that mattered, anyhow. If Runstead hadn’t had a tap on Taunton’s interrogation room we would have been had, right then. But Matt had time to get down to Washington and warn me and the President -oh, he’s no Consie, the President, but he’s a good man. He can’t help being born into office. And-here we are.”
The captain interrupted us. “Five minutes till we correct,” he said. “Better get started back to your hammocks. The correction blasts may not be much-but you never know.”
Kathy nodded and led me away. I plucked the cigarette from her lips, took a puff-and gave it back. “Why, Mitch!” she said.
“I’m reformed,” I told her. “Uh-Kathy. One more question. It isn’t a nice question.”
She sighed. “The same as between you and Hester,” she said.
I asked, “What was between Jack-uh?”
“You heard me. What was between Jack and me was the same as between you and Hester. All one way. Jack was in love with me, maybe. Something like that. I-wasn’t.” And torrentially: “Because I was too damn crazy mad in love with you!”
“Uh,” I said. It seemed like the moment to reach out and kiss her again, but it must not have been because she pushed me away. I cracked my head against the corridor wall. “Ouch,” I said.
“That’s what you’re so stupid about, curse you!” she was saying. “Jack wanted me, but I didn’t want anyone but you, not ever. And you never troubled to figure it out-never knew how much I cared about you any more than you knew how much Hester cared about you. Poor Hester-who knew she could never have you. Good lord, Mitch, how blind can you be?”
“Hester in love with me?”
“Yes, damn it! Why else would she have committed suicide?” Kathy actually stamped her foot, and rose an inch above the floor as a result.
I rubbed my head. “Well,” I said dazedly.
The sixty-second beeper went off. “Hammocks,” said Kathy, and the tears in her eyes flooded out. I put my arm around her.
“This is a stinking undignified business,” she said. “I have exactly one minute to kiss and make up, let you get over your question-and-answer period, intimate that I have a private cabin and there’s two hammocks in it, and get us both fastened in.”
I straightened up fast. “A minute is a long time, dear,” I told her.
It didn’t take that long.