Reestablishing contact on his own terms, he pointed out that he had recently taken a loss on Ms. Mendes's behalf. Her association with Jaubert had been extended somewhat in compensation. Was the negotiant in a position to purchase rights to seven and a half years? He was. Jaubert named a price and interest rate, assuming that the man would amortize the cost with a ten-year note. The reply stated a lower price, to be paid in cash. A mutually agreeable sum was found. Jaubert mentioned that he preferred, of course, Singaporean dollars. There was a slight delay. Zlotys were offered. This time it was Jaubert's turn to hesitate. Poland was volatile, but there was an interesting possibility of making a quick profit on the currency aspect of the deal.
Done, he agreed. And watching the ensuing flood of numbers wash over the screen, Jean-Claude Jaubert became a modestly richer man.
On September 14, a third transmission from Alpha Centauri was picked up, fifteen days after the second. In the midst of the jubilation, the Arecibo staff put aside their initial reactions to the small, icy woman whose profession threatened their jobs and a little farewell party for Sofia Mendes was incorporated into the general exuberance. George Edwards arranged to have food delivered to the cafeteria and quite a few people dropped by to have some pizza or cake and to wish her good luck. Elsewhere. Far from Arecibo, they hoped, laughing good- naturedly, but serious all the same. Sofia took these ambivalent farewells with cool grace but seemed anxious to leave. Her contractual relationship with Dr. Yanoguchi discharged, she said good-bye to Jimmy Quinn and thanked George Edwards, asking him to relay her best wishes to his wife and to Dr. Sandoz. George, smiling mysteriously, suggested that they'd all be seeing one another again sometime, one way or another.
Arriving at her apartment that afternoon, wrung out from the unremitting labor of the previous weeks, Sofia fell onto the bed and fought tears. Nonsense, she told herself, just get on with it. But she conceded the need for a day of rest before informing Jaubert that she was ready for the next assignment. He had contacted her in August about the Jesuit asteroid project. It would be interesting work. There were compensations for her situation, she reminded herself.
To Sandoz's intense dismay, the Jesuits had only been willing to contract her services through Jaubert. She was surprised at the depth of his shock. Business is business, she told him and reminded Sandoz that he'd said himself that he had no authority to speak. She'd harbored no hopes, she assured him, and consequently had none to be dashed. That seemed to make him feel worse. A strange man, she thought. Intelligent, but naive. And slow to react to changed circumstances, she felt. Then again, most people were.
Releasing her hair from its habitual chignon, she ran a bath, planning to soak in it until the water was tepid. Idly, waiting for the tub to fill, she checked her messages to see what, if anything, was awaiting her attention.
She read the transcript of the negotiations twice and still found it impossible to believe. The sheer viciousness of Peggy Soong's practical joke choked her. Hands shaking, stunned by the violence of her outrage, Sofia turned off the bathwater, tied her hair back and went to work on breaking the file's intervening encryption, hoping to trace it to Soong, trying to imagine what she could do to the woman that was terrible enough to repay her for this pointless, heartless—
It took only minutes to realize that Peggy was not involved with this at all. It was, in fact, Jaubert's code. Sofia had written it herself, early in their association. It had been modified over the years, but her style was unmistakable.
Working through the transcript, she confirmed that the transaction had taken place. She accessed the international monetary exchange and saw that Jaubert had made a 2.3 percent gain overnight by hanging on to the zlotys. Singapore was down; Jaubert's luck was intact. But she could not pry from the network the origin of the money. Who on earth would have done such a thing? she wondered, very nearly frightened now. Jaubert had been a reasonable man to work for, had never asked her to do anything illegal or distasteful. But the possibility had always existed.
There had to be a legal transfer of rights to her. She combed through the civil records covering her contract, registered in Monaco, thinking over and over, Who owns me now? What bloodsucking vampire owns me now? Finding the correct file, she read the final entry and sat back, hand to her mouth, throat so tight she thought she might suffocate.
As though from a distance, she heard a wail. She walked numbly to the window and pushed the curtain away, looking outside for the child who was sobbing somewhere nearby. There was no one there, of course, no one else anywhere to be heard. After a while, she walked to the bathroom to blow her nose and wash her face and think about what she might do next.
When the bell rang two nights later, Anne Edwards went to the door and saw Emilio looking like a boy again, standing behind a tall, lean priest in his fifties. Late that night, alone at last in their bedroom, Anne, eyes bulging, confessed to George in a tiny, strangled voice, 'That is the butt-ugliest man I ever met. I don't know what I expected but—wow!'
'Well, hell, a Texas Jesuit! I pictured the Marlboro man dressed up like Father Guido Sarducci,' George admitted in a whisper. 'Jesus. Which eye are you supposed to look at?'
'The one that looks back at you,' Anne said decisively.
'I like D.W., I really do, but all during dinner I kept wondering if he'd be offended if I put a bag over his head,' George said, suddenly breaking up. That set Anne off, and pretty soon they were hanging on to each other, appalled and ashamed, laughing helplessly, but trying to be as quiet as they could, since the subject of their merriment was in the guest room, right down the hallway.
'Oh, God, we're bad!' Anne gasped, struggling to sober up and losing the battle. 'This is awful. But, shit! That one eye, wandering off on its own recognizance!'
'The poor bastard,' George said quietly, getting ahold of himself momentarily, trying to sound sympathetic. There was a fleeting silence, as they each pictured D.W., his long broken nose almost as badly askew as his cast eye, loose-lipped grin displaying teeth just as disheveled.
'I'm not a cruel woman,' Anne whispered, pleading for understanding. 'But I kept wanting to kind of tidy him up, you know?'
'Maybe if we wear the bags?' George asked. Anne, whining and holding her stomach, fell onto the bed and buried her face in a pillow. George, completely undone, followed her.
It had been an evening of laughter, in fact, and none of it at D.W.'s expense until the Edwardses reached their bedroom after midnight.
'Dr. Anne Edwards and Mr. George Edwards,' Emilio had said, formally introducing his guest at their door, 'I would like to present to you Dalton Wesley Yarbrough, New Orleans Provincial of the Society of Jesus.'
'From Waco, Texas, ma'am,' D. W. Yarbrough began.
'Yes, I know, Vatican City of the Southern Baptists,' Anne said. If she was startled by him, there was no hint of it then. She took the hand he offered, knowing what was coming but ready for him.
'I sure am pleased to meet you, ma'am. Milio has told me a lot about you,' D.W. said, smiling, purest malice dancing in his variously arranged eyes. 'An' I want straight off to extend to you the profound sympathy of the entire state of Texas on the humiliating loss Dallas handed Cleveland in the World Series last year.'
'Well, we all have our crosses to bear, Father.' Anne sighed bravely. 'It can't be easy for a Texan to say Mass while the entire congregation is praying, Oh, Jesus, just give us one more oil boom—this time we promise we won't piss it all away.'
D.W. roared, and they were off and running. Emilio, anxious that these people who meant so much to him should like one another, unleashed a smile like sunrise, went to his chair in the corner and settled in to watch the show. The dinner conversation, as hot and colorful as the barbecue sauce, soon found its center of gravity around politics, there being a presidential-election campaign heating up in which a Texan figured prominently, as usual.
'The country's already tried Texans,' George protested.
'And you cowards keep throwin' 'em back to us after just one term!' D.W. hollered.
'Lyndon Johnson, George Bush,' George soldiered on.
'No, no, no. You can't blame Bush on Texas,' D.W. insisted. 'Real Texans never use the word 'summer' as a verb.'
Wordlessly, Emilio handed a napkin to Anne, who wiped her nose.
