Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

Igor said, “I’m sorry. Don’t hurt me.”

Danilov said, “Get up.”

“We haven’t got any clothes on,” said Olga.

“I know,” said Danilov.

“Bastard!”

“Get up and get out.”

“You fucked Larissa!” she shouted. “Why shouldn’t I fuck who I want?”

Danilov hadn’t known that Olga knew. Inexplicably-ridiculously-he felt embarrassed. He said, “You can fuck who you like, which you always have. With my blessing. But not in my home, in my bed. Get up and get out.”

“I’ve got nowhere to go!” said Olga, quieter now.

Into Danilov’s mind came the memory of Naina Karpov gazing around an apartment far more luxurious than this, protesting she had nowhere else. “Why not go home with Igor?”

“I’m married,” said the man.

Abruptly it no longer seemed absurd or laughable. It was sad and miserable-a fitting part in the mess of his life. Their lives. “Call Irena.”

Danilov went out of the room and picked up his carefully placed drink on his way into the living room. He had to clear a space on the couch, sweeping papers and magazines and discarded clothes on to the floor. Almost at once there was movement and the slamming of the door as the man left.

Olga appeared at the doorway and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Of course you’re not,” Danilov said impatiently. “You made a hobby of being unfaithful from the moment we got married. I’ll sleep here, on the couch.”

“Thank you.”

Danilov didn’t say anything.

“Good night. And thank you again,” said Olga.

Danilov didn’t reply. If Olga’s lover was a hairdresser, why did he let her hair look like it did?

Patrick Hollis had so much wanted to take the Jaguar-so much wanted to impress Carole in each and every way he could-but he changed his mind literally at the last moment. Not yet. Not until he knew her better. A lot of his penny-stolen fortune was deposited in ways to sustain a story of it being an inheritance, but it was still better to be careful. He told his mother it was a major conference of all the bank branches and went to the Italian restaurant Carole had suggested- the place in Albany, she’d said-in his lunch hour personally to reserve and choose the window table and talk through the menu so he wouldn’t be caught out if Carole asked for guidance. On his way back he bought an orchid corsage.

The afternoon heat wilted it by the time he gave it to her, and the purple clashed against her yellow sweater so she didn’t put it on. She named the bar for a drink, and Robert Standing and three others-a man and two girls-from the mortgage department were already there. Hollis was immediately frightened that Carole would expect to join them, but she didn’t. Hollis was sure his casual wave had just the right degree of nonchalance. He wished his breathing was easier, conscious of wheezing. Carole had chardonnay. Hollis chose a martini, for its sophistication. He’d only tried it once before, and it burned his throat as it had the first time, but he resisted anything ridiculous like coughing. Carole asked for another, so he had to have a second and hoped the light-headedness wouldn’t last. He managed another nonchalant wave to Standing as they left.

Carole made him taste her marinated calamari, and he was sure that was what made him feel sick, rather than the chianti. He left most of his veal, which he’d forgotten came in a cream sauce. He didn’t think she saw him swallow back the belch that brought something up to the back of his throat.

Because she’d shown an interest he talked a lot about loans and securities, exaggerating some of the contracts he’d negotiated, and said his influence was sufficient if she wanted a transfer the moment a vacancy arose. Toward the end of the wine he had to grope for words that escaped him.

Carole’s apartment was actually in Albany. As soon as they drew up outside, she got out of the car without saying anything, stopping some way away in apparent surprise that he wasn’t with her.

“Aren’t you coming up?”

He got hurriedly out of the car, fervently wishing he didn’t feel so sick. It was a walkup, on the third floor, and he was wheezing badly by the time he got to her door.

“I have whiskey as well as vodka or gin. But I guess you’d like another martini. You want to mix?”

“I’d better stick with coffee. I’ve got to drive back to Rensselaer.”

Carole frowned. “You’re not staying over?”

“I didn’t … I mean …”

“No reason why you shouldn’t, is there?”

She wanted to sleep with him! Go to bed with him where he could do all the things he’d seen on the porn channels: things that made them groan and cry out. He couldn’t! His mother. She’d stay up-awake, certainly-until he got back. It was already past eleven. She would have already started to worry. “Maybe not tonight. Left some work back at home that I’ll need tomorrow.”

“You want to skip the drink then-end the evening properly?” She smiled.

“Please,” he said, not thinking what he was saying and tried to cough, to cover it, but knew he hadn’t. Her smile was broader when she turned toward the bedroom.

He followed her in and she turned, holding out her arms. “Want to help a girl?”

He didn’t undo the neck buttons of her sweater and had to pull it back on to unfasten them before it would go over her head. When he saw her breasts he said, “Oh my God, you’re so beautiful.”

She was helping him undress and their hands got in the way and the zipper of her skirt jammed and in the end she wriggled out with it only half undone. She kept her panties on and got into bed ahead of him, frowning back at his flaccid nakedness.

“A girl’s feelings could be hurt.”

Hollis got in beside her and reached with a single finger to touch her nipple. She said, “If you’re counting, there’s two.”

Why wasn’t he hard! He’d thought about this so much-fantasized about what it would be like really to do it and not just watch-and now he couldn’t. He said, “I don’t know … I’m so sorry.”

“I’ve changed my mind anyway.”

“No, please. Wait.”

“I’m tired of waiting, darling. Let’s skip it. Maybe you’d better get home.”

On his way back to Rensselaer he had to stop once, because his crying blurred his glasses. His mother was up and said she had been about to call the police. Hollis said he’d had a flat.

“I hope you called out a repair truck. You’re not supposed to do things like that.”

“I couldn’t,” he said.

Virtually everyone in the FBI’s Albany office was permanently seconded to the New Rochelle massacre and the UN attack. Only Anne Stovey was on duty when Clarence Snelling walked in.

The balding, stooped man said, “Bank robbery’s a federal offense, right?”

“Right,” agreed Anne.

“Good,” said Snelling.

Six of the families whose husbands and fathers died in the massacre went to the same Baptist church just across the Potomac in Alexandria, and the funerals were combined. One was that of Jefferson Jones. There had been no children from Cowley’s marriage to Pauline, and he had difficulty gauging the ages of the six Jones children. He guessed they tiered down from a boy of ten to a bewildered girl of four. Each-three boys, three girls-were in their Sunday church clothes, stiff-faced with determination to be brave. Grief only very slightly chipped away the beauty of their mother. All the other families were white, maybe ten more children between them. They moved through the ceremony-the churchyard entry from a cavalcade of matching funeral limousines and then the service itself-as a group, some linking hands, all needing the contact of shared sorrow. The Jones family refused to cry.