The Detonators (12 page)

Amy hesitated at my question and drew a long breath. “Matt, will you let me do this my way, please? I’ll tell you all about it in a little while, or as much as I can bear to, but it isn’t really
significant
, is it? It has nothing to do with whether or not I can do the work you need done. You don’t have to like or respect the person next to you on the assembly line, do you? As long as they use the right wrench to stick the right nuts onto the right bolts.”

I said, “I tossed you the right wrench for the job and you dropped it as if it were red hot.” I shook my head. “You’re wasting your time, Amy. The idea is crazy. Even if I were crazy enough to take you along, gambling that your inexperience wouldn’t kill us both, you haven’t the slightest idea what you might be letting yourself in for.”

She licked her lips. “Isn’t that my worry? Don’t you have any imagination at all? Hasn’t it occurred to you yet, even after seeing my back, that I might be running away from something much worse than anything that can possibly happen to me on your silly little drug investigation? It is drugs, isn’t it?”

I said, “Nobody said anything about drugs, sweetheart.”

She said impatiently, “If you don’t want people to hear, don’t talk on the phone in front of them! I know that you’re going to take a sailboat and go spying for the Coast Guard among some islands, presumably somewhere over in the Bahama Islands. Do I have to pretend to be stupid? What else could it be besides drugs?”

“What are you running from, Amy? Whom are you running from?”

She shook her head impatiently. “I’m running from me. I’m running from a me I don’t want to be, that somebody’s trying to make me into—”

“What somebody?”

“Oh, please!” she protested. “Please let me do it my way. I’ll be glad to answer your questions, but just
listen
to me first! I don’t know much about boats, and I’m afraid of guns and violence, but I can learn the one, and I… I think I can get over the other if you’re patient with me. Anyway, isn’t that exactly what you need to make a convincing ‘cover’? That’s what you called it, isn’t it?”

“Cover is right, but—”

“You need me, Matt!” she said breathlessly. “I meant it when I said child bride. I’m twenty-five years old, but why do I think I go to the trouble of forever keeping my hair pinned up? Because, while it isn’t terribly becoming like this, I look so awfully, pitifully immature with it down that nobody takes me seriously as a grown woman!”

There was a pause while the waiter put my martini glass in front of me and took our orders. When he was gone, I said, “Actually, I think you look very nice with your hair up.”

She shook her head again, dismissing the flattery. “The point is, Matt, that I can make a very good stab at looking nineteen or twenty, in cute little white shorts and a very skimpy halter, and my nose and shoulders peeling because of course I don’t have sense enough to protect myself from the hot sun. Squealing like a rabbit every time the boat tips, getting deathly seasick whenever the wind blows, and falling overboard with a big splash when I try to help by lowering the anchor or whatever you do with an anchor. And you doting on this pretty, clumsy, sexy child you’ve managed to catch and marry—”

“Sexy?” I said.

There was color in her face. “Well, we’ll have to make the cushions squeak and the boat rock a little at fairly frequent intervals, but that shouldn’t be hard to fake, should it? Or if you really want to…” Her blush deepened, and she drew a ragged breath. “I’m not a virgin, Matt. You’ve probably guessed by this time that I’m even somewhat further from being a virgin than I let you think when we first met. If… if you want to try to make love to me after I tell you all about me, that’s all right; but we can work it out later, can’t we? Right now, what you need is a convincing cover story, if that’s the right phrase; and what could be more harmless-looking than a cute, helpless little blond bride on her honeymoon cruise—I’ll use a pale rinse on my hair; I’ll be the silliest, dumbest blonde you ever saw—and the somewhat older bridegroom who’s obviously gaga about her?”

“Thanks for the ‘somewhat,’” I said dryly, “The big catch, Amy, is that these people kill. It used to be that drug smugglers were mostly amateurs who weren’t going to turn a simple drug bust into a case of murder; but it’s all getting organized now by some very tough professional characters. And this isn’t the Florida Keys—Condominium Alley—we’re talking about. There’s a lot of empty, watery space over there in the Bahamas, dotted with coral reefs and mangrove islands that haven’t seen a policeman since Columbus hit San Salvador and thought he was closing in on the wealth of the Indies. Just for an example of what it’s like: Recently with Bahamian permission the coast guard tried sending three agents into the area in which we’re interested. They were disguised as enthusiastic Yankee anglers looking for new fishy worlds to conquer, in a fast, twin-screw sport-fisherman. Part of one of the men was found a couple of weeks later, the part that had washed ashore before the sharks could finish it. The other two pseudoanglers, and the other half of the first man, haven’t turned up yet and probably won’t… And if you can’t even stand to have me talk about the gory details, how are you going to feel when those same gory details are staring you in the face? That little incident is the reason we got roped into this. The trouble is that the Coast Guard’s people, like the three who disappeared, are pretty well-known to the drug Mafia. Well, we happen to owe the C.G. a favor at the moment, and our agency generally deals with totally different problems; so while my picture might be recognized in Moscow, it probably isn’t known on Grand Bahama Island, or New Providence, or Andros. Or down in the Exumas and points beyond. So I’m elected, dammit.”

She said stubbornly, “My face isn’t known there, either, Matt.”

I ignored this and went on: “They presumably disposed of the whole crew, fed it to the sharks, and ran the boat out into deep water—there are tongues of deep stuff sticking into most of those big shallow areas—and opened the seacocks, good-bye. Very unpleasant people. Come to think of it, as your mother undoubtedly told you over and over again, we’re kind of unpleasant, too. But how am I going to do my unpleasant stuff, or even defend myself—us—if my pretty pacifist partner goes all hysterical every time I pull out my nasty, wicked, violent gun? So let’s forget it and talk about the man who’s terrified you so badly you can’t even bring yourself to get on a plane homeward. If he’s got you so badly intimidated, how did you get away from him?”

She started to speak quickly, obviously to continue the argument; then she shrugged resignedly and said, “He was out of town for a while, long enough for me to work up enough courage to pack my bag and dash to the airport and buy a ticket here; fortunately they had a last-minute seat available. I’d got that letter from my father, remember? It occurred to me in my desperation that if I could see him and talk to him, Daddy might… might be able to help me.”

“Help you do what?”

“Break away for good,” she said. “I tried it once before, alone, but
he
just came after me and brought me back like a… like a runaway child, ugh. I had to have help from somebody strong enough to stand up to him. I… Where he is concerned, I have no willpower left at all. There are men like that, you know, who can turn women, at least nutty, susceptible women like me, into obedient zombies.”

“So you didn’t really come down here just to be nice to your poor old rejected daddy after all these years.”

She winced. “I don’t think I ever said I did. I just said I was… lonely and wanted to see him, didn’t I? That wasn’t bending the truth very much. Don’t make me sound worse than I really am.”

“Has this guy got a name?”

“Pope. Albert Pope.”

From minister to pope. Our friend was working his way up in the world.

I said scornfully, “And Mr. Pope has the Power or something? Something so terrible that rather than face the prospect of going back to spit in his eye you deliberately set out to drink yourself blotto after twenty-five years of sobriety? This guy must really have transfixed you with his evil eye!” She didn’t speak, she just sat there watching me gravely across the table; and I was ashamed of myself for bullying her. “Sorry. I just find it hard to believe, Amy. You’re an intelligent person, and I don’t think you’re a coward.”

She licked her lips. “You don’t understand. You’re strong, you’re normal, you don’t have any ugly compulsive needs that a clever person can use to… If somebody tried to dominate you, persuade you to submit to crazy, sexy rituals of pain and humiliation, you’d just pull out your big gun and shoot them dead, wouldn’t you?”

I laughed shortly. “Okay, you’ve got me all figured out, although you may have overestimated my normality slightly. But I’m still trying to figure you out and it’s tough going. Tell me about this man. I suppose he’s tall and handsome and dark and devilish-looking, a real midwestern Heathcliff.”

“Well, he’s not midwestern, I don’t know where he comes from, really.” She smiled faintly. “Actually, Albert is a slightly overweight businessman type with thinning blond hair, the last man in the world you’d expect… I suppose that’s why it happened. I needed somebody kind and trustworthy who wasn’t forever after me to smoke his stupid pot or accommodate his stupid sex. Albert looked so gentle and harmless after all the intense bearded creeps… Gentle!”

“What happened?” I asked, after she’d been silent for a little, remembering.

She moved her shoulders in an awkward shrug, as if her clothes were still not quite comfortable against her recently lacerated skin. “My job at the clinic keeps me busy days, of course, at least during the week; but in the evenings and on weekends… I’d joined this antinuclear group, and part of their program involved lectures and seminars and other group activities, kind of missionary work. All those everlasting meetings and discussions! I guess I was, well, getting pretty fed up with all the protest jargon mixed up with marijuana and harder stuff, and the notion that I was letting down the team because I wouldn’t make myself—my body—available to any whiskery fanatic who talked a good antinuclear fight. What in the world has sex got to do with… That wasn’t what I’d joined them for!”

She paused while the waiter brought me a second martini. I noticed that after last night she no longer felt herself entitled to disapprove of my drinking habits.

She went on: “Of course I was proud that they’d asked me to join, although in my modest moments I wondered why they’d picked me for their elite save-the-world society. The People for Nuclear Peace sounds very democratic, but they’re really a pretty snobbish group. I mean the inner circle around Mrs. Williston, not the ones who come for the free food and liquor and lectures. You know who she is? Mrs. Georgina Williston?”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Why did you join them, if you think they’re snooty and don’t enjoy their programs?”

“Well, it was flattering to be asked, and Mrs. Williston is a very persuasive lady.” Amy hesitated. “Actually, I joined them because I’m crazy,” she said softly.

“As good a reason as any,” I said.

“I’m not joking!” She didn’t like my attitude. “I went to a psychiatrist. He told me why I did all those things, joined all those movements, participated in all those demonstrations. Didn’t I tell you last night? Not because I’m such a great idealist, but because… well, call it guilt. Expiation. I can’t remember exactly what I did tell you last night. But the fact is that I want to be hurt, humbled, shamed, punished for being the wicked girl I am—I did tell you—and that even as a kid I gloried in the times when the police mauled me and threw me into their stinking jails all bloody, and bruised and messy, even while part of me, the sensible part, cringed at the dreadful disgrace of it. Self-destructive, that’s Barnett. Joan of Arc looking for a bonfire. The martyr syndrome. Of course those shrinks are great for telling you why you do things, but they’re not much help in telling you how to stop doing them.”

“And then Mr. Pope came along,” I said.

She nodded. “Albert saw it at once, when he became a member of the Cincinnati chapter of the PNP. I don’t think he gave a hoot about nuclear proliferation. I think he just knew it was a good place to hunt for… for the right kind of masochistic material… She was silent while the waiter put our lunches on the table. “Material like me,” she whispered when he was gone.

There was silence while we attacked the contents of our plates. I noted that her hangover didn’t seem to be affecting her appetite any longer.

“Matt,” she said at last.

“Yes.”

“I don’t really want to tell you about… well, the nasty clinical details. It was just like last night experiencing the sickening humiliation of finding myself staggering down that sidewalk so helplessly intoxicated, looking so incredibly awful; I couldn’t believe that dreadful, dirty, stumbling creature was me. But still… still, I was gloating just a little because this degradation was no more than I deserved. Justice was being done. Can you understand that?”

I said, “I’m not a psychiatrist, Amy. Don’t ask me for understanding. I just shoot off those big guns.”

She laughed shortly. “Watch out or I’ll fall in love with you, the only man in the world who doesn’t claim to understand me better than I understand myself.” Her brief amusement faded. She drew a long breath. “Albert knew. He became the stern father figure forever punishing me for deserting my own father. The first time, I couldn’t believe it was happening. I couldn’t believe I’d let him persuade me… I couldn’t believe
that
was me, modest and dignified me, all naked like
that
, letting myself be bound like
that
, and allowing
that
to be done to me. But I did allow it, Matt; I can’t blame him, really; he didn’t force me. Something made me obey him, even when he asked things of me that were utterly revolting. I can’t even tell you about them. I couldn’t ever tell anybody about them.”

I said, “You might be better off if you did. But not over lunch, please.”

She smiled faintly. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll spoil me with all this mushy sympathy?” The smiled died. “At first, of course, even though I couldn’t seem to help myself, I hated the ghastly hurting indignities of it, the shameful abuses of my… my rather nice body. But it satisfied something black and ugly inside me; and then I found myself not hating it so much anymore. I found myself even beginning to… to respond to it sexually, no longer just enduring it as a kind of atonement. That was when I knew I was in
real
danger. That was when I knew I had to escape before he completely destroyed me, my will, my pride and self-respect, what little was left of them. Don’t send me back to him, Matt. Help me. You promised my daddy you’d help me. Take me with you and help me find myself again. Please!”