The Minotaur (18 page)

“Oh, Mom,” Lucy Franklin sobbed into the telephone, “I didn’t
want to call you, but I’ve got no place else to turn.”

“You did the right thing, lucy. Has he hit you?”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that. It’s . . .” She bit her Up. It was
all so bizarre. Her neighbor, Melanie, hadn’t believed her and nei-
ther had the minister. Her mother was her last hope. “I think
Terry is a spy.”

Silence on the other end of the phone. Finally: “Tell me about
it.”

Lucy explained. She went over the events of last Friday night in
great detail.

“Well,” her mother said. “Something is going on. He’s probably
cheating on you.”

“Mother! Please! This is more serious, I’m scared stiff. I can’t
eat. I can’t talk to him. I’m afraid of what he’ll do to the kids.
Mother, I’m petrified. I’m at the end of my rope.” She began to
sob.

“Do you want me to come out there?”

“Oh, I don’t know. What good would that do?”

“He wouldn’t hurt you while I was there- We could confront
him.” More silence. “Let me talk to your father and call you
back.”

“Not Daddy!” Lucy wailed. “He won’t understand.”

“I know you and he don’t see eye to eye. He didn’t think Terry
was the right man for you.”

“He’s never let me forget it.”

“Do you want to come home? Bring the kids?”

If she went home her father would be there. She was genuinely
afraid of her father. He just had never been able to cope with a
daughter . . . “Can you come out here?”

“I’ll call your dad at work, then call you back. Okay?”

“Mom, I really need you to help me through this one.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Lucy drank more coffee
and chewed her fingernails. Mom would be such a help- Terry
wouldn’t do anything with her here. Oh, please, Daddy, let her
come.

“Looks like gibberish, of course. What it is is two computer access
code words and a file name.” The man from the lab laid an eight-
by-ten color photo of the inside of the cigarette pack on Camacho’s
desk. “No prints on the pack except for Mrs. Jackson’s.”

Camacho studied the print The words and numbers were:

Interest Golden.TS 849329.002EB

“And the photos?”

“They didn’t come out so good. She used a miserable camera
with a fixed focus.” The lab man handed Camacho the stack. He
looked at each one and laid them across the desk. He stood and
beat over to study them, moving slowly.

“This one.” He selected a photo of a man in a trilby hat wearing
a fall-length coat. Only the bottom half of his face was visible, and
it was fuzzy. Yet obviously a white man. The other men in the
pictures were Mack. “Blow up the face and see what you can do
with computer enhancement.”

The lab man checked the back of the photo for the number of
the negative. He excused himself and left. Camacho sat in his chair
and stared at the face. Thick cheeks, rounded chin, the suggestion
of a fleshy nose. He had seen that face before. He picked up the
phone: “Dreyfus, bring in the mug book of Soviet embassy person-
nel.”

It took twenty minutes, but Camacho and Dreyfus finally
agreed. The man in Mrs. Jackson’s photo was Vasily Pochinkov,
assistant agricultural officer at the Soviet embassy.

“These black dudes.” Camacho tapped the stack. “Take these
over to the D.C. police and go through the mug books. They’ll be
in there.”

“Your father agreed that under the circumstances I should come.”

“Thank you, Mother. Thank you,” Lucy said.

“You should thank your father too. He was going to use this
money for a down payment on a new car.”

“Yes,” Lucy said, trying to hold back the tears.

“He loves you too, Lucy. He always wanted what was best for
you.”

“I know. Mom.”

“I’ll be there day after tomorrow at one o’clock. Dulles.” She
gave Lucy the flight number. “Can you meet me?”

“The kids and I’ll be there. Thanks so much. Mom. I really need
you.”

“I know, baby. I know- Just don’t tell Terry I’m coming.”

From his window seat Jake stared at the mountains and forests
through the gaps in the cloud cover as the Boeing 727 descended
into the twilight. The mountain ridges ran off to the northeast
between valleys now dark and murky, enlivened only by the twin-
kling jewels of towns and villages.

Over the Shenandoah Valley the 727 pilot broke his descent.
Jake felt the gentle adjustment in nose attitude and the power
addition. Now the left wing rose and the pilot eased to a new
heading, still in a descent. This long glide back to earth was the
best part, Jake decided, the best part of the flight after hours in the
stratosphere. He closed his eyes and became one with the plane as
the pilot leveled the wings and made another power adjustment.
He could feel the controls, the stick and throttles in his hands,
the—

“Is your seat belt fastened, sir?”

“0h yes.” Jake moved the newspaper on his lap so the steward-
ess could visually check. She smiled automatically and moved on.

Your return from the sky should be gentle and slow so that all
the bittersweet flavor can be savored. The airspeed and altitude
that held you so high above the earth should be surrendered gradu-
ally, not— Argghl What’s the use? Why long for things that can-
not be again? Stop it, Grafton! Stop wishing and longing and tast-
ing the things of the past.

Power back, almost to idle. He heard the high-pitched whine of
the flap motor and checked the wing. The pilot was milking them
out as he turned yet again, no doubt following instructions from
Air Traffic Control. The earth was only three or four thousand feet
below and headlights of cars and trucks were visible. Farmhouses,
towns, highways, dark woodlots, all slipped past beneath as the
pilot in the cockpit of the airliner milked the flaps out further and
eased left in a long sweeping turn that would probably line him up
for the approach into Dulles. Jake waited. He was rewarded with a
thunk and hum as the gear doors opened and the main mounts
were lowered into the slipstream.

You miss it too much, he told himself. Too much.

Callie was waiting when Jake stepped out of the shuttle bus onto
the concourse. He saw her and grinned, and walked right into the
fat lady ahead of him. She had stopped dead and bent over to
scoop two children into her arms. The children piped their wel-
come to their grandmother as the line-of people behind came to a
jerky halt. Callie watched with a wide grin on her face.

“Hi, Mom,” Jake said as he put his arm over her shoulder.

The grin got even wider and her eyes sparkled. “Hi, Dad.”

“We’re not really going to do that, are we? Call each other Mom
and Dad?”

“Maybe. Every now and then.”

“Miss me?”

“A teeny tiny little bit. I’m getting used to having you around.”

10

The plane to Washington was
full. By some quirk. Toad was assigned a window seat and Rita was
given the middle seat beside him. She asked about an aisle or win-
dow seat and was told by the harried agent that there were no
more seats. Rita looked up and down the counter at the lines of
people waiting to check baggage and get seat assignments, then
turned back to the clerk and grinned. “That’ll be fine, thank you.”

Moravia had her hair pulled back and rolled tightly. Her white
boater hat sat squarely, primly on the top of her head. She had
used some makeup this morning. Toad noticed, and a glob of it
showed on her right cheek where she had failed to feather it in. It
was the only imperfection he could see. Her navy-blue blouse and
skirt showed off a healthy figure in a modest yet sexy way. Toad
took a deep breath and trailed along as they left the ticket counter.
He had to stride to get up beside her.
“Let’s get something to read,” he suggested. “We have time.”
She was agreeable. At the newsstand Toad looked longingly at
the Playboy and Penthouse magazines with their covers hidden un-
der a piece of black plastic to keep from titillating schoolboys or
heating up old ladies. Maybe he should buy one and read it on the
plane. That would get Moravia all twitchy. He glanced over to
where she stood looking at newsmagazines and slicks for upscale
women. No. He devoted his attention to the rack of paperbacks
and finally selected one by Kurt Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse-Five
was Toad’s favorite book. Vonnegut knew life was insanity, just as
Toad did, deep down, in the place where he lived. Today he chose
one called Galapagos.

When the boarding announcement came, the seats near the gate
emptied as everyone surged toward the stewardess guarding the
entrance to the jetway- Toad took his time and held back. Two
people sandwiched themselves between him and Moravia as they
ambled toward the door; a guy in a business suit with shoulder-
length hair and a woman in her fifties with bad knees- Yet some-
how when Toad turned in his boarding pass he ended up right
behind Moravia going down the jetway. There was another line
waiting to get through the airplane’s door. He queued behind her.
The people behind him pressed forward. His nose was almost in
her hair. She was wearing a delicate, heavenly scent. He inhaled it
clear to his toenails.

They inched down the crowded aisle toward their seats. The air
was stifling; too may people. Toad felt the walls closing in on him.
There was a woman already in the aisle seat in their row, and when
Toad finished stuffing his attache case and bat into the overhead
bin, he found Moravia was already in her seat. The woman on the
aisle ignored him. Toad muttered his excuses and edged in front of
their knees. Rita looked up from the operation of removing her hat
and for the first time since he had known her gave him a warm
smile. ‘”Sorry,”

“No problem,” Toad said as he settled in beside her, acutely
aware of her physical presence. Too aware. He adjusted the air
nozzle in the overhead and turned hers on too. “Is this okay?”

“Thank you. That helps a lot.” She smiled again, beautiful white
teeth framed by lips that . . . Toad looked at his novel a while,
couldn’t get interested, then scanned the airline magazine from the
seat pocket Her skirt had inched up, revealing her knees. He
obliquely examined her hands. Nails painted and trimmed, fingers
long and slim. God! He caught her glancing at him and they both
grinned nervously and looked away. He turned the overhead air
vent full on and glued his face to the window,

They were somewhere over Montana and Toad was deep into
Vonnegut’s vision of humans evolving into seals in the millennia to
come when Rita spoke again. “Toad,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” She was looking straight into his eyes.

“Why can’t you and I be friends?”

He was thunderstruck. “Uh . . . aren’t we?”

“You know what I mean.”

Toad Taridngton glanced around desperately. No one was ap-
parently paying any attention. Those eyes were looking straight at
him. Just what does she mean? There are friends and there are
friends. He had been floating along footloose and free and—whapl
—suddenly here he was, smack in the middle of one of those deli-
cious ambiguities that women work so hard to snare men in. For
the first time he noticed that her right eye was brown and her left
was hazel, a brownish green. Why not just tell her the truth? One
good reason, of course, is that truth rarely works with women. Ah
… the hell with it! Pay the money and see all the cards.

He leaned into the aura of her- “Because I like you too much to
ever just be your friend, Rita Moravia. You are a beautiful woman
and—” He reached up and smoothed the makeup in the caked
buildup near her right ear. Then he lightly kissed her cheek.
“That’s why.”

Those eyes were inches from his. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I like you too damn much.”

Her hands closed around his. “Do you really mean that?”

He mumbled something inane.

Her lips glided into his. Her tongue was warm and slippery and
the breath from her nostrils hot upon his cheek. Her hair brushed
softly against his forehead. When she broke away he was breathing
heavily. She had a trace of moisture on her upper lip. Out of the
comer of his eye Toad saw the woman in the aisle seat scowling at
them. “Rita . . .”

She glanced over her left shoulder, then back at Toad. She
straightened in her seat while holding tightly to his hand with her
right. She gave the woman beside her a frozen smile. She gripped
his hand fiercely.

“Will you excuse us?” she said, and stood, still holding his hand
as she moved past the knees that guarded the aisle, dragging Toad
along in her wake.

She marched aft, past the kitchen and the stews loading the
lunch cart, and got behind a girl in jeans waiting for the rest
rooms. She turned and flashed Toad a nervous smile, then stood
nonchalantly, still gripping his hand with hers. He squeezed and
got a quick grin over her shoulder.

They made room for a woman who came out of one lavatory and
then stood between the little doors shoulder to shoulder. A boy of
eleven or twelve joined them. He examined their uniforms like they
were dummies in a store window. Rita studiously ignored the in-
spection, but Toad gave him a friendly wink. Meanwhile the stews
maneuvered the luncheon cart into the aisle.

When the other lavatory door opened and the occupant was
clear, Rita stepped in and pulled Toad along. “Better get your
mom to help you too,” Toad told the wide-eyed boy. As he got the
door closed Rita slammed the lock over and wrapped herself
around him.

When they finally broke for air, she whispered, “I really thought
you didn’t like me.”

“Fool.”

“I wanted you to like me so much, but you were so distant, as if
you didn’t care at all.” Her arms were locked behind his back,
crushing them together. With his hands against the side of her
head, he eased her head back. Her lipstick was smeared. He kissed
her again, slowly and deeply.