by Garbo Norman
She hit him with a pillow.
Still, there was a certain truth to it He had what Herbert Collier was pleased to call sponsorship. He moved in high circles in many different places. He was treated with respect He heard his name spoken in foreign accents and he loved hearing it. He heard other things, too — bits and pieces, much of which held little significance for him, but which he nevertheless remembered and carefully passed on as he had been instructed. And he despised no part of it. What he had started doing reluctantly and under pressure, he gradually came to do willingly and out of conviction. He was, after all, an American and he was working for his country. Life seemed to have joined them in a mutual debt. They both owed and they were both paying. They were surviving together in a hostile world. And it was a hell of a lot better than the Orange Lantern.
But it was more than just that. If Hank was not always able to put it into words, there was always Pamela to help him.
“You’re pretty happy about things these days, aren’t you?” she said, approaching another year.
“What’s happy?”
“Don’t be cute. I’m serious.”
“So?”
“So yon really like what you’re doing, don’t you?”
But it still seemed to embarrass him to admit it. “Hey, listen … it’s a lot better than a sharp stick in the eye.” The end of the year, which for so many was the time for self-examination, for appraisal, was for him the time to make bad jokes and hide what he truly felt. Perhaps he still carried some of his mother’s Old Country superstitions. Why tempt the devil by adding up your blessings? But because he loved Pamela, he tried. “The thing is, I feel like a real person again. You know what I mean?”
Of course she knew. She was no stranger to these things. Her need to be a ‘real person’ was every bit as great as his, and she remembered what she had felt when she was rehired by her old company. They had done everything but kiss her ass when she came back. And with a little encouragement, the division president himself would have done that, too. But that particular treat was too good for him. The president was as uncomfortable with the rehiring as he had been with the firing, and she did nothing to make it easier for him. “I think the whole thing stinks.” she told him when he had finished reciting his prescribed lines. “I think the company’s behavior was disgusting, and your treatment of me personally was cruel and inhuman.”
He spread his hands. “What else could I have done?”
“You could have at least been honest. I spent a lot of years here. I did a damned good job for you. Don’t you think I deserved honesty at least?”
He did not answer.
“What were you so afraid of? It was me they were after, not you.”
“The orders came from the top, Pamela. They were very explicit. You were to be let go as part of a general retrenchment. Period.”
“And you think that was right?”
“I didn’t say it was right. I just said those were my orders.”
“Which you would never question?”
“We’re all expendable, Pamela. I wasn’t looking to be a hero.”
“I wasn’t looking for you to be a hero either, John. But how nice if you could have at least managed to be a man,” she said and walked out.
But any satisfaction she was able to find in this was small and quickly faded. She had betrayed Burke. Under enough pressure, she had proven herself no more noble than John, so who was she to throw stones? Besides, his guilt had been strong enough to get her a senior vice-presidency. Which she undoubtedly deserved, but which would otherwise have been a long time in coming. So she was just as content not to think too much about the past Brooding about what was over and done was not her nature, even if she sometimes had to concede that things were never really over and done, but just kept making fainter and fainter ripples. Maybe you stopped seeing them after awhile, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still out there somewhere.
Burke still came to mind, especially at this time of year. She wondered about him — where he was and what he was doing. Considering how things had worked out, she harbored no resentments and hoped he felt the same. Though in his place, she knew she would always feel bitter. But she also knew that given another chance, and all things being equal, she would still act no differently than she had. How could she? She was still Pamela Bailey.
Close to midnight, and as though reading her mind, Hank asked, “Ever think about Eric?”
“Sometimes. What about you?”
“Almost every day.”
“What do you think?”
“Lots of stuff. But mostly, I guess, how he’d probably get 8 big kick out of knowing what I’m doing.”
“You think he knows?”
Hank shook his head. “I don’t think he’s in the country anymore. I wouldn’t be if I was him. I’d have gotten out and stayed out.”
But even as he said it, he knew he was probably wrong, for both of them. Months before, Collier had told him they were no longer looking for Burke. No reasons, just the fact of it. It was a crazy business, but he was beginning to know about such things. The first thing he had learned was to accept what he was told and not to ask questions. There was even a certain relief in it. What you didn’t know you weren’t responsible for. There was also the magic of any functioning system. It was there because it worked, and who was he to second-guess it? So he felt himself in touch with Burke through his new training. Working for your country was a continuum. Probably nothing had changed in two hundred years, other than names, faces and styles. What Burke once had felt, he now felt.
It was mostly out of this feeling that he was able to say, “Hey, I’ve thought of a terrific way for us to start the New Year.”
“How is that?”
“Get married.”
She looked at him. He was grinning as though he had just told her a very funny joke and was waiting for her to laugh. Curiously, she just felt like crying.
“Well, what do you think?” he said.
“You don’t have to marry me.”
“What kind of dumb answer is that from such a smart dame?”
“I’m not so smart.”
“You’re smart. You’re smart. You’re so damn smart it scares hell out of me sometimes.” He was still grinning, but it was growing a bit forced. “Listen, it’s only because I’ve gotten to be such a big, high-class spy that I’ve even got the guts to ask you. Or maybe you still think of me as a thick-headed, broken-down Pug.”
“I’ve never thought of you that way, you ape.” Helplessly, she felt the tears start..
“Hey, what are you crying for? Come on. Cut it out. Okay. Forget the whole thing. I was only kidding anyway.”
“Like hell you were,” she wailed and grabbed him. “You’re not weaseling out that easy. A proposal is a goddamned proposal.”
So they had looked past one another’s surgically altered faces for a glimpse of what lay beneath and found more than either expected. They had actually changed shape against each other. But the big thing now, was that they finally knew it IV Lilly waited for the New Year under the postcard palms and cerulean skies of Beverly Hills. She awaited it without great joy, although her first film had just been successfully completed and her agent was considering good offers from three major producers. Her luck had been good.
Yet she felt no exultation. Perhaps she had reached a point in life where she no longer soared with the good or plunged with the bad because she knew that either way it wasn’t going to last. Wasn’t there hurt in even the best of it? She had once read somewhere that those who loved the most had the saddest eyes. Perhaps because they had the most to lose.
Still, when it came to love, she guessed you chose your own poison. Who, but yourself, pushed you? But that was being cynical and she knew she did not want to be that. So what did she want. She was not sure. But it might be nice, she thought, to be able to make a small measure of peace with her own history.
How long had it been? Six months? She was not even s
ure of that.
“Hello, Lilly,” he had said, and turning she saw Burke.
“My God, is it really you?”
He smiled under the streetlight. “Who else?”
“I never thought I’d see you again,” she said, and looked furtively up and down the empty California street “Is it safe?”
“Reasonably.”
But she” was not reassured and quickly led him into the small bungalow the studio had rented for her. Inside she drew the blinds before she switched on a lamp.
“I didn’t know if you were dead or alive,” she said. “I swear I’m so excited I’m shaking all over.”
He took both her hands in his and sat down beside her on a couch. Looking at her, his eyes were warm. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I wanted you to know I’m all right The heat seems to be off. I thought you might be wondering.”
“Christ, yes.”
“I also wanted to thank you in person.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I’ll never forget what you tried to do for me, what you did do for me. It was much more than I had any right to ask. I’m very grateful, Lilly.”
He somehow embarrassed her, made her feel like a child. “Oh, Eric. All I really managed to do was fall in love, make an ass of myself, and stupidly try to suck you into a trap.” She saw no point in mentioning that she had also managed to get a strange man in a Mercedes shot full of holes.
“Not many could have shown your kind of heart.”
She waved it aside. “What about the others? David, Pam, Hank. I’m sure they did no differently.”
“They did the best they could. They were fine, considering the heat. But you were still exceptional.”
She stood up and went to the liquor cabinet “Well, anyway, you’re alive and well and here, so let’s have a drink to celebrate.”
“I’ve been reading about you.” He watched her pour bourbon over ice. “You seem to have taken Lotus-Land by storm.”
“Amazing, isn’t it? I mean, what bigger tits and a smaller nose can do for a person. Anyway, I’m not kicking. I’ve been lucky as hell.”
“It’s a lot more than luck, Lilly.”
“Don’t kid yourself. It helps.” She handed him his drink. “What about you? They’re really leaving you alone?”
“As far as I know.”
She kissed him. “That’s super. You don’t know how happy that makes me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Have you told the others?”
“No. But I’m sure they’ve gotten the word.”
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She knew better than to press it. “So how come you’re way out here in Hollywood? You want to get in pictures too?”
“I came here to see you.”
“No fooling?”
“No fooling.” He studied her over his drink “Have you seen your friend lately?”
“My friend?” She laughed. “Oh. You mean Frank?”
He nodded.
“Not for the past few months. After you turned out to be too smart for him, they shipped him somewhere down in Central America.”
“Then it’s all over between you?”
She grinned. “Hell, no. When I get my hooks in a guy, they’d have to ship him to another planet to bust him loose. He calls every chance he gets. Crazy, isn’t it? I mean we both started out just trying to use each other and look what happened. People can’t be too careful can they?”
“I guess not.”
“I have a sneaky feeling he’s going to surprise me one of these days. Like you just did. He’ll probably catch me in curlers and cold cream, looking a mess. I haven’t heard from him in about five days and that’s longer than usual. I suppose that’s why I’ve got this feeling about him surprising me.”
Burke was silent. He seemed to be trying to stare through a solid wall into the next room.
“When you were off on an assignment like that,” she said, “did you ever just show up and surprise your wife one day?”
“Once in a while.”
She laughed. “I guess it might not always be too smart You could walk in on a lot more than you bargained for.”
“Lilly …”
“But I kind of like the idea. It’s exciting. I mean, not knowing when he might suddenly turn up. And I’m not worried about getting caught, or anything dumb like that. I haven’t done any fooling around at all since we started together, For me, for the way I was, that’s saying a lot. I haven’t even wanted to. I’d rather just think about him, than have anyone else. I find I …”
“Lilly .. .” he cut in, “listen to me a minute.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” she said and drank her bourbon.
“He isn’t going to surprise you.”
She looked at him.
“There was an item in the New York Times the other day,” he said. “Being out here, I didn’t think you were likely to see it It was only a small article. It just said that an American business man, Frank Harkevy, had been in an accident outside of Managua, Nicaragua. His car had apparently gone off the road.” Watching her face, Burke took a moment “I’m afraid he’s dead, Lilly.”
She sat there for a long time; looking at him. Her face was pale, but otherwise showed nothing. Slowly, very carefully, she finished her drink.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no way of knowing he meant anything to you anymore. I had hoped he didn’t. If that was so, I wasn’t even going to tell you.”
She was still nodding.
“As it was,” he went on, “there would have been no way for you to find out. You’d have just never heard from him again. I couldn’t let that happen to you.”
Dry-eyed, she had stopped nodding. He got up, refilled her glass and handed it to her. Then he watched her as she drank.
“Was it really an accident?” she said at last “.There’s no way to know that, Lilly.”
“He was a good driver, very careful. He never even drove up to the speed limit I used to tease him about driving like an old lady.”
Burke was silent “They killed him, didn’t they?”
“I don’t know who you mean,”
“Neither do I,” she said flatly. “But I know it was no accident.”
She knew nothing of the sort, but this was how she preferred to think of it. It was easier for her. Somehow it seemed less of a waste than an accident. Not that reasons changed anything. The result was the same. But the one thing she kept remembering him saying was, “I chose this work, Lilly.” AH right, you crazy, goddamned spy, she swore silently. You chose it; you got it Finally she wept.
Burke stayed with her through the night. They lay together, bodies clothed but pressed close for human touch.
“Do you love someone?” she asked in the dark.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My wife.”
“I didn’t even know you were married again.”
“I’m not. Not really. We’re still divorced. For two years she thought I was dead.”
“Why?”
“It was expedient. The Service is a wild business.”
“And now you have risen?”
“I have risen. But it took a lot more than three days.”
“Maybe?” she whispered.
“Don’t even think about it”
“It’s just that I feel so damn cheated. We had so little of it.”
“You can’t measure it that way. Some never have it at all, Lilly.”
“I know. But it’s so dumb. Managua, Nicaragua, for God’s sake! That’s not a place; it’s a goddamned song.”
Her body shook and he tried to stop it with his. Wanting to comfort her, he did not know how.
“It’s nice about you and your wife. I’m glad about that That’s really great.”
He said nothing.
“Are you going to get married again?”
�
�We can’t. There’d be too many problems. But we don’t need that.”
“I guess not” She thought about it in the dark. “What’s your wife’s name?”
“Angela.”
“Is she really an angel?”
“Hardly.”
“That’s good,” she said softly.
They held one another.
“Eric?” She used the name that was not really his, but which she would not have felt comfortable about changing now.
“Yes?”
“Do you think Angela would mind very much if you made love to me tonight?”
It took him by surprise.
“It would be better than sending flowers,” she whispered.
Her face wet and” tight against his, she felt him smile.
“Well, maybe if I don’t enjoy it too much.”
They did not come together as lovers. They were not that The act was tender for him, a trifle desperate for her. Still, from a purely practical standpoint, she .was right. It was better than flowers.
“You’re really a very kind man,” she said afterward.
“It wasn’t that difficult. Believe me.”
“Probably a lot kinder than Frank ever was.”
“We are all pretty much alike.”
“I have to tell you something,” she said, and told him about the shooting of the stranger in the parking lot. “Frank never gave him a chance. The poor guy never even knew what hit him. And that could have been you.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t But Frank was just following an accepted Service procedure. It even has a special name. It’s called to terminate with extreme prejudice.” He smiled in the dark. “It has a ring, doesn’t it? So condemn his job if you have to, but not him.”
“Would you have done something like that?”
“I have, Lilly.”
She stared off into the dark. There was still a lot of anger in her. “God, I’ll never understand any part of that”
“Not many can.”
“But how could you?”
“It was never easy. Finally, as you know, I couldn’t. But even now, I do know this.” It took him a long moment to drag loose the admission. “Someone has to.”
Six months, and in that time she had been up and she had travelled down. At times she had even hung somewhere in the middle and irrationally refused to accept the fact of Frank’s death. Had she, after all, seen his body? Burke had told her he was dead, but they had also told Burke’s wife that he was dead. So obviously anything was possible in that loony world in which these curious men had chosen to operate. Burke had told her not to think about it, but who could stop her? Whatever happened once could happen again.