surprised if somebody discovered a new particle called ‘superstition’ any day now…”
Pete left with them. Joanna stayed behind while Sam saw them out. She could not take her eyes off those three mysterious, mocking words daubed across the windowpane, their condensation trails suddenly reminding her of trickling blood. Finally, to break their spell, she stepped forward and vigorously wiped out all trace of them, using her hand and the sleeve of her dress. When Sam returned a moment later she was gathering up her things.
“You're leaving?”
She nodded briefly, saying nothing. He saw that the window was wiped clean, but he didn't comment.
“Please stay.”
“I really need to be on my own.”
He seemed to think about arguing, then decided against it and stepped aside to let her pass. “By the way,” he said, “your editor called me this afternoon.”
She stopped. “Taylor Freestone? Why?”
“To offer funding for the department. Or at least a generous contribution. I wanted to thank you, but I haven't had a chance to until now.”
“You've got nothing to thank me for. This is the first I've heard of it.”
“He said you'd told him about Barry and Drew. He wanted to offer his sympathies-and, apparently, make sure we stayed in business. He must really like what you're writing.”
“I suppose he must.” She started out again.
“I'm not in denial. You're wrong about that.” He had turned to keep her in view as she moved to the door, but he didn't follow her. “I'm as disturbed by all this as you are.”
Again she stopped and turned to look back at him. “But you're not afraid, are you? You're cool and detached. That's what I'm finding a little hard to live with.”
“I'm just refusing to jump to conclusions. I'm sorry if that upsets you.”
The protest in his voice was matched by the impatience of her reply. “If this ‘thing’ is responsible for those deaths, it's our fault. Why do I feel that doesn't worry you? You just accept it. The only question you ask yourself is how does it work?”
“The only question I ask is what evidence we have for believing that-”
“We don't have any evidence for anything!” Her anger boiled up again, but she controlled it with an effort. “You said it yourself the other night! We're not a court of law. We're not repeating some experiment and confirming a result. We're caught up in something that none of us understands, and I'm afraid, Sam. Can't you understand that?”
“Of course I can,” he said, his tone conciliatory. “I am too. We shouldn't be quarreling like this. There's no reason.” He took a step toward her, but she backed away.
“No, don't…not now…”
She saw the hurt in his eyes, but there was nothing she could do about it. In a way that she couldn't change or as yet even get used to, she was coming to see him as the opposite of everything she'd thought he was. From being a lone visionary fighting against prejudice he had become a skeptic, splitting every hair and exploiting every loophole until all certainty dissolved into a cloud of doubt and ambiguity. She was weary of it all.
“Perhaps Roger's right,” she said. “What we believe doesn't matter. There's no final theory.”
“It doesn't mean that what we believe is unimportant…”
“Tell me, Sam, what do you believe?”
“Believe?” He looked faintly surprised at the question. “You mean about life, death, the universe, and everything?”
She ignored the faint sarcasm in his voice and waited for an answer.
“I suppose,” he said after a moment, “I believe, like Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living.”
“What about good and evil? Do you believe in them?”
“As opposing forces in constant war with one another?” He shook his head. “No.”
She accepted the reply impassively.
“You know what I can't get out of my head?” she said. “What Pete said about witches-how it happens.” She paused. “But you'd call that just superstition, wouldn't you?”
He shrugged and offered another apologetic smile. “Yes.”
They stood motionless, eyes locked across the space that separated them.
“Stay with me,” he said.
It was a plea, touching in its simplicity. But she shook her head.
“Not tonight. I'm going to take a pill and gamble on eight hours of oblivion making me feel human again.”
They kissed chastely at the elevator, but she refused to let him ride down with her. The rain had stopped and taxis, she insisted, would be plentiful this time of night. It wasn't so much that she wanted to get away from him, just that the need to be on her own was urgent now. She needed to think her own thoughts-or not think at all. Another presence, any presence, would be painful to her raw nerves.
“Christ,” she thought, as she counted off the floors through the gate of the descending elevator cage, “what a mess. What an ugly, fucking, total mess.”
33
The funeral was three days later. Joanna and Sam went, and Pete with them. Roger was speaking at a conference, an obligation to which he'd been committed for several months. Ward had left a message on Sam's machine the previous day, saying he was in Stockholm, where he had found the man he was looking for, and he would be in touch again soon.
Over a hundred family and friends turned out. Father Caplan, a short, plump, totally bald man in his sixties, gave an emotional address. There was a reception afterward, but Joanna, Sam, and Pete didn't go. They took a cab back to Manhattan, saying little. Their presence at the ceremony had been accepted without question. No one had wanted to know how they had known Barry and Drew or what their association had been. The three of them had agreed beforehand that if they were questioned they would tell the truth. The fact that it didn't happen only strengthened Joanna's uncomfortable sense of being part of a conspiracy, cut off from the world by secrets she could never share.
Joanna got out first, on the corner of the block that housed the Around Town offices. She waved briefly but didn't look back as they drove off. She was thinking about the decision she had made that morning, which she now had to carry through. She had made up her mind to tell Taylor Freestone that she couldn't go on with the assignment. If it wasn't for the fact that he had demanded to see and had kept the drafts that she'd already written, she would have destroyed all of them. This was not, she had decided for reasons that she did not fully understand, something that people should read about.
Taylor's secretary told her on the phone that the editor was in a meeting, but she would pass on the message that Joanna wanted to see him as soon as he was free. Twenty minutes later he walked into her office. It was a habit of his, whenever he wished to be sure of having the last word, to come to people instead of having them come to him. She wondered how he had guessed that this might turn into one of those conversations, and what last words he had carefully prepared to end it.
“I understand you wanted to see me,” he said, regarding her owlishly over his reading glasses.
She took a breath. “I'm sorry, Taylor, but I want to drop the story.”
He looked at her for a while without expression.
“ You want to drop the story?” he said eventually, injecting a note of mild irony into his voice.
She corrected herself. “All right- you will decide whether the story is dropped or not. I, however, have decided that I cannot continue with it.”
“Do you mind telling me why?”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” she said flatly. “You know what's been happening. Do you mind telling me why you gave Sam that money?”
