“I have to be home by seven. That’s when the babysitter leaves.”
Becker blinked.
“I have a child, remember?”
“You do this every day?”
“Do what? Go home? Take care of my son? Act like a parent? Yes, I do it every day. That is what mothers do, isn’t it? Or did I get that part wrong?”
“Sounding a little defensive there, Karen.”
“Why do you people always act surprised when you hear that I’m a mother? I do mother things. I love my son. I make myself available for him.”
“ ‘You people’?”
“I’m acting like a mother. If we could get more men to act like fathers, the world wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.”
“Why do I feel I have to justify myself?” Becker asked. “I don’t have any children.”
“Then I can’t expect you to understand,” she said. Karen was furious with herself. She had vowed to keep the meeting professional.
“Understand what?”
Karen started abruptly for her car.
“Your car or mine,” she said. “Suit yourself.”
“Are you so sure I’m coming at all?” Becker asked, staying on the porch.
She turned to him angrily.
“I don’t have time for you to be coy,” she said. “Of course you’re coming.”
Becker hesitated.
“Oh, Christ, don’t make me woo you,” she said. “We’ve already done that number. Let’s get on with business.”
She got into her car and buckled up, not looking at him anymore.
Becker thought about telling her to go stuff herself. He thought about it all the way to the car.
They were already on the Merritt Parkway and heading east before he asked, “What made you so sure I was coming?”
“Because the trail is still warm and you know you have a better chance of people remembering something now than you will a day from now. You’re smart enough to know that.”
He looked at her curiously. She was concentrating on her driving, pushing the car to eighty miles per hour, flashing her headlights in annoyance at anyone who slowed her down. Presumably she was saving her siren until she hit ninety. Her jaw was clenched and thrust forward defiantly. Becker realized she was angry as hell about something and he just happened to be available.
It wasn’t until they swept north on Route 8 that she seemed to relax. Traffic had cleared and she sped along in the left lane basically without interference.
“What made you so sure of me?” Becker asked again.
This time she turned from the road long enough to glance at him. The tension eased from her face and was replaced by sympathy.
“I knew you’d have to study the photographs.” she said. Her eyes went back to the highway. “You told me something about your childhood once. John. Do you remember?”
“No.”
She sniffed. “Men don’t. They never remember anything.”
“Women do,” he added.
“Yes, we do. We labor under the delusion that the things you tell us are true.”
“I never lied to you,” he said.
“No.”
After a pause he added, “And I do remember,” although he was not certain that he did.
He briefed her on what he had learned-and not learned-during his visit to the Stamford mall. She spoke into her tape recorder as she drove, taking notes on what he said. When he was finished she telephoned her office in New York and gave orders in a crisp, clipped tone.
“Fax me the results to…” She turned to Becker. “What’s your fax number?”
“I don’t have a fax,” he said.
Karen sighed. “I’ll have the Bureau get you one. It’s time to enter the decade, John.” Into the phone she said, “Malva, fax the results to my house. I want it waiting for me by the time I get home
… Yes, seven o’clock, of course.” She hung up and eased into the right lane as she saw the exit for Bickford approaching.
She was aware that Becker was studying her openly. “What?”
“I’m remembering you ten years ago when you were still in Fingerprinting and looking desperately for a way to get out of there. Now you’re in charge of how many people?”
“And I was nicer then, right? Sweeter, softer, more feminine? Something like that?”
“Younger.”
“Oh, you smooth-talking son of a bitch. How did you know that was exactly what I wanted to hear?”
“I didn’t mean you looked old,” Becker said defensively. “I meant you seem very much in control.”
“Do you ever say anything tactful to anyone?”
“Not if I’m interested in them.”
Karen had started to say something, but stopped abruptly. She glanced at him, trying to read his meaning in his face, but he seemed to be studying the traffic with great curiosity.
“I didn’t mean to be so short with you,” she said. It was not what she wanted to say, but it seemed safer. She knew him well enough to know that she should never ask Becker a question unless she was prepared to deal with the truth.
“I am a bit defensive about some things,” she continued. “You have no idea how hard it is, being a mother as well as an agent.”
“They’re a pretty chauvinist bunch,” Becker said. “I imagine they give you a lot of grief. At least behind your back.”
“Having a woman tell them what to do shrivels their gonads right up,” she said.
“It’s not the gonads that shrivel, but I take your point,” he said.
“I thought they did something like that.”
“They sort of recede into the body cavity,” Becker said. “If it’s cold-or dangerous. It’s the penis that shrivels.”
“That I know about,” she said, trying to keep the ridicule from her voice. It amazed her that her contempt for men had seemed to increase in direct proportion to the amount of time she had lived without one. She had expected it to work the other way around, absence making the heart grow fonder and so forth. Maybe her fellow agents were right in their muttered assessment of her, she thought. Maybe she really did need a good fuck.
“They call me dragon lady. I know that,” she said.
Becker dismissed it. “They call any woman in authority dragon lady. Don’t take it personally. Just think of all the things they call Hatcher.”
“They mean those things personally,” she pointed out.
“Only because Hatcher deserves them. You don’t.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe I do deserve them. Maybe I am a stony bitch. You wouldn’t know. You don’t know me at all anymore.”
“I’m starting to.”
“You’ve got no idea how hard it is. None of you men know. Just try it one time, just try being a hard-assed executive-but not too hard, don’t want to threaten anyone’s masculinity-and then turn into a loving mother every night at seven until you get him off to school the next morning. All those articles about single parents? They’re not kidding; it’s a bitch. Just try it for a month or two and see how sweet you are.”
“You seem to be managing awfully well,” he said dryly.
She laughed. “Yeah. I’m a whiz. I’m acting, acting all the time. I feel like the world’s biggest hypocrite.”
