Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon

“O.K., now,” Connington said, “I’m gonna have to saw around this turn. You tell me how much room I’ve got.”

Hawks nodded. Connington swung the car as far around the dogleg as he could, backed, stopped at Hawks’ signal and moved forward again. He continued to repeat the maneuver, grinding his front tires from side to side over the road, until the car was pointed up the other leg of the driveway. Then he waited while Hawks got back in.

“We should have parked at the bottom and walked up,” Hawks said.

Connington started up the remaining incline and pointed to his feet. “Not in these boots,” he grunted. He paused, then said, “Barker takes that turn at fifty miles an hour.” He looked sidelong at Hawks.

Hawks looked back at him. “Sometimes.”

“Every time but one. He hasn’t slowed down since then.” Connington chuckled. “You see, Doc? I rub you the wrong way. I know I do. But, even so, you’ve got to learn to trust me, even if you don’t like or understand me. I do my job. I’ve got your man for you. That’s what counts.” And his eyes sparkled with the hidden joke, the secret knowledge that he still kept to himself.

At the top of the incline, the driveway curved over the face of the cliff and became an asphalt strip running beside a thick, clipped, dark green lawn. Automatic sprinklers kept the grass sparkling with moisture. Cactus and palmetto grew in immaculate beds, shaded by towering cypress. A low, cedar-planked house faced the wide lawn, its nearer wall of glass looking out over the cliff at the long blue ocean. A breeze stirred the cypress.

There was a swimming pool in the middle of the lawn. A thin blonde woman with extremely long legs, who was deeply suntanned and wearing a yellow two-piece suit, was lying face-down on a beach towel, listening to music from a portable radio. An empty glass with an ice cube melting in its bottom sat on the grass beside a thermos jug. The woman raised her head, looked at the car, and drooped forward again.

Connington lowered a hand half raised in greeting. “Claire Pack,” he said to Hawks, guiding the car around to the side of the house and stopping on a concrete apron in front of the double doors of a sunken garage.

“She lives here?” Hawks asked.

Connington’s face had lost all trace of pleasure. “Yeah… Come on.”

They walked up a flight of flagstone steps to the lawn, and across the lawn toward the swimming pool. There was a man swimming under the blue-green water, raising his head to take an occasional quick breath and immediately pushing it under again. Beneath the rippling, sun-dappled surface, he was a vaguely man-shaped, flesh-colored creature thrashing from one end of the pool to the other. An artificial leg, wrapped in transparent plastic sheeting, lay between Claire Pack and the pool, near a chrome-plated ladder going down into the water. The radio played Glenn Miller.

“Claire?” Connington asked tentatively.

She hadn’t moved in response to the approaching footsteps. She had been humming to the music, and tapping softly on the towel with the red-lacquered tips of two long fingers. She turned over slowly and looked at Connington upside down.

“Oh,” she said flatly. Her eyes shifted to Hawks’ face. They were clear green, flecked with yellow-brown, and the pupils were contracted in the sunlight.

“This is Dr. Hawks, Claire,” Connington told her patiently. “He’s vice president in charge of the Research Division, out at the main plant. I called and told you. What’s the good of the act? We’d like to talk to Al.”

She waved a hand,. “Sit down. He’ll be out of the pool in a little while.”

Connington lowered himself awkwardly down onto the grass. Hawks, after a moment, dropped precisely into a tailor-fashion seat on the edge of the towel. Claire Pack sat up, drew her knees under her chin, and looked at Hawks. “What kind of a job have you got for Al?”

Connington said shortly, “The kind he likes.” As Claire smiled, he looked at Hawks and said, “You know, I forget. Every time. I look forward to coming here, and then when I see her I remember how she is.”

Claire Pack paid him no attention. She was looking at Hawks, her mouth quirked up in an expression of intrigued curiosity. “The kind of work Al likes? You don’t look like a man involved with violence, Doctor. What’s your first name?” She threw a glance over her shoulder at Connington. “Give me a cigarette.”

“Edward,” Hawks said softly. He was watching Connington fumble in an inside breast pocket, take out a new package of cigarettes, open it, tap one loose, and extend it to her. Without looking at Connington, she said softly, “Light it.” A dark, arched eyebrow went up at Hawks. Her wide mouth smiled. “I’ll call you Ed.” Her eyes remained flat, calm.

Connington, behind her, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, closed them tightly on the filtered tip, and lit the cigarette with his ruby-studded lighter. The tip of the cigarette was bound in red-glazed paper, to conceal lipstick marks. He puffed on it, put it between her two upraised fingers, and returned the remainder of the pack to his inside breast pocket.

“You may,” Hawks said to Claire Pack wtih a faint upward lift of his lips. “I’ll call you Claire.”

She raised one eyebrow again, puffing on the cigarette. “All right.”

Connington looked over Claire’s shoulder. His eyes were almost tearfully bitter. But there was something else in them as well. There was something almost like amusement in the way he said, “Nothing but movers today, Doctor. And all going in different directions. Fast company. Keep your dukes up.”

Hawks said, “I’ll do my best.”

“I don’t think Ed looks like a very soft touch, Connie,” Claire said, watching Hawks.

Hawks said nothing. The man in the pool bad stopped swimming and was treading water with his hands. Only his head was above the surface, with short sandy hair streaming down from the top of his small, round skull. His cheekbones were prominent. His nose was thin-bladed and he had a clipped mustache. His eyes were unreadable at the distance, with the reflected sunlight rippling over his face.

“That’s the way his life’s arranged,” Connington was now mumbling to Claire Pack spitefully, not seeing Barker watching them. “Nice and scientific. Everything balances. Nothing gets wasted. Nobody steals a march on Dr. Hawks.”

Hawks said, “Mr. Connington met me personally for the first time this afternoon.”

Claire Pack laughed with a bright metallic ripple. “Do people offer you drinks, Ed?”

“I don’t think that’ll work either, Claire,” Connington growled.

“Shut up,” she said. “Well, Ed?” She lightly held up the thermos jug, which seemed to be nearly empty. “Scotch and water?”

“Thank you, yes. Would Mr. Barker feel more comfortable about getting out of the pool, if I were to turn my back while he was fastening his leg?”

Connington said, “She’s never this blatant after she’s made her first impression. Watch out for her.”

She laughed again, throwing her head back. “He’ll come out when he’s good and ready. He might even like it if I sold tickets to the performance. Don’t you worry about Al, Ed.” She unscrewed the top of the jug, pulled the cork, and poured a drink into the plastic top. “No spare glasses or ice out here, Ed. It’s pretty cold, anyhow. All right?”

“Perfectly, Claire,” Hawks said. He took the cup and sipped at it. “Very good.” He held the cup in his hands and waited for her to fill her glass.

“How about me?” Connington said. He was watching the hair stir at the nape of Claire Pack’s neck, and his eyes were shadowed.