"There!" he said. "The picture is complete." He gripped her elbow and gently propelled her away from the jewelry department. "Let's go."
"Where are we—?"
"Out."
"But we haven't paid."
"We don't have to. We're Primes."
"Oh, God, Rafe!"
Lisl tried to turn back toward the counter but Rafe had a firm grip on her arm.
"Trust me on this, Lisl," he said in her ear. "Follow my lead. I'm the only one you can really trust."
She held her breath and let him guide her toward the exit, sure that at any minute the store detectives would leap upon them and escort them to a back office where they'd be grilled and then arrested. But no one stopped them.
Until the exit. A uniformed doorman stepped in front of them at the glass door that led to the street; his gloved hand gripped the handle.
"Find everything you need?" he said with a smile.
Lisl felt her knees begin to wobble. Shoplifting! And with what this jewelry was worth, she'd be charged with grand larceny instead of petty theft. She saw her reputation, her whole academic career heading for the sewer.
"Just looking today," Rafe said.
"Fine!" said the doorman and pulled open the door. "Come back anytime."
"We'll be sure to do that," Rafe said as he guided Lisl ahead of him.
Relief flooded through her as they joined the pedestrians outside and walked up Conway Street. When they were half a block from the store, Lisl snatched her arm away from him.
"Are you insane?" she said, keeping her voice low with an effort. She was furious. She wanted to run away, break it off, never see him again.
Rafe's expression was one of shock, but the hint of a smile played about his lips.
"What's wrong? I thought you liked gold jewelry."
"I do! But I don't steal things!"
"That wasn't stealing. That was merely getting your due."
"I have money! I can afford to buy my jewelry!"
"So can I. I could buy out that whole department in there and cover you with gold. But that's not the point. That's not why I did it."
"Then what is the point?"
"That there's Us, and there's Them. We don't have to answer to them. They deserve anything we do to them, they owe us anything we take from them. They've been dumping on you all your life. It's high time you got something back."
"But I don't want anything from anybody unless I earn it."
His smile was sad. "Don't you see? You have earned it. Just by being a Prime. We carry them on our backs. It's our minds, our dreams, our ambitions that fuel the machinery of progress and give them direction. Without us they'd still be boiling tubers over dung fires outside their miserable little huts."
Lisl reached back and unclasped the necklace from around her neck. She removed the earrings and pulled off the bracelet.
"All that may be true, but I'm taking these back. I can't wear them."
And I can't stay with you.
Rafe held out his hand. "Allow me."
Lisl hesitated, then handed him the gold jewelry. Rafe turned and gave it all to the first woman who passed by.
"Merry Christmas, ma'am," he said as he thrust it into one of her hands.
The gesture shocked Lisl. This wasn't petty thievery. Rafe was trying to make a point. When he took her hand, she didn't pull away.
They walked on and Lisl glanced back. The woman was staring after them as if they were crazy. She glanced at the jewelry in her hand, then dropped it all in a nearby litter basket.
Lisl stopped and tugged on Rafe's arm.
"That's eighteen-karat gold!"
Rafe pulled her along. "She thinks it's junk jewelry. Either way, it's shiny metal. That's all."
Lisl turned her back on the woman and the litter basket.
"This is all so crazy!"
"But exciting too."
"Not exciting—terrifying."
"Come now. Admit that there's a kind of exhilaration buzzing through you right now."
Lisl felt the adrenalized tingling of her limbs, the racing thump of her heart. As much as she hated to admit it, it had been exciting.
"But I feel guilty."
"That will pass. You're a Prime. Guilt and remorse—they have no place in your life. If you do something that causes guilt, you must do it again. And again. Ten, twenty, thirty times if need be, until the guilt and remorse are gone."
"And then what?"
"And then you go further. You crank it up a notch. You'll see."
Lisl felt a chill.
"I will?"
"Sure. You'll see that it's easier the next time."
"I don't want a next time, Rafe."
He stopped and stared at her. They were at a corner. People were streaming by but Lisl barely noticed them. The disappointment in Rafe's eyes nearly overwhelmed all other perceptions.
"This isn't for me, Lisl. This is for you. I'm trying to cut you loose, to free you to fly and reach the heights of your potential. You can't fly if you won't kick off the shackles they've used to hobble you all your life. Do you want to kick free or not?"
"Of course I do, but—"
"No buts. Are you going to stay chained down here or are you going to fly with me? The choice is yours."
Lisl saw how serious he was, and realized in that moment that she could lose this man. Yes, he was young, and yes, she had lived almost half again as many years as he had, but dammit she could not remember ever feeling this good about herself, about life in general. She felt like a complete woman, an intellectual and sexual being for whom there were no limits. She felt a certain greatness beckoning; all she had to do was follow the call.
And it was all due to Rafe. Without him she'd still be just another math nerd.
Nerd. God, she hated the word. But she'd always been a nerd. She knew it and was brave enough to admit it: She was a nerd to the bone and she was tired of it. She didn't want to be who she was, and here was Rafe offering her a chance to be somebody new. And if she didn't take that chance, what would he do? Would he turn his back and walk away? Give up on her as a lost cause?
She couldn't stand that.
But it wouldn't happen. She was through being a nerd. The new Lisl Whitman was going to take control of her life. She was going to squeeze the last drop of juice from it.
But she didn't want to steal. No matter what Rafe said about other people owing it to her, the idea of stealing stuck in her craw. And no matter how many times she did it, she knew she'd still feel guilty.
She could pretend to go along, though. Pretend that she'd overcome any guilt or remorse about it and then they could quit that and move on to quieter, saner pastimes. Rafe was so radical, so intense, but she was sure that was all due to his youth. A little time and she knew she could mellow him.
She smiled at him.
"All right. I'm ready when you are. When's the next caper?"
He laughed and hugged her. "It's now. It's right up the street. Let's go!"
"Great!" she said, reaching into her bag to hide the sinking feeling inside. She pulled out a stack of envelopes.
"What are those?"
"The Christmas party invitations. I finished addressing them this morning."
She dropped them in the mailbox and sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn't be in jail for her party.
EIGHT
Everett Sanders stepped off the bus from the campus at his usual stop and walked the three and a half blocks home. Along the way he picked up his five white, short-sleeved shirts—boxed, no starch—from the cleaners. He owned ten such work shirts, kept five at home and five in the cleaners at all times. He made his usual stop before the front window of Raftery's Tavern and peered inside at the people gathered there in the darkness to drink away the afternoon and the rest of the evening. He watched for exactly one minute, then continued on to the Kensington Arms, a five-story brick apartment house that had been built in the twenties and somehow had managed to survive the Sun Belt's explosion of new construction.