known? And wouldn’t it be the same if they hadn’t known any? The room was too close, and he didn’t belong here. Quietly he slipped through the door, unnoticed, with the music following him out into the night.
He gulped in some raw fresh air, surprised at its chilly bite, and looked up at the sky. The stars were always wonderful in the high air of Los Alamos, but tonight they seemed spectacularly abundant, masses of them, laid out for the music.
She was standing near the end of the building, smoking a cigarette, huddled in a cardigan, her arms folded across her chest to keep in the warmth. The weak yellow light from the window kept her face in shadow. She glanced over quickly when she heard him, then turned back again, unsurprised. For once there seemed to be no movement on the mesa, no truck exhaust and grinding gears, so that the music poured out of the house as if it were being played in the open air. She shivered from the cold and inhaled, making the end of her cigarette burn a flicker of orange.
“It might snow this weekend,” she said, her voice low but distinct, not a whisper.
“Don’t you like the music?”
“I love the music. I just don’t like to watch. They’re so-intense. I can’t bear it.”
“Won’t he notice?”
“No.”
As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, her face became clearer, and he saw that she was looking directly at him, the conversation a pretext for this other contact. She dropped her cigarette to the ground.
“Fire hazard,” she said, running it out with her shoe. “Bloody fire hazard. What about you?” She moved her head to indicate the house. “Bored so soon?”
“No. Just restless.”
She looked at him again, interested.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s all over my head.”
“You seemed sure of yourself a while ago. That’s a hell of a thing to say to anybody.”
“I didn’t say it to anybody. I said it to you.”
She was quiet, just studied his face until the silence between them became a conversation. Finally she leaned back against the building and let him come closer.
“What are we going to do about this?” she said.
“What do you want to do?” he said, his face close now. He could feel her breath on his cold cheek.
“I don’t know,” she said simply, her honesty a kind of provocation.
He leaned forward and moved her arms down to her side, and when she stood there, unresisting, he kissed her, gently pressing her against the wall, tasting her.
“Don’t,” she said, but not moving away, letting him kiss her again.
“Why not?” he said, his words kisses of breath now as he moved against the hollow of her neck.
“No good will come of it,” she said, a catchphrase to ward off a spell.
“Yes it will,” he said, still kissing her neck.
“Yes.” Then she opened her mouth to him, kissing him back, moving her tongue with his, her arms now behind him, pulling him closer.
“Oh God,” she said, whispering. “It won’t, though. No good at all.”
“How do you know?” he said, pressing against her, excited.
“It never does.” She buried her face in his chest. “Never.”
But he wasn’t listening; the words were a kind of chant, just a rhythm. Instead he kissed her harder, pulling her body next to his so that she could feel him. “It will,” he insisted, the words some code for sex. He could sense her own excitement as she twisted against him. But she was pulling away, catching her breath, shaking herself awake.
“No,” she whispered, moving away from the wall, and for a moment he thought he had lost her, frightened her away. He grabbed at her arm, moving her back into the embrace, but when he saw her eyes, angry at his force, he took his hand away and instead moved it gently down the side of her face. He touched her hair as he stroked her, and, shivering, she moved her face into his hand, bending her neck, calmer.
“I want to make love to you,” he said.
She nodded.
He leaned forward and kissed her again, gently this time. “Since the first night.”
She nodded again. “Not here. Not on the Hill. I won’t, here,” she said finally.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something,” she said quickly, a conspirator.
“I’ll drive you someplace,” he said softly, kissing her again. “With my coupons.” But when he looked up, her eyes seemed stricken, as if she had already been found guilty of some terrible crime.
“Yes,” she said, catching his look. “You can drive me someplace.”
“Anywhere you like.”
“Anywhere I like. We’ll go away.”
He kissed her, a reassurance.
“But go home now, okay?” she said. “No more. I can’t.”
“Okay,” he said quietly, and turned to go, moving away from the house to the darkened street. He heard the music again. Suddenly she caught his arm and fell against him, bringing his face down.
“You’ll make it all right, won’t you?”
He looked at her and nodded. “You think you’re taking an awful chance with me. Don’t you?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Maybe I’m better than you think I am.”
“I don’t care,” she said.
Mills was waiting for him when he got home, stretched out on Karl’s narrow bed with his hands behind his head, staring at nothing.
“Make yourself at home,” Connolly said, surprised to see him.
“Thanks. You sure haven’t done much to it, have you?” he said, getting up and looking around the spare room. “It’s like old Karl never left.”
“I wasn’t planning on a long stay.”
“None of us do.”
“Something on your mind, or is this just a social call?”
“Take a look,” Mills said, taking a sheet of paper out of his jacket. “I went over to the office before. The movie stank-Lee Tracy and Nancy Kelly. Jap spies and the Panama Canal. I mean, a little late for the canal, don’t you think? You wonder who thinks them up.”
Connolly glanced at him, cutting him short.
“So I went back to the office to go through a few more files, and this caught my eye. Probably nothing, but you said you wanted to see anything interesting.”
Connolly was looking at the figures. “Two withdrawals of five hundred dollars. That’s a lot of money. Who is it?”
“That’s the funny part. Oppenheimer.” Connolly glanced at the paper again, then handed it back. “Better keep looking.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“Meaning?”
“Nothing. I just think you’re under the spell. I know all the signs.”
“What spell?”
“Our great leader. Those blue eyes. That lightning mind. I’ve seen it all before.”
“Mills, have you been drinking?”
“I have, as a matter of fact. But not that much. Hell, I don’t think it’s him either-I don’t think it’s any of them. I was just hoping we’d stop all this bank business. But out of curiosity, are you going to ask him about it?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll love that. You’ve got guts, I’ll say that for you. Questioning Caesar’s wife.”
“Except he’s Caesar.”
“That’s something worth thinking about,” Mills said.
