Sight Unseen (8 page)

“The fire’s a good idea,” he said after they sat on the sofa. “These spring nights out here get chilly, don’t they?”

“I find they do.” She smiled, and he wanted to lean over and kiss her lips, glazed with just the lightest touch of red.

She raised her glass. “To your success in finding Baby.”

He drank to that. On the way over he had thought of asking her questions about her background—she had belonged to some socialist
groups when she was in Paris whose loyalties worried Steve—but tonight wasn’t the night for such questions. Not for Lockwood.
Myra obviously wanted him to feel at ease, and she drew him out about his work and life in Manhattan. He found himself telling
her about his job, Mr. Gray, and the sorts of people he would run into when his job was to recover stolen jewelry or bonds.

“You live by yourself in Manhattan?” she asked.

He figured she was asking if he was married. “I live in the Summerfield Hotel on West 47th, near Times Square, by myself.”

“How exciting!” she said. “Isn’t that the street they called ‘Dream Street’ in
Life
magazine last year?”

“Yep, filled with show biz types, too—and show-business hopefuls.”

“The only big city I’ve ever spent any time in was Paris. At the Sorbonne,” she said.

“Come to town. I’ll show you a good time,” he promised.

“You look the type,” she said in a flirtatious way. “I bet you hang out in Peacock Alley, the Persian Room, and El Morocco.”

“Are you making fun of them?”

Lockwood felt on firmer ground with her now. The fire, the sofa for two, the martinis, the horn music in the background—he
had been here scores of times. The questions, the back and forth answers, the thrust and parry—he had played this scores of
times too. You didn’t know how it was going to end—in the sack or not—but the game itself was a delight. Lockwood relaxed
into it.

“I wasn’t making fun of them,” she said. “New York’s probably very exciting.”

“I think it’s tops. I got to Paris once, too.”

“When?”

“Right after the war. I was just a kid then, and didn’t really appreciate it, but I remember walking around Paris a couple
of days goggling over it.”

She served supper after they had finished their cocktails —a couple of tender filets with Bearnaise sauce, twice-cooked potatoes,
and squash to which she had done something wonderful with fresh herbs. He poured the wine he had brought, and they ate in
a cozy alcove off the living room, lit only by the fire and the light from four candles on the mantle. Record after record
played, and Lockwood relaxed more and more. He let the supper and the wine and the candle-lit mood play itself out. He would
wait till they were having coffee in the living room before he made a move.

A lot could happen in front of a fire, the two of them bemused by the red wine (it hadn’t been such a bad bottle) and the
food, as they glided about the small floor in each other’s arms. Lockwood intended to play it so that every bit of it happened.

Myra matched him glass for glass and they grew merrier throughout the dinner. The light in the dimly lit room gathered around
her. The highlights in her light auburn-colored hair shone. The dimple below her mouth deepened, and her eyes sparkled as
they talked. Everything he said moved her to laughter, to a smile, a light frown, to some new way of looking at things, and
Lockwood felt equally moved by her every word, every gesture, every smile and movement. Supper turned into a flirtatious dance.

Later, before the fire, having finished their coffee and a couple of Lockwood’s Camels, a new record fell onto the changer
and the clarinet announced the first few notes of “Willow Wanting.”

“Oh, God, I love this,” she said.

“Let’s dance,” he responded.

She rose and he took her in his arms, and tonight was a thousand times better than last night at Gurney’s. Last night he had
enjoyed dancing flamboyantly to show her off and make the crowd watch them. Tonight he surrendered to the soft mood between
them, to the mood she had created with the dimly lit evening. Lockwood had played it casually all evening, not rushing things,
and now he didn’t increase his speed. He wanted their feelings to rise till both were eager for each other. He wanted to dance
with her till their feelings overcame them, and he asked himself where her bedroom was.

Right away he was pretty certain she wasn’t wearing undergarments. Three changes of records later he knew she was wearing
nothing underneath the caftan—for he felt no elastic around her waist.

And then Myra wound both her arms, the loose sleeves of the caftan falling back to her shoulders, around his neck. Lockwood
put his arms around her thin back and drew her to him. Their bodies danced in harmony as if they were two parts of one creature.
Lockwood wouldn’t have been surprised to find them breathing in unison. In the soft light he saw her big serious eyes looked
at him in a sad questioning way. He felt she was asking him—and herself—just what she was getting into, for they were very
different.

Lockwood saw no way to reassure her except to give her lips the lightest possible kiss. She kissed back just as lightly. They
swayed together, and their kisses intensified from gentle to determined. Lockwood’s hands and arms held her more firmly. Myra’s
hands pulled his head to hers as they kissed.

He picked her up in his arms and started toward the only door leading out of the living room.

Her long nails glazed his neck and ears as she whispered into his ear, “First door to the right.”

Lockwood put her down on the large double bed, and while he slipped out of his clothes, she pulled down the covers and plumped
up the four pillows. When he got into bed, they embraced, and he ran his hands up under her caftan, his hands hungry for the
delicious feel of her skin. Then he removed the billowing robe and dropped it over the other side of the bed.

They wound themselves around each other, and still Lockwood held back. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her—he wanted her as
much as he had ever wanted any woman—but a night as delicious as this happened rarely. He wasn’t about to devour it in one
wolfish gulp. They explored each other’s bodies for a time, and then Myra whispered, “Please now, enter me now,” and gently,
gently, gently, he entered her, and ever so gently she and he joined. Lockwood dropped down a black well of relief and delight,
letting go all daylight cares.

Gradually their passion mounted, till it was hardly Myra and Lockwood, but universal man and woman, male and female animal
coupling in a blind fury of ecstatic passion, till in one bright glowing orgasmic shower of light they burst into brilliance
together, and then the dark April night flooded back to them.

They lay in the darkness of the broad bed listening to the Long Island crickets chirping in unison. He stroked her. She shivered
and asked him to pull up the covers.

For another two hours they loved each other. It wasn’t till two o’clock that Lockwood got back into his gunmetal-gray Cord
for the drive back to Patchogue.

He drove slowly. He felt dreamy and unfocused, and he was glad he didn’t encounter any other cars. It had been as wonderful
an evening as he had ever spent; the only bad thing about it had been getting up at this ungodly hour for the drive back,
but it certainly wouldn’t do for anyone to see him leaving her place in the morning. Long Island wasn’t Manhattan.

The next morning while Lockwood was dictating his report to an office secretary, Guy Manners interrupted him.

“Could you give us some privacy for a few minutes, Tracy?” Guy asked the secretary.

When she was gone, Guy turned on the radio.

“You come in here to listen to that corny music?” Lockwood asked.

“I want to talk to you privately,” Manners said. “We’ve found that background noise keeps secret microphones from working.”

“Yeah? What do you want?”

“I want you to approve this claim for the $75,000, Lockwood.”

“Jesus, haven’t we been over this ground enough? You got your job to do. I got mine.”

Manners sighed and sat down in the club chair across from the desk. He looked weary and grim, as if he wasn’t used to making
so little progress on a case.

“Part of my job is making sure that no word of either the bombsight’s existence or that it’s missing is discovered.”

Lockwood raised his eyebrows and said, “Both those would make great stories for
Life
magazine, wouldn’t they?”

Manners nodded glumly. “I want you guys to act like insurance people, and us to act like cops. Let Uncle Sam handle this thing,
Lockwood. We’re talking about treason.”

“What’s this? You think I’m not American enough?”

“Are you still clinging to the notion that maybe there wasn’t a bombsight, and maybe it wasn’t stolen? If it was stolen, you
guys owe Northstar the money.”

“True. I was dictating my report when you came in.”

“What’s it say?”

“It says there was this ‘object,’ and that it did cost $106,000 to make—I’ve been over the shop’s figures with Greer, and
I accept them—and that it sure isn’t on the premises.”

Manners brightened. “All right. You’re making some real progress.”

“Yep.”

“So, you guys are going to pay off.”

“Did you know that Myra Rodman, Stanley Greer, and all of the top engineers of Northstar own some of the stock?”

“What? What’s that got to do with anything?” Manners asked.

“One of the constants in common law around insurance claims—and in our policies, for what’s that worth to you—is that a beneficiary
cannot receive compensation from committing a crime.”

“Come on, Lockwood,” Manners said, exasperated. “Dzeloski’s got 10 percent of the company in some sort of employee trust fund.
That’s not ownership.”

“Have you read the bylaws of the corporation?”

The flicker across Guy Manners’ face said no, and then something drooped there. Lockwood didn’t know what it was, but it was
important to Manners personally to get him off this case.

“So, give,” said Manners.

“It’s set up so that the employees—while they are bona fide employees—actually do own the shares. So that while we at Transatlantic
Underwriters harbor—”

“Cut it, Lockwood! What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we aren’t paying, Manners, till we make sure one of those monkeys didn’t engineer this theft for his own benefit,
knowing that, say, the Air Force was going to find its bombsight didn’t work worth a damn.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Maybe so, but I’m paid to make sure we don’t pay crazy claims. That’s my job.”

“And my job is to make sure as few people know about this operation as possible, and nobody who doesn’t have to knows about
this theft.”

“Embarrassing as hell to the government, isn’t it?” Lockwood asked.

“To the Treasury, it sure is. I don’t know or care about the rest of the government.”

“You’re not getting rid of me. Not unless I can conduct our investigation. Our policy gives—”

“—you the right to investigate, or you don’t have to pay. I read the thing.”

“That’s it,” Lockwood said. “Hey, Guy. Look—I don’t want to hold up the payment. I’m just as loyal as the next American. I
don’t want the crazy Japs or Huns or Italians to get this piece of hardware, and I don’t think I’m holding up your investigation.
But I’ve got a job to do. You’d do the same thing in my place. You helped me the other day, and that speeded things up. We
can continue to work together.”

“I told Henry it would come to this.”

“Who’s Henry?” Lockwood asked.

Manners sighed. “My boss.” Manners stood up and grinned in a way that conveyed no humor. “How’d you like to become a T-man,
Lockwood?”

Lockwood shook his head. “I wouldn’t like. How about calling me Bill?”

“Sure. Hold up your right hand, Bill.”

Lockwood felt confused, as if he were in a play and didn’t know the lines. “What’s this?”

“I want to swear you in as a special agent of the United States Treasury Department.”

“You what?”

“Hold up your hand.”

Lockwood, going along with the joke, found himself at the other end of an oath that took no more than a minute. Guy lowered
his own right hand and stuck it out.

“Congratulations, Bill.”

They shook hands. Lockwood gave Manners an oblique look of suspicion.

“Do I get a badge?”

“Sure! It ought to be in the next pouch from Washington.”

“It might make things easier.”

“It certainly will make things easier for us,” Manners said.

Lockwood raised his eyebrows and asked, “How’s that?”

Manners grinned and headed for the door, “Henry figures that if you violate the 1932 Secrecy Act, Bill, he can have you shot.
You might want to read it before you do any more talking to the folks back at your shop.”

Lockwood shook his head. “How’d
you
like to have two bosses—Uncle Sam and Mr. Gray?”

“If it comes to what I’d like, I’d rather not have any bosses. I suggest you watch yourself.” Manners stepped back into the
room. “Tell you what you might do, Bill, since you got this thing about the folks who own the firm. You could find out all
you can on Josef Dzeloski.”

“I could, huh? You’ve got something on him?”

“Let’s just say there are a few years of his life on which we can’t get any corroborating evidence for his whereabouts, and
holes in a bio make us nervous.”

“Such as?”

“How come his baptismal certificates are missing in Croatia?”

Lockwood laughed. “Half of Croatia itself was missing after the war. I like Josef, I can’t see him behind this.”

“I like everybody, Lock—I mean, Bill,” Manners said. He pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket. “Take a look at these French
postcards.”

Lockwood took the envelope and looked at Manners.

“Open it,” Manners said. “I’m sure a suave guy like yourself has seen a few dirty pictures before.”

Inside were snapshots, dark and grainy, that showed a man who could have been Josef Dzeloski with a woman in a variety of
sexual positions.