I stepped back into the kitchen, and waited a minute or two. Then I began to whistle and started for the bedroom again.
"Well," she said, as! put the tray down on a reading stand. "What took you so long?"
"Oh, I took my time," I said, carelessly. "I didn't want to catch you undressed."
"No-o!" she said. "I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that."
I poured coffee and sat down on the bed with her. She'd put on a pair of slacks and a sweater and was propped up on the pillows, her knees drawn up.
"Good," she said, nibbling on an orange slice. "Very good."
For the first time since I had met her, I found it difficult to talk. To respond to her aimless, impish chatter. It was grotesque in the light of what I had just seen. I had the impression of being drawn into a game while a flood tide rose around my neck.
She finished eating, and I lighted a cigarette for her. My hand trembled a little as I held out the match, and she steadied it with her own hand.
"What's the matter with you this morning, Pat?"
"Matter?"
She didn't say anything. She merely lay back, waiting, her brown eyes inscrutable.
"I've been a little worried," I said. "Maybe that's it."
"Worried about what?"
"About what's going to happen to me. About what is happening to me."
"Is?"
"Yes," I said, and I told her about the car and my talk with Myrtle Briscoe. At some point in the telling, she suddenly sat up and gripped my fingers.
"Pat," she said. "Had you thought about telling Myrtle?"
"Yes,"! said, looking squarely at her. "I've thought about telling her everything. About everyone and everything. It might send me back to Sandstone, but I think I'd have plenty of company on the trip."
"You might"-she released my fingers- "Why don't you do it?"
Her voice was flat, her gaze as steady as mine. I'd made a threat and what it had got me I didn't know. Advice-or another threat.
"I'm sorry," I said. "You're the only person I know to turn to, and turning to you doesn't seem to do any good. There's no reason why it should, of course, why you should help me-"
"Do you really believe that, Pat?"
"I don't know," I said, "what to believe."
"No," she nodded, "and there's your answer to everything. You don't see anyone's problems but your own. You don't trust anyone but yourself. The fact that I won't tell you everything I know is interpreted to mean that I'm against you. That's all you can see."
"I don't think that," I said.
"Yes, you do, Pat. And you're wrong in doing it. I haven't told you any more than I have because it isn't a good thing for you to know it. You'd blunder into something that you're not big enough to handle."
"I'm supposed to sit still and do nothing?"
"That's about it." Her face softened. "That has to be it for the present, honey. Whenever there's anything to be done, I'll let you know."
She squeezed my hand, and then she sat up and put her arms around me. She drew me down to the pillows, her cheek against mine, her lips moving against my ear.
"Poor red-haired Pat," she whispered. "He mustn't worry any more. In just a little while now… all his troubles will be over."
18
The trap was snapping shut, I could feel it; a sensation of things rushing in on me from every side.
On Monday morning I stopped by the capitol to leave a bunch of the survey forms for Rita Kennedy. They were meaningless, of course, but appearances had to be kept up. Firmly entrenched as the highway department crowd was, even they were not taking unnecessary chances in an election year.
Rita Kennedy wasn't in, and she'd left word that she wanted to see me. I passed the day reading and driving, and went back to the capitol again that evening.
Rita took the forms I handed her with a crisp smile.
"I hope I didn't inconvenience you by not being here this morning, Pat?"
"Not at all," I said.
"I'm glad to hear it. Is it raining out?"
I said it was. "At least, it's starting to."
"Oh, damn," she said. "I'll never be able to get a taxi this time in the evening. And, of course, this is one day when I wouldn't bring an umbrella."
"I've got my car here," I said. "The state car, that is. If you'd care to have me…"
"I would," she said instantly. "Get down my coat while I'm locking my desk. I want to get out of here."
I helped her on with her coat, and she gave my arm a little squeeze as we went out the door. She held onto my arm all the way down the corridor and out to the car. And she didn't exactly lean away from me.
"I've been meaning to have a talk with you for some time, Pat," she said, as I pulled the car away from the curb. "Can you talk while you're driving?"
"Why, yes," I said.
"Perhaps I'd better not have you. This traffic makes me nervous, and the rain makes it worse. We'll wait until we get to my apartment."
"Fine," I said.
"You don't have to hurry home for any reason?"
"Not at all."
"We'll wait, then. I won't keep you long."
"It'll be all right if you do," I said.
"I won't. Don't talk any more, please."
She gave me her address, and I kept quiet all the way. I stopped in front of a large apartment house, and a doorman with an umbrella ushered us to the door. An elevator shot us up to some floor near the top.
I don't know how many rooms there were in the apartment. But I know it must have been large and expensive. It was the kind of place you have when you like good things and have had the money to buy them for a long time.
A Negro maid in a white cap took our wraps, and Rita asked me what I'd like to drink.
"Scotch will do me fine."
"I'll have the same… Sit down there by the fire, Pat."
I took a chair in front of the fireplace, and Rita came over and stood by the mantel, pausing on the way to arrange a vase on the grand piano. When the drinks came she nodded to me over her glass, lifted it, and set it down almost empty.
"Something tells me that's quite a bit better than they serve in Sandstone."
"Yes," I said, "it is."
"Don't be so sensitive about it," she said. "We went into your background thoroughly, Pat. Believe it or not, we're extremely careful about whom we hire in the highway department."
"You must be," I said; and she chuckled.
"I think you'll get along all right, Pat. If you'll come to your senses. Have you found yourself a new sponsor, yet? Burkman's out, you know."
"No," I said. "I didn't know he was out."