'Try.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Watch yourself, buddy. Behind that innocent face and those magnificent teats is a really dangerous bitch.'
'Good-bye, Jack.'
Matt pushed himself up far enough so that he could hang up the telephone, then lay back down again. Through the entire process, Susan didn't move her face from his neck.
' 'Magnificent teats'?' Susan quoted Jack Matthews. She seemed close to tears.
'Like I said, fair maiden,' Matt said, gently, 'the cops are onto you.'
'You sounded like you and that man are friends,' Susan said.
'We are. Jack's a good guy.'
'They have the telephones in my house tapped?'
'Yes, they do. And the local cops are watching your place in the Poconos. I didn't know about the tap on your office phone, or that they had an agent in your office. It's lucky I didn't call over there and say something indiscreet. '
'Do you think I am, Matt, 'a really dangerous bitch'?'
'You can't blame Jack for that, honey,' Matt replied. 'He knows you're helping these people. And he knows they're dangerous. And he hasn't, the FBI hasn't, been able to lay a hand on you so far. In his mind, you're dangerous.'
'You have any second thoughts last night, Matt?'
'About us?'
'Yes.'
'Not last night. I woke up wondering whether you would be in the office when I called there this morning, or on a plane to San Josй, Costa Rica.'
'San Josй, Costa Rica?'
'Foreign country of choice for fleeing felons,' Matt said. 'They don't believe much in extradition.'
'And what are you thinking now?'
'That we don't have much time. We have to get that bank money out of your safe-deposit box right away. Do you talk to this FBI woman? Is she curious about where you go, and why?'
'Until three minutes ago, I thought it was simple feminine curiosity. Why?'
'Tell her you're going to have lunch with me. I'm sure those bastards told her about me. If not vice versa. Then come to the bank, get the money out of the box, and give it to me. I don't think, if they're onto you having the money in the bank, that they will think you'd try to move it when you were going to be with me.'
'What are you going to do with it?'
'I haven't figured that out yet. One thing at a time. I'll buy a briefcase before I go to the bank. They gave me an office to use, and we can move it from your purse to my briefcase in there. That way, you won't have the money if they should grab you as you leave the bank. I don't think that's likely, but I wouldn't be surprised if that lady agent coincidentally had to cash a check about the time you'd be here.'
Susan nodded, almost absently, her acceptance of that.
'If I tell you where you can find Bryan, will you help Jennifer get away?'
'No,' Matt said. 'I can't do that, honey.'
'You said Costa Rica doesn't believe in extradition?'
'I won't let you let yourself in for another aiding-and-abetting charge,' Matt said. 'For one thing, it would tie you closer to the bombing and the bank robberies, and there's a chance-not much of a chance, but a chance-that maybe we can do something about that. And if you helped her in getting out of the country, they'd learn about it, and really go after you. I can't let you do anything like that.'
'I just can't turn Jennie in!' she said.
'Does she trust you?'
'Of course.'
'Then tell her to turn herself in. A good lawyer, and a babe in arms, might get her out of the murder rap.'
'She'd never betray Bryan.'
'Tell her to start thinking about her baby. They take babies away from women doing life without possibility of parole.'
'You mean when she calls?'
' 'I can't meet you, Jennifer, because I don't want to be responsible for them taking your baby away from you.' Something like that. Sow the seed.'
'I don't know,' Susan said doubtfully.
'Have you any better ideas?'
She shook her head, then started to cry.
'That's not going to do any good. And I don't want that lady FBI agent to get on the phone and tell her boss you came to work looking like you'd been crying. They might interpret that as meaning something.'
That speech had the precisely opposite reaction to the one Matt had hoped for. It seemed to open a floodgate.
He tried to comfort her, fully aware as he did so that comforting a weeping woman was not among his social skills.
When she was finished, she pushed herself away from him, sat up, and knelt on the bed. There was a box of Kleenex on the bedside table, and she blew her nose loudly.
'Sorry,' she said.
'Honey, you're just going to have to get used to the idea that your friend Jennifer is beyond salvation.'
'I know,' Susan said. 'That's not what I was crying about.'
'Then what?'
'Us,' she said. 'Where the hell were you, my precious beloved, when I needed you? To deliver that Jennie- made-the — wrong-choice speech, to tell me 'I won't let you get yourself in for an aiding-and-abetting charge'?'
'I wish I had been there,' Matt said. 'Jesus, I can't believe how someone as intelligent as you are has fucked yourself up like this!'
'Truth, they keep saying, is stranger than fiction,' Susan said.
Matt didn't reply.
'What are you thinking now?' Susan asked.
'You don't want to know.'
'Yes, I do. I thought about that in the wee hours last night. I've got to start thinking about how things really are, not how I wish they were.'
'That's a start,' he said.
'So what were you thinking just now?'
'How things really are?' he asked. 'The naked truth?'
She nodded.
'I want to take your clothes off,' Matt said.
'Just like that?'
'You asked.'
She pushed herself off the bed and stood up.
'I'll take them off,' she said. 'You tend to rip them.'
'If you don't want-' Matt began, now chagrined.
'When I was crying, honey,' Susan interrupted, 'I was thinking, Why doesn't he put his hand up my dress when I desperately want him to, need him to?'
Matt had a sudden, unpleasant thought.
What that could be is, 'I will fuck a gorilla and pretend I love it if it will keep me from going to the slam.'
Three minutes later, as he lay spent on top of her, he knew that wasn't true and was deeply ashamed of himself.
