Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

Could Oppenheimer really be involved? Wouldn’t Caesar sacrifice anything to win? But what could make Karl so important to him? The answer was, he wasn’t. Perhaps Mills was right-once you started, you tainted everything with suspicion until no one was truly innocent. There was always something, even something that didn’t matter, that was only about itself. They were chasing shadows.

While Oppenheimer spoke, Connolly’s eyes drifted elsewhere. She was sitting on the aisle three rows away, her head tilted toward the stage in attention. Her hair was down, and it caught the sheen of the snow glare through the windows. Her shoulders were straight, and he imagined holding them, warm to the touch, and feeling them go slack when they moved their bodies together. Her skin would be cream. Even while he listened to the meaning of leadership, the search for a better world, he saw the messed bed, her body barely covered by a tangled sheet, her skin slick with perspiration, all that fierceness dissolving in his hands, wet for him. And then, as if she had read his thoughts, she turned her head and looked at him, a direct glance, an intimacy that said they were already lovers. It was the last thing he had expected to happen, and for one quick instant he wanted to get away before it was too late, just run back to Washington, leaving them to stew in their own unsolvable murder and impossible moral questions and affairs from which-of course she was right-no good could come. But he felt the pulse of his erection and he knew he would never leave now. The murder would solve itself somehow and the moral questions would drift to that limbo where they always went and he would have her. Again and again. It was as clear and simple as that.

When they all stood to leave, he realized with embarrassment that he was still hard, and folded his coat in front of him. People filed out quietly. When she passed by him, her husband at her side, they exchanged a glance. In all this somber crowd, did anyone else see that her eyes were shining? But no one noticed at all, and he saw that the secret itself was part of the excitement for her.

Outside they stood in small groups, like people after church, and to avoid looking at her again, Connolly found himself talking to Pawlowski instead.

“I never got a chance to tell you how much I enjoyed the music,” he said. “Are you playing again this week?”

“Not me, I’m afraid,” Pawlowski said politely.

“But you were very good.”

“No, it’s not that,” Emma said, cutting in. “Daniel won’t be here. He has to go off-site.”

Connolly felt a prick of excitement, as if she had touched him, declared herself.

“Emma, you’re not supposed to—”

“Oh, darling, I’m sorry. But he is security. Surely it’s all right?” she said to Connolly easily. And while her husband said something polite about the other players doing well without him, Connolly looked at her for the first time. Do you really want this? her glance said. This is what it will mean. The code words. Sex would be the beginning. While he imagined those afternoons, she had already seen what would come, all the complications, furtive and tricky and maybe even doomed, like the movie Japanese risking everything for worthless plans of the Panama Canal. Yes, I want it, he thought.

But it wasn’t Emma he got to drive that week, it was Oppenheimer.

“Any idea why he requested me?” he asked, annoyed at this complication.

Mills shrugged. “Maybe he likes your conversation. Maybe he doesn’t like mine. Anyway, you’ll have to wear this,” he said, holding out a gun.

Connolly took it hesitantly. He had handled guns before, always with the sensation that they were about to go off. “Christ, am I actually expected to use this?”

“I thought you were a tough-guy reporter.”

“That’s Winchell. I just go to press conferences and lock my door at night.”

“You know how to use it, don’t you? I mean, you don’t need a lesson or anything.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Just remember about the safety. Of course, you’re supposed to catch the other guy’s bullet first, so what the hell.”

“Catch how?”

“By dying, mostly. Put your body in front of Oppie and do your bit for the war effort.”

“Can’t we send someone else?”

“You have something better to do?”

Connolly looked at him, wondering for a minute whether Mills suspected anything. Did it show, this heat? Like some priapic blush? But Mills was only being sarcastic. “Just finish the accounts, okay? You might give Holliday a buzz. He’ll let things slide if you don’t goose him now and then. Where am I going, by the way?”

“South. To the test site.”

“I didn’t know there was one.”

“They built it in December. Must be getting ready to do something, ‘cause there’s been quite a little traffic back and forth lately. Try to avoid lunch if you can.”

“Why?”

“It’s antelope. Enlisted men have nothing to do down there except shoot rattlesnakes and antelope and roast them-the antelope, that is. They say it tastes like beef, but that’s only because they’ve had their brains bleached out in the sun. It tastes like antelope.”

“How far is this place, anyway?”

“About two hundred miles.”

“Christ, that’s all day.”

Mills grinned and handed him a test site pass stamped with a large T. “Don’t forget to ask about the money.”

In fact, it was the first thing they discussed.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Oppenheimer said as Connolly started down the switchback road in the morning sunlight. He was sitting in front, at his request, and was clearly expecting to talk. “This will give us a chance to catch up. Any progress? Suspects?”

“Only you.”

“I beg your pardon?” He twisted in the passenger seat, his eyebrows raised, anticipating a joke.

“Why did you withdraw a thousand dollars over three months this winter?”

Oppenheimer was quiet, then lit a cigarette. “None of your damned business.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Then I’ll take your word for it.”

Oppenheimer looked out the passenger window and smoked. Finally he said, “You needn’t do that. It’s personal, but not, I suppose, secret. I’m not allowed secrets anymore.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, you’re just doing your job,” Oppenheimer said. “Go ahead, do it.”

“What did you do with the money?”

“Put it into two postal orders and sent them to an old friend who needed it.”

“Why?”

“She’s been under psychiatric care, if you must know. She’s broke. We call it a loan.”

“No, I mean why a postal order?”

“How else? We don’t have checks up here. You know that.”

“Do you still have the receipts?”

“Yes.”

“Does your wife know?”

“Yes.” He was silent again. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve, you know that?”

“You authorized the search.”

Oppenheimer sighed. “So. No good deed goes unpunished. I never imagined you wanted to look at mine. More fool me. Of course you would. I’m the obvious person to beat someone up in the park. Do you ever feel embarrassed doing this?”

Connolly downshifted. “I don’t feel great now, if that’s what you mean.”

Oppenheimer sighed again. “No, of course you don’t. And now I should apologize for being rude, which somehow makes it all my fault, when you were the one asking the questions. Interesting how we tie ourselves up in knots, isn’t it?”

“Well, don’t do it on my account. Look, I’m eliminating any loose end I can. I didn’t mean to intrude on your personal life. Let’s just forget it.”