The dog walked up to Margaret and pushed his face close to Doctor Henry Metzger, who was now engaged in licking one of his paws. He placed the other on the dog’s nose.
“Don’t worry, Chinese,” said Kepler. “Chances are if he eats a kid he’ll probably eat his bicycle too, so there won’t be any evidence. Now unless you want to bring in a few poisonous snakes first, or a crocodile, I suggest we get back to business.”
With some difficulty Chinese Gordon moved his eyes to Kepler, but every few seconds Chinese Gordon glanced at the dog. “Okay. The papers and television people keep saying that we’re terrorists. That poor scared parking guy at the university gave them a description of us that leaves it open whether we’re black or white. I guess he’s afraid of dark people and afraid of us, so—”
“I read that you might be a new Samoan independence group,” Margaret said.
“I get the idea,” said Immelmann. “Who should we be? We can send them a ransom note in Korean. I’ve got a girl who writes Korean and it looks great. It looks like O, I, and L all printed sideways and backwards, upside down, and on top of each other—”
“Save it,” said Chinese Gordon. “We don’t want to do that. If we do, your friend will know.”
“No,” Immelmann said. “You see, we give her a long thing to translate and just pick out the words we want, one here, one there.”
“And then the answer comes back in Korean,” Kepler said. “Brilliant. Chinese is right. They think we’re terrorists, which means they think we’re nuts, which is good. They don’t know where we’re from, which is also good. If they think we’re from someplace in particular, they’ll start thinking about what they have to lose in that place, and maybe they’re not willing to take the chance by giving us money.”
“The less they have to work with, the better,” Chinese Gordon said.
The dog turned away from Margaret and walked toward Chinese Gordon. On the stairs there was a bump- bump-bump as the rope pulled its unseen burden three steps higher. “Damn,” said Chinese Gordon quietly. “Damn.” The dog placed its forepaws across Chinese Gordon’s legs and pushed off the ground. “Oh, God,” Chinese Gordon said, and the dog gave a strange low growl as it pushed its nose close to Chinese Gordon’s throat.
“Isn’t that sweet?” said Margaret. “He wants to sit on your lap, just like Doctor Henry Metzger.” Sadly she added, “He’s just too big.”
“Margaret,” said Chinese Gordon in a calm, quiet tone, “this noble animal is preparing to tear my head off.” The dog’s jaws were clamped shut, but he could see the two front fangs barely obscured by the black lips.
The dog gave another long, low growl. This time it seemed to start somewhere deep in his massive chest and move upward to his throat.
Kepler said to Immelmann, “What do you think?”
Immelmann nodded, his brow furrowed judiciously. “She’s right, Chinese. He’s trying to purr.”
“Hello?” There was the slight reserve in her voice that made it a different voice, one he never heard except in the instant before she knew who it was.
“Hello, honey.”
“Ben. I was just wondering if I should get in the bathtub or wait a few more minutes. I fooled you for once.”
“I’ll get you next time. Is everything okay?”
“Of course. Miss me?”
“I always miss you. I should be able to get back in a few days.” There had been an edge in her voice—what was it? There had been thirty years of telephone calls, sometimes made from cities thousands of miles from the place they both pretended he was. She was holding something, almost as though it were an object he couldn’t see. “What have you been doing?”
She sighed, and he could feel she was deciding to pass the object to him. “I went to dinner tonight at Pauline and Charles Compton’s house.”
“We haven’t seen them in—it must be three or four years. What brought that on?” Charles Compton had been retired since the purge of 1977. Now he worked for an insurance agency. In the old days Charles and Pauline had been among the few people they could see socially. Only with other couples in the Company was there no awkwardness in the fact that nobody ever talked about business. There was no need to maintain the usual terrible watchfulness about dates and cities that came up in conversation. All four were comfortable confining conversation to the present—the children, this year’s books, this week’s movies.
Alice’s voice was thoughtful. “I don’t really know. Pauline called last night and said they’d tried the Foundation office during the day. I guess I was the consolation prize.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“They were cordial. Pauline’s a good cook.”
“Sounds pretty dull. What’s the problem?”
“He’s changed. No, I know we’ve all changed, and I know I’m not the one to talk, with my hair looking like the topping on a fancy dessert. But you know, Ben, he was drunk.”
“Well, he’s probably feeling business pressure. The insurance companies must be in the same shape as everything else. What did he say?”
“Nothing. Not a thing that’s worth mentioning. Most of the evening he just drank and asked questions about you. As I was leaving, he said the oddest thing. No, it wasn’t odd in itself, it was just the way he said it. It was, ‘Tell Ben not to abandon old friends.’”
“Oh, well. I’ll give him a call when I’m home. He’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll have a few drinks with him, if that’s what he’s doing these days.”
“If you have to. But just remember, don’t abandon old wives.”
“Never. I guess I’ll turn in now and let you get that bath. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Ben.”
“Sleep tight, baby.”
Porterfield sat on the edge of the bed, staring out over the balcony at the vastness of the valley stretching far to the north, the millions of lights seeming to form a glow above the earth brighter here near the center, dimmer and less substantial in the distance. So it had gotten as far as Charles Compton already. The word was moving through the old boy network of retired agents and peripheral people, and some of them were worried. Some of them had things to worry about. He considered for a moment having someone pull out Charles Compton’s file, but he dismissed the idea. It didn’t really matter which chapter of Donahue’s opus was the one that kept Compton awake at night. Compton was of no use to him.
CHINESE GORDON STROLLED ACROSS the vast lawn, feeling the thick, elastic layer of wet grass under his feet and smelling the warm, still evening air, fresh and moist. “Just like a golf course,” he said. “The Official Federal Country Club of Wilshire Boulevard.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Kepler asked.
“It’s brilliant, actually. You saw the gardeners leave when they turned off the sprinklers. The conditions are perfect—wet, healthy grass, a beautiful sunset, ideal wind conditions. You should learn to take pleasure in being a tiller of the soil.” He took a deep breath and blew it out through his teeth. “And loosen up a little. You’re holding your trowel like you were going to stab somebody with it.”
Kepler contemplated the luminous deep purple sky beyond the massive white shape of the building. Chinese Gordon moved off a few yards to adjust the nozzle of his weed sprayer. After a few tentative squirts he had choked it to a thin, straight stream. Kepler heard him chuckle and then begin to hum a medley of Sousa marches as he clutched the spray tank under his left arm like a bagpipe. Kepler knelt down and carved out a circle of turf with his trowel, dug a few inches deeper, and buried the bottle. When he looked up he could see Chinese Gordon in the twilight walking back and forth with the sprayer, dousing the lawn with a steady stream of silvery fluid.
On the boulevard the continuous stream of cars was already a blur of headlights reflecting on polished metal,
