Dreams That Burn In The Night (29 page)

"Sure of yourself,
aren't you?"

He waved a hand, a
well-manicured one. "I'm dressed for it. Why not go through with it."

She toyed with her
drink, looking for something deep inside the glass. "If you say your place or mine, I promise you
I'll scream."

He waved at the
bartender, held a finger up, indicating his choice of drink. "I'll help you," he said. "Two
voices screaming rape. That ought to really attract attention."

"I think I like
you," she said, having come to a decision.

"But you'll hate
yourself in the morning," he said reasonably.

"I hate myself at
night, why should I let the next morning bother me."

The bartender
brought him a drink, eyed her to see if a drink was to be bought for her. She made a rude finger
gesture at the bartender and he fled to the end of the bar.

"You're definitely
a hostile one," said the man, running his fingers around the rim of his glass.

"Look, what do you
want? It's a bar and I'm a smart American woman sitting in this bar so men can make advances. At
least that's how the story usually goes. So what do you want, Hi Ho Silver and away?"

"I came in here to
get a drink. Mainly because I like the taste
of it. I talked to you because I was on the point of tripping and falling on you. I'm not
exactly racing my motor at the sight of you but I'm not exactly in reverse either. Would it help
any if you knew my name?"

He was dark-haired
and dark-eyed, finely muscled, well kept, as it were. Hair beginning to edge with gray in a
sophisticated sort of way. Late thirties possibly, money and power in his man­ner. Good looks the
cutting edge, a keen mind evident in his talk.

"What if I said
I've met you a thousand times before in a thou­sand bars?" she said. "What if I had met you in
the dark and had mugged you? Would knowing your name make any difference?"

He took some of his
drink, swallowing, frowning. "Can't quite figure you out."

She smiled. "You a
Harvard graduate?"

"Only once," he
said. "I dropped out after the Ph.D. Didn't seem any reason to go beyond that."

"I am a graduate of
graduation." She blew smoke up at the ceiling. She turned slowly in her seat, trying to see
through the crowd. "It's so murky in here I can't tell if people are having fun or picking flies
off themselves."

"We could go for a
walk."

"We could. But only
if you promise to limp and look pathetic," she said. "I love it when people limp
pathetically."

"Perhaps we could
forgo the experience altogether," he suggested, feeling a trifle put on.

"You'd miss the
most thrilling experience of your adult life," she said. Somehow, despite the space problems, she
managed to cross her legs and they were very much legs, crossed or un­crossed. She was really
quite the most lovely thing he had seen.

"I'll have to think
about it," he said, for a second wondering if he should be coy. "O.K." That was long enough to
think about it. "You're on. Does it matter which foot I limp on?"

"Both, if you can
manage it," she said, picking up her handbag. She ground out her cigarette on the bar top. She
took out a twenty-dollar bill and slammed it on the counter top, indicating with a wave that she
was paying for his and her drinks. The bar­tender reached to make change but she waved it away.
The bar­tender bowed such deep thanks his forehead smacked into the top of the bar. He'd been
sampling a little of what he sold.

The place was much
too crowded for any kind of movement together. They contented themselves with wriggling their own
sepa­rate paths through the crowd. They went through the heavy metal front door together, took
each other's hands, as if preparing for a joint parachute jump, and pushed their way through the
door.

Washington, D.C.,
in winter assaulted them. People dressed up like scarecrows pushed and shoved, each with the
expression of a rude vegetable on bis or her face. Shopping-bag ladies leered at them from empty
ice-covered doorways. A black guy with no coat danced in the cold snow with a radio inside his
tattered red shirt.

"Now what happens?"
she asked, looking first to the right, then left.

"We walk," he said.
"You leading, me limping."

"Where to? I
mean."

"Anybody else's
place but our own?" he suggested. "Or Arling­ton National Cemetery. Maybe we could get involved
as an inno­cent bystander in some crime of violence."

The wind came
roaring down the sidewalk like the icy breath of a three-days-dead wino. She shivered in the icy
blast, so did he.

"Listen, let's cut
out all this jazz," she said, her face turning red with the cold. "Take me back to your apartment
or to your hotel or whatever you call home."

He tried to smile
but his teeth were chattering and it ruined the effect.

He stepped to the
street, held up his hand authoritatively and flagged down a cab. The first one he sighted pulled
over to the curb. He looked back at her. "You're making yourself surpris­ingly easy."

"No. I'm not," she
said, tucking her honey-blond hair deep in­side her thin coat. "I get more difficult by the
minute. Besides, I'm scared to death." He eyed her in puzzlement. "And I hope you find out
why."

They rode in the
cab in silence. She sat as far away from him on the seat as possible. The cabbie took the name of
his hotel and offered a number of insights about bad weather, baseball, and the garbage strike,
all of which fell on deaf ears.

The doorman touched
his cap deferentially as they got out of the cab. "Evening, Mr. Cameron. Evening,
ma'm."

They crossed the
lobby in silence. She was in a dark mood which made her look even more lovely than the dim light
in the
bar had. He was looking
uncomfortable, as if he accidentally had cheated at solitaire and won.

As they got in the
ancient elevator, she smiled at him. It wasn't much of a smile. It was the kind of smile you aim
at someone who limps pathetically and you mean to be encouraging.

"I didn't limp.
Will you ever forgive me?" he asked, pushing the button for his floor.

"You I forgive.
It's me I have a problem with," she said. She was still shivering with the cold. The elevator
played music at them. Elevator music.

He listened to the
music coming from the ceiling of the eleva­tor. "If black people ever leave America and go back
to Africa, the way you'll be able to tell is if you turn your radio on and there isn't any music,
that means the blacks are gone," he said as the elevator creeped its way upward. "How you can
tell the white people are gone is you get on the elevator and if there isn't any music, then the
white people are gone."

She opened her eyes
wide at that. Thought about it for a sec­ond. "That's hysterically funny," she said. There was no
expres­sion on her face.

"You have the
quietest lapses into being hysterically convulsed of anyone I've ever met."

The elevator
stopped at his floor and let them out.

"So sue me," she
said. "Have you got anything to drink?"

They walked down
the hall. "You mean like alcohol?"

"Comedian."

He opened the door
and she swept in as if he was hired to open the door for her.

"Excuse me, ma'm."
He bowed politely at the waist. "Shall I have the room repainted for you or will you just flounce
about in it as it is?"

"I'm rude." She sat
in an uncomfortable chair of a particularly revolting but fashionable style. His room was very,
very expen­sively decorated. It looked like a room in a Holiday Inn. She dug through her purse
for a cigarette. "I'm rude because I practice at it. It's all I have to keep me warm through the
long winter nights."

She started dumping
things out of her purse onto her lap. A compact. A .38 revolver. Wadded tissues. A large set of
keys and finally a rumpled pack of cigarettes.

He shut the door
behind him. He had a great deal of expression on his face. "Funny thing," he said, unable to
think of a single funny thing. "I have the distinct impression you are either trouble or in
trouble. Forgive me for prying. I wish not to offend. But your artillery interests me. Is it the
latest in feminine hygiene?"

She stared at him
intently, as if sizing him up for a new suit. "Do you know which end of a gun shoots a
bullet?"

"Korean War. Three
years and I never got it wrong once the whole time I was there."

"Fascinating.
Thrilling. You are funnier than a wienie roast in hell," she said, fumbling with her cigarettes.
Her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't separate the filter tips to get one shook out of the
pack. He came over and helped her.

He got a cigarette
out, put it in his mouth, lit it, and handed it back to her. She took a long drag on it as if it
were about to save her life.

He went to the door
and turned the dead bolt, locking it. She stared over at him, making no comment on his actions.
"Not locking you in. Locking an as yet unexplained something or somebody out."

"You ought to
know," she said.

"Ought to know
what?"

"You'll find
out."

"You are a woman of
mystery." He smothered a yawn. "I had a woman of mystery once before. She was French on one side
of the family and had a grandmother from Texas on the other. She slept in a hammock and snored.
She died of something un­fashionable." He scratched the end of his nose lazily. "I think she was
killed by music."

She blinked her
eyes, not quite believing her ears. "Killed by music?"

"She was living in
a one-room apartment and learning how to play the tuba. Her husband shot her. He got off.
Justifiable homi­cide."

"I was right. I am
going to like you. In fact, I think I am madly in like with you."

He laughed. "But
you don't even know me. I might be Attila the Hun in a suit. Or Jack the Ripper living in a
better neigh­borhood."

"Or you might be
Gregory Cameron, in charge of special secu­rity for the President of the United States," she
said, nervously dragging on her cigarette.

His back stiffened
and the look of amusement faded from his face.

"Suddenly this
conversation has taken a turn for the worse." His face became hard, his manner changed
completely, became almost coldly professional.

She bent down to
her lap, her fingers found the gun, the com­bat dagger, and stuffed them hurriedly back into her
purse. She was aware of how intently his eyes studied her least little move.

"The fun has gone
out of the fun before it even got to be too much fun," she said. "I'm sorry I spoiled your
night."

"Not spoiled
necessarily. Just changed considerably." He came over and stood beside her, held out his hand.
"Do you mind?"

She
shrugged.

He took the handbag
from her, turned, and walked over to the coffee table. He upended the purse, dumping its contents
on the shiny glass tabletop.

He examined the
items. There were a few feminine things, lip­sticks, hairpins, and the wadded tissues. Then there
were the dagger and the revolver. An extra dozen or so .38-caliber car­tridges were loose in the
bottom of the purse. What was missing was any kind of identification.

She said it for
him. "So you wonder who I am?"

"A little. No,
change that. A lot."

"Does a name tell
you anything?"

"Perhaps not as
much as your not wanting to tell me it."

"You're quite
bright. I like that in a man."

"And I think you've
got a great potential for being dangerous. I like that in a woman, sort of. It's fine in bright
daylight but what happens when the lights go out?"

"I don't think it's
any great mystery," she said with a little laugh.

"Your name?" he
asked with a tight smile.

"No. What's going
to happen when the lights go out." She moved slightly, stretching like a cat that had fallen
asleep in the sun. She seemed much more relaxed, calmer. She almost seemed like a different
person.

The cigarette in
her hand was close to burning her fingers. She seemed to have forgotten that she had lit
it.

"What are you
frightened of? Is someone after you?"

The question made
her nervous again.

"No comment," she
said, reaching across an end table for an ashtray. With shaky fingers, she stubbed out the
remainder of her cigarette. She looked up at him suddenly, her eyes like ice. "I take it you've
lost interest in me. Sleeping-wise."

He sighed. "I don't
know. Your looks haven't gone back on you but you don't seem to be in the same movie I'm
in."

"Do you always talk
like that?" She had her eyes on the things from her purse.

"Sometimes I lisp,"
he said. "Usually after a lot of limping."