Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

Amazingly, it took a day. And when Connolly finally heard Batchelor’s voice, wary and apprehensive, he felt foolish for having gone to the trouble. It wasn’t a loose end, just a stray thought.

“The man who beat you up,” he said. “Who was it?” There was no response. “You still there?”

“I don’t know,” Batchelor said, so quietly that Connolly thought it was the connection.

“Look, this is strictly confidential. Off the record. I mean, if you’re worried about that.”

“No, I really don’t know,”

“But someone on the Hill.”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “Maybe a visitor. I’d never seen him before.”

“A scientist?”

“No.”

Connolly frowned. “Can you describe him?”

“Dark.”

“Mexican, you mean?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Spanish.”

“How do you know? Did you talk to him?”

“I just thought he looked Spanish, is all. He had black eyes.”

Connolly stopped, feeling embarrassed. “Would you recognize him again?”

Batchelor hesitated. “Is this an official call?”

“No, unofficial. Would you?”

“I don’t want you to look for him. Nothing happened.”

“I’m not looking for him. I was just curious.”

“Why?”

Why indeed? “I’m not sure.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m sorry. Nothing happened.”

“Okay,” Connolly said. “I understand. But you’d recognize him?”

Batchelor hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally. “If I had to.”

Connolly stared at the receiver when they’d finished, wishing he hadn’t called. Now Batchelor would worry about what he’d moved a thousand miles away to forget.

“What are you up to?” Mills said, interrupting the thought.

“Nothing. Chasing my own tail. Can’t we get this damn fan to work?” he said irritably.

“Crazy with the heat, huh?”

“No, stir crazy.”

“Waiting for something?”

Connolly shot him a glance, then looked away. “No.”

“Here,” Mills said, holding out an envelope. “Post office said to give this to you. Who’s Corporal Waters?”

Connolly reached up for the letter, meeting Mills’s eyes as his hand touched it. For an instant he stopped breathing.

“Friend of yours?” Mills said. He held the letter suspended between them.

“One of my aliases,” Connolly said, taking it. “For filthy pictures.”

Mills’s eyes dropped in disappointment. “Oh,” he said, excluded. “Sorry I asked.”

Connolly stared at the envelope in front of him. Typed. No return address. Santa Fe postmark. Now that it was finally here, he couldn’t quite believe it. Why a letter? Absurdly, he realized that he had been expecting the guidebook, page turned down at the corner. Mills, mistaking his hesitation for secrecy, moved away from the desk. Connolly fingered the envelope. Not heavy. No more than a page. No, a single rectangle, like a postcard.

He slit open the envelope. An invitation. A gallery opening on Canyon Road. Sunday, from four to seven. Refreshments served. Two days from now. Connolly turned it over, looking for a message, something scrawled on the print. A public reception, not a private meeting at San Isidro. But what had he been expecting? A conversation in the alley? Had there been a pattern to the other meetings? He thought of Holliday’s men, loitering at churches all over Santa Fe.

He looked up to see Mills standing by the desk.

“Are you going to tell me?” he said simply, his eyes frank and direct.

Connolly slipped the card back into the envelope. “I can’t.”

In fact, there was no one to tell except Emma. He walked her back from the PX, carrying grocery bags.

“You said it would work,” she said. “What’s the matter now?”

“They don’t trust it. Why a party? There’ll be people.”

“They just want to see who you are, see if you’re real.”

“How will they know?”

“You’ll be the one with me.”

He looked at her. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “I have to do this one alone.” He stopped her before she could interrupt. “He won’t know you anyway. They’d never tell the field contact about you. If anything goes wrong, the chain has to stop with him. They can’t afford to have this traced back. If they believe it.”

“They must. Why would they send the invitation?”

“It’s worth the chance. If it’s a trap, they sacrifice the one guy in the field, that’s all.”

“Then it really doesn’t matter whether I’m there or not.”

“It does to me. We don’t know what might happen. Besides, they’ll be looking for a man alone.”

“For a uniform, you mean. Corporal Waters.”

He stopped and looked at her. “A uniform. If I told you I’d completely forgotten about that, would you think I’d lost my mind?”

She grinned at him. “I was never interested in your mind. See how useful I can be?”

“But I don’t want to have to worry about you,” he said seriously.

“Don’t, then. We’ll arrive separately. I’ll just be a fly on the wall. In case you need me. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

He decided not to argue the point now. “What sort of crowd is it likely to be?”

“The local gentry. Hats and things. And the arts-and-crafts crowd. A few ladies in sandals and woven skirts. Loomers, I call them.”

“Soldiers?”

“Enlisted men? You must be joking. Don’t worry, he’ll spot you straightaway.”

“But I won’t know who he is.”

“Well, that’s rather the point, isn’t it?”

Mills said nothing that evening when he surprised Connolly at the office trying on the uniform, borrowed from one of the drivers. The fit was baggy, as if Connolly had lost weight. Mills looked him over, then, without a word, went to a locked drawer, fishing a key out of his pocket. Embarrassed, Connolly turned and started to change back into his clothes, so he was in his shorts when Mills handed him the gun and the cartridge of bullets.

“You’d better have these,” he said.

Connolly looked at the gun, not knowing what to say.

“I never think to look in that drawer,” Mills said. “I’d no idea they were gone.”

“You don’t have to do this. I’m not—”

“He’s already killed one man,” Mills said simply. “I’m on your side, you know. I always have been.”

Later, he remembered the day as overbright, every piece of landscape sharp and hard-edged under the white sun. Emma, pretty in a pale blue dress that seemed part of the cloudless sky, drove him in her car, past the empty east gate and down the switchback road to the valley floor. With the windows down, the air smelled of juniper. The afternoon had been still and expectant, and even now, toward its end, Santa Fe seemed asleep. Connolly fidgeted in the unfamiliar uniform, shifting the gun in his pocket to arrange its outline in a shapeless bulge. His cap, folded, hung over his belt like a protective flap.

“It’s not going to go away, you know,” Emma said. “Can you see it?”

“Only when I look. Shall I keep it in my bag?”

“Then I would have something to worry about.”

“Actually, I’m a crack shot. I grew up in the country, you know.”

“Crack shot with what?” he said skeptically.

“Well, skeet,” she admitted. “You don’t really think you’ll need it, do you?”

“No. Should I leave it here? It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Just keep your hand in your pocket. You know, playing with change.”

“Playing with change.”

“Well, men do.”

They were driving along the Alameda, approaching the Castillo Street bridge at the foot of Canyon Road.