And where had the anger come from? It was only when Tina had realized that the anger was all out of proportion to the stimulus that she had plumbed in her mind for another source and found it transferred from her own feelings about Dev Stanwyck.
Slowly she turned to a blank page and began her latest report:
Day 17, hour 2300. Wattridge reporting. Belli still missing. Tensions peaking. Group interaction maintaining plateau in high normal range. Sexual pairing marked: Jaretski-Devereux, Klapper-Fein (temporary and apparently discontinued), Ittri-Teitlebaum. Also Wattridce-Stanwyck. (Note: I find this professionally disconcerting and am attempting to disengage. I am too old for him!)
She put down the pencil and wrinkled her eyes; repentance oft I swore, yes, but was I sober when I swore? How could she disengage herself from someone a third her age who found that she turned him on? And how could she not?
The breathing outside stopped for a moment, and then Dev's voice said, "Tina, is that you in there?"
She could not answer; some maiden shyness kept her from speaking while sitting on a toilet, or else she simply did not know what to say to Dev.
"I think you better come out," he went on. "Something's happening."
Hassling Willie
In the main social room Marge Klapper was facing Willie Murtagh across a mat. Both were tense and angry, which troubled Marge more than Willie because she did not like to be professionally inept. The one-night stand with Jerry Fein had left her upset, especially as Jerry didn't want to let it stay a one-night stand; she was angry; she wanted to get out to get rid of her souvenir of one other one-night stand; she wanted to go back to her husband and find out if the marriage could be made to work; and, most difficult of all, she wanted to do all those things while retaining her self-image as a competent professional intact. So she reached out for Willie:
"Do you want to fight?"
He stood angrily mute and shook his head.
She dropped the soft, inflated plastic bats and put a professional smile on her face. "Shall we push? Would you like to go in the pool?"
"No." He wasn't helping at all. He was uptight and souring the whole group with his tensions and giving her nothing to work on—nothing, she realized, except that intensity with which he was looking at her, as though hoping the next word out of her mouth would be what he wanted. So she tried again. She stepped up on the edge of the mat and said sweetly to Willie, "Would you like to try something with me? Let's jump."
Willie said, "Oh, Christ."
"Go on," Jerry Fein put in helpfully. "Shake the tensions out."
"Stay out of this, Jerry!" Marge snapped. And then forced herself to relax. "Like this, Willie," she said, jumping, coming down, jumping again. "Try it."
He glowered, looked around the room and gave a halfhearted hop.
"Great!" cried Marge. "Higher!"
He shrugged and jumped a mighty leap, twice as high as hers. Then another. "Beautiful, Willie," said Marge breathlessly. "Keep it up!" It was like an invisible seesaw, first Marge in the air, then Willie, Marge again; he began to move his feet like a Russian dancer, coming down with one knee half bent, then the other, turning his body from side to side. "Make a noise, Willie!" Marge yelled triumphantly, and demonstrated: "Yow! Wheel Hoooo!"
The whole group was joining in—anyway, that part of it that was in the room, all yelling with Willie. Marge felt triumphant and fulfilled; and then Tina had to come in and spoil it all.
"Sorry, Marge," she called from the doorway. "Listen, everybody. Does anybody know where Barbie and David are?"
"In the pool?" somebody guessed helpfully.
"No. I looked everywhere."
Marge panted angrily, "Tina, do you have to take attendance right now?"
"I'm sorry, Marge. But I'm afraid they've gone into the caves after Dolly. Is anyone else missing?"
The group looked around at itself. "Rufous!" cried Jerry Fein. "Where's he?"
Dev Stanwyck, as always tagging along after Tina, said in his superior way, "We've already checked the sleeping rooms. Rufous is there. Anybody else?"
No answer for a moment, and then three or four people at once: "Bob Sanger!"
Tina looked around, then nodded grimly. "Thanks." And she disappeared, Stanwyck hurrying after.
Nevertheless, the interruption had wrecked Marge's mood. And hadn't done any good for Willie, either; he was collapsed on the floor, staring into space.
"Well," said Marge heartily, "want to get back to it, Willie?"
He looked up and said, "I know where they are. It's kind of my fault." He straightened up and said, "Hell, it's exactly my fault. I was trying to get with that colored girl, and I said something I shouldn't have. Dolly took it the wrong way and split for the caves, and I—well, I told David it was his fault, so he went after her. I didn't actually think he'd take Barbie with him."
"Or Sanger," said someone.
"I don't know anything about Sanger. But I know where they are. They're wandering."
Tina said from the entrance, "No, not in the caves, they aren't." All at once she looked every year of her age. "They're outside," she said. "I just heard from the VISTA crew; they identified four persons leaving the caves about a quarter of a mile from here, one alone, then three more about an hour ago."
"At least they're outside," said Willie thankfully.
"Oh, yes," said Tina, "they're outside. In the dark. Wandering around. Did you look at the terrain when you came in, Willie?" She absentmindedly pressed her hands against her face. It smeared her make-up, but she was no longer aware she had it on. "One other thing," she said. "You can all go home now. The word just came down over the teletype; our group is discharged with thanks and, how did they say it?— oh, yes. "Tell them it was a good job well done," she said.
Running Home
I didn't really believe Willie even when it was clearly to his advantage to tell the truth, but it was the way he said: follow the piece of string he had laid out, exploring the caves to keep from exploring his own head, and you came to a rock slope, very steep but with places where somebody had once cut handholds into it, and at the end of the handholds you found yourself out in the fresh air. When we got out we were all beat. Bob Sanger was the worst off of us, which was easy to figure when you considered he was a pretty old guy who hadn't done anything athletic for about as long as Barbie and I had been alive. But he was right with us. "I'll leave you now," he said. "I do appreciate your help."
"Cut it out, Bob," wheezed Barbie. "Where do you think you're going?"
It had turned out to be night, and a very dark night with a feeble tepid rain coming down, too—perhaps they had ho other kinds around there. I couldn't see his face, but I could imagine his expression, very remote and contented with whatever interior decisions he had reached. "Ill make my own way, thank you," he said politely. "It is only a matter of finding a road, and then following it downhill, I imagine."
"Then what?" I demanded. "We're AWOL, you know."
"That's why I have attorneys, Mr. Jaretski," he said cheerfully.
"Sitting on the bottom of the hill waiting for you?"
"Of course not. Really, you should not worry about me. I took the precaution of retaining my money belt when we checked our valuables. U.S. currency will get me to Ponce, and from there there are plenty of flights to the mainland. I'll be in California in no more than eight or nine hours, I should think."
"Listen, Bob!" I exploded—but stopped; Barbie squeezed my shoulder.
"Bob," she said, in a tone quite different from mine, "it isn't just that we're worried about you. We're worried about Dolly. Please help us find her."