Chase fiddled with his empty glass, wondering if this would complicate or simplify things. The line of demarcation between their professional and personal relationship had been, until now, clearly marked and tacitly observed.
"What do you think about Lebasse?" he said in a clumsy attempt to fill the silence.
"There were rumors that he had cancer. It could have been suicide."
"Do you think so?" Chase was skeptical. "Why choose that way when there are a dozen other ways, all less painful? The whole thing stinks to me."
"What do you want me to do?"
Chase cleared his throat and blinked at her. "What about?"
"Do you want me to fix an appointment for you? Bakersfield is about six hours drive from here. I could try for the day after tomorrow, which wouldn't delay you too much, and in the meantime you could stay here." She was watching him with a feline slyness that was disconcerting. Then her head fell back on the cushion, her large breasts jouncing and trembling inside the loose halter-neck. He realized that she was convulsed with silent laughter.
"What's the joke?" he said mildly. He was stirred and trying hard not to show it.
"We're the joke, Gavin. You and me."
"Are we?"
"Sure. You don't want me to think you're the kind of man who'd take advantage of a dinner invitation to make a pass and I'm being so goddamn careful not to let you know that I know you're not the kind of man to take advantage of a dinner invitation."
"If I could follow that I might agree with you," Chase said, getting up. He went over to the couch and took the glass from her hand. Cheryl raised her head, her impish expression suddenly vanishing.
She looked almost startled but didn't move as he reached over either side of her neck to undo the halter strap. The front of the dress fell away and he saw that the tan extended evenly all the way to her navel. Her breasts rose and subsided voluminously in the lamplight. He eased the shiny dress over her hips and pulled it free and slipped off her briefs so that she lay naked, arms by her side, her lower lip dry and quivering slightly. He could see her heart beating.
He deliberately didn't kiss her, which in a curious way heightened the excitement. Cheryl was breathing heavily, her eyes half-closed as his hands moved with gentle insistence over her body. She arched her back and said huskily, "Christ, I want you so much," and when he leaned forward to kiss her she responded fiercely, pulling him onto her, wanting to feel his weight crushing her.
They made love and when the moment came she moaned and writhed beneath him, her breasts pressed spongily against the dark hairs of his chest, her head twisting from side to side.
"We must have been ciazy to have waited so long," Cheryl said as they lay entwined in a warm contented huddle.
Chase kissed her smooth brown shoulder. "I think I was intimidated," he said, no longer caring whether this complicated or simplified things. What the hell did it matter? It felt right and he felt good; no need to excuse or explain.
"You thought I was intimidating?" Cheryl said, looking at him quizzically from under fair brows. "Seriously?"
"Absolutely," Chase said, straight-faced.
"Bastard," Cheryl murmured and snuggled closer. She felt happy. The months of loneliness in the silent empty house were swept away. She thought of Gordon Mudie and a shudder passed through her. Strange how two men could excite such totally different reactions within her.
"What's the matter?" Chase asked.
"Nothing. Not a thing." She stuck her tongue in his ear. "I was just thinking how glad I am that you're here. You in particular, I mean." Her tongue flicked the lobe of his ear.
"Keep doing that and you'll get more than you bargained for."
"Is that a firm promise?"
Chase let his hand slip down to cup her breast, which weighed heavily in his palm, the nipple stiffening against his thumb. "Yes," he said, feeling the heat starting to rise again. "A very firm promise."
Chase drove north along Interstate 5, skirting the fringes of the Los Padres National Forest. The few remaining acres of what had been a sizable timberland were being encroached upon by the sprawl of Los Angeles from the south and the ever-greedy Vandenberg Spaceport devouring hundreds of square miles inland from the coastal strip. He brought to mind his conversation with Binch and Ruth Patton. The JEG plant was conveniently near Vandenberg--too damn conveniently near for comfort. Was this fanciful paranoia on his part or was there some actual link between them? If so, he couldn't think what.
Once past Wheeler Ridge he turned onto highway 99 and headed for Bakersfield. The ridged folds of ocher-colored hills--twenty years ago bare and now dotted with houses--shimmered in the heat. The car's thermometer registered an air temperature of 102deg F. Chase drove in shirt sleeves, with the windows fully wound up against the searing blast, and blessed the marvels of modern technology. He felt as cool as a freshly picked mint leaf.
In Bakersfield he looked for the JEG Chemicals' sign and was directed by an arrow underneath a huge silver conch shell along a smaller road that followed the meanderings of the Kern River. The plant was eight miles the other side of Bakersfield, toward Lake Isabella, and clearly visible a good three miles away: gleaming multicolored aluminum domes, silver towers, and abstract sculptured pipework, resembling a lunar colony. In the distorting heat waves it looked surreal.
At the gate he showed his Scripps ID card, in the name of Dr. David Benson--a name Cheryl had either borrowed or invented, he wasn't sure which. The guard checked a clipboard and waved him through.
In the large semicircular reception hall he was asked to wait while they contacted Mr. Merrik's office. Chase spent the few minutes looking at an illuminated display framed in heavy molded bronze that took up a complete section of wall. Next to each name was a symbol, a kind of hieroglyph in bas-relief, supposed to represent that particular company's products and services. An oil derrick. A space probe. A truck, and so on. Chase let his eye roam over the family tree, impressed by the JEG empire in all its splendor:
JEG Electronics JEG Thermoplastics JEG Petroleum JEG Data Systems JEG Aerospace JEG Ranching JEG Lumber JEG Realty JEG Transport JEG Video JEG Communications JEG Franchising
He counted more than forty major companies, many of which branched into miniconglomerates of their own. It was big and rich and powerful, Chase reflected, and it would have influential friends in high places.
Merrik was of medium height with short sandy hair and a fledgling ginger moustache, wearing spectacles with heavy green frames that clashed badly with his coloring. Chase got the immediate impression that the moustache and glasses were an attempt to lend authority to what were essentially a babyish face and timid, retiring manner.
They shook hands across the desk and Chase sat down and fussily crossed his legs. He smiled in a bright, vague way, hoping to give the impression that he was all at sea in the mundane commercial world-- more the academic used to grappling with the higher reaches of conceptual thought. So much the better if Merrik thought him naive; it might just make him relax his guard.
And Merrik was apparently quite willing to accept him at face value, as an English marine biologist working at Scripps. He listened politely as Chase explained how the Marine Life Research Group was mounting a deepwater expedition (this Cheryl's brainchild) "to investigate the systematics, evolution, and spatial distribution of the benthic foraminifera."
Merrik's alert nods became perfunctory and his expression bemused, and after a while he raised both freckled hands. "Forgive me, Dr. Benson, but I'm afraid you're losing me. Way outside my field."