'I heard Livingston's being phased out.'
'That's too much.'
'Like an obsolete medium-range bomber,' I said. 'Keep it under your hat.'
'You'd think they'd have some kind of Christmas spirit. What a lousy time for a purge.'
'Enough chitchat. Get Carter Hemmings in here and tell him to step lively.'
She went out and I called Sullivan. The phone rang eight times and she didn't answer. I let it ring some more.
('Dear God, I have to get out of here,' I said into the mouthpiece.)
Finally I hung up. Carter Hemmings came in then. He made his way to the sofa, moving sideways and in a very tentative manner, hunched slightly, feudal and obsequious.
'Carter, I thought we agreed that you were going to see Weede this morning with some kind of progress report on the laser beam thing.'
'The way I understood it, Dave, I was supposed to see you first thing in the morning. But when I came by your office, Binky said you weren't in yet. I came back ten minutes later and she said you had just gone to Weede's office for the meeting.'
'Your name came up during the drone-fest, Carter. Weede said he's going to put your ass in a sling if you're not careful. What do you hear from B.G. Haines? She told me she had a rotten time that night. I haven't been hearing good things about you, Carter. Everybody has to pull his weight. You'll find that Weede can be ruthless when the occasion warrants. Your secretary is a fucking blabbermouth. I have work to do now.'
He left. I tore up the notes I had taken during the meeting. I took a box of paper clips out of the middle drawer and began fitting one clip inside another, making a chain. In ten minutes or so I fastened about one hundred paper clips. Then I fitted together the two at each end. This gave me a circle, which I spread before me on the desk. I put nine pencils inside the circle, arranging them in three triangles of three pencils each. I put an eraser inside each triangle. Then I took the torn note paper, dropped it into an ashtray, lit a match and set the paper on fire. I placed the ashtray with the burning paper at a point roughly equidistant from the nearest corner of each triangle and at the approximate center of the circle. When the fire was about to go out I tore up more paper and tossed it into the ashtray. I kept doing this until Binky came in to get her coat, which she always hung behind my door.
'Lunchtime already?'
'What's that?' she said.
'Demonology.'
She came around to my side of the desk for a closer look. I slumped in the chair, leaned over and put my hand on her calf, making slow figure eights with the tips of my fingers.
'It's weird, David.'
'Works quite well, I think. Note the circular ashtray. Circles within circles. Like the pain in my head. The erasers don't do much for it though. Next time you're in the supply room see if they have any triangular erasers. This is serious stuff'
'What's it supposed to mean?'
'It's a calling forth of the powers of darkness. Is Hallie Lewin pregnant or was she just kidding?'
My hand was at the soft cove behind the knee which, when the leg is bent, has always seemed to me one of the very best places on a woman's body; then, as if obliging my bias, she shifted her weight to that leg, the left, so that her knee, answering the shift and in complete control of it, buckled slightly, creating that scooped-out and supremely tender indentation for the rent-free pleasure of my hand. Weede Denney was standing in the doorway.
'Come on in, Weede,' I said. 'Say, how's your wife these days?'
Binky edged away from me. I could see the doors opening in the dark room in my mind, three, four, five doors opening, and fresh light planking down across the floor. In the past I had always been able to control the doors but now they seemed to swing open freely, wind-driven, banging the walls. Control was still possible but I did not try to attain it. Light began to fill the room and I thought I might reach eight doors, a new record.
'Didn't mean to disturb you,' Weede said, flushing somewhat. 'Just wanted to see you for a moment or two; it can wait.'
'Binky, I don't know if you've ever met Mrs. Denney. She's an absolutely intrepid woman. Weede, tell Binky about the time Mrs. Denney walked right up to a family of hippos during your camera safari in Kenya. She just had to have that picture and she didn't care a whit about her personal safety. Weede told us about it at lunch yesterday. I can't wait to see those slides, Weede. Binky, I think you should see them too. Weede has promised to invite us up for a showing some time soon. Binky's a photography buff, Weede. Weede has quite a collection of photos, Binky.'
'I'd love to see them,' Binky said. 'Well, I've got a lunch date with Jody Moore and she hates to be kept waiting.'
She left, putting on her coat as she walked out, and Weede moved clear of the doorway as she made her exit. One touch, he seemed to fear, would reduce them both to a state of nervous collapse. I tried to close the doors. They would not close. He walked up to the desk, put both hands flat on the far edge and leaned toward me.
'I want to ask you something,' he said. 'It concerns a matter of some delicacy. I understand you're tuned in to many of the undercurrents. What either of us says here mustn't go any further than this office. Is Reeves Chubb a homosexual? You don't have to answer if you don't want to.'
'There have been rumors to that effect. Somebody wrote something to that effect on the wall in the thirty- seventh-floor men's room.'
'I'd like to take a look at that.'
'It's not there anymore,' I said. 'This was last week. It was written with a red crayon above the urinals. It looked like Quincy Willet's handwriting. Those two don't exactly hit it off, you know.'
'What precisely did it say? This may be important.'
'I don't think I care to repeat it, Weede.'
'Was it rough?'
'The roughest.'
'We're two mature people, Dave. I'll tell you why I brought this up in the first place. I know I can trust you to keep any privileged material within the four walls of this room.'
'Shall I close the door?' I said.
'By all means. I should have thought of that myself.'
As I swung the door shut Quincy passed my office and gave me a questioning glance. Weede went over to the sofa and I returned to the chair behind the desk.
'As you know, Dave, we hire people on the basis of ability alone. This has always been the network's policy. Personally I have no interest in a man's private life. What a man does in his free time is no concern of mine, within reason.'
'I can attest to that, Weede.'
'But there's another issue at stake here. The State Department doesn't want any queers working on the China thing. Far be it from me to challenge the thinking of people whose most vital concern is our own national security. A meeting was held in a midtown hotel last week. For the most part it was inconclusive. Reeves is a married man, you know.'
'Sometimes that happens,' I said.
'Exactly, Dave. Those people at State are sharp. They tell some amazing stories. We spent a whole afternoon discussing it.'
'It's a shadow world. It's a sickness. It can happen to anyone.
'Did you know that Reeves sleeps in his office two or three nights a week? Something like that makes you wonder. What does his -wife think about something like that?'
'There's a rumor going around that Jones Perkins might be bisex. I don't necessarily mean he goes both ways. It's just that some of his secondary sexual characteristics are thought to be a bit suspicious. He might actually
'I give no credence to stories like that.'
'Only a fool would.'
'Well, I just wanted to get your thinking on the subject, Dave. I hope it turns out to be nothing at all.'
