"I'm his mystery woman."
"Do I get to meet him?"
"He's out of town right now, but I hope so." Emily slotted trays into the microwave. "I have a lot of hopes these days.... I'm thinking maybe I finally got it figured. The method of modem romance."
Laura laughed. "Yeah?"
"Better living through chemistry," Emily said, and blushed.
"Romance. Did I tell you about it?"
"Oh, Em, no." Laura reached into her jeans pocket, past a wad of change and some salted airline peanuts. "You mean these?"
Emily stared at the plastic vial. "Jesus! You mean you walked through Customs with a pocketful of Red-Hots?"
Laura winced. "They're not illegal, are they? I forgot all about them."
"Where'd you get 'em?"
"In Grenada. From a hooker."
Emily's jaw dropped. "Is this the Laura Webster I know?
You're not high on those, are you?"
"Well, have you been taking them?"
"Just a couple of times... . Can I see that?" Emily shook the little vial. "Boy, these look like megadosage.... I dunno,
I took 'em, they kind of made an idiot of me.... I guess you'd say I went crawling back to Arthur, after that fight we had, but it seemed to do us both good. I mean, maybe it's wrong to be too proud. Take one of those, and it makes the other stuff, the problems, feel kind of pointless.... You and
David aren't having trouble, are you?"
"No ... " Laura hedged. David emerged from the bath- room carrying the freshly changed baby. Emily quickly swept the vial into a kitchen drawer.
"What's up?" David said. "You two have that in-joke look again."
"Just saying how y'all have changed," Emily told him.
"You know something, Dave? Black suits you. You look really good."
"I put on some weight in Grenada," David said.
"On you it looks fine."
He half smiled. "That's it, flatter the moron.... You two talking company politics, right? Might as well let me hear the worst." He sat on a black-and-chrome counter stool. "As- suming it's safe to talk in here... "
"Everyone's talking about y'all," Emily, said. "You Web- sters earned beaucoup brownie points on this one."
"Good. Maybe we can coast a little now."
"I dunno," Emily said. "Frankly, you're gonna be in pretty heavy demand. The Committee wants you for a council session.
You're our situation experts now! And then there's Singapore.
"The hell," David said.
"Singapore's Parliament is holding open hearings on their data-haven policy. Suvendra's there right now. She's been our contact with the Islamic Bank, and she's going to testify."
Emily paused. "It's kind of complicated."
"Suvendra can handle that," David said.
"Sure," Emily said, "but if she handles it really well, her
Committee election's a shoe-in. "
David's eyes widened. "Wait a minute-"
"You don't know how this has been playing Stateside,"
Emily told him. "A month ago it was a side show, but now it's a major crisis. You heard how Dianne Arbright was talking. A month ago a top-rank journo like Arbright wouldn't have given me the time of day, but now suddenly we're sisters, very heavy solidarity." Emily held up two fingers.
"Something's gonna give, and soon. You can smell it com- ing. It's gonna be like Paris '68, or early Gorbachev. But global." She was serious. "And we can be right on top of it. "
"We can be six feet fucking under it!" David shouted.
"What are you up to? You been talking to those crackpots from Kymera?"
Emily flinched. "Kymera ... That corpocracy stuff doesn't cut much ice with us, but it sure bears watching.... Vienna's acting screwy."
"Vienna knows what it's doing," David said.
"Maybe, but is it what we want?" Emily pulled plates and plasticware. "I think Vienna's waiting. They're gonna let it get bad this time-until somebody, somewhere, gives them political carte blanche. To clean house, globally. A new world order, and a new world army."
"I don't like it," David said.
"It's what we have now, but without the ratholes."
"I like ratholes."
"In that case, you'd better go talk some sense to Singa- pore." The microwave dinged. "It's only for a few days,
David. And Singapore's got a real government, not some goofy criminal front like Grenada's. Your testimony to their
Parliament could make a major difference in their policy.
Suvendra says-"
David's face turned leaden. "We're gonna get killed," he said. "Don't you understand that yet? All the little ratholes are gonna be battle zones. There are people out there who would kill us for nothing at all, and if they can kill us for profit, they're thrilled! And they know who we are, that's what scares me. We're valuable now...."
He rubbed his stubbled cheek. "We're getting the hell out of here, into a Lodge or a Retreat, and if you want to take care of Singapore, Emily, well, call Vienna and finance
Rizome's Fightin' Armor Division. 'Cause they mean busi- ness these pirates and we're never gonna sweet-talk 'em into anything! Not till we put a tank on every fucking street comer! Until we find the sons-of-bitches who pressed the buttons that killed those drowned little kids in Grenada. But not my kid! Never again!"
Laura punctured the foil over her steaming chicken almondine.
She felt no appetite. Those drowned bodies ... stiff and dead and moving on dark currents ... dark currents of rage. "He's right," she said. "Not my Loretta. But one of us has to go.
To Singapore."
David gaped. "Why?"
"Because we're needed there, that's why. Because it has what we want," she said. "Power to control our own lives.
And the real answers.' The truth!"
David stared at her. "The truth. You think you can get it?
You think you're that important?"
"I'm not important," Laura said. "I know I'm nothing much now-the sort of person who gets pushed around, insulted, and has her house shot up. But I might make myself important, if I worked at it. It could happen. If Suvendra needs me, I'm going."
"You don't even know Suvendra!"
'I know she's Rizome, and I know she's fighting for us.
We can't turn our backs on an associate. And whoever shot up our Lodge is going to pay for it."
The baby started to whimper. David slumped in his chair.
He spoke very quietly. "What about us, Laura-you and me and Loretta? You could die over there. "
"This isn't just for the company-it's for us! Running away can't make us safe."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" David said. "Stand on the dock and blow kisses? While you sail off to make the world safe for democracy?"
"So what? Women always did that in wartime!" Laura struggled to lower her voice. "You're needed here anyway, to counsel the Committee. I'll go to Singapore."
"I don't want you to go." He was trying to be curt and tough, lay it down in front of Emily like an ultimatum, but all the force was out of it. He was afraid for her, and it was half a plea.
"I'll come back and I'll be fine," she said. The words sounded like a reassurance, instead of a refusal. But he wasn't any less hurt.
Taut silence. Emily looked wretched. "Maybe this isn't the time to talk about it. You've both been under a lot of strain.
No one says you're acting non-R."
"They wouldn't have to say it," Laura said. "We know how to feel it without any words."
David spoke up. "You're going to do it no matter what I say to you, aren't you.
It was no use hesitating now. Better to get it over with.
"Yes. I have to," she told him. "It's gotten to me now. It's inside me, David. I've seen too much of it. If I don't work through this somehow, I'll never really sleep again."