Connolly watched him move away, turning to another group of guests like a concerned host. But was he anything more? Connolly walked out to the patio to have a cigarette, feeling oddly deflated. Had they made contact or not? Is that all that happened, the suggestion of another time and place? After all the waiting, the anxious drive down, did he turn now and go? Or had he imagined it all? Perhaps the man was simply checking his guest list or looking for a new friend. The fact was, Connolly didn’t want it to be Chalmers, so unprepossessing and ordinary that he seemed hardly worth the long search. But why not him? A drive to the church, a quick meeting, a meeting afterward with someone else, and it was done. No fog and trenchcoats, just business as usual. But what had Chalmers really meant? He went over the conversation in his mind. Was it possible-almost a comic thought-that the language of espionage was no different from that of a pickup, all the words that meant something else, verbal sex, the invitation not really offered until it was accepted?
He looked around. All over the room people were making contact. He put his hand in his pocket, feeling the gun. The late afternoon sun flooded the patio. In broad daylight, he thought. Maybe this was how it was done. A nice middle-aged man, a harmless exchange that might mean anything. But there had been nothing casual about the meeting at San Isidro. Except they’d already known Eisler. This was just a sighting. Connolly tried to imagine himself as the other man. What would he be looking for? An amateur. A soldier, nervous, looking around. Someone new to it, who needed to be approached with more than the vague promise of the jewelry shop. But carefully. Connolly realized then that if it was going to happen, he was already being watched.
He went into the gallery rooms, moving toward the refreshments, then back again, staring openly at people now, a soldier looking for someone. He caught Chalmers glancing furtively at him, but with no more purpose than a proprietor keeping an eye on the stock. Emma avoided him, talking to a man in a double-breasted suit who was probably asking her too whether she was with somebody. A woman jarred his elbow, brushing past toward the cheese. So where was he? Hadn’t he made himself visible enough? He moved into the interior room, empty now as people, finished with the paintings, clustered on the patio with drinks. He walked slowly, pretending to study the pictures on the wall. The cathedral in the snow. A Soyer imitation of the bar at La Fonda. A heavy metal statue of a rider-where had they got the scrap? — his horse reared back, hooves sticking up. A giant cob of corn. “Do you like it?” A woman’s voice, throaty.
He turned around. The bobbed hair. The eager eyes. “Hannah,” he said.
She looked up at him, startled for a minute, then said, “Oh, it’s you. Emma’s friend. Forgive me, I didn’t recognize-” Her voice wavered, still puzzled. “But have you joined the army?”
Hannah. He felt the hair on the back of his neck. She had approached a soldier. He stared at her, frozen, as still as the moment on the trail at Chaco. Hannah. Not a man.
“Just for the day,” he said.
But only he had made the leap. “I don’t understand,” she said, disconcerted by his stare. Then, quickly, catching herself, “But where is Emma?”
“She’s not here,” he said. “I was looking for you.”
Hannah. Eisler had been billeted at the ranch.
“Me?” she said, a nervous laugh, uncertain. “But I didn’t know I was coming myself. It’s so difficult to travel now.”
Back and forth to Los Angeles. There would be people there, the next link. No need to risk another meeting in Santa Fe.
“But you sent me an invitation.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’re mistaken. It must have been the gallery. Of course, if I had known-” She looked away from him, turning her head as if she wanted to be rescued from the conversation. “But there she is. Emma!” she said loudly, calling her over, but Connolly had glanced up and caught her eye. He shook his head, stopping her at the door.
Hannah turned back to him, bewildered. “I thought you said-”
“She doesn’t know,” Connolly said evenly. “I’ve brought you a message from Corporal Waters.”
Did her eyes widen, or was it his imagination?
“And who is that?”
“Me.”
She looked at him for a moment in disbelief, not saying anything. “Is that your name?” she said finally, polite. “I’m sorry. I forgot. There must be some mistake.”
“No. The invitation was for me.”
Her eyes, shrewd and cautious, darted across his face, trying to see behind the words. Then she closed herself off and looked away. “You are mistaken,” she said, so simply that for an instant he wondered if he was wrong. Everything was supposed to fit. Everything counts in murder. How could it be her? Another European story?
