trousers.
Jonathan's experience with CII told him exactly what had happened. The man had been gut shot, and as always in such cases, a convulsion of the sphincter had caused him to defecate. The mixed smells of blood and excrement were potent.
Jonathan stepped to him, carefully avoiding the thickening blood on the floor. He placed his fingertips against the throat. The man was not dead, but the pulse was faint and fluttery. The man lifted his head and looked blearily at Jonathan. There was no chance for him. The eyes had that wall-eyed spread that attends death. The pupils were contracted. There was dope in him.
Jonathan's attention was attracted to a slight pulsing motion in the man's lap. He was holding his guts in with his hands. He tried to speak, but only a glottal whisper came out. Jonathan put his ear close to the mouth, resisting the revulsion caused by the stink of human feces.
'I... I'm awfully... sorry. Disgraceful thing... I...'
'Who are you?'
'Shameful...'
'Who are you?'
Out of the tail of his eye, Jonathan saw Maggie standing at the bathroom door. Her face was a plane of disgust and horror. She was trying to calm herself by lighting her cigarette, but in her nervousness she couldn't operate the lighter.
'Get out.'
'What?' She was confused.
'Get out. He's ashamed.'
She disappeared.
'Oh, God... Oh, good God...' The man's body tensed. He stared up at Jonathan with anguish and disbelief, his teeth clenched, his head shuddering with his vein-bursting effort to cling to life. 'Oh! God!'
Then he let it go. He slumped and let life go.
He made one last sound. A name.
Then he slipped off the toilet seat almost gracefully, and his cheek came to rest in his own blood. His hands fell away, and the gray green guts protruded. The seat of his trousers was wet and stained with excrement.
Jonathan stood up and stepped back. For the first time he noticed something crammed in behind the toilet bowl. It was a Halloween mask—Casper the ghost. He stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind him.
Maggie was standing down the hall, her back pressed against the wall defensively, her face pale with terror. He put his arm around her for support and conducted her to the bedroom.
'Here. Lie down. Put your feet up.'
'I think I'm going to be sick,' she said faintly.
'It's shock. Go ahead, be sick. Put your finger down your throat.'
She tried, and gagged. 'I can't!'
'Listen to me, Maggie! I don't mean to be cruel or unfeeling, but you've got to pull yourself together. We've got to get out of here. That man in there... This is a setup. I've seen them before. For your own good, do exactly what I tell you. If you're going to be sick, do it. If not, get dressed. Then lie down and rest until I've done a couple of things. OK?'
She stared at him, confused and frightened by his cool efficiency. 'What is this? What's happening?'
'Just do what I told you. Here. Give me that. I'll light it for you.'
'Thank you.'
'There. Now, move over.'
'What are you going to do?'
'Nothing.' Jonathan lay full length on his back beside her and closed his eyes. He put his palms together in a prayerlike gesture and brought them to his face, the thumbs under his chin and the forefingers touching his lips. Then he regulated his breathing, taking very shallow breaths deep in the stomach. He focused his mind on the image of an unrippled pond, calm in a chill dawn light. Tension drained from him; the adrenaline seeped away; his mind grew peaceful and clear.
In three minutes he opened his eyes slowly and brought the room back into focus. He was all right.
He rose and moved around the room quickly, getting dressed and emptying pockets and drawers in search of money.
Maggie finished her cigarette, her eyes never leaving him; something in his adroit, professional movements fascinated her. And frightened her.
He looked over the room to see that everything was done, then he knelt on the bed and brushed the hair away from her forehead. 'Come on, now. Get dressed, dear.' He nuzzled into the closure of her dressing gown and kissed each of her breasts lightly. Then he left to collect money from the other bedrooms.
Typical of poor boys who have finally become financially comfortable, he was ostentatiously careless with money and kept a fair amount around in cash. By the time he had come back to their bedroom, combed and shaved, he had gathered almost three hundred pounds, largely in crumpled forgotten notes.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed, but still dazed.
He sipped his third cafe creme. Maggie had desultorily stirred hers when it arrived, but had not drunk it; a tan scum had formed on its surface. She stared into the glass unseeing, her thoughts focused within her. From their table deep within a coffee shop across the street, Jonathan watched the entrance of his Baker Street residence carefully. They had not spoken since ordering.
She broke the silence without looking up from her glass. 'Are we safe here? Right across the street?'
He nodded, his eyes not leaving the hotel's revolving door. 'Fairly safe, yes. They'll expect us to try to make distance.'
'They? Who are they?'
'I don't know.'
'But you have some idea?'
'It could be CII. An American intelligence organization I used to work for. Years ago.'
'Doing what?'
He glanced at her. How could he tell her he had been an assassin? Or even, to split moral hairs, a counterassassin? He returned to watching the doorway across the street.
'But why would they want to implicate you in... in that terrible business back there?'
'They have devious, perverted minds. Impossible to know what they're up to. Chances are they want me to work for them again.'
'I don't understand.'
'Drink your coffee.'
'I don't want it.'
They returned to silence and to their own thoughts. And after a time the impulse to speak came to both at once.
'Do you know what was the worst... Pardon? You were saying?'
'Look, Maggie, I'm very sorry... Excuse me... The worst what?'
'Sorry... No, you go ahead.'
'Sorry... I was just going to say the obvious, love. I'm terribly sorry you're implicated in this.'
'Am I? Really implicated, Jonathan?'
He shook his head. 'No, no. Not really. I'll get you clear of it. Don't worry.'
'And what about you?'
'I can take care of myself.'
'True.' She searched his eyes. 'Too well, really.'
'What is that supposed to mean?'
'Well, that's what I was going to say before. When I think about it, the worst part of the whole thing was your reaction. So brisk. Professional. As though you were used to this sort of business. You were terribly calm.'
