She gestured with her toast. ‘Sit down and talk.’
Daniel sat at the table and began to explain, absently turning a jar of marmalade between his hands. Charmaine reached over and lifted it from his grasp. Daniel stumbled, embarrassed. She listened with a calm focus that unsettled him.
When he’d concluded, Charmaine said, ‘So it’s not a problem of having one orgasm a night, but of being limited to one orgasm per partner, whether that night or next month?’
‘Yes ma’am, that’s it.’
‘Can you masturbate twice?’
Daniel nodded, stunned. He hadn’t even thought about that.
‘If you can make love with yourself twice but not anyone else, I doubt the problem is physiological.’ She stood, delicately brushed toast crumbs from her fingers, and started for the back door.
Daniel watched her go as if she were falling, either away from him or toward him, he couldn’t tell. He blurted, ‘I’d like to sleep with you. I think I could do it with you twice.’
Charmaine stopped and turned around, a hint of warmth in her smile. ‘I’m absolutely flattered, Daniel, but I’m just as absolutely not interested. I’m in the middle of some very demanding work, first of all. More important, I’m not the solution to your problem.’
‘Well, since I’ve already made a fool of myself, I might as well ask you something I’ve been wondering about. Whose aunt are you, anyway?’
Charmaine replied easily, ‘Nobody’s really. It’s a name Mommy’s Commies gave me years ago. It’s not widely known – and I’ll trust you to keep it that way – but I’m Polly McCloud’s daughter.’
‘Mommy of Mommy’s Commies is your mother?’
‘Yes. Though it doesn’t make me an aunt to the girls, clearly.’
‘Why don’t you ever visit your
‘I do.’
‘Oh,’ Daniel said. She acted as if he should have known, but how could he if nobody ever told him anything and were evasive if you asked?
Before Daniel could think of anything to say, Charmaine concluded, ‘I have work to do, and you have company waiting. Good night.’
Since he half expected Volta would be waiting for him in his cabin, he was mildly discombobulated to see a stocky woman with snow-white hair standing at his door. For an instant he thought it might be Polly McCloud, but then he recognized her – and was as shocked to see her as he had been the first time.
‘Goddammit, you
‘Dolly Varden.’
‘I can show you my buckshot cherry if you don’t believe it. And don’t just stand there, come over and give this ol’ frame a squeeze – I need all the young action I can get.’
As he hugged her, he realized she was the first person he’d seen since his mother’s death who’d known her while alive. ‘My mother’s dead, you know,’ he said as evenly as he could.
‘Yes, I know. It made me sad in a real simple way. It’s also the reason I’m here. I’m acting as a go- between.’
‘Between who?’
‘AMO and Shamus Malloy.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘I’m a little dumb tonight. You’ll have to explain.’
‘Volta put the word out that you claimed your mother’s death was not an accident, that she had yelled for you to run before the bomb exploded, and that you wanted the names of Shamus’s accomplices since they might be responsible. When Shamus finally heard, he called Volta and said he wouldn’t give him the names until he was satisfied that you really had heard your mother scream for you to run. Obviously, Shamus thought it might be a ploy on Volta’s part to either extract privileged information or to keep Shamus feeling miserable. Volta suggested a go- between. They agreed on me.’
Daniel said, ‘You can tell Shamus it’s true, and that we’d appreciate the names of the others involved.’
‘So you don’t think it was an accident?’
‘It may have been. I don’t know. She yelled and then the bomb exploded – the same second. My gut feeling is that somebody killed her.’
‘Any ideas?’
‘No. That’s why Volta and I want the names of the others.’
‘I’ll tell Shamus personally.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Daniel,’ Dolly chided, ‘that’s confidential.’
‘Well,
‘Torn up – he loved Annalee.’
Trembling, Daniel said, ‘So did I. Tell him if I didn’t do it and he didn’t do it, we should talk to the other three people involved, the bomb-maker for sure.’
