He did not speak to her again until they reached the car.
'Got any other clothes with you?' he asked.
'No,' she answered, surprised. 'Why?'
'Things are going to get kind of grubby,' he said.
'You'd be better off in a pair of jeans.'
'Agents don't wear jeans on duty. This outfit conforms to Bureau dress code.'
'It doesn't suit me, though. I'm your boss now, Haddad. They told you that, didn't they?'
'They said I was to assist you.'
'That means doing what I tell you to do, all right?'
Pegeen did not understand the harshness in his tone. He sounded angry with her. Her first reaction was to get angry herself.
'They didn't tell me why you wanted me to assist you,' she said.
'I didn't tell them.'
'Want to tell me?' she inquired sharply.
Becker studied her for a moment as she maneuvered the car into traffic.
'What do you want to hear-I asked for you because you're the best agent I've ever met?'
'That would be a nice opening, then you could tell me the truth,' she said.
'You're not going to like the truth,' he said.
Pegeen felt herself blushing. He wanted to be with me, she thought. He wanted to spend time with me, to be with me, he's been thinking about me just as I have been thinking of him. Her ears were on fire, her damned ears were giving her away again.
'What's the truth?' she asked softly.
'Let's go to your place and change your clothes,' he said.
She glanced at him for as long as she dared before turning back to the traffic.
'I'm not sure that's a good idea,' she said. In fact, she thought it was a splendid idea, if not a very safe one.
'Well, let's try it anyway,' Becker said. 'Sometimes my ideas are better than they look at first glance.'
Pegeen paused for several moments before saying, 'I've given it several glances now. I still don't think it's a good idea.'
'Do what you're told, Haddad,' he said gruffly. 'I'm not in a mood to argue with you about everything I say.'
He laid his head back against the seat. 'Wake me when we get there,' he said. 'I haven't slept for several days.'
'I'm glad I have that soothing effect on you,' she said, trying to figure out just what was going on.
'It's not you, kid. It's the car.' He closed his eyes and by the time Pegeen had swallowed the 'kid' and fought back her urge to retaliate with a cutting remark about his age, Becker was asleep.
When she stopped the car in her driveway, Pegeen had still not decided quite how to handle the situation. Becker made it easy for her. He rolled his head towards her, opened one eye, and said, 'Jeans and something old on top, and boots.' He then closed his eye and rolled his head away from her.
Racked with confusion and conflicting desires, Pegeen dressed in front of the mirror over her bureau. The jeans were easy enough, but the selection of the blouse took some consideration. She contemplated her reflection as she held a number of possible selections under her chin and against her bra. The brassiere was demure and proper and perfectly appropriate for her business outfit, but not right for the more casual tops she was contemplating. She decided on a purple underwire push-up bra and paused to look at her naked torso. Her breasts were full, almost too large for her body size, she thought, but beautifully formed. She was very proud of the way they looked and regretted at times that her best features were necessarily hidden under her clothes while her face, which she could only tolerate, and her ears, which she loathed, represented her before the world.
As she admired her nakedness, she half wished that Becker would suddenly walk in on her. She imagined him pausing for a moment to admire her beauty, then taking her into his arms and kissing her softly before trailing his tongue down to her breasts.
Christ, she thought, putting on the bra and tugging on a top, you're going to be up on a charge of sexual harassment in the workplace if you don't stop this. The man is asleep in the car, not in here, that ought to tell you something.
As she approached the car, Becker rolled his head towards her once more.
'Cover yourself,' he said.
Pegeen thought her face would burst into flame. She knew she should not have chosen the tank top.
'I am covered,' she said angrily.
'Warmer,' he said. He rolled- away from her and closed his eyes again.
Fuck you, too, she thought, storming back into the house. She reemerged with a flannel shirt buttoned at the wrists.
'Good,' he said. 'It's going to be cold. We're going underground.'
'The tank top was less conspicuous for going undercover than this is. I look like a lumberjack.'
'Not undercover, Haddad. Underground.'
Becker handed her a slip of paper with an address in downtown Nashville written on it.
'Wake me when we get there,' he said.
'Is this how it's going to work? You give me orders, then go to sleep?
If you'd let me in on what the plan is, I could do a little thinking on my own. My brain does work, you know.'
'I thought we got past all this defensive shit the last time around,' he said.
'There seems to be some difference of opinion as to what exactly happened last time.'
He opened both eyes and studied her.
'What do you mean?' he asked.
'I'll wake you when we get there,' she said, throwing the car into gear too abruptly.
'Something wrong, Haddad?'
'What could be wrong?'
'The address is for the headquarters of the speleological society. The guys who crawl around in caves.'
'I know what speleology is. They're spelunkers.'
'They call themselves cavers these days,' he said.
'You ever done any caving?'
'No. Have you?'
'Hell no,' he said. 'I'm scared of places like that.'
Once more he turned away from her and seemed to sleep.
Erskine Browne was built along the lines of a stiff rope.
When he stood behind his desk to greet his visitors, it was easy for Becker to see why he had been nicknamed Weasel by his colleagues. Before arthritis had debilitated his flexibility, Browne had been legendary within caving circles for his ability to squeeze himself into any hole and wriggle through it like a ferret after its dinner. Even now, with his bent and frozen joints, his hands shaped into claws by the arthritis, he looked to Becker as if he could slip through an s-curve if he had to, and his lively eyes seemed to indicate that he wouldn't mind it at all.
'Becker, isn't it?' Browne asked.
'John Becker, that's right. And this is Special Agent Haddad.'
Browne offered his gnarled hand to Pegeen.
'Agent Haddad. A pleasure. I didn't realize they made agents so pretty.'
He winked at Becker.
Pegeen decided that Browne's age allowed him a certain dispensation in the sexism category. Any man over sixty was to be excused for the occasional inappropriate remark because of a deficient early education.
'Only the good ones,' Becker said soberly.
Browne winked again and offered such a knowing grin to Pegeen that she changed her mind about dispensation.
