Chris Mooney - World Without End

Twenty minutes ago, he had come home from the gym and instead of grabbing his pre-made Myoplex protein shake from the refrigerator, he grabbed a Blue Moon beer and headed out to the patio along with his backpack that held a musty-smelling towel and his spare Clock. As he looked around the pool, all he could see were the photos.

They were waiting for him in the hospital room. The day of Rom-bar do visit, Conway had woken up sometime during the night, the room dark and quiet and lit up only by moonlight, and on the night-stand, leaning against the phone, he saw an 8-by-10 envelope with his name. Inside he had found a stack of color photographs: Dixon lying unconscious on top of the battered Ford Bronco; a picture of the skydiving instructor Chris Evans removing Dixon's watch and clothes; shoving everything inside a blue pillowcase; a close-up of Chris Evans standing outside the registration office door with a Clock in his hand; and here was a close-up of Pasha in sunglasses as she walked between rows of cars at the airport. A red X had been drawn through her face. And the last picture: Conway walking out of Del-burn Systems that morning after his briefing, on his way to pick up Dixon. Bold red lettering was written across the bottom: YOU'RE NEXT.

Conway stared at the picture and knew that his mind had punched a nonrefundable one-way ticket to insomnia.

But no red X had been drawn over Dixon. Did that mean he was still alive?

Possible. Dixon knew how to operate all the various aspects of the military suit. That was worth something. But not for long. Once Dixon had transferred his knowledge to Angel Eyes, he would be killed.

And you. You already know too much.

Using pay phones, Conway placed several calls to Delburn Systems at various times. Each call went unanswered. He did a couple of quick drive-bys, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon, and each time the parking lot was deserted.

In case of an emergency, Conway was to call Bouchard's private number.

He did that and also sent him a coded e-mail. Conway had been out of the hospital for five days and still no word from Bouchard. Conway had no way of knowing if the man was alive. If he was, he would have responded by now.

And no word from Rombardo either. A few minutes' worth of investigative work had revealed that Leonard Rombardo was, in fact, a detective with the Austin police. The man hadn't stopped by or called.

Neither had anyone else from the Austin force. Very odd. Had someone from the CIA stepped in and told the police to back off?

Conway finished off his beer, grabbed his backpack, and then stood up and walked through the opened screen door. The condo felt as cold and as desolate as a tomb. He put the empty beer bottle on the table, opened the refrigerator door, and grabbed another bottle of Blue Moon beer. Opening the bottle, he drank half of it as he thought about the master bedroom, the only part of the condo he hadn't visited since returning home. He finished off the beer, grabbed the rest of the six pack, and headed back outside. An hour later, with four beers in him, he felt bloated and numb and had a good buzz going.

He had every intention of going upstairs and taking a shower, maybe going out and grabbing something to eat. Everything he needed was in the second floor bathroom next to the guest bedroom, where he had been sleeping. Conway turned on the water and stripped down to his boxers.

In the mirror he saw the round scar the size of a half dollar on his left collarbone, peering at him like the eye of a Cyclops, and the new scar, the healing, stitched gash on his forehead. He remembered a line from Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, something about how scars have the power to remind us that our past is real and cannot be forgotten. Conway stared at the old, fading scar on his collarbone and the new one to add to his collection, two different stories that showed how close to death he had come. He had been lucky (again) but not Pasha. Her body had not turned up at the hospital. She was dead.

Gone.

An urge came to him. Drunk, Conway left the water running and walked down the hall and for the first time since he arrived home opened the door and stepped inside the master bedroom.

The king-size bed was still unmade, exactly the way it looked on the morning they had last made love. That's right, made love. He could say it now. It wasn't just sex, it wasn't fucking, ladies and gentleman they had made love. He loved her. Funny how loss and being shit-faced gave you the courage to say the words you had been so afraid to speak.

Pasha's tank top and panties were on the floor near the night-stand. He pushed away the white comforter, lay down on her side of the bed and pressed his face against the sheets. He could still smell a hint of her almond soap and the coconut butter cream she used on her skin. He turned his head to the left and saw the whirlpool bath in the master bathroom, and his mind replayed one of those simple moments each of us took for granted.

A Sunday a few months back, they had both gone for a long run together early in the morning before the sun came up, a solid five miles through dense air already dripping with heat and humidity. The final stretch, he had to push to keep up with her Jesus, she was fast and she knew this and wouldn't cut him any slack. Everything with her was competition. When he was a rookie and still wet behind the ears, she pushed him harder than the others, her voice hard and cold at times but never mean-spirited, the way a good teacher recognizes your potential and with a few carefully placed words can make you shatter your own constructed barriers and show you a reserve of strength and ambition that you weren V aware existed within yourself.

When they got back inside the condo, their bodies dripping with sweat, he went for her first, tearing off her clothes and then she removed his, both of them naked and wrestling each other for control, playful yet competitive. He managed to get her down against the kitchen floor, their wet bodies sliding against each other and the tile, Pasha fighting him, her strength amazing. She got some footing and flipped him around and like a panther springing into action got on top of him and pinned his wrists to the floor, bending them until he stopped fighting her. When he lay still, his heart hammering against his chest, she moved both hands behind his head and mounted him. The sex was incredible.

Pasha loved to pamper herself by taking long baths. Every Sunday after their run, she would spend a good hour or more in the Jacuzzi, either reading a book on Zen meditation or listening to music on her CD Walkman (she loved old jazz). He sat in their small office with his feet up on the desk and read the Sunday paper, and as he listened to the combined whir of the whirlpool jets and smelled the clean scent of the almond soap drifting through the air, he felt a sense of home, of belonging, that the two of them had formed an unspoken union and would move through the world together as one. He put the paper down and walked inside the bathroom. Pasha had her headphones on; she watched him as he removed his clothes and got inside the tub with her. She removed her headphones and looked at him, knowing him well enough to know he was about to say something important.

The words were there. He had been with a good number of women before her, and while some of them had spoken these words to him, he had never said them or felt them. Or maybe he hadn't wanted to say them until now.

Pasha looked at him. The words were there, assembled and ready, he could feel them about to come out.

"I know, Stephen," she said.

"I know."

She straddled him, wrapping her arms and legs around his back, and they sat in the warm water whirling with the hum of jets, her blond hair extended over his eyes as he looked outside the window and saw the deep gold color of the rising Austin sun.