CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CADE LAY PROPPED AGAINST the headboard and watched as Marie poured two coffees. She added some creamer and a sachet of sugar to his, left hers black, and brought them over. Rebecca was in the bathroom, and from the time that had passed, could conceivably have fallen asleep there. Cade took the cup that Marie offered. She sat down with her own at the foot of the bed and regarded him over the rim as she took a sip. He returned the look evenly for a moment, saw that she was simply being open, inviting things to take any turn from here, and let his face soften.
” `Mole Woman’! What ever made you remember that? I thought you’d be a million years past any sentimental stuff by now—whatever used to be there, anyway.”
“They wanted something personal. You see, you never could get it into your head that I had a side like that. You only saw this cold intellectual . . . and you invented most of that yourself.”
“Oh, come on.”
“You still can’t see it?”
Cade gestured at her. “Look at you, for Christ’s sake.”
“So there’s a side that wants to do something about things I take seriously, too. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s just as well some people do. . . . Besides, why just talk about me. What’s this `red coal’ thing I’m hearing about all of a sudden?” Her eyes flickered over him. “Trying to tell me something, Roland?”
Cade made an exaggerated show of sighing at the ceiling, missing the impish twist of her mouth. “Oh, we’re not about to go off into some Freudian excursion are we? The guy I was talking to threw the question across a table, and that was what I came up with. It’s not as if there’s a huge list of alternatives.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You could have picked . . .” Marie thought for a few seconds. “Let’s see, there’s `red cola,’ `real cod.’ Then you’ve got `old acre’ or `old care.’ Does `earl doc’ work?” She frowned. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?”
“Okay, okay.” Cade cocked a complimentary eyebrow. “You’re still as quick, I see.” Marie showed an empty palm and made a face that said “if you say so.” But she wasn’t about to drop it. “So why did you come here?” she said.
Cade let his head fall back against the headboard. “Why is everyone around here trying to psychoanalyze me? Look, it wasn’t me that wanted to come here. I just planned on coming as far as Atlanta to make sure she was collected okay. The rest was your people’s idea. I didn’t get a lot of say in it. They went through all this while you were out of the room. Why not ask them when you get back, eh?”
Marie stared at him for a moment or two longer, then nodded. She took another sip from her cup. “So is life still being kind to you?” she asked.
Now Cade felt on familiar ground. He answered automatically. “It is, because I let it.” Despite the qualms that had assailed him earlier, he couldn’t resist being provocative. “You know how I am. I mind my own business. If other people want to make problems for themselves, that’s their right, I guess.”
“Oh, how can you blame people for what’s happening to them? Ordinary, decent people, I mean. They work hard, believe what they’re told. They’re being sold out.”
Cade raised his chin. They were at it again, already. It seemed that the amnesty had been short-lived. “So who are you blaming, the Hyadeans? Well, some of them happen to be friends of mine, and they can be pretty ordinary and decent, too, believe it or not.”
“But that’s the whole point! It’s not a simplistic `them’ or `us’ situation. The power on both sides is in collusion. It’s like, oh . . . when the Romans used to provide palaces and protection to the local chiefs for keeping the natives in line and the taxes coming in. This whole regime that they’ve set up in Washington is getting to be just like one of those puppet—” The room’s phone units sounded an incoming call. Cade picked up the handset from the bedside stand, pressed the “2” button to select audio only, and offered the phone to Marie. “Dictatorships you used to hear about,” she completed as she took it. The latch of the bathroom door clicked barely audibly.