James Munro - The Innocent Bystanders

"You work so hard at it," she said.

"I'm still alive."

He left her then, and this time took the gun with him to the bathroom.

He'd bought her a nightgown, yellow like her dress. It lay on the bed, and she picked it up, looked at it. Pretty. She pulled the cord of her kimono, felt the smooth silk slide from her, felt her naked body react to the coolness of the room. She was sleepy again, but sleep was a luxury and her world was poor. Her world was two hard hands and a terrifying speed with a lightweight Smith and Wesson .38. And beyond that the certainty of danger, probable pain, the possibility of death.

I'm twenty-three years old, she thought. It can't happen to me. It mustn't.

She turned, and the mirror on the wardrobe showed her a pretty, plump girl, her nude body in a showgirl's pose, holding a splash of yellow to bring out the honey gold of her skin. She jutted one hip and admired the result. In twenty years she would be fat—maybe in ten— but now she was, not beautiful maybe, but pretty. And desirable. Surely she was desirable? She put a hand to a breast that was firm and rounded—and cold. The cold was fear.

He came in from the bathroom wearing pajamas, carrying his clothes. This time the gun went under his pillow. "Who can hurt us tonight?" she asked. "The Russians," he said. "My people. Yours." "Mine?"

"Not the CIA," he said. "They're not bad, but they're not up to this one. For this, your side will use Force Three." He frowned, trying to explain it to her. "Look, the Russians have the KGB. But for really nasty jobs— like this one—they use the Executive. That's blokes like me. And Force Three—that's me too, ten years younger, in a Brooks Brothers suit."

"All to find Marcus's brother?"

"You know what he did," said Craig.

She pulled the sheet more tightly around her.

"Betrayed the Revolution," she said. "They sent him to Volochanka. But he escaped, so they want him dead."

"They have the easy job," said Craig, and she shivered. "Your people want him alive."

"Marcus wants him alive."

"Because he's his brother. The Americans want him alive because he can perform one miracle." "Only one?"

"It's a good one," he said. "He can turn sea water to rain water. Cheap. He can make the desert blossom. He's America's present to the underprivileged world."

"And why do you want him alive?"

"So that I can stay alive too," said Craig. "If I've got him, everybody will be my chum."

"With all that opposition—you think you can do it?"

"It's not much of a chance, but it's the only one I've got."

He put the light off and got into bed. Before he could turn from her, her arms came round him, her body eased against his. He put up his hands and found that she was naked.

"Miss Loman," he said, "you're making a big mistake." Her mouth found his, her hands tore at his pajama jacket, then she found herself pulled away from him. He

was gentle about it, but his strength was too much for her.

"Please," she said. "Please, Craig."

He got out of bed, switched on the light again, and looked down on her, her bare breasts tight with love, then he lit a cigarette and his hands were shaking.

"Miss Loman," he said. "What the hell are you playing at?"

"I don't love you," she said. "Inever could love you. But I may die tomorrow. That scares me—it scares us both." She wriggled out of the sheets, her body supple in youth, but the logic she offered was ageless. "We need each other. Now," she said. "It's all there is." He turned away from her. "Am I that hard to take?"

"No, Miss Loman, you're not," he said. "But my interest in women ended a year ago. They have a machine that does that. All very modern. It gives you electric shocks."

"Oh, my God," she said.

"Maybe I'm wasting my time staying alive, Miss Loman." "Who did it to you?"

"A man who hated me. In our business, we stir up a lot of hatred. Inearly died. They tell me I was crazy for a while. Then they patched me together—the surgeons and psycho experts—and sent me after the man who did it."

"Did you kill him?"

"No," he said. "He had to live. But he wanted to die. Very much." He came to her then, and he looked at her body and smiled. His hand reached out, smoothed the hair from her brow.

"I'm sorry, Miss Loman," he said.

"Couldn't you just hold me?" she said. "I'm so alone, Craig."

He put the light off. She heard the rustle of cloth as he removed his pajamas, then he lay on the bed beside her, took her in his arms, kissed her gently. Her hands moved across him, and her fingertips told her of what he had suffered, the knife wound, the two gun shots, the flogging. His body was marked for life, but the strength inside him had overcome everything that had been done, until the last, most appalling pain had left him alone, uncaring, with only one emotion left, the fear of death. Her hands moved down, over the hard belly. Her body rubbed soft and luscious against him.

"I'll make you," she said. "I'll make you want me."

There was a compassion in her hands and lips that went beyond the ruttishness of fear, a gentle understanding that knew nothing of the game without rules he'd played for far too long. Even now, in the very offering of herself, this girl was on the side of friendship, of life.

His mind loved her for it, but his body would not respond. Could not. She touched him, and his flesh remembered the pain and only the pain, but he willed himself not to cry out, or move away. She was offering him compassion: the least he could do was accept it. Suddenly Craig decided that, whatever happened, Miriam Loman wouldn't be killed. Her compassion was too rare, too precious a commodity to be squandered before its time. And with that realization, the memory of the pain receded, and she became not just the embodiment of a virtue but a woman too, and Craig realized, as he needed her at last, that his frigidity had become a kind of necessary selfishness, a protection against the involvements women always demanded, this one not least, and yet how could one repay such compassion except with involvement? His hands grew strong on her, and she rolled back, then pushed up to meet him, brave in her passion.

"There, my darling, you see?" She said, then, "Yes. Oh, please. Please."

When they had done, they bathed together, then lay down cool on the rumpled sheets. She smiled at him then, a grin of triumph.

"You didn't believe it was possible, did you?" she said. "And I made you."

"You made me."

"That's something isn't it? After what they did to you? You ought to say, Thank you, Miss Loman." "Thank you, Miss Loman."

"That's a good boy." She kissed his mouth. "A very good boy. You can call me Miriam." She stretched out, feeling the hardness of his leg against hers. She felt marvelous: relaxed, fulfilled, yet still engrossed in her body's responses to his. There was just one thing-

"I don't want you to think I do this sort of thing all that often," she said. "I don't."

"You mean I wasn't much good?"

She made a joke of it, but the anxiety to please was there, would always be there.

"You were perfect," he said. "That's how I know you didn't do it often."

"Just one man," she said. "One nice Jewish boy. I adored him. And he went to Israel."

"Does Marcus know?"

"I hope not," she said. "I never told him. He'll never know about you either. You bastard. You drag me here, kidnap me, then let me rape you. And tomorrow you'll probably get me killed."

"No," said Craig. "You won't die, and it wasn't rape— or kidnapping either."

She said quickly, "I feel great—but I'm still scared."

He turned to her then, and his hands were gentle on her, coaxing yet slow, as she had been to him, till the girl cried out aloud, her arms came round him, taking him to her.