The door rattled, opened. Grace stood in the doorway with a package in her arms. She looked at Peterson questioningly.
“I was just going,” said Peterson.
“No need to leave on my account, Janus,” said Grace.
“Have to be getting back,” said Peterson. He lifted his bulk out of the chair, went to the door, turned sideways to go past Grace. Movius noted amusedly that Peterson was no thinner that way than across the beam.
Grace closed the door, dropped her package on the hall table, met him halfway across the room. They clung to each other for a moment without speaking. Grace pushed away.
Movius said, “Janus and I…”
“Will it wait?” She smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from his lapel, turned away from him. “You must stay away from my father. Don’t let my father or Navvy get near you.”
“But your note said you’d gone with Navvy to…”
“I made him drop me off downstairs in the basement driveway.”
“Why?” he asked. “Because your father is spying on me for O’Brien?”
She whirled on him. “Don’t be an oaf! I knew the second I told you about my father’s phone call the other night that you’d planted the story with O’Brien.” She twisted her hands. “You’re going to hate me.”
“I couldn’t do that.” Why did the lie come so easily? “I’m in love with you.” Somewhere in his mind a tiny thought said, “That’s right. You are in love with her.” He’d known it for three days now—three days and nights.
“You shouldn’t have gone out,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”
“I thought I’d be back before you got home and…”
“And what?” He moved to her, stroked her hair.
“I had to find out what they’re planning,” she said. She leaned against him, her cheek against his chin. “I had Navvy take me to father’s apartment to get some things I’d left there. I got away from Navvy and looked in a special place. I found a note for Navvy. It said, ‘We’ll have to do without.’ And…”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they plan to kill you.” She began to cry.
He held her away, looked at her. “How do you know?”
The tears rolled down her cheeks. “Because he was going to send me that message once.”
Movius jerked away from her. “Until you became untrustworthy!”
She nodded.
“That’s why they let you marry me. They wanted a scorpion in my bedroom. A trained scorpion that’d sting me when they gave the word.”
Again she nodded. The tears were now a steady pulse out of her eyes.
The agony in Grace’s expression came through the numbness in him. She risked me hating her, he thought. She risked it rather than let me be killed. He pulled her to him, stroked her head.
“I knew he was cold,” he said, “but…”
She pulled her head back, looked up at him. “He’s not really. He just can’t feel anything but the need for revenge. He wants to strike back for what they did to my mother.”
“No revenge is worth that.”
She stared at him. “Not even your revenge?”
“No, not even mine.” He took her arm. “Come in here and sit down. I want you to tell me their whole plan, why they called on me. Everything you know.”
She held back. “First I have to know something.”
“What?”
“These nights… have you…”
He looked at her, loving the little-girl expression of hesitancy. “I started to make love to you out of pity, but…”
“But?” The hurt showed near the surface of her eyes.
“But somewhere along the way I found you had more pity than I have.” He shook his head. “Men aren’t very good at this sort of thing. We try to do everything by logic and lose touch with our own feelings.”
“Dan.” Her face glowed. “Let’s apply for sparse area resettlement. We could go away and…”
“Grace!”
The glow left her face.
“You know better than that, Grace. We’re riding the tiger now. We can’t get off the tiger until we tame it.”
Chapter 19
“The ruthless side was certain to come out,” said O’Brien. He stood by the window of his office, looking out at the river. “Newton was a threat. Ergo: stamp on Newton. Those other three were a threat. Ergo: dump them out a window.” O’Brien turned and looked at Quilliam London where the angular man stood looking at Movius’ chart.
“I see his decision index still goes up.”
O’Brien crossed to his side. “Up and up. The logical brilliance of the man is uncanny.”
“He once told me he doesn’t use logic,” said London. “The right answer just occurs to him.”
“You told me.”
“So I did. Up he goes. I take it this line contains the decisions of the past few days, including the one which may have smoked out our relationship.”
“Yes.”
“Either way the decision index must go up,” said London. “If he actually has seduced my daughter and made her pregnant, that was an excellent tactical move. If it was fabrication, it shows tremendous insight.”
“You talk about it coldly enough,” said O’Brien.
“I shall take a great deal of pleasure in pulling the trigger myself,” said London.
“Unless you happen to fall out a window first.”
London nodded his angular grey head, the hunter eyes going speculative. “You were going to bring me up to date. This running around in disguise has its drawbacks. I seldom know what’s really going on until I get up here with you.”
O’Brien returned to his chair across the table, sat down. “Movius got Janus Peterson to ferret out the names of Newton’s crowd in Bu-Trans. The list didn’t coincide with one the late Tyle Cotton gave him and…”
“The late Tyle Cotton? In Roper’s name, what happened to her? Did she go out a window, too?”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting you’re out of touch with things.”
“That is an understatement.”
“Hmmmm.” O’Brien pursed his lips. “Tyle tried to buy her way out of Bu-Trans and into Bu-Con with a fake list of Newton’s friends. She was way out of her depth. Movius anticipated her, took the list Janus gave him and copied it in her handwriting. He posted that list on the door of CR-14. Eighty-one Bu-Trans employees failed to show for work and Tyle’s body was found floating in the river.”
London eased himself into a chair. “Does her sister know yet?”
O’Brien tipped his head to one side while he tugged at an ear lobe. “I told Marie. All she’d say was that it was long overdue.”
“No love lost there.”
“None at all, evidently.”
“How did Janus get that list?”
“I gave it to him.”
“And the eighty-one on the list?”
O’Brien shrugged. “They’ll be reported as evading work order.”
“They’re probably already working in Bu-Con.”
“Certainly.” O’Brien shook his head. “But look at the beauty of the way Movius operates.”
London assumed a sour expression. “How much of this deviousness is aimed at us? What’s he doing today?”
“He’s out with Janus. I don’t quite get the significance of it. Janus called in shortly before you arrived. Movius has been picking up electronics techs, talking with them in the rear of the Bu-Trans van while Janus drives around. One of the men he’s met is an old friend from Comp Section named Phil Henry. We don’t have a single line on this Henry. An apparently insignificant person.”
“Did you alert Janus to the fact he may have to knock off Movius?”
“Yes. That was really why I had him call.”