Emma was sitting on the bed, breathing deliberately to calm herself. She glanced up when he came in, then looked away again, obviously not wanting to talk. He touched her shoulder, then went into the bathroom and started putting things in his Dopp Kit.
“Did you hear?” she said finally from the bedroom. “I’m afraid I muffed it.”
“No,” he said, coming out, “it was fine. Perfect.” His voice went low. “Emma, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No, you didn’t.” She shrugged, shaking the hair off her neck. “Now what?”
“Now we wait.”
“Like a message in a bottle.” She stood up and went over to the window. “Anyway, it’s done now. Good luck to him.”
“You all right?”
She nodded. “Funny how voices don’t change. Everything else, but not voices. It gave me quite a turn at first. ‘We respect that.’ My God.” She lit a cigarette, still looking out the window. “Promise me something, will you? When this is over, all this Karl business, no more, all right? You see what it’s done to him. Always some war to fight, whether there is one or not. He’s stuck in the trenches for good now.”
“It’s a promise. You can count on this one.”
She turned, smiling a little. “He couldn’t help himself, could he? What are you doing?” she said, noticing the Dopp Kit. “Going somewhere?”
“I thought we might change hotels. Our last night. Change of scene.”
She smiled. “You don’t have to do that. I’m all right, really.”
“Actually, I think we’d better,” he said. “He followed you.”
“Followed me?”
“Not like that. I think he probably wanted to make up.”
“But he didn’t come in,” she said quietly.
“No,” he said, closing the kit. “But he knows you’re here. Which means they’ll know I’m here too, if anyone’s interested. And they might be, once they get a look at his mail. We can’t afford to take that chance.”
She folded her arms, holding herself. “You think he’d have us watched?”
“It wouldn’t be up to him.”
She took that in. “I thought this was over.”
“Almost. It’s just a precaution.”
“Still on the job,” she said, putting out her cigarette. “Right. And here I thought you were being romantic.”
“I can still be that.”
“Where now?” she said brightly. “Do you think you could manage something a bit grander? The Waldorf?”
He grinned. “No. I was thinking of the Pennsylvania. It’s the one place we’re sure to be alone.”
“Unless that man’s still there.”
“He won’t be. Anywhere but there.”
He was there, however. After dinner, a little tight, they went to the Cafe Rouge to hear the music, and it was Emma who spotted him, sitting not far from the band.
“It’s him,” she said. “He must be off duty-he’s checked his hat.”
“And picked up a girl,” Connolly said. “What do you know.”
“I don’t think he’s seen us.”
“Come on, let’s dance.”
Emma giggled as Connolly maneuvered her toward the other table. “You’re torturing him,” she said, watching the man pretend not to recognize them. The girl, all bright lipstick, was drinking a highball.
“Just a little.”
“He’ll be furious.”
“Because we ruined his little night on the town? I doubt he’ll want to go into that. Looks bad on the report.”
She giggled again. “But what will he think?”
“That we’ve been here all along and he should have kept his mouth shut. Now he’s going to have to explain it.”
“Who do you think she is?”
He grinned. “There’s a question.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Now he’ll be on the train.”
“Paying very close attention this time. Just think of him as your personal bodyguard. Look, he’s getting up to dance. I didn’t think there was anybody in G-2 who could do that.”
“Stop. He’ll see you laughing. We shouldn’t be doing this, you know. It’s not supposed to be funny. Why is it?”
“He doesn’t think he’s funny. And he’s going to write a report and it’s going to sit in a file until it’s useful to someone who isn’t funny either. And there won’t be a thing in it about his pumping his way across a dance floor and trying to get some girl into bed. That’s the way it works.”
“Not funny at all.”
“No. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. From one minute to the next. Today-”
“Don’t think about it.”
“I did something I never thought I’d do. Deliberately harm someone.”
“That depends on how you look at it.”
“I’m not even sure it was wrong. How is that possible? Not to know what’s wrong. And I didn’t mind. I wanted it to work. And now we’re laughing at that man and dancing, as if nothing had happened. What sort of person does that make me?”
He looked at her. “I don’t care. Like the rest of us, I suppose. Everybody has his reasons.”
“Even Matthew.”
“I don’t know the answer to that, Emma. Some are better than others, maybe.”
“So maybe you can be wrong for the right reasons.”
“I don’t know that one either. We’re not going to solve it here, you know. Let’s take a little time out. You’re still all keyed up.”
She smiled weakly at him. “The wine, no doubt. At least you didn’t say that. I have to sort it out sometime, though.” She looked up at him, studying his face. “What about you? What were you thinking about today?”
“In the restaurant? That I wasn’t helping you at all.”
“But you did. You made it easy.”
