The Green Eagle Score

be pleased by it but he wouldn’t try to do anything to help her. Unless he saw some gain for himself in it.”

“You mean he seems cold?”

“He doesn’t care. There’s no emotion there.”

“Oh, well,” Dr Godden said, and even though she wasn’t looking at him she could hear the gentle smile in his voice, “everyone has emotions. We all have them—you, me, everyone. Even this man Parker. Perhaps he has them bottled up more than most people, that’s all.”

”That’s just the same, then,” she said. “If he has them and keeps them inside, it’s just the same as not having them at all.”

“That’s very true. But of course you’re seeing this man while he’s at work, you might say. Perhaps in Puerto Rico he’s a very different kind of man. Perhaps there he relaxes and allows himself to feel his emotions.”

She shook her head. “I can’t imagine him ever feeling emotions. I can’t imagine him crying. Or even laughing.”

“Seems to me,” Dr Godden said gently, “you’ve turned this man into some sort of myth figure, something bigger than life.”

“I don’t know, maybe I have. I suppose I have. Because now it’s real, he means it’s real, it’s going to happen.”

“He’s the organizer you told me about on Monday.”

It always surprised and pleased her when he remembered the things she told him. He had other patients, he was being paid to listen to her, he didn’t have to remember, but he did. “Yes, he is,” she said. “He came up from Puerto Rico.”

“Has he met with Stan?”

“Stan took him out to the base today. That’s why I’m late.”

“Perhaps this man will decide the job is too difficult. Perhaps he’ll tell Stan it can’t be done.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “They’ll do it,” she said. “I know they will. I can see it in all their eyes.”

“The new man, too?”

“Him especially.”

“What do you see in his eyes?”

“I don’t know, it’s—it’s hard to explain. That he’s going to do it, that nothing will stop him from doing it.”

“Hmmmm. When do they plan it for?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, it would be a payday, wouldn’t it? Or the day before. When does the Air Force pay again?”

“The fifteenth. Next Tuesday.”

“Four days from now,” he said. “Can they get ready that quickly?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I remember, with Marty, it always took a week or two, sometimes more. They don’t even have all the men yet. Marty said it would take more than just the three of them.”

“So it would probably be the payday after next,” Dr Godden said. “The first of October. Let me see, that’s a Thursday. Three weeks from yesterday. They probably won’t want to stay around this area much longer than that. That is, if you’re right and they really intend to do it.”

“They’ll do it,” she said, in the tone of voice she might have used to say, everybody dies.

“We have three weeks to find out,” Dr Godden said. “But if it’s still in such early stages, I don’t think you can really be as sure as you are. You know what I think it is?”

“The same old thing,” she said, smiling a bit shyly at the pattern in the carpet, knowing what he was going to say.

“You tell me,” he said, urging her gently.

“It’s the feeling of being undeserving,” she said. “The feeling that I don’t deserve to have anything good, so I won’t get anything good. I’m sure they’ll do it because I’m sure they’ll get caught and then I won’t have Stan. Because I don’t deserve Stan.” She sneaked a quick look at him, saw his sympathetic face, his balding head gleaming in the light. Looking quickly back at the carpet she said, “I know that’s part of it. But that isn’t the whole thing. I mean, Marty did get caught.”

“Once,” Dr Godden said. “And how many times did he commit robberies and not get caught?”

“Oh, lots,” she said. She was no longer amazed at how easily she could talk with Dr Godden about robberies and criminals. It was almost as though he were a priest; different, but sympathetic, never judging, never condemning, never trying to force her to conform to what society might want. How many people could she talk to about Marty, be truthful, tell them her ex-husband was a robber, it was his profession? Most people would be shocked, they’d want to call the police or at least to stop having anything to do with her. But Dr Godden took everything just the same; calm and understanding and without judging. She could talk to him about anything, about sex or Marty or her parents or anything at all and it was never a problem.

Now, calm as ever, Dr Godden was saying, “Then there’s no reason to believe they’ll be caught this time. After all, Stan is the only one among them who isn’t a professional at this sort of thing.”

“But even if they don’t get caught this time,” she said, exploring her fear further now, “it won’t be any good. Stan will want to do it again, he’ll want to become like Marty. Or like the other man, Parker.”

“I see,” Dr Godden said. “You’re afraid Stan will turn out to be your first husband again.”