27

Sarah sat with Bell in the twilight of a cocktail lounge, considering how little she had known until now.

The eye, her father had taught her, is the easiest thing in the world to deceive. To look out upon the world is to see surface, illusion. “Never,” he had said, “believe what you see.”

Sarah had trusted her eyes. She had believed that what she saw was real. The eye, she thought sadly, stunned, groping her way through her feelings, is fooled by nearly everything: the courtesan, the cheat. Even in total darkness it takes what comes. Wake up, it calls to the bored stone of the skull. Wake up! And it always wins, always wakes the hand, which has wandered as far as it can get, and the soul, which has seen enough. She should never have been deceived by her eye’s innocence, this orb of water, this first to be deceived, this star.

Her father would say, emphatically: don’t believe a thing.

Sarah felt herself wake, as from a trance. “We have to leave,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

Ham was one of those rare human beings worth serving. He was one of those people who seem dressed in richer colors. She had been right to spend her days helping such a man. She knew, in her bones, that he needed her now.

It had been ages, it seemed, since they had left Erika Spyri’s office, but they sat there in silence while Bell did nothing but jot down his thoughts. Erika had ushered them into the street, whispering, darting her eyes from side to side, and then she had left them, plainly relieved to be ascending once more to the routine of her office. Even as she sat there in the lounge Sarah felt a current of compassion for Erika. It was a terrible thing to be afraid.

Bell’s black notebook was cluttered with jottings. His pen made the slightest whisper on the paper.

“We can’t stay,” she said.

He said, without looking up, “Let me finish my drink.”

She was about to agree: of course. Finish your drink. Maybe he was right. His manner said: What’s the rush? But inside, she seethed. She was motionless, but she knew that she was very close to throwing her glass of sherry at the far wall.

She usually loved the sound of a piano. Music almost always lay calm, warm hands on her, like a homecoming. But today the music was like unwanted affection, reassurance she did not believe or want.

“For someone who refused to divulge a secret, she managed to tell us volumes,” said Bell. He snapped his notebook shut.

As much as she was charmed by his presence, his voice, and the way he moved, she could not sit still.

Everything is wonderful, said the music. The rest of the world is a dream. It was one of those outdated and yet potent pop tunes she could never quite name. “Stormy Weather,” perhaps, or “Cry Me a River,” something before her time and yet a part of it, too.

“You don’t like it here,” Bell said.

She could have loved it here, actually. Salted nuts, muted lighting. She felt the frisson she had experienced here once, years before, as a teenager when she had considered that some day she might fall in love. This was romance, of a sort she had long ago imagined to be the stuff of teenage novels and ads for champagne.

But now she wanted to run from this place. This was not the moment to smile prettily, and Sarah knew she had a pretty enough smile. There was a warning signal bleating somewhere in her marrow. An alarm, insistent, painful.

The pianist ended one song with a glissando, and then his fingers began toying with another tune. You see how delightful life is? said the music.

Don’t believe it, the alarm said. Warning warning warning.

The alarm said: Maria Asquith.

The alarm said: Ham is in trouble.

“I think well here,” Bell explained, nearly an apology. “I’ve interviewed mayors, senators, and gangsters here. A Columbian druglord sat right where you’re sitting and talked about the Cal/Stanford game.”

Certainly Bell would feel exactly as she felt. Certainly he would understand what was happening. But her fear was so visceral that she couldn’t articulate it, and thoughts which cannot be verbalized tend to slip away.

“I don’t see what there is to think about at all,” she said.

He misunderstood. “Maybe not. A man might naturally be attracted to the sister of an old friend—”

“Ham doesn’t know who Maria is.”

“He married her—”

“She lied to him.”

“This doesn’t quite fit together, Sarah. Why would she do that? I mean, think about it: most of what Erika just told us is purest conjecture.”

“Believe me, I’m right.”

He frowned, earnest, deliberate. “But how can you be sure?”

It was difficult to keep her voice steady. “It’s pretty obvious. Ham doesn’t understand Maria.”

Bell leaned forward. His posture said: Go on, I’m listening.

“I saw it happen,” Sarah continued. “I saw. But I didn’t really know what I was seeing.” Her inner voice said: fly. She silenced it with an effort. “Ham was ecstatic when he first met her, out of control, practically, with—well, with love. He introduced me to Maria as though he were allowing me to at last meet the Good Fairy herself, as though I would faint dead away from the sheer honor of it.”

“You’re jealous.”

“This isn’t some giddy hunch, Chris. I know Ham.”

“And how did Maria seem when you met her?”

“As she always seems. The sort of look and soft laugh that stuns men and that women find less than consistently charming.” But, she told herself, you were fooled by Maria, too.

“Do I seem slain?”

“Ham wouldn’t have been able to keep a secret under such circumstances. He blurted out everything he knew about her. He can’t really control his feelings that well. He’s too full of life. If he had known that Maria was Asquith’s sister, he would have said something, or let something slip.”

“I’m not so sure,” Bell said. “It would be a natural way to get his old collaborator to spend more time with him. The brother-in-law as partner—it makes sense.”

“That’s not what happened. Ham was deceived.”

“How do you know?”

She did not answer.

“And why would Maria deceive him? There’s no reason. And if Maria deceived Ham, then so did her brother. And yet you say that Asquith and Ham are probably heads together right now working on Strip-search II.”

Sarah took a deep breath. Bell was, despite his good sense, a calm thinker of the worst sort. Not a clumsy thinker, and a natural skeptic. For this reason, conclusions did not come quickly to him. This, no doubt, made him an excellent journalist, each fact a pinch of ore to be mentally weighed. Assaying the truth was not Sarah’s habit. She was either ignorant, or enlightened. And now, without a doubt, she knew the truth.

“I think we’ve been outfoxed,” Bell was saying, “all of us, including you. I don’t know whether to laugh at Ham’s cunning, or tear up my notes in exasperation. Except, I’m too stubborn to quit. How can I write a biography about such a wily fake? A charming charlatan. Unless he expects me to hide the truth, which I have no intention of doing. I’m capable of writing a hostile biography, if that’s what it turns out to be.”

She had trouble controlling her voice. “He deserves your affection. And some of your faith. There’s some kind of trouble. Something wrong.”

“Okay, fine—you may be right. Even when I trust your judgment, I find myself balking. Professional habit, I suppose. I need more information.” Bell, sure-footed, calm, frowning with the responsibility of what they had discovered, seemed to wish he had a map he could unfurl on the table before them, a chart he could study. “All that whispered wild talk about the homicidal brother is completely unsubstantiated. It could be nothing but Erika’s imagination. I can’t believe it.” He shrugged an apology.

Sarah detested the sound of the piano.

Bell selected a salted almond. “I need to know more about Asquith. He’s probably nothing more than a very bright guy with an ego that really isn’t very hungry. He doesn’t mind Speke getting all the glory, and all the paychecks.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sarah said. “Maria is trouble.”

Bell interlaced his fingers. He had to admit that he didn’t understand Hamilton Speke anymore. And Asquith—who was this mysterious eminence grise? But Sarah had just said something that he understood. “She is trouble. Don’t worry,” he added with a laugh. “She’s not my type.”

“What type is yours, exactly, Mr. Bell?”

“I hope you’re never mad at me, Sarah. You have a glance that would lay a tank battalion to waste.”

“Then I suppose you wouldn’t stand much of a chance.”

“Not a ghost.” Then, “There was a strange, mechanical quality about her interest in me.”

“Mechanical,” Sarah repeated, drily.

“As though she wanted to charm me simply to distract me.”

“Tell me one thing, Chris. Are we going to sit here forever?”

“I’m trying to absorb what I’ve heard.” He added something that should have been a warning. “Erika has started me off on a very interesting path and I want to take my time.”

“I can’t stand it here.”

“So,” said Bell, “we’ve established that Maria slithers and licks the air and in every other way acts like a serpent.”

“A legless lizard,” Sarah agreed.

“But what does this mean?”

Sarah pushed aside her drink, so hard that sherry spilled across the table. Its scent was nutlike, the odor of oak and something else, something both tantalizing and poisonous. She apologized, but then said, “I can’t sit here any more.”

She was on her feet, and was about to leave without him when she saw him thrust currency just beyond the small lake of wine. His movements were slow. His words, though, when he reached her were reassuring.

“You’re right,” he said. “We have work to do.”