surprised. The dancing was supposed to have been a joke, a little parody of another life. Now it was something else, another kind of joke. He wanted to laugh out loud at the unexpectedness of it. He had held girls like this before, half-drunken nights of good times and smoky rooms and sex, but it was here, miles from anywhere, filled with mutton stew and cheap whiskey, that it finally happened, the hope of a million popular songs.
There was another record, then another, and they kept dancing, too tired to sit down. They didn’t see the ranchers leave. Could he have had so many nickels? The lights went off in the general store.
“It’s late,” she said.
He nodded.
“I don’t know where we can go.”
“Doesn’t matter.” His words were slow, part of the music.
She touched the back of his neck. “This isn’t what you had in mind at all, is it?”
“No.”
“But it’s all right?”
And it was. He wasn’t thinking about sex; he just wanted to hold her.
“Can you drive?”
“Can you?”
“If I have some coffee.”
But when they sat down, moving dreamily away from the empty floor, they found fresh drinks on the cleared table and they sipped them, the coffee forgotten. The music had stopped, but it was too late to play any more. They sat enjoying the quiet, the faint rattle of crockery in the back room, a scurrying of night sounds. He couldn’t stop looking at her. When the Indians left, two of them supporting the third, he only glanced at them for a minute. Then there was a sputter outside, a roar as the pickup ignition caught and pulled away, and it was quiet again. The Indian woman didn’t bother them, so they sat finishing their drinks, warm with sunburn and liquor, too drowsy to get up and go. His legs were heavy, glued to the scratchy booth.
When the woman finally came to clear the glasses, she was dressed to leave, an old army jacket covering the beaded blouse. Emma asked about coffee as Connolly got out his money, looking up at the woman for the bill. There was no check. She took a few bills, then tucked them into her jacket.
“No coffee. Back room,” she said, indicating a door and leading them there. She pulled the string of an overhead light to reveal a small storage room, piles of boxes next to an old rolltop desk, and, against the wall, a day-bed covered with Navajo blankets. “Don’t drive,” she said. “Stay here.” Then, with a small smile, “Nobody bother.”
She refused any money, waving off their thanks, and then turned the bar lights off and was gone.
“Our suite at the Waldorf,” Emma said, smiling at the linoleum and the narrow bed.
Connolly stood under the light bulb, unbuttoning her blouse.
“I don’t think I can move,” she said.
“No, don’t,” he said, kissing her.
“The light,” she said. He reached up and pulled the cord, turning the room black. In the pitch dark there was only touch, the gritty feel of dust, and the smell of sweat and liquor, and when they fell on the bed, their bare skin against the rough blanket, they finally made love, slow as dancing, as if they had already gone to sleep.
10
They found the car on May 8th, the day the war ended in Europe. Connolly had spent the afternoon at a motel on the Taos road, a motor court with faded cabins that had become their usual place, and had stayed late. Daniel had been spending most of his time at the test site, but he was back again this week, so they had to steal what time they could, a few hours of afternoon on old sheets, the sun dimmed to evening by dusty Venetian blinds. At first Mills had been titillated by Connolly’s absences, but now, finally bored with someone else’s affair, he scarcely raised an eyebrow.
“More research?” he said when Connolly turned up.
“You ought to at least check in once in a while.”
“Why? Did I miss something?”
It was a standard joke between them. For days, weeks now, there had been nothing to miss. Ramon Kelly had been convicted, a one-day excitement for the Santa Fe New Mexican, a longer run for the Albuquerque papers, and the Hill had shrugged off the news with indifference and gone back to work. Karl Bruner, even as gossip, was gone, a few paragraphs on the crime blotter. Corporal Batchelor, a little nervous now at having come forward at all, had found nothing to report. Doc Holliday checked in regularly, but more out of boredom than progress. The files on Mills’s desk sat undeciphered, dusted once a week by the cleaning staff, waiting for a new key. All around them life on the Hill intensified-furloughs canceled, lights blazing at night as eighteen-hour workdays raced to some uncertain deadline-so that by contrast they seemed at a standstill, just holding their breath. Connolly, to his surprise, didn’t mind. He lived in the hurried, measured hours of motel rooms. There would be time enough later for everything else.
“The car,” Mills said. “They found Karl’s car. One of Kisty’s men.”
“Down at S Site? It’s been here all along?”
“No.” Mills smiled. “Nothing that good. One of the box canyons off the plateau.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Join the club. Hell of a place to stash a car.”
“Wrecked?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for you.” He glanced at his watch. “For hours, in fact.”
“Well, let’s go.” Connolly led the way out of the office.
“Relax, it’s not going anywhere. We’ve got a guard posted.”
“We ought to call Doc.”
“I did. He’ll wait for us at the west gate.” Mills met Connolly’s glance. “I told him you’d be back by five.”
“Why five?”
Mills shrugged. “I’m in security, remember? I notice things. You’re always back by five.”
“Why is that, I wonder.”
“I figure somebody’s got to be home.”
“A detective.”
Mills smiled. “It passes the time. Quiet around here lately.”
“Feeling neglected?”
“Me? I like it quiet. The Germans surrendered, by the way, in case you haven’t heard.”
Connolly nodded. “You’d never know it here.” He looked around the Tech Area, as busy and undisturbed as ever.
“Oh, they’ll pop a few corks tonight. You know the longhairs-work first.”
“Unlike some of us, you mean.”
“No. I figure you’re pretty busy.” He grinned. “Just thinking about it is what gets me through the days.”
They drove past S Site, the explosives unit at the opposite end of the plateau, a new industrial plant of snaking steampipes, smokestacks, and hangars of heavy machinery. The Tech Area was the university, but S had the raw utility of a foundry, where blueprints were hammered into casings and people risked accidents.
“Who found it?”
“They were setting up a new firing range in one of the canyons off South Mesa. You know they like to keep the explosives off the Hill.”
“Yes, it’s comforting.”
Mills grinned. “Lucky this time, anyway. We never would have found it otherwise.”
At the end of a road thick with conifers, they found Holliday standing at the gate, chatting with the young sentry.
“You took your time.”
The sentry, recognizing Connolly, gave an innocent half-salute.
