Stanhope closed the folder with a decisive gesture, as if pleased with the job he had done, and equally pleased to be finished. "For the last four days he has limited his activities to his office and his home. And that brings us up to date," he said.
"Was there any local activity?"
"Local activity?"
"You kept his house under surveillance when he was home, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"Did he leave the house at night?"
"It would be mentioned," said Stanhope, temporarily flustered, opening the file again.
"Would it?"
"Certainly… Sir, I assure you, there is no suggestion that his car ever left his driveway-"
"Did I ask you to watch the man, or his car?"
"The man, of course. And I assure you we did just that. Our surveillance is quite thorough."
"Does your report mention that for two of the last four nights the good Dr. Kom left his house around ten P.m. through the back door while your 'operative' was in the street in front of the house? Does it mention that he entered the woods next to his tennis court and walked through the woods until he came around to a position behind your operative? Or that he wrote down the license number on your operative's car? That was Tuesday night, which means he had discovered your operative sometime in the afternoon. Probably at the motel when he was slipping around and listening at the window when the woman was 'moaning low,' don't you suppose? Or on the ride home, who knows?
The point is, Kom knew for certain by Tuesday night that he was being followed. Which would explain why he was so quiet the rest of the week.
What would be interesting to know is what he was doing the other nights, those next two nights while operatives one, two, or three were watching the front of the house. Would you be interested in knowing, Mr.
Stanhope? I was. The first night after he identified your operative he did nothing at all. He went home and stayed home and-I think we may assume-thought over his next move. The night after that, he slipped out the back again, went into the woods again and walked to the grounds of the elementary school, crossed the playing field, crossed Clamden Road and popped into public view at Clamden Center, assuming there was any public there at eleven at night to view, which there wasn't. His wife had brought her car in for servicing at March's gas station in the center and left it there that afternoon and someone from March's had driven her home. Kom used his own keys and drove north on Clamden Road.
He was gone for forty-four minutes before he returned the car to the service station an d walked home the way he had come. And that brings us up to date. "
"How do you know this?" Stanhope asked. "Because I watched him… from the woods."
Stanhope was quiet for a long time. He twisted the folder back and forth on the desk.
"This is most unorthodoxy Stanhope said finally. "You might have interfered with the work of one of our operatives."
"I only covered what you didn't."
Stanhope rose. "Well then, shall I assume that our relationship is at an end, or will you be requiring our services further?"
"Stay on him for another week. I have to sleep sometime-but I don't want him to be able to."
Stanhope offered the file folder. "Whatever you want us to do, Mr…
Metzger, is it?"
"Close enough."
Becker took the file and entered the first coffee shop he came to, and there he sat and read the operatives' reports in detail. He had enlisted a private investigator for two reasons. One, he could not tail either Karen or Kom on his own because he would be too easily identified. Two, he could not enlist the services of the Bureau in a surveillance that might turn up Karen's name. It was to protect her name and reputation that he had chosen Kom as the target in the first place. If the world knew him for a philanderer of heroic proportions, it was only what he deserved, if even a fraction of Tovah's stories were true. But if they knew that Karen Crist, Associate Deputy Director of the FBI, was having an affair… Even thinking of it made Becker feel ill. He felt like weeping as he sat in the coffee shop; the notion of losing Karen was too awful, insupportable. It was not pride-he would beg her, he would crawl to her if he needed to do that to keep her-it was the fear of loss and the accompanying insecurity that crippled him, that made him hire an investigator, that filled him with shame for himself, for his activities, even for Karen. Becker suffered the cuckold's curse of uncertainty. Where was she now? Who was she with?
Who did she want to be with? And when Becker took her in his arms, whose image was in her mind? If one affair was acknowledged, would there ever be peace of mind? Would he ever again think that she loved him as he loved her? He was a worldly and experienced man, he knew that adultery in the right circumstances-a night in a hotel room while on a business trip, a brief and unrepeatable passion far from home, an undiscoverable and reactive response to boredom or loneliness or alcoholmeant little or nothing beyond the moment. It need not threaten a marriage, it was often no more emotionally involving than masturbation. But a continuing liaison, an affair contemplated and perpetrated at home with all the attendant risks, all of the apparent disregard for discovery by the spouse-such a relationship was played for much higher stakes and had more meaning. It was not throwaway sex, it was a perilous involvement with another that endangered stability, marriage, everything.
And there was no doubt that Karen was involved in exactly that kind of relationship with Kom. He knew Enrico's restaurant where Kom had lunch with the "very attractive" brunette. It was two blocks away from Karen's office at the Bureau. He knew the blue business suit she wore, and he had to make an effort not to visualize the holding of hands and the farewell kiss.
26
The Marriott had all the elegance of a good hotel with the convenience of a motel and Denise had to wait for a moment in the parking lot to convince herself that she was in the right place. It was so fancy, so expensive. Through the glass doors that fronted on the circular entry drive, she could see a huge brass chandelier in the lobby. The doorman wore a uniform-n, as did the bellboys who scampered out to take the bags from an arriving Mercedes-Benz.
She wondered if she had come to the right establishment-did Lyle know what he was getting them into? He had told her that he would reimburse her and she knew that he would, but even so, the cost of the room seemed soreckless. Neither one of them could afford it. She had not liked the motels they had gone to before, they were small and cramped and ugly, if not squalid at least determinedly plain, but that had seemed appropriate somehow. Not that she was ashamed of the time she spent with Lyle, it was beautiful, they had convinced each other time and again that it was.
But still, she could not ever stop thinking that it was wrong because Lyle was still living with his wife even though they were no longer married. She could handle a certain amount of guilt for that, but she could never completely deny it, no matter how crazy Lyle's wife was, no matter how much Lyle needed Denise or how much Denise needed him. As a result, the drabness of their previous meeting places had seemed appropriate, one slight intrusion of the outer world into their personal bliss. Maybe it even made their union more beautiful by comparison.