“I had to get around. What did you want? I phoned the machine here to say you shouldn’t wait dinner for me.”
In point of fact, throughout the day he had mostly been Joe Levine, briefing a couple of other attorney-accountants on Charles Tomek’s tax audit so that they could take over while he was gone for some unpredictable time on some unspecified matter. They already knew the general situation and many details, of course. No single agent could cope with Uncle Sam. (And what did those hordes of paper shufflers produce that was of any value to any living soul?) However, there were certain tricky points they needed to understand.
At that, it could prove costly, leaving them to their own devices. Not that they might reveal illegalities. None existed. Hanno knew better than to allow such a crack in his defenses against the state. But he couldn’t explain to them why Mr. Tomek must not be found on his travels and brought back to help cope.
Ephemera. Expendable. Svoboda would soon arrive, to be the fifth in the fellowship.
And beyond her— Despite himself, his pulse thuttered.
“I thought we could meet for dinner at a restaurant,” Natalia was saying.
“Sorry. That wouldn’t have worked. I grabbed a sandwich.” Untrue. He could not have stayed calm in her company. He wasn’t quite the poker player he had supposed. Maybe Svoboda had thawed something within him, or shaken it till it began to crack.
“You refuse me the reason you were so rushed, don’t you?” Natalia sighed. “You’re a wily one. Only now does it really dawn on me how little you’ve ever let slip about what you do, about anything meaningful that concerns you.”
“Look, let’s not fight,” he urged. “You know I’m, uh, taciturn by nature.”
“No, you’re not. That’s the trouble. You talk and talk, glib, interesting, but aside from those Neanderthal politics of yours, how much do you seriously say?” Before he could reply, she raised a hand to hush him. “In spite of that, I’ve discovered how to read certain clues. Whoever you met in Denmark, it wasnXthe ‘promising subject’ you spoke of so vaguely. And then when we got home from the airport and you looked through the mail, that one letter in it that rocked you back— You couldn’t completely hide your reaction. But I foresaw you wouldn’t show it to me or speak a single word about it.”
Assuredly not, Hanno thought. Especially since Asagao, the naive little sweetheart, had penned it in her awkwardly precise English. “It’s private, confidential.”
“A person in Idaho, as well as Denmark?”
Damn! She’d noticed the return address. He should have cautioned the Asian pair about communicating with him. But they knew his Cauldwell identity from the Rufus connection, and they were timid about the Tomek complex—an unfamiliar kind of thing, where perhaps strangers would intercept messages—and it had never before occurred to him that they, of all people on earth, might bumble onto a fresh scent.
As it was, Natalia had been honorable and not steamed the envelope open. Well, he’d made sure of her character before taking up with her more than casually.
Did he indeed understand her, though? She was a bright and complicated person. That was what had attracted him. She might have had fewer surprises to spring on him if he’d been more forthcoming with her.
Too late now, he thought. The sadness that crossed him was half weariness. Even for a creature of his vitality, this had been an exhausting day.
He roughened his language: “Get off my back, will you? Neither of us owns the other.”
She stiffened further. “No, you haven’t wanted any commitment, have you? What am I to you, besides a sexual convenience?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop this nonsense!” He made a step in her direction. “What we’ve had was, was splendid. Let’s not ruin it.”
She stood unstirring, save that her eyes grew very wide. “Was?” she whispered.
He had wanted to tell her in kindlier wise. Maybe this was better. “I have to take off again. Not sure when I’ll be back.”
Fly east. As Tannahill, engage a private detective to collect the basic information about those Unity people, take a few surreptitious photos, provide him the basis for deciding whether to approach them directly or not. Meanwhile Svoboda would have wound up her affairs in Europe, obtained her visa and ticket, boarded a plane. She’d be landing in New York. The seclusion of the Tannahill property offered a chance to get genuinely acquainted, to catch up on the past millennium.