And so she kissed me again, greedily; I savored it, then pulled gently away.
“Take it easy, baby,” I said, running a finger around my clerical collar. “I got a vow of celibacy to maintain.”
And she laughed—with only a little hysteria in it—and said, “Nathan Heller a priest? That’s good…. That’s rich.”
“That’s Father Brian O’Leary,” I corrected, stepping away from her, taking a look around her room. “If anyone should ask….”
Her living quarters were identical to mine, save for a few additional allowances for an American “guest”: a well-worn faded green upholstered armchair and, near the window looking onto the neighboring house and the rooftops beyond, a small Japanese-magazine-arrayed table with a reading lamp and an ashtray bearing the residue of several incense sticks. Incense fragrance lingered, apparently Amy’s antidote to the ever-present Garapan bouquet of dried fish and copra.
But she had the same woven-reed carpet, padded quilts for a bed, low-slung teakwood table with floor cushions. On the clothesrack, among a few simple dresses and the inevitable plaid shirts, hung the oil-stained, weathered leather flight jacket she’d worn when she flew me in her Vega from St. Louis to Burbank. I checked the walls—including behind her dresser mirror—for drilled holes, found nothing to indicate we were being monitored. I didn’t figure we had much to worry about: the Japanese weren’t exactly known for their technical wizardry.
Nonetheless, we both kept our voices hushed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, studying me with wide eyes that didn’t seem to know whether to be filled with joy, disbelief or fear. “How in God’s name did you…?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” she said, with a sigh of a laugh, “hell no,” a rare swear word from this proper creature, and she flung herself into my arms again. I squeezed her tight, then held her face in my hands and studied it, memorized it, and kissed her as sweetly as I knew how.
“Why did do you this?” she asked, cheek pressed against my chest, arms clasped around me, grasped around me, as if she were afraid I might bolt. “Why did you…?”
“You know me,” I said. “I was hired. Works out to a grand a week.”
And she was laughing quietly into my suitcoat.
“You just can’t admit it, can you?” She looked up at me, grinning her wonderful gap-toothed grin. “You’re a romantic fool. My mercenary detective…coming halfway around the world for a woman….”
There was something I had to ask, had to know, though I knew she was brimming with so many questions she didn’t know where or how to start. With us standing there, in each other’s arms, I said, “I thought…maybe…”
She was studying me now, almost amused. “What?”
“That there might be…someone else here with you.”
“Who?” She winced. “Fred? He’s in that horrible jail…poor thing.”
“No, I…Amy, was there a baby?” It came out in a rush of ridiculous words. “Did you have your baby and they took it away from you?”
She smiled half a smile, and it settled on one side of her face; she touched the tip of my nose with a finger lightly, then asked, “Who told you I was pregnant?”
“Your secretary.”
“Margot?” The grin widened. “I bet you slept with her.”
“Almost. How about you?”
She slapped my chest. “I shouldn’t have confided in that foolish girl. I hope you’re not too disappointed…. I hope you didn’t make this trip just to be a father…but most men would be relieved to hear it was a false alarm.”
I hugged her to me, whispered my response into her hair. “I am relieved…not that I wouldn’t mind being a father to a child of yours…but to think our kid would be caught up in these circumstances.”
She drew away, her eyes hooded in understanding, nodded, taking my hand, leading me to the quilted sleeping mats on the floor. We sat there, cross-legged, like kids playing Indian, holding hands.
Her smile was a half-circle of embarrassment. “Nathan, I’m afraid…it was something else…”
“What was?”
“What I thought was the baby. There never will be a baby…not in these circumstances, or any other.”
“What do you mean?”
She squeezed my hand. “What I thought was pregnancy, Nathan…was early menopause…” Shaking her head, her expression grooved with wry regret, she added, “The, uh, symptoms
I slipped an arm around her, pulled her against me. “You picked a hell of a climate for hot flashes, lady.”
She laughed softly. “I didn’t feel a thing…I was so ill with dysentery when they brought me here…can you imagine? I arrive at the dysentery capital of the world
“Were you ever in that jail?”
She rolled her eyes, nodded vigorously. “Oh my goodness, yes…the ‘calaboose,’ they call it. Same cellblock as Fred—that dirty little building with the four nasty cells. But I only lasted three days. I passed out and woke up, I don’t know…six months later.”
