‘I love you.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Not in love with one,’ I said. ‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘That’s rather evasive.’
‘I didn’t mean it to be.’
‘Could you?’
‘Could I what?’
‘Love a woman,’ she persisted.
‘I don’t know. I’m beginning to think I don’t know anything.’ I was as honest as I knew how to be. ‘Probably that part of my brain is shut.’
‘It has nothing to do with your brain.’
I wasn’t sure what to say.
‘I’ve slept with two men,’ she said. ‘So I know the difference, for your information.’
‘Lucy, you don’t need to plead your case to me.’
‘My personal life should not be a case.’
‘But it’s about to become one,’ I went back to that subject. ‘What do you think will be Carrie’s next move?’
Lucy opened another beer and glanced to see that I still had plenty.
‘Send letters to the media?’ I speculated for her. ‘Lie under oath? Take the stand and go into gory detail about everything the two of you ever said and did and dreamed?’
‘How the hell can I know?’ Lucy retorted. ‘She’s had five years to do nothing but think and scheme while the rest of us have been rather busy.’
‘What else might she know that could come out?’ I had to ask.
Lucy got up and began to pace.
‘You trusted her once,’ I went on. ‘You confided in her, and all the while she was an accomplice to Gault. You were their pipeline, Lucy. Right into the heart of all of us.’
‘I’m really too tired to talk about this,’ she said.
But she was going to talk about it. I was determined about that. I got up and turned off the overhead light, because I had always found it easier to talk in an atmosphere soft and full of shadows. Then I plumped pillows on her bed and mine and turned down the spreads. At first she did not take me up on my invitation, and she paced some more like a wild thing as I silently watched. Then she reluctantly sat on her bed and settled back.
‘Let’s talk about something besides your reputation for a moment,’ I began in a calm voice. ‘Let’s talk about what this New York trial is all about.’
‘I know what it’s all about.’
I was going to give her an opening argument anyway and raised my hand to make her listen.
‘Temple Gault killed at least five people in Virginia,’ I began, ‘and we know Carrie was involved in at least one of these since we have her on videotape pumping a bullet into the man’s head. You remember that.’
She was silent.
‘You were in the room when we watched that horrific footage right there in gory color on TV,’ I went on.
‘I know all this.’
Anger was crawling into Lucy’s voice again.
‘We’ve been over it a million times,’ she said.
‘You watched her kill,’ I went on. ‘This woman who was your lover when you were all of nineteen and naive and doing an internship at ERF, programming CAIN.’
I saw her draw up more into herself as my monologue became more painful. ERF was the FBI’s Engineering Research Facility, which housed its Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network computer system known as CAIN. Lucy had conceived CAIN and been the driving force behind its creation. Now she was locked out of it and could not bear to hear its name.
‘You watched your lover kill, after she had set you up in her cold-blooded premeditated way. You were no match for her,’ I said.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Lucy’s voice was muffled, her face resting on her arm.
‘A reality check.’
‘I don’t need one.’
‘I think you do. And by the way, we won’t even go into the personal details both Carrie and Gault learned about me. And this brings us to New York, where Gault murdered his own sister and at least one police officer, and now forensic evidence shows that he didn’t do it alone. Carrie’s fingerprints were later recovered on some of Jayne Gault’s personal effects. When she was captured in the Bowery, Jayne’s blood was found on Carrie’s pants. For all we know, Carrie pulled that trigger, too.’