Los Alamos (17 page)

Connolly stared at the coffee, then looked up at Eisler as if he were someone else. The last thing he had ever imagined him to be was daring. “You must have nerves of steel,” he said finally. “That’s like playing chicken.”

“Dragon,” Eisler corrected him.

“What?”

“We call it the Dragon Experiment—tickling the tail of the sleeping dragon.”

“And you don’t worry you’ll blow the place up?”

“No. We can control that. It’s the radiation that’s dangerous.”

“Well, better you than me.”

“Mr. Connolly, please don’t be so impressed. It’s a scientific experiment, no more. I think sometimes we’re all tickling the dragon, just a little. Testing how far we can go. Don’t you feel that? It’s only—” he searched, “the radiation we don’t expect.”

“I guess,” Connolly said, feeling that Eisler was really talking to himself.

“And now may I ask you something?” Eisler said politely. “What do you do? You’re not a driver.” He anticipated Connolly’s protest with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Please. I know. Drivers don’t go to Weber’s for the music. Oppie wants to drive with you alone. That’s very unusual, you know. We notice things like that. You have my dossier. I assume others as well. What exactly are you doing here? Am I permitted to know? A government agent of some sort, I think. So there must be something wrong. What dragon are you tickling?”

Connolly was struck again by how different the emigres were. Their first assumptions were still those of the police state.

“No,” he said, “nothing like that. I’m just helping to investigate a murder.”

“Oh? Whose?” His voice was so controlled and deliberate that Connolly took it for indifference.

“A security officer named Bruner.”

Eisler sipped his coffee, saying nothing.

“Did you know him?”

“No. That is, I knew who he was. We are still a small community on the project. I was sorry to hear about it. I didn’t realize it was a security matter,” he said, the last an uninflected question.

“It may not be.”

Eisler raised his eyebrows in another question, but Connolly didn’t elaborate.

“But you don’t know who killed him?”

“Not yet.”

“I see,” he said slowly, pushing aside his tray. “So you will be our sword of justice. Well, I wish you success in your hunt. To think of catching even one. So many dead these days, and never any killers.”

“I’m only looking for one in particular.”

“Yes, of course. Forgive me. I seem always to argue philosophy when you have work to do.”

“Are you married?”

Eisler looked at him dumbfounded, the subject swerving so abruptly that he’d been caught in its whiplash. Connolly could see him sorting through explanations and failing, until he sputtered a sort of laugh. “Why do you ask? Is it the investigation? Place of birth, school, married—”

“No, just curious.”

Eisler looked at him thoughtfully now. “I think you are never just curious, Mr. Connolly.” He sipped his coffee. “I was married. She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it was a long time ago. Many years now. Trude. She was killed—no, not like your friend. There was no killer. A street fight in Berlin. We used to have so many in those days. The Freikorps and the GPD and—Who remembers them now? What could have been so important? But riots, you know, real blood in the streets. If you happened to pass by, you could get caught. Just taking the wrong street. Like a traffic accident. So.”

“You never knew who killed her?”

“Who? Who?” he said, his gentle voice impatient now. “History killed her. There’s no one to hunt. Like a disease.” He shrugged.

“I’m sorry. You must still miss her.”

“No, Mr. Connolly. I’m not a romantic. She’s dead. I put the past behind me. The old world. Isn’t that the American idea? Start fresh, leave everything behind?” Connolly thought of the white empty stretch of desert, his own impulse for something new. “No more history. You don’t believe in history here. Yet. Sometimes I think we don’t believe in anything else. So. We’ll see who was right.”

“And what would you bet?”

Eisler smiled. “Twenty thousand tons. For the rest, I don’t know. It’s hard to leave everything behind. It’s always there somewhere. You think—but then it surprises you. A little like the dragon’s tail, eh?”

“What is?” said Oppenheimer, putting his coffee on the table as he took a chair. He seemed jumpy and annoyed.

“History and philosophy,” Eisler said. “Such matters.”

Oppenheimer shot Connolly a glance. “Another seminar? How about finding us some gas instead? We need to start back or we’ll be up all night.”

“You’re not eating, Robert?” Eisler said.

“No, just coffee.” He scratched one of his hands.

“You should eat something,” Eisler said kindly.

“Not now,” he snapped. It seemed to Connolly he was living on nerves. “What a godforsaken place,” he said, rubbing his hand again. “You wash and the water’s so hard you’re covered with magnesium oxide. Now I’ll be scratching all night.”

Connolly smiled at the scientific exactness of the complaint. It was, he realized, the first time he had ever heard Oppenheimer complain about anything. He had seen him buried under work, exasperated, worried, but that all seemed part of what he liked. Other people complained, leaned on his endless optimism to keep them going. If he felt things were all right, then the problems were just sandflies. Now, however, he was irritated and fretful, finally done in by an itch.

“We have five trunk lines here. You’d think they could manage to keep one open. G.G. throws a fit when he’s cut off. Now we have to sit around and wait for them to get the connection back. Waste of time.”

“In that case,” Eisler said, “have a little something. You’ll get sick. A roll, even.”

“Friedrich, stop hovering. I’m fine. I heard something today that might interest you, by the way.”

“Yes, Robert?” he said, chastened.

“The army took Stassfurt.” He paused, waiting for a response, then plunged in. “The Germans had the uranium ore there. Over a thousand tons, most of the original Belgian supply. They can’t have much anywhere else, so I think we can rule out the possibility of a German gadget.”

It seemed to Connolly he was taunting Eisler, getting back at him for having raised any qualms at all, and Connolly was surprised by the sharp cruelty of it. No more Nazis to give permission. He was daring him to question the project again.

But Eisler refused to be drawn. “That’s everything we hoped for,” he said carefully.

“Yes. Now there’s only the Japanese.”

Eisler’s face clouded for only a moment, but what Connolly saw there was terrible, a resignation so profound it looked fated, as if a long-awaited punishment had finally been handed out. And then it cleared and he was composed again. “Yes,” he said.

Was Oppenheimer aware of what he was doing? Connolly looked again at Eisler, so easily troubled, so alert to contradiction, and he wondered if what Oppenheimer saw was some part of himself he needed to override. How else to become a general, to see things through, but to put everything else aside? The prize no longer allowed him any doubts, not in any part of himself.

“Phone call, sir.” The GI had barely reached the table when Oppenheimer leaped up. “No, sir, sorry, not for you. For Mr. Connolly.”

Oppenheimer was too surprised to be angry. Since he was already standing, he made an “After you” sweep of his hand. But the unexpectedness of it restored his good spirits, and he laughed at himself.

“Don’t tie up the line. You’ll keep the general waiting. And by the way, tell your mother or whoever it is that it’s illegal to call here.”

Connolly shrugged his shoulders. “Be right back.”

“You’d better hope this is important.”

It was Mills, sounding elated. “I thought you’d want to know—they got him.”

“What?”

“The killer. Holliday called. Albuquerque police nailed him. Both crimes. Looks like you can start heading back to the bright lights.”

But Connolly realized with a sharp pang that it was the last thing he wanted.

“You still there?” Mills said, louder now, as if he feared a bad line.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Brother, you don’t give up, do you? They closed the case.
Fermata
, as we say in the Rio Grande. He’s Mex, by the way. Just like they thought.”

“I want to see him.”

Mills paused. “Holliday said, if you asked, to tell you that the Albuquerque police want you both to politely butt out. They’ll send a copy of the report, but—”

“Tell him I’ll be there tomorrow. I have to get Oppenheimer back tonight.”

“He said they’re pretty firm about it. Probably got some bug up their ass about the army coming in—”

“You listening? Tell Holliday I’ll be in Albuquerque tomorrow and I’ll interview the suspect then. If I’m not interviewing the suspect tomorrow, I’ll be on the phone to General Groves and he’ll be talking to the governor of New Mexico and
he’
ll be dealing with a severe manpower shortage on the Albuquerque police force. Clear?”

“Could you really do that?”

“Probably. I don’t know, but it’s a risk he’s not going to want to take.”

“All right, calm down. I’ll see what I can do. You don’t sound very happy. I thought you’d be pleased as hell.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just don’t believe it. He’s not the guy.”

“Mike, you’d better believe it,” Mills said calmly. “He confessed.”

8

T
HEY DROVE THROUGH
the night, Eisler asleep in the back seat, Oppenheimer hunched down in front in a counterfeit of sleep, restless but quiet. The road was completely deserted, their headlights the only points of light in miles of darkness, but Connolly was alert, rubbed by the tension beside him, Oppenheimer wanting to ask about the call and Connolly not telling him.

He wasn’t sure why. Oppenheimer had a right to know. What could be more conclusive than a confession? It was useless to pretend he could offer any reason to doubt it. The rest of the story wrote itself now: Oppenheimer’s wry thanks and a ticket back to Washington; his billet in the house on L Street, shared bathroom down the hall; another year or so of shuffling paper, until the war came to its end; his discharge to a life that wasn’t there anymore. But it wasn’t finished yet, not the case, not anything about Los Alamos. He wasn’t ready to go. The truth was that he felt alive here, somehow on active service at last, a part of the project. He understood for the first time how the scientists felt, unwilling to think about anything else until the main point was reached, until it went off. There would be time later, but there wasn’t any now. They were so close. And as long as he had his case, his peripheral investigation, he could still be part of it. Didn’t he owe it to Bruner to follow this through to the end?

But even he could see that he was building an absurd house of cards. You can talk yourself into anything if you try. It wasn’t his project. He didn’t owe Bruner anything except an apology for trying to use his death to do something interesting with his own life. A Mexican pickup, a senseless crime. Life was like that. Maybe his refusal to accept it had a simpler reason: if he left the project, he’d be leaving her. He glanced over at Oppenheimer. He deserved to know. Connolly’s silence bordered on military insubordination. Dereliction of duty. All because it might interfere with his urge for a woman? Was that really what it came down to? Still, Oppenheimer didn’t care, and what did it matter? He wasn’t asking for a lot of time—just enough to be sure, before he gave it all up.

They were still south of Santa Fe when first light streamed over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, lifting mist off the sage and the juniper trees. It was going to be another spectacular morning, erasing all the uneasiness of the night, clear and uncomplicated. Oppenheimer, exhausted finally from whatever worries had preoccupied him in the dark, now fell sound asleep. Eisler, who confronted demons and then offered a roll, was snoring softly in the back. The car felt safe and ordinary again. Why was the night always filled with ultimatums? Go one step at a time. In the new light, he would see what he would see.

He dropped both men, groggy, at the entrance to the Tech Area, then returned the car to the pool, eager now for a shower and a fresh start. But Los Alamos was still asleep, glistening and empty. Mills wouldn’t be ready for hours, and Albuquerque would be hours after that. Only a few trucks disturbed the peace. He could have coffee, check in at the office. He could take a walk, shake the drowsiness off by strolling around Ashley Pond. Instead, he stood at the edge of the dirt road, not doing anything. He started toward his dormitory, then hesitated. He turned toward the Admin Building, then stopped a second time. He was a teenager again, nervously looking for excuses in the street, when he knew what he had to do was go up on the porch and ring the bell.

He rapped softly on the door in the Sundt complex, afraid to wake the neighbors, but she must have been up early, because the door opened at once. Her hair was down, uncombed, and she was wrapped in a robe, a clinging prewar silk that draped slightly at her breasts. He felt the warmth she still carried with her from bed.

“Are you mad?” she said quietly. “You can’t come here.” Her eyes looked quickly to each side.

“Come out, then,” he said.

“Sssh. Someone will hear. Do you know what time it is?”

He nodded, but didn’t move.

She glanced around again, then swung the door open further. “Come on,” she said, drawing him in, then closing it behind her. “What is it? You look like hell.”

He had turned to face her, unconsciously pinning her back against the door, and stared at her for a minute, his face close to hers, as if the distance would lower the sound of their voices. “You don’t,” he said, moving his eyes over her face.

She gave a half-smile. “I asked for that, didn’t I?” she said softly. “At six in the bloody morning.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Not here.”

“He won’t be back till Friday.”

“It isn’t that. We can’t—not here.” But she didn’t move, and he could feel her in front of him, warm, their faces almost touching.

“I need to tell you. I may have to leave.”

She looked at him. “Will you?”

“I may. They found someone. I may have to leave.”

“Why are you telling me?” she said, her eyes still on him.

“I can’t promise you anything. You should know that.”

“I know.”

“It may be important to you. I don’t want to be unfair to you.”

She placed her hand along his cheek. “But you’re not fair,” she said, drawing him closer. “There’s nothing fair about you.” She kissed him. “You’re here,” she said, kissing him again, lightly, as if she were drawing a breath between words, “and then you’re not. It’s not fair. You’re warning me. What else?”

“I don’t want to leave,” he said, kissing her back.

“Then stay for a while. Now.”

“Are you sure?” he said, still kissing her.

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“This is a funny love affair. Apologies at the beginning, not the end. It’s not fair.”

“No.”

“Let’s pretend we’re at the beginning.”

He kissed her hard then, pinning her against the door, his hands behind her, drawing her closer. He could feel the heat of her skin through the silk as his hands moved down her back, pulling her toward him so that their bodies ground together. Then her robe fell open and he moved his hands inside, feeling the skin itself, hot, alive to his touch. She held the back of his head, her mouth everywhere on his face.

“Come to bed,” he whispered.

“No.” She was gulping air. “Not there.”

And as his hand rounded her, moving toward the back of her thigh, she brought her leg up beside him, as if he were taking her right there, standing up, and his prick jumped with excitement. He rubbed his hand under her thigh until he felt her hair graze his fingertips, already moist, and the wetness made his erection pulse again, almost painful now in his pants. His fingers moved up along the moist lips, slick, back and forth, so that she began to ride them, her mouth making stifled noises behind the kiss. Then he turned his hand so that his open palm held her, the heel of it grinding against the front of her as the wet finger still slid back and forth, and she pulled her mouth off his to gasp for air, her lower body still moving against him. But he couldn’t stop now—the fierceness of it, the hurry, was outside them. He could feel her breath, ragged, in his ear. He covered her mouth again, their tongues slippery, as he moved his hand away to unzip his pants, fast, so that when it sprang out it moved toward her at once to replace the hand, sliding along the wet part of her until it slipped inside and he thrust up, filling her, and she gasped, dropping her head on his shoulder. He thought for an instant he would come then, still, her heat wrapped around him. There was nothing but feeling now, so complete he was afraid to disturb it. But then he felt the walls of her vagina grip him, making gentle spasms, and they were moving again. “Oh,” she said, a low sound from her throat, her head back against the door, and the sound of it excited him more, and he put his mouth back on hers, kissing her as he gripped her below, pounding into her with her thigh still drawn up beside him. He could hear them thudding against the door, oblivious as animals, and then a sharp sound from her as he felt her grip him again inside, and he knew she had come, so that he was released now too and after a few more jabbing thrusts it spurted out of him, everything in him shooting out, taking his breath with it.

They stood there for a few minutes, still locked together, gulping air, and he knew they must look absurd, their mouths smeared with saliva, standing against the wall like dogs, his pants down below his knees. But her face glowed, and when he looked at her he felt an immense gratitude. It had been so quick, but she had let him, not protesting, giving herself to it. He had wanted to make love, not just fuck, but they had already waited too long to take their time. Now he kissed her gently and lifted her up, still hard inside her, and moved haltingly toward the couch, his pants wadded foolishly around his calves. But the point was not to leave her. It didn’t matter how they looked, messy and awkward, so long as he remained inside her. When he laid her down on the couch, still inside, she smiled at him, and this time they kept a different rhythm, moving smoothly in and out, and the sensation in him spread outward so that his whole body was making love, every piece of skin sensitive. This time his hands felt all of her, drawing along her breasts, kissing the side of her neck, until they both began racing and she wrapped her legs around him, urging him, waiting for him to come so that they could finish together, shuddering in the same jolt of pleasure.

They lay quietly for a while until, calm now, he sensed his weight on her and slipped out, his penis finally soft, and moved to the side, still holding her. He saw her face moist with tears.

“Don’t,” he said softly, brushing them lightly off her face.

“No, I’m all right,” she said, turning on her side to face him. She held the side of his head, looking at him. “What will it be like, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“No. Never mind.”

“Like this, maybe.”

“Maybe,” she said, tracing the shape of his ear.

“Why do we ever think anything else matters?”

She smiled. “That’s sex talking.”

“I guess.”

“I’ve never done it standing up.”

He grinned. “What do you think?”

“Not sure yet.”

They would have gone on like this, he knew, comfortable, idly touching each other, but there was a rap on the door.

“Oh God,” she whispered, sitting up, pointing him quickly toward the bedroom. “Bloody hell.”

What had seemed smooth before, no more than another stroke of lovemaking, was clumsy now, and he almost tripped as he staggered toward the door, holding his pants.

“Coming,” she said out loud, belting the robe around her and running her fingers through her hair. She waited until he had closed the bedroom door. Inside, he flopped on the bed, too exhausted to dress and afraid of making a sound.

“Emma,” he heard a woman’s voice say through the door, “thank God you’re up. Do you have
any
coffee? I don’t know how I ran out, but Larry’ll be a
bear
if he doesn’t have his coffee. I’ll pay you back.”

“I was just making some. This enough?” she said over the rattling of a tin.

“Hmm. You’re perspiring.”

“It’s this damn central heating. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, wouldn’t you?”

“Thanks,” the woman said, obviously taking the coffee. “Sorry to bother you so early. Where’s Daniel? I thought I heard somebody.”

“No, just me. He’s off-site. Awful, talking to yourself, isn’t it? If I’m not careful they’ll put me away.”

There was more as she lingered at the door, but Connolly stopped listening. He lay there instead, looking up at the ceiling, still drifting in a haze of sex. Now there was the sound of water running, the rattle of a pot being put on to boil, the scrape of a match. Everything seemed to him erotic. He imagined her measuring out the coffee, her robe half open so that her flushed breasts stood out, the nipple firm against the silk. He imagined lying here every morning, listening to her being busy in the kitchen as the stickiness of sex dried on his skin. When she opened the door, her finger to her lips in warning, she giggled at the sight of him.

“Look at you,” she whispered. “Do you think you might put your trousers on, or do you just want to stay like that all day?”

“All day,” he said. “Come to bed.”

But she shook her head. “No, I told you. I won’t do that to him. Come and have some coffee,” she said, leaving the room.

He got up, pulled his pants on, and followed her out. “Funny scruples you have,” he said teasingly.

But she came up to him and held him. “Don’t scold. I won’t, that’s all.”

“Sorry,” he said, kissing her. “Do you want me to go?”

“No. Let’s not waste the coffee, now that I’ve made it. Bloody cow next door. She’s probably put her ear to a glass at the wall.”

He sat at the little kitchen table near the window, smoking, watching her as she poured the coffee and brought it to the table. Every movement seemed interesting—the way she smoothed the back of her robe under her as she sat down, blew gently on the coffee, reached for a match.

“What?” she said self-consciously.

“Just looking,” he said. “I can’t get enough of you.”

“Well, you’ve only just started,” she said dryly, lighting a cigarette.

“No. Weeks. From the start.”

“That’s nice,” she said, taking a sip of coffee, playing. “It must have been the sight of me doubled over sick that made you decide. Was that it?”

“No. The ride back from the ranch,” he said seriously.

“Really?” she said, interested.

“Uh-huh. There was that moment.”

“What moment?”

“There’s always a moment between a man and a woman when you know something can happen. It doesn’t have to—it can just pass right on by. But it can never happen without that moment. You know, when you feel it’s possible.”

She laughed. “You’ve got cheek.”

“Didn’t you feel it too?”

“It’s different for a woman.”

“I don’t believe it. Not that part.”

She shrugged and looked toward the window, at the shaft of sunlight pouring between them on the table. “What was all that about your going away?”

“I may. I don’t know. But we can see each other. He’s not back all week.”