Candlish chuckled. "Your own car, lad. All in order.
There's papers to prove it. Just leave it where you want. When the police find it—you'll be miles away." It wasn't a question. He had no doubts of Craig's ability. "Good luck, John."
Craig scrambled ashore. "Thanks," he said. "So long."
Candlish watched as Craig went up the beach to the cliff. A good lad. A hard one to get on the wrong side of. He touched the inside of his jacket, and the hundred-dollar bills crackled like music. That fat bitch would be happy when he paid her. Slow and easy he rowed back to the launch.
Craig found the Volkswagen waiting, a road map open on the front seat, and drove at once to Cork and breakfast in a hotel. Bacon and eggs and tea, and a waiter who talked because he felt like it, because it was a beautiful morning. Craig went next to a travel agency, and then bought clothes, a suitcase, shoes, and set off for Shannon across the cheerful Irish landscape, the improbable green grass and whitewashed cabins unreal as a film set. And why not? The Irish were all actors anyway. That didn't make them any less efficient when they wanted to be, Craig thought, and drove the Volkswagen with care. He daren't risk an accident.
At Shannon, Ireland stopped and Mid Atlantica began. Even the tea tasted different, at one with the plastic and insurance machines and flight calls. Craig boarded an Aer Lingus Boeing at five o'clock. Nine hours later he was in Chicago, and it was eight p.m. Two hours after that he was at Kennedy, and it was eleven p.m. He went into New York by bus, and found a hotel in the West Forties in downtown Manhattan, and slept for fourteen hours. When he awoke it was time to find Miss Loman.
He rang Marcus Kaplan Inc. and asked for him by name. When a secretary's voice told him he was on holiday, he said:
"My name is Adams. John Adams. I had rather hoped to see Mr. Kaplan."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Adams. We have no way of contacting him right now."
"Oh dear," said Craig, very British. "It's about claypigeon shooting. What I believe you call skeet shooting over here."
"That's right," said the girl, and the voice was weary now, long-suffering—a secretary too often involved in her boss's obsession. Skeet shooting to Kaplan was like a fix to a junkie. She didn't dare get in the way. Get off the hook, her instincts said. Fast.
"You might try Miss Loman, sir," she said. It was that easy.
She lived in Greenwich Village, on the ground floor of a house in Grove Street, with a small brick yard where a maple tree somehow survived and even gave shade. When Craig called she had been sunbathing, and had to put on a robe to answer the bell's ring. When she saw who it was, she blushed again.
"I'm sorry," said Craig. "Did I disturb you?"
"No," she said. "I was in the yard. Do you want to come out?"
He followed her, thinking how young she was, how easy her movements, with the ease that comes from knowing, really knowing, that nothing can ever go wrong, nothing can really hurt all that much. There was a chair under the tree, and she waved him to it. She sat on a li-lo that lay in the full glare of the sun. She was still blushing.
Craig said, "What's wrong?"
"It's ridiculous," Miss Loman said. "Every time I see you I'm like this. Maybe you think I don't have any clothes ... I was sunbathing."
"Go ahead and sunbathe," said Craig. She hesitated. "Look, Miss Loman, I can't be a prowler. I'm British."
She giggled then, took off the robe, and lay down. She wore a tiny bikini and her body was sleek with suntan lotion. A small, luscious body that would one day be fat, but that day was yet to come. A woman's body, thought Craig, who had never subscribed to the theory that women were failed men and ought to look like it.
"I've come to ask about your uncle," he said.
Miss Loman pouted. "He's fine," she said. "But he's not my uncle."
"I'm sorry, I'd forgotten that," said Craig. "Just an old family friend, isn't he?"
"That's right."
"Is your father in the millinery business too?"
"My father's dead, Mr. Craig. So's my mother. Marcus brought me up. Supported me." She hesitated. "He's supporting me now. I got bored being a secretary."
"You know where he is?"
She swung round to look at him, her body's movements forgotten. She was wary of him now. "I can't tell you," she said.
"He's in danger," said Craig. "He could be hurt." She got up and backed away. Craig sat on, under the tree.
"Just who are you?" she said.
"You weren't surprised at what I said. You knew it already," said Craig.
"And how did you know I was here?" She hesitated, then—"Adams. You rang up Marcus's firm, didn't you? Called yourself Adams." She took a step backwards, then another. "I want you out of here."
Craig sat on, and she retreated further.
"Marcus knows where his brother is," Craig said. "Maybe you know it too."
The words stopped her.
"His brother's dead," she said. "He died in Volochanka prison."
"He's alive," said Craig. "He escaped from prison—God knows how. The story is he's in Turkey."
She began to move again, and Craig, still slouched in his chair, suddenly had a gun in his hand. It moved up slowly from her waist to a point between her eyes.
"Look at it, Miss Loman," said Craig.
"I'm looking," she said. "You'd never dare-"
"Miss Loman, you don't believe that," said Craig. "Come and sit down."
Slowly, her eyes fixed on the gun's black mouth, she obeyed. Craig still didn't move.
"There's a question you missed," he said. "You should have said, 'Who the hell are you, anyway?'"
"Who the hell are you, anyway?"
"British Intelligence. M-16. Department K," said Craig.
"You'll have to leave here sometime. Ill call the police-"
She stopped. Craig was shaking his head. "Why wouldn't I?"
"All sorts of reasons. If you did that—I'd kill your uncle. Or you. Or both." "But that's crazy."
"Miss Loman, you're up to your neck in a very crazy business. There's another reason. Your uncle wants to see his brother." Her eyes looked into his then, for the first time ignoring the gun. "You know that's true, Miss Loman." She nodded. "I'm the only one who can find him."
"You think you're so good?"
Craig said wearily, "I have to be. If I don't, I'm a dead man myself."
He stood up then, and the gun disappeared in a blur of speed. She looked up into flat gray eyes that told her nothing at all.
"Where's your uncle, Miss Loman?"
"Miami Beach," she said. "The Portland Arms."
"Any skeet shooting there?"
"Yes," she said. "But nobody goes there now."
"We will," said Craig.
He moved then, and took her arm. She could sense the power, carefully controlled, in his hard hands. There was something else too. He was trembling, but her body meant nothing to him. She was sure of it.
"I meant what I told you," he said. "If I don't get Kaplan, I'm dead. And if I die, Miss Loman, I'm going to have company." He paused. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I'll have to watch you dress."
To her amazement, she realized the apology was genuine.
CHAPTER 6
He wouldn't let her pack. She wore the new dress Marcus had bought for her birthday—a drip-dry thing in glittering yellow, and her handbag was big enough to contain a spare pair of stockings, bra, and pants. He let her take them, but that was all, then they walked together down the street, the pretty girl and the attentive beau who was taking her out to lunch.
"Nothing's more conspicuous than a suitcase," he said. "Even if your neighbors aren't nosy."
They took a cab to the air terminal and a bus to Kennedy. He paid for everything in cash, and seemed to have plenty. All the way he was polite and attentive, and she realized that in other circumstances this man would have been attractive to her, tremendously attractive, in spite of the threat of cruelty behind the politeness. Perhaps even because of it. But he was unaware of her as a woman, she knew, and the thought irked her, even then.