"You're wrong about that," I said, but it was I who was bluffing, not her. And we both knew it; I could see the sense of certitude on her face.
"Do you want us to go after you instead of Nicholas?" she asked.
I shrugged.
"It could be arranged. Really, we could get both of you together; your lives are intertwined. If one of you falls, the other falls automatically."
"Is that what your superior at FAP GHQ told you?" I said.
"We discussed it. A number of us."
"Then do your damnedest," I said. "I already know about the dope you've been hiding around here; I found it and destroyed it. I was tipped off."
"You couldn't have found it all," Vivian said.
"Is there an infinite amount?"
"No, but the person hiding it - " She broke off.
"If he can hide it," I said wearily, "I can find it. And if I can find it, that's the end of it. Like the lid of grass you brought. A FAPer smoking grass - it doesn't compute. You and your goddamn hash pipe - Christ, as soon as you brought out the grass I knew you were setting me up."
Vivian said, "Phil, you were set up a long time ago. What I did tonight is very little. Going to bed with me -"
"Let me take a look at your California driver's license." Suddenly something occurred to me. Maybe she wasn't underage after all. I hurried past her, out of the bedroom and down the hall in the direction of the living room; Vivian scuttled right behind me, trying to overtake me. It was no use; I wedged myself in the hallway and beat her to the living room and her purse.
"Get out of my purse!" she shrieked.
I grabbed up her purse, sprinted with it into the bathroom, locked the bathroom door after me. In an instant I had shaken the contents out onto the bathroom rug.
The driver's license gave her age as nineteen. She was not underage. That too had been a police trap, and an empty one. So much for that. But it showed me how close I was to the edge, how little separated me from a fall to oblivion.
I unlocked the bathroom door. Vivian was nowhere to be seen. Listening, straining, I heard her voice far off; she was on the phone in the bedroom.
When I entered the bedroom she hung up and stood facing me defiantly. "May I have my things back?" she said.
"Sure," I said. "They're on the bathroom rug. You can pick them up yourself." I accompanied her to the bathroom, where she knelt down and began to gather up her papers, cosmetics, wallet, and assorted possessions. "What did you do," I asked, "call FAP to tell them the plan didn't work?"
Vivian stuffed her possessions back into her purse, straightened up, returned to the bedroom silently to put on her shoes, walked down the hall to the living room, where she slid into her coat, and then, all her things gathered together, including her hash pipe, she opened the front door of the house and walked up the driveway to her parked car.
I went with her. The night was warm and pleasant. I felt good indeed; I had parried another police trap.
"I'll see you again, Phil," Vivian said.
"No, you won't," I said, opening her car door for her. "I have no wish to see you again. In bed or out of it."
"You'll see me again," Vivian said, getting in and starting up the motor.
I said, "You have nothing on me; I don't have to see you."
"Ask me what I did while you were taking your shower."
I looked down at her as she sat calmly behind the wheel of her car. "You did -"
"I hid it where you'll never find it," Vivian said; she began rapidly rolling up her window.
"Hid what?" I grabbed at the window, but it continued to roll up; I grabbed at the door handle, but she had locked it.
"Cocaine," Vivian said. Her window closed, she shifted into gear, the car suddenly roared off into the street and made a sharp right turn, its tires squealing. I stood impotently watching her go.
Bull, I said to myself. Another crock, like her being underage. But - how could I be sure? I had been in the shower at least fifteen minutes. Vivian Kaplan had had fifteen unobstructed free minutes to hide anything she wanted around my house - to hide stuff, to pry, to read, to see where things were... anything she cared to do. Possibly, I thought, the whole going to bed with me had been only a ploy - designed to tie me up by distraction, so that I lost sight of the real issue. And what was the real issue? The fact that an admitted government agent, wearing an armband, openly identified as such, had obtained from me fifteen minutes of absolute privilege to come and go in my house, alone. She had been legally there. I had invited her over. And this, after my pal the friendly cop had warned me.
There is no use warning me, I said to myself with savage, helpless wrath. I am too fucking stupid. The warning is wasted; I just keep on truckin" anyhow. I invite them over; then I lock myself up in the shower for fifteen minutes, giving them the run of the house. She could have planted a gun and dope as well; there I go, down the tubes, forever. Victim of a police trick carried off to perfection, in that I did most of the work myself.
And suppose it's another lie. Suppose she didn't hide any coke. Quantities of coke are minute; I could look for days, weeks, and never find it, and if there isn't any I could drive myself nuts, work myself into a paranoid psychotic frenzy and not find it - not find it and never know if it was an inch away or if it never existed. Meanwhile, every second of the night and day, waiting for the cops to come in on a tip and bust me - tear open a wall and find the coke right away: a ten-year sentence.
Suddenly chilled, I thought, Maybe her phone call was the tip. The tip the police were waiting for; not that the drugs are there, but that the drugs had been placed there successfully, that when they break in and examine the house they will find something.
Then my days - my hours - are numbered, I thought. There is no use searching. Better just to sit. Just walk back into the house and sit.
I did so. I closed the front door and seated myself on the couch; presently I got up to turn on the FM. Again I sat down. I listened to a performance of the Beethoven Emperor Concerto, sitting, listening, waiting, listening not to the familiar music but for the sounds of approaching cars. It was a hell of an experience. Time stretched out immeasurably. I had to go into the kitchen, finally, to look at the stove clock in order to obtain any idea of how late it was. One hour, two hours, passed. No one came: no cars, no pounding on the door, no pump shotguns and men in uniform. Just the radio playing and the house empty except for me.
I felt my forehead; it was hot and sweaty."Going into the bathroom I got the thermometer, shook it down, and took my temperature. It was 102 degrees: a fever from fear and tension. My body made ill by the stress it was under, unfair and unjust stress, but very real. She was smart to shoot right out of here, I said to myself. After she told me that, whether it was true or not. Jammed down the gas pedal and laid rubber. If she shows up here again I'll murder her. She knows it; she'll stay away.
If I get out of this safe and alive, I said to myself, I will write a book about this. Somehow I will figure out a way to work it into a novel. So other people will know. Vivian Kaplan will go down in history for what she is, for what she does. That is my promise to myself, to keep myself going.
Never walk over a writer, I said to myself, unless you're positive he can't rise up behind you. If you're going to burn him, make sure he's dead. Because if he's alive, he will talk: talk in written form, on the printed, permanent page.
But am I alive? I asked myself.
Only time could tell. I felt at this moment as if a mortal blow had been delivered to me, a blade thrust deep; the pain was unbearable. But I might survive. I had survived the attack on my house; I had survived many things. Probably I would survive this. If I did, FAP was in trouble, Vivian Kaplan in particular.