Dragonfly

service. While she did that, he took a hot shower, brushed his teeth, and shaved. When he came out of the bathroom in fresh slacks and a T-shirt, the room-service hot cart was set up and the food was ready.

While he was in the shower, she had changed into a floor-length silk lounging robe which had a peaked hood after the fashion of a monk's habit. The silk was forest-green, with a decorative gold zipper all the way down the front. She was striking, exotic.

They ate mizutaki, the white meat of the chicken stewed in an earthenware pot and flavored with many herbs. When the chicken was gone, they drank the excellent broth. This was accompanied by piping hot sake which was delicious but which — Lee Ann explained — tasted like a spoiled sauterne when it was cool. For dessert, there were mandarin-orange slices and shredded almonds. To finish the meal and stretch out the evening, there were six small bottles of Kirin, the excellent lager that was an equal to the best European beers.

At some point, they adjourned to one of the beds, where they stretched out side by side, each with a bottle of Kirin. The conversation continued nonstop, and Canning found that the sound of her voice was like a tranquilizer.

Shortly before ten o'clock she went to use the bathroom, and when she came back she was nude. She was exquisite. Her breasts were small but perfectly shaped, upthrust, with nipples as dark as baker's chocolate. Her stomach was as flat as that of a young boy. Her navel was convex rather than concave; a sweet, protruding nubbins. Her pubic thatch was thick and dark, and her legs were as smooth and sinuous as any he had ever seen in Las Vegas showrooms or in the Crazy Horse Saloon or in the airbrushed pages of Playboy. Yet for all of this, there was something childlike and vulnerable about the way she stood before him.

He said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it's the wine.”

“No.'

She switched off all but one light.

“I'm too old for you.”

“You're younger than you are. And I'm older than I am.”

“It's so fast.”

“That's the American way. I'm an American woman, and American women get what they want. I want you.” She knelt on the bed beside him. “Relax. Enjoy. Remember that we could be in Peking when Dragonfly is detonated. We could be dead tomorrow.”

“Is that the only reason for this?” he asked.

“No. I like you.”

He reached for her.

She stretched out on top of him.

He tasted her mouth.

After a while she undressed him.

His erection was like a post. When she touched it he felt a quick flash of guilt and remembered Irene. But that passed, and he slipped into a pool of sensation.

Afterward, she got two fresh bottles of Kirin. They sat up in bed, drinking. They touched one another, gently, tentatively, as if to reassure themselves that they had been together.

At some point in the night, after the Kirin was gone, when she was lying with her head upon his chest, he said, “I told you about my son.”

“Mike.”

“Yes. What I didn't tell you was that he thinks of me as a murderer.”

“Are you?”

“In a sense.”

“Who have you killed?”

“Agents. The other side.”

“How many?”

“Eleven.”

“They would have killed you?”

“Of course.”

“Then you're no murderer.”

“Tell him that.”

“The meek don't inherit the earth,” she said. “The meek are put in concentration camps. And graves.”

“I've tried to tell him that.”

“But he believes in pacifism and reason?”

“Something of the sort.”

“Wait until he finds most people won't listen to reason.”

He cupped one of her breasts. “If I told him about Dragonfly, Mike would say the world has gone mad.”

“I think poor Bob McAlister feels that way. At least a little bit. Don't you think?”

“Yes. You're right.”

“And of course, it hasn't gone mad.”

“Because it's always been mad.”

She said, “You know why I wanted you?”

“Because I'm handsome and charming?”

“A thousand reasons. But, maybe most of all — because I sensed violence in you. Death. Not that you're fond of death and violence. But you accept it. And you can deal it.”

“That makes me exotic, exciting?”

“It makes you like me.”

He said, “You've never killed anyone.”

“No. But I could. I'd make a good assassin if I believed the man I was to kill had to die for the good of mankind. There are men who need to die, aren't there? Some men are animals.”

“My liberal friends would think I'm an animal if they heard me agree with you,” he said. “But then, so would some of my conservative friends.”

“And your son. Yet without you and a few others like you, they'd all have fallen prey to the real animals a long time ago. Most men who can kill without guilt are monsters, but we need a few decent men with that ability too.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe we're megalomaniacs.”

“I don't know about you,” he said. “But I don't always think I'm right. In fact, I usually think I'm wrong.”

“Scratch megalomania.”

“I think so.”

“I guess we're just realists in a world of dreamers. But even if that's what we are, even if we are right, that doesn't make us very nice people, does it?”

“There are no heroes. But, Miss Tanaka, you're plenty nice enough for me.”

“I want you again.”

“Likewise.”

They made love. As before, he found in her a knowledge and enthusiasm that he had never known in a woman, a fierce desire that was beyond any lust that Irene had ever shown. None of the very civilized, very gentle lovers he had had were like this. And he wondered, as he swelled and moved within her, if it was necessary to see and accept the animal in yourself before you could really enjoy life. Lee Ann rocked and bucked upon him, gibbered against his neck, clutched and clawed at him, and worked away the minutes toward a new day.

At twelve-thirty he put through a call to the desk and asked for a wake-up message at six the next morning. Then he set his travel clock for six-ten.

Lee Ann said, “I gather you don't trust Japanese hotel operators.”

“It's not that. I'm just compulsive about a lot of things. Didn't McAlister warn you?”