Hazard (6 page)

Hazard parked the Packard on the far side of the house. At this early hour everything was still. Except for the dog that belonged to Dr. Kersh, a gray-and-white English sheepdog that came wagging and bounding eagerly. Hazard took time to give the fluffy animal some attention, pushing the long hair back from its face to see its black, happy eyes.

Meanwhile Keven hurried ahead down the patch through the adjacent woods. She was well on her way before Hazard remembered she had his shoes in her canvas carryall. He'd been driving in his stocking feet as he often did.

To shout this early would have been disturbing, so he cursed to himself and proceeded down the path, not able to avoid stepping on some fallen acorns and stones. When he got to the beach house Keven had already been inside and was now leaning against the porch railing. She was obviously irked.

“I've been robbed,” she said.

“We've been robbed?”

“Not you, just me.”

They went in and she showed him that all the clothes and personal things she kept there were missing. Nothing of his was gone, only all of hers.

“There must be some explanation,” said Hazard, trying to think of one.

“Yeah, a thieving transvestite.”

“Nothing we can do about it now,” he told her.

“I can't even brush my teeth,” she complained, “and what am I going to do for underwear?” She went around looking for
something
that was hers. She was relieved to find her health-food books were among those stacked against the wall. She touched several to verify them.

Hazard removed his socks, which were dirty from the walk down to the beach house. “I'm going to try for a nap,” he said, and went into his bedroom.

Keven had insisted from the start that she have her own room and, although the beach house consisted only of two main rooms, she'd converted a small dressing area into a separate place for herself. The single bed and unpainted dresser she installed there took up all but a foot or two of the space, but Keven was adamant about the arrangement. Hazard couldn't be absolutely sure in what bed she would spend the night.

Now from the neutral territory of the center room she watched him undress. “Want some Granola?” she asked.

“No.”

She fixed two bowls anyway, poured whole milk over the mélange of rolled oats, soy oil, wheat germ, coconut, sesame seed, sea salt and natural brown sugar. She took it in to him.

He realized it was her excuse and held back telling her it was foolish that she still needed one. Besides, he didn't mind Granola as much as a lot of the other things she forced on him.

Between spoonfuls she took off her clothes and finished eating while sitting up in bed next to him. Then she snuggled down and turned on her side wanting him to fit himself against her. He knew and did.

Three hours later Hazard was brought to semiconsciousness by the distant sound of Dr. Kersh's motorcycle. There was no mistaking the guttural roar of the big old Harley-Davidson. Hazard tried to sink back but soon knocks and calls got him up.

Hazard put on his trousers and went out. He found Kersh sitting on the porch steps, intent on the changing white triangle of a lone sailboat far out on the Sound.

“Glad you got here early,” Kersh said with a genuine smile.

He was in his fifties, a chunky man, too thick chested and wide shouldered for his height. He had salt-and-pepper hair, a fine undisciplined mass of it, in need of a trimming. His sideburns were particularly wild. Except for his hair he might have been taken for a construction or dock worker. Scientist would have been anyone's last guess. He had on blue jeans that were frayed at the bottoms and a gray sweatshirt stenciled
New York Knicks.
Evidently he wasn't yet dressed for his workday. He didn't get up for Hazard or offer his hand. Their friendship had gone beyond such ritual.

The most Hazard could manage through his usual early half-awake depression was a sort of moaning grunt. A smile would have been a strain and not sincere. He went by Kersh and down the steps to the beach sand that felt hotter than he'd expected to his bare feet. He dug his feet in and found it too cool underneath.

“Can you be ready in a couple of hours?” Kersh asked.

Hazard shook his head sharply, meaning no and trying to clear.

“You've got to today,” Kersh told him.

“Why?”

“Visitors' day.”

“Oh shit.”

Kersh agreed. He'd brought a mug of coffee down with him from the main house. He sipped and made a face as though he found either it or his thoughts distasteful. “Can't be helped,” he said. “I assume Keven is with you.”

“Who's going to be here?”

“Richland. And some other Washington snoop.”

“For how long?”

“Just the day. We'll be doing an exercise for them. Nothing too unusual.”

Hazard squatted. He noticed the beach needed raking and thought he'd rather do that than anything else. “What if we hadn't showed up today?”

“Never occurred to me.”

“Would you have been officially pissed?”

“More like personally disappointed,” Kersh said, looking away to the rocky shore line so Hazard couldn't read his eyes. “By the way,” Kersh told him, “your violence report came in the other day.”

“How'd I do?”

“You must have enjoyed it this time.”

“I hated it.”

“Maybe that's why you did so well.”

“I won't have to go again, will I?”

“Not for another six months.”

Kersh extended his mug of coffee. Hazard was about to reach for it when Keven came out.

She had on one of Hazard's shirts and was carrying two steaming cups. “For openers,” she said brightly, handing a cup down to Hazard. It was rose hips tea. She sat beside Kersh, gave him a cheek kiss and glanced disapprovingly at his mug of coffee. “That stuff slows down the sex drive.”

“Last time you said it was bad for the stomach,” Kersh said.

She shrugged. “One thing bothers another.”

Kersh ceremoniously poured out what coffee remained in his mug, as though it were poison.

Hazard turned away and did the same with his cup of rose hips tea. Got away with it, he thought.

But not really. Keven merely chose not to say anything about it. This time. She told Kersh, “I suppose you've heard I was robbed.”

“I had your things moved up to the main house,” said Kersh.

That set her back. “You didn't.”

“Had to.”

“Why?”

“A matter of morals.”

Hazard heard Keven's teeth on the rim of her cup. She seemed irritated enough to take a bite.

Kersh was amused by her reaction. He let her fume awhile longer before explaining that the move was only temporary, to accommodate the two official visitors from Washington, who would be around that day inspecting.

Keven almost concealed her relief.

“They'd never accept love as an explanation for such behavior,” said Kersh.

Keven jumped on the word. “Love?”

“Is that such an overstatement?”

“Over,” said Keven.

“Way over,” Hazard put in.

Kersh didn't believe it. At every opportunity over the past six months he'd been obliquely promoting love between them, hoping they'd oblige by falling hard and deep. His motive was partly scientific. It would help substantiate a theory related to his current project. “Anyway,” he told Keven, “I'll have your things brought back down as soon as our visitors leave.”

“No hurry,” said Keven, blasé about it now.

“All right,” said Kersh, “maybe in a day or two.”

“By bedtime tonight,” she said quickly.

At noon Hazard and Keven went up to the main house. Parked in the front drive was a new Chrysler with a federal eagle emblem bolted to its rear bumper. Hazard thought he should get such an emblem to beat the parking tickets. Merely out of curiosity he glanced into the car. There was a half roll of Certs breath mints on the front seat and two Schlitz empties on the floor.

Keven had gone ahead into the house. Hazard caught up to her in the foyer, a large oval-shaped area with a brown-and-white marble floor and extensive boiserie on the walls and doors. The foyer was unfurnished except for a gray metal office desk, an incongruity that stood as an example of how the once elegant residence had given way to prosaic use. The place reminded Hazard of those British war movies in which an imposing estate was taken over to serve as division headquarters, but not once during the past two years had Hazard ever seen anyone actually seated behind that reception desk. He suspected it was there merely for show. A strategically placed desk, even an empty one, might be reassuring to the sort of people who worked for the government, thought Hazard.

Such as the two men who now were following Kersh down the wide stairs.

Introductions and handshakes.

Mr. Richland and Mr. Whitley.

Hazard sensed their disapproval of his hair and casual clothes. Smile, he told himself, be good for Kersh's sake.

Richland was a district director for the agency. A top man who reported to higher-ups. Whitley was a Southerner who'd been rewarded his spoils in the form of a prominent spot on a federal-appropriations committee.

Hazard could see right off that both men were drinkers. Their complexions were the giveaway, especially the backs of their necks—blotchy red, as though the capillaries had exploded under alcoholic pressure. And the nearly ocher cast of their eyes was the sum of too many straight bourbons. They'd tied one on the night before, thought Hazard. Evidence was the morning beers to get them going and the breath mints to cover up.

Kersh had just given them a tour of the place and was glad they'd hurried through it. Neither Richland nor Whitley was really interested and, realizing that, Kersh hadn't bothered to explain the purpose of most of what he'd shown them. The special computer system, for example, located in a sealed subterranean area. It deserved more than indifferent glances and nods from Richland and Whitley. These computers were an accomplishment in electronic architecture, had actually been designed by other computers. Though extremely compact, they were insatiable. Their microprogramming allowed simultaneous feeding of unrelated information and rapid digestion to a simple, single response. This computer setup was not only analogous to a brain but to an entire nervous system. It had taken some of the best computer specialists several months to adapt it to the complex requirements of Kersh's research.

Impressive also was the experimental equipment Kersh had assembled for photography in a high-frequency field. The field was formed by two vertical, facing copper plates seven feet square. The plates were placed six feet apart, precisely parallel, and their rear edges were connected by an electrical Tesla coil. Initially Kersh's high-frequency-field experiments had been limited to still photographs, using a positive-type sheet film with a unique emulsion. However, not satisfied with mere stills, Kersh had successfully incorporated a means of electronically recording movement in the field. It fed into the computer system and back to various monitors. It was not an insignificant breakthrough.

In another laboratory area was the equipment used for X-ray crystallography, the photographing of defraction patterns on the micromolecular level. It was an
XR
–7 Polaroid system more advanced and less complicated than similar equipment used by Maurice Wilkens at Kings College, London, in his work that helped Crick and Watson come up with the double helix answer for
DNA
and
RNA
.

On seeing the
XR
–7 Whitley asked, “What's this contraption?” and walked on before Kersh could answer.

Kersh was actually grateful for their indifference. Interest, he realized, might lead to involvement and involvement would undoubtedly bring some degree of interference. Kersh didn't want that. Besides, having to patronize those who control the purse strings was something Kersh had learned early in his career when he'd applied to a private foundation for his first research grant. The fact that big money held such a vital rein on science rubbed Kersh the wrong way, but by now he was pretty much resigned to it.

He led Richland and Whitley into his office. Hazard and Keven followed along.

In former times it had served as a formal reception room. Now it resembled a badly managed bookstore. Every inch of wall was shelved and that still didn't provide enough space to hold all Kersh's books. Heavy technical volumes were everywhere, many just stacked in the middle of the room, creating something of a maze.

Lunch was laid out on a low glass table. Sliced chicken sandwiches and coffee prepared by Kersh's young wife, Julie, who was seven months pregnant. When Kersh introduced her, Hazard detected a trace of smirk behind Richland's and Whitley's politeness.

Julie was a pretty, serious girl. Only three years before she'd been active in protest marches and Central Park demonstration. Then she'd found Kersh. She loved him devotedly, the way an honest searcher loves a discovery. In her present condition, a product of that love, she transmitted the serene confidence of a woman being fulfilled. Julie sat with them at the table only long enough to be courteous. Then she invented an excuse to leave, kissing Kersh a good-bye on his mouth.

By then Richland and Whitley were on their second sandwiches.

“Julie baked that bread,” Kersh told them proudly.

“Delicious,” Whitley said with his mouth full.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” Kersh asked.

Richland and Whitley exchanged uncertain glances before saying no.

Kersh got a fifth of Old Granddad from his desk drawer. He put it on the table along with some white styrofoam disposable cups. “I'll get some ice,” he offered.

“Not for me,” Whitley said. He uncorked the bottle with one hand and poured half a cup. Equivalent to a double.