Home Fires (19 page)

“My gun!” Chelle held out her left hand; her right still dangled at her side.

“Well, certainly. Skip caught that horrible Ortiz and marched him off without a word. Only there was a man with Skip who made me uncomfortable. Possibly it was because of his tweed jacket. Who could stand tweed in this heat? So I stayed behind and went through the horrible man’s desk, looking for papers and so forth. I didn’t find any but I found this, and I knew you’d want it back.”

“You…” Chelle hesitated. “You came down to rescue me, Mother? To try to?”

“I don’t think I understand this gun at all. The bottle-shaped bullets and everything. I wanted to try it, but it didn’t seem safe. What’s that funny thing on the trigger? Don’t hold your hand out like that, Chelle darling, it’s not polite and I’m not going to give it back to you until you ask nicely.”

“¡A la puñeta!”

Vanessa smiled. “That was a favorite expression of Charles’s, and I never understood it. Now you can explain it to me.”

Chelle gave Skip a painful smile as he lifted her right arm into the sling he had knotted from his shirt. “Please kick the shit out of my goddamn mother, so I can hug her—that’s if she really came down here for me.”

Skip said, “She did.”

“Yeah, she must have if she went through that desk. Why did you let her do it?”

“Various reasons.” He adjusted the sling. “For one thing we wanted people who looked like harmless captives but could and would fight, if fighting were needed. For another—”

“And you thought Mother would?”

“No. I knew she would. As long as the hijackers had you, she’d fight like a tigress to get you back. I haven’t known her long, but—”

Mick Tooley had come in. “You found her, sir.”

“Indeed he did.” Vanessa looked demure. “Guided by a mother’s love, he could scarcely fail.” She spoke to Skip. “Perhaps you should introduce us?”

Swaying, Chelle said, “Give me my goddamn gun before I knock you down.” Skip tried to steady her.

“Please, Chelle darling. Not in front of strangers.”

Tooley stepped back. “If you’d rather I’d leave…”

“Stay,” Skip told him. “Your presence may prevent a murder.”

“Mine.” Vanessa’s eyes were bright with tears.

“Virginia,” Skip said, “this is Michael Tooley. You may remember that I gave you his number when Chelle and I were planning our cruise. Chelle, this is Mick Tooley. He’s the sort of young lawyer I was when you left Earth.”

Chelle offered her left hand. “It’s a pleasure, Mick. I’m your boss’s contracta. From this point on, a part of your job will be to convince him he’s not too o-old for me. Think you can do it?”

“I’ll try,” Tooley promised, “and I believe I have a clean handkerchief big enough to go around your head.”

*   *   *

Susan was waiting in the sitting room of Stateroom 23C when Skip opened the door. She rose, smiling. “It’s good to see you. To see you in private, I mean. I’ve been seeing a lot of you in public.”

“I understand. Why don’t you try the big leather chair? It’s a bit more comfortable.”

Susan remained standing. The smile remained as well. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I got in here?”

“You bribed the steward, I imagine.”

“Not at all. I found your Ms. Blue in the infirmary, explained that I was your secretary and needed to speak to you privately, and promised to return her cabin card. She let me have it.”

Skip removed Tucker’s
Guide to Modern Military Law
from the seat of his reading chair and sat. “I hope you’ll excuse me. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.”

“That’s what I’ve come to say, really. That I excuse you.”

He nodded and thanked her.

“A long day for me, too. I was seasick on the boat that brought us from Boca. Did Mr. Tooley tell you?”

“That you were seasick? No.”

Susan sat down on the couch. “I thought you’d have a thousand questions, and I’m prepared to answer every one I could dream up. Don’t you have any?”

“I’m exhausted, as I said.” Skip hesitated. “There are two reasons for not quizzing you. May I explain?”

“I wish you would.”

“The first is that I’m not entitled to. You came with Mick—”

“I joined him in Boca.”

“I stand corrected. I thank you for that. I’m deeply indebted to you, just as I am to Mick and the rest of his party. I’m further indebted to you because you volunteered for the hold. We wanted women—attractive women who would fight, if fighting were necessary. You and Vanessa stepped forward, and I was stunned. I still am.”

“What’s the second?”

“I haven’t finished with the first, but as you wish. I don’t want to question you because I anticipate that any questions of mine would evoke tears and recriminations. I deserve both and more, I know. But I’m not looking forward to them.”

“There are women who can cry whenever they want to,” Susan said. “I’m not one of them. There have been a lot of times recently when I wanted to cry. Sometimes I did, and felt better afterward. Sometimes I couldn’t. It’s like wanting to breathe when you’re under the water.”

“You’re asking my permission to cry.”

“Yes. I suppose I am.” She rose and wandered into the bedroom. “We had a nice cabin, but it wasn’t as nice as this.”

“That was a different ship.”

If she had heard him, she gave no sign of it. A few seconds later, she slid back one of the veranda doors and stepped outside. “It’s cooler out here.”

He followed her. “It is, now that the sun’s low. Chelle and I opened them—this was the first night out—after we came back from dinner, but we were afraid to leave them open when we went to bed. That seems rather comic after everything that’s happened.”

“After the hijackers.”

He nodded. “Then Chelle went to bed with a guy she met at a party, and they left them open. I know that, because he jumped out of bed and ran out here when I came in. His name was Jerry, Chelle said. Jerry ran out here, knocking over a lamp, and jumped the railing. He may have hurt himself, I suppose, but I don’t really know.”

“She cheats on you.”

Skip shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it that. I cheated on her while she was gone.”

“With me.”

He nodded. “So I can’t complain. And I don’t. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Maybe that’s the best way.”

He waited.

“Here’s what I was going to say. I was going to say that you had told me—once—what would happen when your Chelle came back. You had told me, but I hadn’t believed you. When I got you the train tickets to Canam, I still didn’t know.”

He nodded.

“When I found out why you’d gone up there, it knocked the props out from under me. That’s when I quit. I went into Mr. Ibarra’s office and cried my eyes out. He shut the door and let me cry as long as I wanted. Then he said he understood, and the firm would tell anybody who asked that I could walk on water.”

Skip said, “Luis is a good man.”

“Yes, he is. It stuck in my mind for some reason, that business about walking on water. And then somebody—I won’t tell you who—called and told me you were in trouble and Mr. Tooley had gone to Tamaulipas with a dozen men to help you, and they were going to hire mercenaries and buy a boat. So I went too. I met them there, about an hour before they sailed.”

Skip nodded. “I owe you a great deal. I believe I’ve said that already, but I’ll repeat it.”

“You don’t owe me one damned thing, Mr. Grison. I couldn’t help doing what I did.” Susan’s hands writhed in her lap. “I love you. It’s something I can’t control. Would you rather I stayed away?”

“It might be better if you did.”

“I … understand. Can I tell you what I was going to tell you? I was going to say I love you, and I’m sorry I got all upset and quit. But I did and that’s that. Only if you ever want me, I won’t be hard to find. I was going to say you could stay with your contracta, but sometime you might remember the cruise or the skiing vacations. If you did—I’m not saying this, it’s just what I planned—all you’d have to do is call me.” Her laugh held no merriment at all.

He said, “I’m glad you’re not saying that.”

“So am I. I’m getting a little of my pride back, or that’s how it seems to me. I’ve had some time now, and I’ve been terribly seasick. Being seasick puts everything in perspective. I’m still an attractive woman, or think I am.”

“You are.”

“So I’m going to try to find somebody. Somebody nice who wants to contract.”

Skip nodded.

“Somebody who’ll love me, poor dowdy little Susan, the way you love your Chelle.” Susan took a deep breath, held it, released it, and took another. “So this is what I’m really saying, Mr. Grison—it doesn’t bother you that I’m not calling you Skip?”

He shook his head. “Call me whatever you like.”

“What we had for nine years and eighty-seven days is over and done with. I’m not going to try to restart it. If you try to, it won’t work. Mr. Ibarra promised he’d give me good references.”

Skip said, “So will I.”

“I’m sure, but I don’t want them. There are a million women out there trying to land secretarial jobs, women working as waitresses and maids who have business degrees. A lot of them have wonderful references. I know some who are posted on every website in the world and have spammed out résumés by the thousand. Women who offer to go to the north coast at their own expense for one interview. I’ve got thirteen years with Burton, Grison, and Ibarra. May I come back? Please?”

Skip nodded. “With no loss in seniority. I’ll see to it.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Grison.” The words were scarcely audible.

“You won’t have to come back as my secretary, Susan. I realize that—”

“I want to! That’s exactly what I want. It will be all business, I promise, and I’ll be the best secretary anybody ever saw.”

“You always were. Do you really want your old job back?”

“Yes! You—you said you needed women who’d fight if necessary. I’ve still got the gun Mr. Tooley gave me in Boca. Look!” Susan’s hand went to her holster. “Tell me to shoot a couple of those hijackers, and they’re dead. Order me to do anything you want done, Mr. Grison except—except what…”

“I won’t,” Skip said quickly. “Now take your hand off your gun.”

Susan did, and sat down on the bed.

He went to her. “You’ve become what you told Chelle you were. It’s a business relationship, a permanent one, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Let’s shake hands.”

Susan’s hand seemed damp, weak and a trifle too small, and he realized with a start that he had already grown used to Chelle’s. Feeling awkward, he cleared his throat. “Now that you’re my confidential secretary again, I want to ask you a question. It’s a delicate matter, so don’t tell anyone I asked.”

“Of course not.”

“If you know anything, if you have even the smallest scrap of information, I want it. No matter how trivial it seems.”

Susan nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Have you ever heard of a woman named Jane Sims?”

For a fraction of a second, it seemed him that Susan had recognized the name; there had been, he felt, a flicker in her eyes, a slight tightening of her mouth. Then she said, “No, sir. Who is she?”

“She’s a woman Chelle mentioned. I don’t want to pry, but it’s something I may need to know. So I’m trying to find out.”

“What about Boris?”

“I’ve got him looking already. Are you sure you didn’t recognize the name?”

“Yes, sir. Unless you mean Jane Simmons. I used to know a Jane Simmons.”

“You’re no longer in touch with her?”

Susan shook her head. “Not for years, sir. We were never really close. She contracted with a woman in the rapeseed oil business, and they went off to someplace in Asia.”

“I doubt that she’s my Jane Sims.”

“So do I. You said you were tired, sir. If you’d like to lie down…?”

“I’d like to, but I can’t afford it. I was going to take a long, cold shower, then go back to the infirmary to see Chelle. Since you’ll be going there, we might as well go together.”

*   *   *

It was on J Deck, aft. The middle-aged nurse at the reception desk said, “You want to see Chelle Blue? Both of you?”

Skip nodded. “I’m Chelle’s contracto, and this is my secretary, Susan Clerkin. We need to talk to her together. It won’t take long.”

“Ms. Clerkin was here…” The nurse pressed buttons and studied her screen. “At fourteen thirty-five. Weren’t you one of the people who brought Ms. Blue in?”

Skip nodded again.

“Well, I can’t let both of you in together.”

“Yes, you can. Ask Dr. Prescott.”

The nurse frowned. “He’s not here.”

“In that case, I’ll have him paged.”

“Are you going to be long?”

In the end they were admitted, and found Chelle in bed with her head swathed in bandages and her right arm in a cast. She tried to sit up, and did when the nurse cranked up her bed. “This is great! Got my cabin card?” Her grin made Skip want to turn away.