.

  7 Most of what I have just imparted to you was reported to me by Morgan, good soldier that she was. She left some things out (the revolver, her slip of the Marxist tongue in that “white trash” stuff), but by the time she related her version of the Feydeau farce, I had already seen and heard most of what transpired in her secret room, thanks to cameras and listening devices installed without her knowledge by the Georgian.

  Some of the rest came to me bit by bit and much later, but it did not require the mental architecture of Teodor Józef Konrad Korzeniowski to deduce the larger picture. Nothing set in motion by the devil in the flesh ever happens for the first time. But oh, the irony, the irony. Morgan had feared that Jack’s sex life would ruin our great operation and so prevent the forces of good from taking over the world. And now her own vengeful mindless bitchy fucking had placed it in such jeopardy that I was at a loss for a remedy. I was not even sure who the guilty party might be. Was all this Jack’s fault, as Morgan argued? Or was it Peter’s for imposing stupid rules, or mine for breaking those rules out of the worst and, in a handler of agents, the least forgivable of motives—human sympathy? What, after all, did I know about sexual madness? I had spent my life going to peep shows.

  I said to Morgan, “You have changed the entry code, I assume?”

  “Yes.”

  “To what? ‘Stupidity’ spelled backwards?”

  She flushed: Unsuspected freckles appeared like a faint rash. “No. Our wedding anniversary. Jack will never remember that.” She paused as if apologizing for the witticism; this was not the time or place. No doubt this showed in my stern and frozen face. She said, “You are angry with me.”

  “No. I am thinking of Janós Kádár.”

  “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “Because I don’t know whether to have you shot or circumcised.”

  Morgan blinked; a trembling hand flew to her mouth. For all she knew, these really were the alternatives. Sauce for the goose. The revolution punished everyone sooner or later; that was its beauty.

  She said, “I will terminate the affair with Danny.”

  “Why? Do you want to lose control of him, too?”

  She did not answer. She was frightened. I was pleased that this was so. In being kind to her I had let out of the cell a bad part of her. It must be put back inside.

  “Cindy is your problem, not Danny,” I said. “You’ve made an enemy for life. A highly intelligent enemy. An enemy who has the power to destroy you in an instant. At any moment.”

  “Then I will deal with the problem.”

  “How? With castor beans and sulfuric acid?”

  A startled look. Was I making a serious proposal? Or, worse, was I ridiculing her greatest triumph as a secret agent?

  Morgan did not answer my question, but her eyes did not waver. Her silence said, If that is what you want, yes, certainly, I will mix some up and. pour it in her ear.

  It was not what I wanted. Then or now. I said, “No. Do not even think of doing something that cannot be explained. Do you think she has not written all this down, given the facts in a sealed envelope to this Merriwether Street?”

  “Anything is possible,” Morgan said, recovering her old self. “But what do you propose? I can hardly ask her to let bygones be bygones.”

  “You have certain information about her.”

  “If you mean fornication with Jack, I’d say the shock value of that little episode has been overtaken by events, thanks to me. At this point she’d probably thank me for telling Danny.”

  “And its disclosure would also injure Jack, perhaps fatally.”

  “If a little boyish rape is all of a sudden a disqualification for the presidency, yes.”

  “Then what do you propose?”

  Morgan told me. She had thought the whole thing out. If anything in this business could be called perfect in its conception, her plan would have merited use of the word. But then, I had thought the same of some of her earlier schemes that had entangled us in unforeseen consequences. Nevertheless, for want of a better idea, I gave my approval.

  8 Like a deadfall, Morgan’s plan, primitive in its method, required infinitely subtle camouflage to guarantee its success. It evolved slowly, cautiously, over many weeks. Morgan studied Cindy as a savage might have studied a bear, observing its movements, memorizing every detail of its familiar ground. If a leaf was turned, a stone displaced, they must be returned to the precise spot from which they’d been taken. No scent but the bear’s could linger. The slightest change in its world would put the bear off, awaken its senses, turn the hunted into the hunter.

  Every Tuesday, Cindy drove down to Columbus from Tannery Falls to spend a day in the office. One Tuesday in summer, a slow season for attorneys in a political town, her last appointment of the day was with a man who told her that he had just moved into town. He explained that he was in the computer business, had just sold his company in Indiana, and now wanted to form an Ohio corporation to develop and sell sophisticated software.

  “How did you happen to come to me?” Cindy asked.

  “I made inquiries. You seem to be the kind of firm I need—small enough to remember who I am when I call, large enough and connected enough to get things done.”

  A straight answer. No attempt at charm. Articulate. Serious, even brusque. He felt no apparent need to smile unless he was amused. He was well dressed: excellent woolen suit and tie, custom shirt of Sea Island cotton, English shoes. No cologne; Cindy gagged on English Leather. Blond, easy-moving. Handsome in a rough, masculine way. He reminded Cindy of the pre–Dr. Strangelove Sterling Hayden. If he noticed Cindy’s looks, he gave no sign. He handed her a typed sheet with the particulars of the company he wished to create.

  “All right,” Cindy said. “We’ll draw up the papers.”

  “I’d like to get it done as soon as possible.”

  “How about next Tuesday?”

  “Should be all right.”

  “Two o’clock?”

  He looked at a pocket diary. “Can’t. Would five be possible?”

  “No. Is six too late?”

  “No.” He smiled for the first time—strong, slightly crooked teeth, no fancy orthodontia—and held her eyes for a moment longer than the business at hand required.

  Flirtation? Cindy was not sure. She had not looked for the signs of it in years. She did not smile back. “It won’t take much of your time.”

  That evening she went to dinner with some of her Republican friends, a long-standing engagement. They spent the evening ridiculing Jack Adams’s presidential aspirations. It was too late afterward to drive back to Tannery Falls—it was dangerous for a woman to be alone in a car on lonely roads after dark—so Cindy spent the night in a hotel.

  When she came downstairs in the morning, there was her new client, buying The Wall Street Journal at the newsstand. It was natural enough that he should be there—he was looking for a place to live in Ohio, and had flown in from Indianapolis. He saw her through the glass, waved but did not grin, and then came out, making
no haste. Instead of walking on, she waited for him; she didn’t know why.

  He seemed surprised that she was still there. “Hi. Had breakfast yet?”

  “No.”

  “Neither have I. Want some?”

  She didn’t, really. She was a coffee-and-juice girl, but something stirred and she said, “All right.”

  He ate an omelet and talked about movies. He had seen all of Ronald Reagan’s movies.

  “That was a real icebreaker with Nancy,” he said.

  Cindy was surprised that he would drop a name—that one especially. If she turned out to be a Democrat, he had lost all hope of winning her heart. She said, “You’ve met Mrs. Reagan?”

  “At a fund-raiser. But I don’t mind paying to talk about Kings Row. It shows what can happen when you date the wrong doctor’s daughter.”

  “Watch it.”

  “You’re one?”

  “Yep.” Cindy grinned. “But there’s good news. I’m a Republican.”

  He laughed. She liked him. He seemed to be unaware of her beauty. She might have been another male for all the attention he paid to her, even though she attracted her usual looks of longing from strangers. It was the number of hellos she attracted from passersby that interested him.

  “Looks like I’ve got a lawyer who knows her Columbus,” he said. “I meant to ask: Who’s the other Miller in Miller, Adams and Miller?”