The Loves of Harry Dancer Read online

  The key, of course, is the subject himself: Harry Dancer. Odd that the victim should dictate the crime—but it has always been so. The Chairman wishes he knew more about this man Dancer. Then he might mold his tactics to fit the profile.

  But not knowing, exactly, he can only go by past experience. Converts are won by appealing to their lust, their greed, fear. Any and all of human weaknesses. But what is Harry Dancer’s chink?

  Why, it might even be love. As many targets are converted through their virtues as through their vices.

  45

  She calls him at his office late in the afternoon.

  “Harry,” Evelyn Heimdall says, “about our date tonight—I hope I can make it. I feel awful.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I think I’ve got a cold. Is it possible to catch a cold in Florida?”

  “Sure it’s possible. And it takes a week or two to get rid of the damned thing. You want to cancel tonight?”

  “Not really,” she says. “But I’m not in the mood for getting all gussied up and going to some fancy joint where the air conditioning is turned down so low you turn blue. That I don’t need.”

  “Well, you’ve got to eat. Tell you what: Suppose I pick up a couple of thick New York strips and maybe some frozen hash browns. You drive over to my place, and we’ll eat about seven or so. Then you can take off early, go home and get into bed. If you’ve got a cold, sleep is the best cure.”

  “You’re sure you won’t mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Harry, you’re an absolute darling.”

  “I agree.”

  “I’ll see you about seven then. And I’ll try not to sneeze in your face.”

  He pan-broils the steaks, sprinkles the potatoes liberally with garlic salt and paprika before popping them in the oven. Makes a small salad of romaine and onion slices with a dressing of sour cream and Dijon mustard. Puts out a jug of chilled California chablis.

  “Marry me,” Evelyn Heimdall says. Rolling her eyes. “If you can cook like this, I need you.”

  “Stop by tomorrow night,” he says. “Bologna sandwiches and kosher dills. How’s the cold?”

  “Forgot all about it, the food’s so good. But I do feel feverish.”

  He puts a palm to her forehead. “A little warm. Before you leave, have a brandy. It couldn’t hurt.”

  He is attentive. Solicitous. Is the steak tender enough? Potatoes too highly spiced? Air conditioning too cold? He hovers over her. Serves her. Makes her eat everything. Brews coffee. Brings out the brandy bottle. Pours them snifters.

  “You really are a darling,” she says. “What would I do without you?”

  “What have you been doing? More swimming lessons.”

  “Not today—I felt so miserable.”

  “Did he ever get a computer job? That friend of yours—what’s his name?”

  “Martin Frey. No, he hasn’t landed anything.”

  “I’ll ask around if you like. I know a few outfits that might need someone.”

  She looks at him strangely. “That’s kind of you, Harry. I know he’ll appreciate it.”

  Dancer makes her finish her brandy. Then, because she admits she has none at home, he insists she take the bottle along with her. It’s about half-full. He puts it in a brown paper bag.

  “Now I’m brown-bagging it,” she says. “Harry, thank you so much for tonight. I can’t tell you what you’ve done for my morale. The next time I see you I’ll be all healthy again and hot to trot.”

  “You just take care of yourself,” he admonishes. “Get plenty of sleep. Drink a lot of liquids, especially fruit juices. Get yourself some hefty vitamin C tablets. Stay out of the pool and ocean for a few days. And make sure your air conditioner isn’t blowing directly on you.”

  “Yes, professor,” she says. Then: “Harry, what is it? Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. Nothing wrong. But you called me professor. I haven’t been called that in a while.”

  “Sylvia?” she asks.

  He nods.

  “I’m sorry I brought up old memories.”

  “No, no. They’re good memories. It’s all right.”

  She drives home. Thinking what a dear, sweet man he is. Then fabricating the dialogue she will repeat to Tony Glitner at the debriefing: about belief, faith, the need for devotion, and the promise of eternal reward.

  “I really think he was impressed,” she’ll tell Glitner. “He’s looking for something. A truth. He’s close to a decision.”

  In her apartment, she takes off her shirtwaist dress. Puts on cutoff jeans. Removes her bra. Pulls on a T-shirt that has GO FOR IT printed on the front. Then phones Martin Frey.

  “I’m home, honey,” she says. “Shall I come down?”

  “Give me fifteen minutes,” he says. “I was just heading for the shower. I haven’t got much to drink, Ev.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got half a bottle of brandy. I’ll bring it along.”

  Martin Frey is not a stupido; he knows what has happened to him. You play a role long enough, and it ceases to be a part. You become what you play. All actors and politicians suffer from that syndrome: after a while the curtain never comes down.

  Take this Heimdall assignment…He comes down to Florida thinking it’s just another temptation job. You dangle your lure (some lure!), the fish gobbles, and you haul in the victim-traitor. Frey has done it many times before; he doesn’t take seriously his superiors’ fine moral distinction between “testing” and “seducing.”

  But Evelyn is something new. Maybe ten years older than he. But with a young body. Ripe. Handsome woman. Easy to meet, easy to get along with. Good sense of humor. Not too demanding. And a lot smarter than his usual targets.

  What puzzles Martin, what troubles him, is something he senses in her. Wildness. Like a kid suddenly turned loose in the world’s largest toy store and told, “Take what you want.” She acts like she’s been freed. All restraints gone. Sometimes it scares her, this novel liberty. But she is intent on exploring it.

  The Counterintelligence agent knows he should have reported all this to Washington. But he has not. Serious dereliction of duty. He tells himself it is because Ev’s libertinism may be a temporary aberration, and she will soon straighten out. Then it would prove a cruel injury to her and her career to have turned her in as a backslider.

  But Frey knows that is not the real reason for his failure to do his job. The truth is that he is drawn to this woman. In ways he cannot totally comprehend. Perhaps it is the simple joy she takes in physical contact. Even a touch. Maybe it’s her fantastical moods. Her eagerness to race to the furthest limits. She acts like an untamed beast released from a cage.

  When she arrives, he is wearing a sashed silk happy-coat. Back embroidered with a fire-spewing dragon. She embraces him. Laughing, She is splitting with vigor. Skin flushed. Flesh swollen. Hard nipples poking. She presses a knee between his thighs.

  He holds her away, reads the legend on her T-shirt. “Go for it? What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” she confesses. “Yield to temptation, I suppose. Try everything. Don’t hold back.”

  “I didn’t intend to,” he says. Automatically. Playing his role.

  They take brandy-and-sodas out onto his balcony. Much smaller than hers. Room for only two chairs, a cocktail table.

  Brilliant night. Black sky punched with star-holes. Wisps of clouds no larger than beards. Glaucous moon, not full but fat enough. Northeastern wind with a slight edge. Sea is up; they hear thrumming of the surf. Everything is close. Wrapped around them.

  “On a night like this,” she says, “I feel like I’m going to live forever. But there’s not much chance of that, is there?”

  He answers cautiously. “Not physically, no. Preachers talk about life eternal. Of the spirit, you know. But I don’t believe that. Do you?”

  She is silent a moment. Then: “I don’t know. But it’s not important.”

  There it is,
he thinks. Proof positive of her perfidy.

  “Just to be alive,” she continues. “To see, hear, smell. To feel. What a joy that is! Since I moved to Florida, I’ve started to grow again.”

  He laughs.

  “It’s true,” she insists. “I was like one of those bonzai trees. They keep cutting them back. Wiring the branches to make then grow in strange shapes. Keeping them miniatures. That’s what I was—a miniature. But in the last month I’ve been sprouting.”

  “All over the place.”

  It’s her turn to laugh. “Well, why not? Even bonzais die. Eventually. But while they live, they’re poor, frustrated things. Never allowed to achieve their potential. I don’t want that.”

  “What do you want, Ev?”

  “Just to be. To do. And not to hurt anyone in the process. Does that sound so bad?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Martin, do you think I’m a wicked woman?”

  He cannot throw away his script as agent provocateur. “Come on, Ev. We’re all going to be dead a long time. We’ve got to grab every minute.”

  “That’s the way I feel,” she says.

  If he had doubts before, he has none now. She is gone from the fold. This is no temporary aberration. It is a seismic change. Until she is rehabilitated—if that is possible—she is no longer of use or value to the Corporation. And Harry Dancer is lost.

  “Have you had enough foretalk?” she asks. Turning her head to stare at him. “I have.”

  In bed, his professionalism drops away, and he is frightened. Thinking this woman may destroy him. Burn him down to a cinder. She thinks anything is possible. Is not content with his bag of tricks. Hovers on the edge of hysteria. Crying, “More!” And he retains just enough wit to wonder how much of her emotional and physical excess is due to guilt.

  He contains her paroxysms as best he can. Grappling her slickness. Trying to act the danseur noble in this violent ballet. Until, reason fled, he enters her mad, choked world of raw sensation. Then he is as desperate as she. The two helpless and insensible. Clinging in a crimson haze. Flames consuming flesh. They smell the ash.

  He lies torpid. Feeling the diminishing crunch of his heart. Heaving gasps calming. Sweat drying. His tightened muscles pulling loose. She is asleep—or has passed out. He doesn’t know, and doesn’t care. He glances at her once to reassure himself: her bruised breasts are rising, falling…

  She tears him wide open. Not only with magnified pleasure. But cracks what he is. All his beliefs, faith, his education and training—like a slow motion film of a tall building being dynamited and demolished. He can almost feel the crumble, the destruction. Almost hear it. Thunderous roar of broken beams and falling masonry.

  And in its place—what? Verdant park or arid desert?

  Temptation gnaws. To join in her new world. Break all shackles. Deny everything, and seek the limits of bliss. The enticement frightens and excites. He tries to imagine a self-serving life devoted only to sin. But it would not be sin, of course. He would have put that concept behind him. Joy would eliminate sin.

  Does he have the courage to make that turn? He wonders, and admires the resolve of this robust woman who has decided to smash out to unprincipled freedom.

  He is still debating, his mind a stew, when she rouses. Looks at him. Smiles wickedly. Reaches for him with strong, brown arms. Mouth open and waiting.

  Discipline shreds. One night can do no harm. Brief visit to that forbidden land. Roam wild, and let whim dictate his destiny. He knows all his hidden desires and throttled fantasies. Now to be uncovered, exhibited, exposed without shame. Until he is stripped of mind and body. Becomes a single naked nerve. Fluttering.

  46

  Briscoe survives in a world where everyone fears him and no one respects him. He succeeds through cunning and duplicity. But he is brainy enough to use brute force as a shortcut when ordinary procedures would take too much time—or simply bore him. Violence is just another method. Special Powers make it easy.

  He is capable of juggling several plots at once. And would be a top-level executive if he could govern or conceal his rage. Ambition fuels him. He deserves, he feels, a regional directorship. At least. And then on to Cleveland headquarters.

  But meanwhile, he is forced to follow the orders of cautious and frequently inept supervisors. And although he has permission to overrule Shelby Yama’s decisions, it is Yama who has the title of Case Officer in an action that Briscoe is running. If Harry Dancer is subverted, the case officer will get the kudos.

  In addition to trying to win Dancer, Briscoe is also countering the Corporation’s machinations and keeping a close, suspicious eye on Sally Abaddon’s loyalty. But in the dark watches of the night, it is his own aspirations that thump his thoughts. Pleasure does not woo him. Power does.

  He schemes logically. It seems to him the first step is to rid himself of the irritating presence of Shelby Yama. That effete, ineffective man. Disgrace to the Department. Once Yama is out of the way, Briscoe will naturally be granted the title of Case Officer. Only right since he is already performing the duties.

  So he turns his devious mind to the elimination of Shelby Yama. Inter-Departmental assassinations are rare—and even more rarely countenanced by headquarters. Yama must be made to indict himself. Failing that, his removal must be proved to have been at the hands of an enemy agent.

  Briscoe likes the last possibility. Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. Eradicate Shelby Yama, and then terminate the Corporation agent apparently responsible for Yama’s demise. There is a neatness to that intrigue that Briscoe finds satisfying. He sets to work…

  A few days later he reports to Shelby Yama:

  “I think the Corporation’s got a guy on Sally Abaddon. Tailing her. A tall, skinny gink. I better check him out.”

  “Sure,” Yama says. “You do that.”

  A day later:

  “That man following Sally—I tailed him back to his motel and slipped the room clerk a couple of bucks. He says the guy’s name is Willoughby. You think I should run him through records in Cleveland?”

  Yama, portentous, considers. “Yes, Briscoe, I think that would be smart. We’ve got to keep up on these things.”

  Two days later:

  “Yama, that guy Willoughby I told you about is in the files at headquarters. He’s Corporation all right. Mostly communications. This must be his first field assignment.”

  “Oh wow,” the case officer says. “What do you think we should do now?”

  “He’s a clear and present danger,” Briscoe says. “We’ve got to put someone on him.”

  “Another operator?” Yama says. “The Director will never go for it. We’re over budget as it is.”

  “I know,” Briscoe says. “We’ll just have to make do. Listen, I have my hands full, what with checking on Dancer, transcribing the tapes, and so forth. Why don’t you get on this Willoughby personally? He sounds like an amateur. Maybe you can turn him. It would be a real feather in your cap if you could get him sending disinformation to the Corporation.”

  “Hey,” Shelby Yama says, “you’re right. Another nail in Dancer’s coffin, you might say.”

  “Correct. I’ll give you the guy’s address, and I’ll try to get a telephoto of him so you can identify him. Also, he goes to a church in Deerfield.

  Maybe you can make contact there.”

  “Good deal,” the case officer says. “This is exciting!”

  Three days later:

  “You were right about that Willoughby,” Yama tells Briscoe. “He’s definitely following Sally. Also, I’ve made contact!”

  “No kidding? That’s great. You really know your way around.”

  “Well, I was a successful field agent for many years. You never forget the old tricks.”

  “And you’re buddy-buddy with him now?”

  “Uhh…not exactly. But getting there. The guy goes to that church two or three times a week. Sunday service, Wednesday night prayer meeting, choir practic
e, and so forth. I’m getting close to him. Slowly.”

  “You think he can be turned?”

  “At this stage I just don’t know. He acts like a real believer. But yes, I think I can budge him.”

  “Keep at it,” Briscoe advises. “What a coup it would be for you!”

  The next day, Briscoe has a private meet with Ted Charon, Chief of Internal Security.

  “Look,” he says, “I don’t want to condemn a man out of hand, so I’m dumping it in your lap. I don’t like the way Shelby Yama has been acting lately. He disappears on Sunday around noon, on Wednesday night, and a couple of other evenings. I ask him where he’s been, and he fobs me off.”

  “You think I should put someone on him?” Charon asks.

  “It wouldn’t do any harm,” Briscoe says.

  47

  Angela Bliss is not bedeviled by semantic subtleties, by the fine distinction between “testing” and “entrapment.” Her orders are quite clear: She is to run a sting operation on Sally Abaddon. Attempt to turn her. If Sally succumbs, she is doomed.

  Angela has been following orders all her life. In her career as Internal Security agent, she has uncovered treachery in lowly file clerks and in members of the headquarters hierarchy. It is all the same to Angela. Treason is treason, wherever it lurks, and must be rooted out.

  She is a solitary woman. No friends, and no enemies worthy of her. The Department is her life. It gives meaning to her often arduous and painful labors. She can endure the tragic fate of her victims only by loyalty to the higher good—the welfare of the Department.

  But she has never before been assigned a target like Sally Abaddon. The field agent’s beauty overwhelms. She seems to radiate. About her is an aura of ripe sensuality. She is of another race entirely: larger, healthier, with higher color, unflagging vigor, and movements that create kinetic sculpture in space.

  In addition, there is a soft vulnerability that Angela finds troubling. Sometimes Sally reminds her of a little girl dressed up like a woman: picture hat, smear of lipstick, oversized gown, dangling pearls. Teetering along on high heels. The image touches and saddens.