52

Duvivier considered the great bulk of the National Cathedral. It reassured him. A thousand places to hide, if it came to that. He walked the grounds, wondering what he should do.

There were patrolmen everywhere, probably to direct the masses who had come to see The Play of Herod. Amazing, that such an esoteric event should draw so many. Perhaps he had underestimated that great body which e. e. cummings tagged “mostpeople.”

He was annoyed with the meanderings of his mind, bothered that he should traverse scholarly byways now, in what was clearly a time of peril.

Yet he was curiously relaxed. He walked, in fact, so slowly as to draw no attention from the uniformed guards. A wise move, though not in the least deliberate.

Klieg lights played on the hulking Gothic structure now some distance behind him. Safe to hurry up some now.

Even though he hadn’t covered more than half a block, his breath was coming fast and loud, like the breath of a kid who’s just stopped crying. It was the cold. That made it worse.

But all of a sudden it got better. All of a sudden she was there.

She had crossed from shadow into the halo of a streetlamp. And there, like magic, she stood. She fumbled with her collar. She fastened the chain. And the necklace shone an eerie gold against her coat. She patted her pocket. She smoothed her hair.

But when he’d almost made it to where she had appeared … It was like magic.

But she’d made sure that he heard. The little cunt—she was asking for it.

He leaned against a parked car, still breathing hard. The Watergate. Christ, she still had quite a sense of humor.

Lida ransacked her bag, hoping she had enough money to pay the fare. “Is there some kind of light back here?” she asked.

A small yellow overhead came on.

Nail polish. Perfume. Keys. Lolita. Three wadded Kleenex. The spermicidal jelly. Where the hell was her wallet? She found it, counting the bills. There were a ten and seven ones.

“Got enough?” the cabbie said, eyeing her in the rearview mirror.

“Just drive.”

“You’re real friendly,” he said.

“Can you go any faster?”

“Not me. They give tickets in this town to everyone. Cabs. Probably buses, too. It’s murder.”

“Yeah,” Lida said, wondering how much time had gone by, “I know what you mean.” Would he be gone when she got there? And if he hadn’t gone, what then?

That friend of hers had told her all of it by now. Or all of what she knew. He could only fare worse in her limited version.

Had Lida shuddered as she heard? Waxed white, thinking of the dangers she had passed? He grieved for those dangers, pitied them, in fact.

Yet how might he have described the death of that girl to the New Hampshire police? To anyone? Even to Lida. Too ridiculous for words.

“Well, actually,”—he imagined himself, a veritable Cyrano, addressing the jury—” she died in flagrante delicto. Come to think of it, ladies and gentlemen, you should take care not to translate that literally. Literally, you would have to say that she died in flagrante defatigo.” He would lean across the wooden panel, winking at the third juror from the right. “Do you know what I mean?”

There could be no other plan. He would go back to the hotel. And then to the airport. Then back across the ocean.

He reached into his pocket for the key. And then he remembered that Lida had it. He pictured the police, bending over Lida’s broken body, then examining the contents of her bag. And there it would be, glittering in the revolving red light: the link, direct and irrefutable.

He shook his head in disgust, then beckoned to a cruising cab.