cheekbone.
'Tell it,' said Daniel.
'I was bringing the poison,' Kaplan said, 'and a guard stopped me.'
'He found it?' Klein asked. Daniel motioned him to silence.
'He wanted me to fetch water. I was too slow for him. He hit me—and kicked me. Here.' He pressed his hands to his stomach. 'Daniel—I don't think I can do it.'
'You must,' said Daniel. 'Each man has his place. You know that. Without you we cannot go.'
'I can stay behind and help Zimma,' Kaplan said.
'Then you will die.'
'Of course,' said Kaplan.
Daniel turned to Goldfarb. 'Look at his stomach,' he said.
Goldfarb's hands were deft and tender as he looked. The bruise was enormous and they had nothing for it. 'It hurts,' Kaplan whimpered.
'Does it hurt too much to pray?' Daniel asked, and Kaplan stood then, and Klein led them in prayer.
When they had done, Daniel sat down beside the older man, and his voice was gentle. 'Kaplan,' he said, 'it must be tonight. We are ready
'Please do not hate me,' he said.
'How can I hate you? How can any of us? We need you, Kaplan.' *
Then Kaplan said, 'Very well. I will come,' and the others crowded round to thank, to praise, and Daniel gave him some vodka, the only painkiller they had, from his carefully hoarded store. Kaplan raised his glass, and drank to their endeavor. Six hours later he, Daniel, and Asimov were declared missing; the rest were dead.
CHAPTER 2
Craig accepted his third drink and watched as Thomson put in the ice, added whisky, and then ginger ale. His quantities were generous. At one time Craig would have hesitated when the third drink was offered, needing the assurance that it was safe to accept, that his mind and body would not be called upon to work for him with a speed and certainty that a third large Scotch could impair, perhaps with fatal results. But now Craig ran no risks, and so he accepted the third drink without hesitation. It was easier too. Thomson was an overforceful host. But then Thomson was an overforceful everything. He had the flat above Craig's in the elegant block in Regent's Park, and that, Craig thought, was the only possible reason why he'd been invited to the party. The best way to keep the neighbors happy was to invite them too. He didn't mind; parties were boring, but he was always bored anyway. At least at a party you had company.
Thomson produced films for television. He had noisy friends who did noisy things and a seemingly endless supply of young actresses who looked intense and called Craig 'darling' and were nice because Craig might turn out to be in the business, and if they weren't nice he wouldn't offer them a job. Craig knew that in television terms this passed as logic, so he played fair most of the time and admitted he didn't do anything. Only with the very pretty ones did he linger for a while, make them wonder, before the shocking truth came out. He was nothing, not even an adman, and not even ashamed . . . He sipped his Scotch and looked from a very pretty one to the bracket clock on Thomson's not quite Regency table. It was seven thirty. Time to go out to dinner. After he had dined
Loomis wanted to see him, but he wouldn't care if Craig were late, not any more. Loomis saved his anger for the important ones, and Craig was no longer important. The thought was consoling. Craig had known another man whom Loomis had considered important, and that man was incurably insane. He shook the ice in his drink and put it down on a coaster, dead center. The girl he was talking to—Angela, was it? Virginia? Caroline?—noticed the power in the hand, the ridges of hard skin across the knuckles, along the edge of the hand from wrist to fingertip. And because she was a sensitive girl, she also noticed the boredom of the man and resented it. A man who stood six feet tall, a wide-shouldered lean-hipped man with mahogany-colored hair and gray eyes that made her think of Scandinavian seas, had no right to be bored. Not when she was talking to him. Suddenly he smiled at her, and the face, that had been only strong before, was suddenly handsome.
'You're very nice,' he said. 'Very nice indeed.' The words distressed her, though they were kindly meant. 'Look,' he said, 'why don't I introduce you to those people over there? Two of them are producers, and one's a casting director.'
'You don't have to be so bloody polite,' said the girl. 'I'm not a hag yet.'
She left him in a flurry of anger, her mini-skirt riding over impeccable thighs, and Craig went to say good-bye to his host.
Thomson was hurt. He said so noisily, and at great length. The whole idea of the party, he explained, was for Craig and a few kindred spirits to get together. Have fun, enjoy themselves, talk to a few girls.
'I've done all that,' said Craig. 'It's time I was off.'
Thomson wouldn't hear of it. There was a second, and very exciting reason why a favored few had been asked along. He'd hoped to explain it later over a few sandwiches and a mouthful of champagne. As a matter of fact that girl he'd been talking to would be staying. Wouldn't Craig like that?
'Very much,' said Craig. 'But I really have to go. You know. Business.'
The word was one which Thomson had never taken lightly, and he responded to it at once.
'Just give me five minutes, old man. That isn't too much to ask, is it?' And Craig agreed that it was not.
He found himself hustled into a room called a study, which was mostly Morocco leather, on books, on the writing desk and chair, even on the wastepaper basket. Thomson shut the door on him, disappeared, then reentered almost at once with a short, squat young man and a trayful of Scotch. The squat young man it seemed had written a play, and Thomson needed a backer . . . Craig discovered it was even later than he had thought. He said so, and turned to the door.
The squat young man said, 'I'm an artist. I create things. Surely I have a right to a hearing?'
His voice was unbelievably harsh. Nothing it could say, not even 'I love you,' would sound like anything but a threat.
'Some other time,' said Craig. 'I have enjoyed meeting you.'
The squat young man put a hand on his arm.
'Look,' he said. 'I used to be a wrestler. I've done time for assault. You're going to hear me now.'
Craig looked at Thomson, who had the baffled look of a conjuror suddenly realizing that his best trick is about to misfire.
'Is he sober?' he asked.
'He's had a few,' said Thomson.
Craig looked at the hand on his arm.
'A year or two ago if you'd done that I'd have broken your arm,' he said.
The hand slid up the muscle of Craig's arm, and fell at once to his side.
'Some other time, when I'm not so busy,' Craig said, and left.
Thomson downed a drink quickly, looked in scorn at the wrestler turned playwright.
'And you thought he was a fairy,' he said.
Craig dined on salad, sole veronique, and a half-bottle of Chablis, and as he dined he thought of the squat young man. The violence of his own reaction surprised him.
Their tactics, after all, had been perfectly reasonable in terms of the world they lived in. He'd made no passes at girls, therefore he was queer, and because he was queer the squat young man had put his hand on him. There were better ways to handle that situation than to talk of breaking arms. And yet it had happened at once: the flat threat thrusting at them both, escaping his conscious control. He could have done it too, even now. Without disarranging his tie he could have broken both their arms; or their necks. Craig shivered. He didn't want that feeling, not any more. Nor did he want to see Loomis, but he went. The fat man was power: irresistible power to those who had worked for him, and Craig had served him for five violent years.
Queen Anne's Gate looked well by night. The street lights softened the clean lines of the buildings to a pretty romanticism that made the street remember its elegant past with nostalgia, but Craig's thoughts were with the present. He ignored the row of brass plates: Dr. H. B. Cunnington-Low, Lady Brett, Major Fuller, the Right Reverend Hugh Bean. They were precisely the sort of names that belonged in Queen Anne's Gate—but they didn't exist. Craig
