Paul, if you didn't have to worry about special interest groups and campaign contributions. I mean, you could get away with that sort of thing then.' 'I can't believe you did that.' 'I know. That's why I didn't tell you. And after everything fell apart, that's one reason I still couldn't tell you. On top of losing you, I didn't want your scorn.' She said, 'You could be pretty judgmental about things illegal in those days. Even little things. Remember how upset you were when I got that parking ticket outside the Cinerama Dome when we save Rollerball? The ticket you'd warned me I'd get?' 'I remember,' Hood said. Of course I remember, Nancy. I remember everything we did.
She lowered her hand, turned away. 'Anyway, I did get found out somehow. A friend— you remember Jessica.' Hood nodded. He could still see those pearls she was always wearing, smell her Chanel, as if she were standing right beside him.
'Jess was working late,' Nancy said, 'and as I was getting ready to meet you at the movies she phoned to tell me two FBI agents had been there. She said the men were on their way to question me. I only had time to gather up my passport, some clothes, and my Bank-Americard, write you that short note, and get the hell out of my apartment.' She looked down. 'Out of the country.' 'Out of my life,' Hood said. He pressed his lips together tightly. He wasn't sure he wanted Nancy to continue. Each word made him suffer, tortured him with the blighted hopes of a twenty-year-old man in love.
'I said there was another reason I didn't contact you,' Nancy said. She looked up again. 'I assumed you would be questioned or watched, or your phone would be tapped. If I had called or written, the FBI would have found me.' 'That's true,' Hood said. 'The FBI did come to my apartment. They questioned me, without telling me what you'd done, and I agreed to let them know if I heard from you.' 'You did?' she seemed surprised. 'You'd have turned me in?' 'Yes,' he said. 'Only I never would have abandoned you.' 'You'd have had no choice,' she said. 'There would have been a trial, I'd have gone to prison—' 'That's true. But I'd have waited.' 'Twenty years?' 'If that's how long it took,' Hood said. 'But it wouldn't have. Industrial espionage committed by a young woman in love— you'd have been able to plea-bargain and been free in five years.' 'Five years,' she said. 'And then you'd have married a criminal?' 'No. You.' 'Okay, an ex-con. No one would've trusted me— or you— around any kind of a secret. Your dreams of a life in politics, would have ended.' 'So what?' he said. 'Instead, I felt as though my life had ended.' Nancy stopped speaking. She smiled again. 'Poor Paul,' she said. 'That's all very romantic and just a little theatrical, which is one of the things I loved about you. But the truth is, your life didn't end when I left. You met someone else, someone quite lovely. You married. You had the children you wanted. You settled down.' I settled, he thought before he could stop himself. He hated himself for thinking it and apologized silently to Sharon.
'What did you do after you left?' Hood asked, wanting to talk instead of think.
'I moved to Paris,' Nancy said, 'and I tried to get a job designing computer software. But there wasn't a lot for me to do there. There wasn't much of a market yet and there was a real protectionist thing going, keeping Americans from taking French jobs. So after burning through the blood money I'd been paid— it's expensive to live in Paris, especially when you have to bribe officials because you can't get a visa and have your name show up at the American Embassy— I moved to Toulouse and began working for the company.' 'The company?' 'The one I sold the secrets to,' she said. 'I don't want to tell you the name, because I don't want you doing anything out of your famous white-knight spite. Because you know you would.' Nancy was right. He'd have gone back to Washington and found a dozen different ways for the U.S. government to lean on them.
Nancy said, 'The not-so-funny thing was, I always suspected that the guy I sold those plans to was the one who turned me in, to force me to come over and work for him. Not because I was so brilliant, mind you— I stole my best idea, right? — but because he felt that if I depended on him I could never turn on him. I hadn't wanted to go to him because I was ashamed of what I'd done, but I needed to work.' She smiled unhappily. 'To top it all off, I failed at love repeatedly because I compared everyone to you.' 'Gee,' he said, 'I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel.' 'Don't,' Nancy said. 'Don't be like that. I still loved you. I bought the Los Angeles Times at an international newsstand just to keep up on your activities. And there were times, so very many times, that I wanted to write or phone.
But I thought it was best not to.' 'Then why did you decide to see me now?' Hood asked. He was in pain again, rocking between that and sadness. 'Did you think it would hurt any less today?' 'I couldn't help myself,' she admitted. 'When I heard that you were in Hamburg, I had to see you. And I think that you wanted to see me.' 'Yes,' he said, 'I ran after you in the hotel lobby. I wanted to see you. I needed to see you.' He shook his head.
'Jesus, Nancy. I still can't believe it's you.' 'It is,' she said.
Hood looked into those eyes with which he had spent so many days and nights. The pull was both extraordinary and awful, a dream and a nightmare. His strength to resist them just wasn't in the same class.
The cool twilight breeze chilled the perspiration along Hood's legs and back. He wanted to hate her. Wanted to walk away from her. But what he wanted most of all was to go back in time and stop her from leaving.
Her eyes held him as she slipped her hands around his.
Her touch jolted him, then settled into an electric tingle that raced from his chest to his toes. And he knew he had to get away from her.
Hood stepped back. The electric connection broke. 'I can't do this,' he said.
Nancy said, 'You can't do what? Be honest?' She added a little jab, the kind she had always been so good at. 'What did politics do to you?' 'You know what I mean, Nancy. I can't stay here with you.' 'Not even for an hour? For coffee, to catch up?' 'No,' Hood said firmly. 'This is my closure.' She grinned. 'This is not closure, Paul. This is anything but that.' She was right. Her eyes, her wit, her walk, her presence, her everything had breathed new life into something that had never quite died. Hood wanted to scream.
He stepped up beside her, looking north while she looked south. 'Jesus, Nancy, I'm not going to feel guilty about this. You ran away from me. You left without an explanation and I met someone else. Someone who threw in her lot with me, who trusted me with her life and heart. I won't do anything to cheapen that.' 'I didn't ask you to,' Nancy said. 'Coffee isn't betrayal.' 'It is the way we used to drink it,' Hood said.
Nancy smiled. She looked down. 'I understand. I'm sorry— for everything— sorrier than I can say, and I'm sad. But I do understand' She faced him. 'I'm staying at the Ambassador and I'll be here until this evening. If you change your mind, leave a message.' 'I won't change my mind,' Hood said. He looked at her.
'As much as I'd like to.' Nancy squeezed his hand. He felt the charge again.
'So politics didn't corrupt you,' she said 'I'm not surprised. Just a little disappointed.' 'You'll get over it,' Hood said. 'After all, you got over me.' Nancy's expression changed. For the first time Hood saw the sadness that had been hidden beneath her smile and the longing in her eyes.
'Do you believe that?' she asked.
'Yes. Otherwise, you couldn't have stayed away.' She said, 'Men really don't understand love, do they?
Not on my best day, with the closest pretender to the Paul Hood throne, did I ever meet anyone as, bright or as compassionate or as gentle as you.' She leaned over and kissed him on the shoulder. 'I'm sorry I disturbed you by coming back into your life, but I wanted you to know that I never got over you, Paul, and I never will.' Nancy didn't look at him as she walked back toward the edge of the park. But he looked at her. And once again Paul Hood was standing alone, two movie tickets in his wallet, suffering the absence of a woman he loved.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
As soon as he saw the gun, Bob Herbert threw his car into reverse and crushed the hand controlled gas pedal down. The sudden backward acceleration threw him hard against his shoulder harness, and he cried out as it snapped tight against his chest. But the bullets from the van missed the driver's seat, pelting the hood and the front fender as the car rocketed away. Herbert continued moving away, even after his vehicle's right rear side struck a street light and caromed off, skidding onto the road. Oncoming cars braked fast or swerved to avoid him. The drivers shouted and blasted their horns.
Herbert ignored them. He looked ahead and saw the front-seat passenger of the van lean out the window. The man trained the gun on Herbert.
'Sons of bitches don't give up!'! Herbert yelled. Slowed because he had to do everything by hand, Herbert slammed the gas pedal down and spun the steering wheel to the left.
Then he braced himself against the wheel with his left arm.
