The Loves of Harry Dancer Read online

  She is conscious of her dissolution in so many ways. Renouncing vows. Ignoring rituals. Mocking sacred myths. All these sins wither when she grapples the satiny body of Martin Frey. Presses close. As good and evil suffer meaning, sensation becomes a faith.

  She is converted, with the excessive passion of the new believer. She, in her turn, wants to proselytize the world. So that all may share her discovered joy. Martin Frey is her first recruit. His betrayal of the Corporation is as complete as hers.

  Their shared treachery is an added spice. Guilt spurs them to wilder intemperance. Remembering what they are betraying, kisses are sweeter. They couple with the franticness of the condemned.

  Lying naked, cooling, on the tiles of Evelyn’s balcony. Staring blearily at a wavering sky with tilting stars. Their world tipped. They feel themselves sliding off.

  “Can you stop time?” she asks.

  “No,” Frey says. “Never.”

  “We do,” she insists. “Not so long ago. The now went on and on. Lasted forever. Didn’t you feel it?”

  “I wasn’t conscious of time.”

  “That’s just the point. It was obliterated.”

  He turns. Stares down at her mellow breasts. Puts tongue to her. Laughs at her turgid reaction.

  “You’re always ready,” he says.

  “Oh yes,” she agrees. “Always and all ways.”

  She rolls to face him. But keeps apart. They have learned the tang of teasing. Offering, promising, denying. Love game that never palls. He touches her. She touches him. Concupiscence stirring.

  “I saw Harry Dancer last night,” she tells him.

  “I know,” Frey says. “All night. I kept calling.”

  “It was no good. For him or for me. I’ve lost interest in bringing him over to the Corporation. We never talk about it. And I think he’s lost interest in me. He’s still a sweet man. But he’s gone somewhere. Distant. I couldn’t get through to him if I tried.”

  “You think the Department is winning him?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He’s so far inside himself. No one is getting to him.”

  Trace each other’s bodies. Pinch. Pluck. Soft pain and stirrings.

  “Here?” he says. “Like this?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Just like that.”

  “Have you thought any more of what we must do?” he asks.

  “I’ve tried, darling, but I can’t concentrate. On anything but you. On us. When I’m away from you, I think of what we’ve done and what we’re going to do. I almost faint with longing. I get all wet.”

  “I know. I’m the same way. I almost get sick to my stomach. Literally. Wanting you so much. Dreaming of new things we haven’t done yet.”

  “But will. You know that.”

  “Oh yes. Everything.”

  Close now. Faster rhythm to their deliberate fondlings. Banked fires beginning to blaze. Excited flesh hardening. Above, stars spin their ascending courses.

  “Should I ask Glitner to replace me?” she says. “I’ll tell him I’m getting nowhere with Dancer. Tony already knows it. He’ll bring in someone else.”

  “What good would that do?” Frey says. “You’d be reassigned, and so would I. We’d be apart. Is that what you want?”

  “Never!”

  “Then do nothing. Ev, we’ve been over this a dozen times.”

  “Let’s not think about it. Right now. Tell me some of the new things you dreamed for us to do.”

  He tells her.

  “Oh yes,” she says. Eyes widening. “I want to do that. Let me.”

  There is no talk of “Do you love me? Yes, I love you; do you love me? Yes, I love you.” Their love is rut. So powerful and overwhelming that emotion becomes skimmed stuff. Whispers cannot be heard in their howls.

  They seek the limit. But there is no limit this side of death. They push at the boundary. Physical craving replaces hunger and thirst. They believe no one else has ever done these things. In all history. Like youths, they think they are the first and the only.

  Their passion has the sour taint of desperation. Louder cries. Sharper bites. Surrender to frenzy. Until they become insentient. Nothing to them but raw response. Mindless and tingling. Return to the ooze.

  World forgotten. Faith lost. God forsaken.

  58

  The Chairman, in his private Cleveland office, is suffering. The Department’s resident physician has diagnosed his complaint as “a bad cold with low-grade upper respiratory infection.” Which, considering the Special Powers granted to key Department personnel, is laughable and humbling.

  A box of tissues is on the Chairman’s desk. Wadded tissues engulf his wastebasket, litter the rug around it. He reviews progress reports of current actions. Pausing frequently to ram a tissue onto his bulbous nose and trumpet. He is disgusted with upper respiratory infections. With himself. With life in general.

  He is intelligent enough to recognize how even minor physical ailments can affect one’s spirit and mental attitude. But convinced his depression is not totally due to a runny nose. Even if he was enjoying his usual robust good health, he would acknowledge that things are not going well.

  Take this Harry Dancer campaign, for instance. Authorization granted to terminate case officer Shelby Yama on suspicion of treachery. To be replaced by Briscoe. So far so good. But it is Briscoe’s suspicions of field agent Sally Abaddon’s loyalty that led to the assignment of Internal Security agent Angela Bliss. That investigation has yielded no results. And Dancer is still not won.

  The Chairman sits brooding. Dabbing gently at his cherry-red proboscis. Now swollen and sensitive. Not for the first time he ponders the difficulties of the Department in making converts. From what the Chairman considers a logical point of view, there should be no problems at all.

  The Department promises wealth. Power. Physical delights. Or a combination of all three. It even, in special cases, promises revenge. Sweetest gift of all. Would not any reasonable man or woman avidly seek such rewards?

  But, the Chairman reflects, so quirky and inexplicable is the nature of human beings that a distressing number do not.

  In contrast, the Corporation offers such returns as suffering, sacrifice, and duty. Duty! Not happiness, but duty I The Chairman will never comprehend how the Corporation can continue to exist with such a program. And not only exist, but occasionally flourish. It is beyond understanding.

  And, as if all that wasn’t enough to confute good sense, the only hope the Corporation offers is an eternal, halcyon Life Beyond. The Department offers today. The Corporation promises tomorrow. Ridiculous! And yet the soft-minded continue to opt for an unknown, unproved future.

  The Chairman is certain that Harry Dancer has been lulled with these same vague assurances. Lulled and defrauded. The subject is apparently an educated and thoughtful man. Has he never heard that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? Or, considering his occupation: Take the cash and let the credit go?

  Why is it, the Chairman wonders, that some people deliberately choose the pain of duty in preference to unlimited pleasure? They must recognize the ephemerality of life. Ah-ha! Perhaps therein lies the success of the Corporation.

  For with their offer of Life Everlasting, are they not playing on their converts’ dread of death? Promise a dying man even another day of existence, and would he not pay any price to ensure it? The more the Chairman explores this thought, the more convinced he becomes that the Corporation’s essential appeal is based on fear of mortality.

  If that be true, then perhaps the Department’s recruiting program should be reassessed. As of now, it makes no mention of the price that must eventually be paid for favors granted. But perhaps a description should be furnished of a fictitious eternal paradise as well as earthly pleasures.

  Many people, the Chairman knows, have a disturbing tendency to surrender present joys for future happiness. By offering both, the Department might well surpass the Corporation in winning men and women who recognize the wisdom of eating thei
r cake and having it, too.

  The whole subject, the Chairman decides, will serve as an excellent memo, a lengthy memo, to his superiors. Outlining suggested changes in the Department’s appeal to potential converts.

  He blows his nose with a triumphant blast.

  59

  “Do you think Briscoe is out there?” Angela Bliss asks. Gesturing toward the parking lot. “Watching us?”

  “Probably,” Sally Abaddon says. “Him or Shelby Yama. Or maybe one of Ted Charon’s thugs. Does it worry you?”

  “Your safety worries me. I don’t care about myself.”

  “I care about you,” Sally says. “I care about us.”

  Sizzling day. Smoky. Sky hidden behind a scrim of haze. Blurry sun. Westerly wind from the Everglades brings flights of giant dragonflies. Swooping and soaring. Wings glittering. One perches on the rim of Angela’s iced tea glass. She waves it away.

  “All those people,” she says. “Briscoe, Yama, Charon. The Department. It’s amazing how little I think about them anymore. A part of my life that’s gone. I can’t believe I ever belonged.”

  “I know,” Sally says. “Sometimes it seems to me like a dream. And now I’m awake.”

  “It’s over, dear. Finished and done with.”

  Both slack. Infected with the torpor of that steamy day. At an umbrella table alongside the pool. Trying not to move. Gnats, beetles, love-bugs skitter about. A golden boy, stripped to the waist, guides a power mower over the lawn at the far end of the pool. They can smell the mown grass. Perfumed.

  Lazy talk about their girlhoods. Parents. Places they lived. People they knew. How they were recruited into the Department. What they did. Thought. Felt.

  No hurry to learn each other. They think they have forever. It is sweet to spin it all out. Come closer slowly. Asking questions. Every detail. Opening completely. First for both. Freedom! This is who I am. Warts and all. Ecstasy of confession.

  “I can be asked with you,” Sally says. “Totally. Tell you things I’ve never told anyone else.”

  “I want you to know my secrets,” Angela says. “Everything.”

  Lock stares. A look so intimate it frightens. It is all so foreign. They are learning a new language. Searching with wonder an unknown land. Breathless with fear and hope. Love grows, buds, flowers. Are there no limits?

  “Are you seeing Harry tonight?” Angela says. Looking away.

  “Yes. For dinner. I think I’ll be home early. I’ve lost him. I knew that even before I met you. He’s off somewhere. Drifting. He responds, but mechanically. With a kind of glassy smile. His mind’s a million miles away.”

  “With his wife?”

  “Possibly. Probably. He’s acting strangely. The oddest expression when he looks at me. I don’t understand him at all.”

  “You could tell your case officer you’re getting nowhere and want to be replaced.”

  “And be reassigned? Shipped somewhere else? You know I can’t do that. Be parted from you.”

  “Ah, sweetheart, I was hoping you’d say that. Go along for a while. Until we figure out what we’re going to do.”

  Into the pool. Surface dotted with blown blades of cut grass. Drowned dragonflies. They paddle slowly together. Arms touching. Legs. Sleek skin burning.

  “Tonight,” Angela says, “when you get back-will you come to me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Darling, I can’t sleep anymore unless I know you’re there. Next to me.”

  “I’ll be there, lover,” Sally says.

  That night Harry Dancer is in what he calls a “blue funk.” He apologizes. Insists on taking Sally to the Boca club. They dine on red snapper that’s been overcooked.

  “Just the way I feel,” Dancer says. “Dry and juiceless.”

  “You’ll come out of it,” Sally comforts. “We’ll go back to your place, and I’ll have you dancing the fandango.”

  He gives her a wan smile. “Thanks, but not tonight. I’m just not up to it. Literally and figuratively. We’ll make it another time.”

  She reaches to cover one of his hands with hers. “Harry, what is it? Have I done something?”

  “Oh my God,” he says, “of course not. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m just trying to glue my life together again. It’s slow going.”

  “Do you want to cut out the salary checks? We agreed—no questions asked. If you want to take me off the payroll, that’s okay.”

  “And have you go back to the Tipple Inn? Or another place like it? I don’t want that, Sally, and I don’t think you do either. Let’s keep going the way we have. I’ll come out of it, eventually, and get back to normal. Whatever the hell that is.”

  She looks around the ornate room. “Did you and your wife come here?”

  “Oh yes. Frequently.”

  “You haven’t told me much about her. What was she like?”

  She opens the floodgates. He starts talking and can’t stop. Sylvia, Sylvia, Sylvia. How she looked. What she said. Did. Tennis. Dancing. The way she dressed. Her jokes. Taste. Fey spirit. Crazy things. No fear. Her wildness. Just what he needed. To lift him. Give his life joy and lightness.

  Listening to him, Sally knows again she will never succeed with him. Nor will anyone else. Department or Corporation. The man is locked into the memory of a lost love. Someday he may be converted. But not soon.

  He runs down. Rueful. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to get so mouthy.”

  “She was a very lucky woman,” Sally Abaddon says.

  “Lucky?”

  “To have you.”

  “She deserved more,” Harry Dancer says.

  He drives her home. She goes running into Angela’s motel room. Face streaky with tears. Angela embraces. Soothes.

  “Sweetheart, what is it? What happened to you?”

  Sally tells her about Harry Dancer. What he said.

  “He loved her so much. And he lost her. It’s crushed him. I know exactly how he feels. What if I lost you? It would crush me.”

  “You’re not going to lose me,” Angela says. “Ever.”

  They agree, solemnly, like all lovers, that bed is very, very important—but not the most important. Physical love is marvelous, wonderful, exciting, intoxicating. But it is icing. The cake is total emotional commitment. Surrender and conquest. Complete sharing. Absolute belonging.

  “It’s the only meaning I know,” Sally says.

  “A reason for breathing,” Angela says.

  Lying naked together is not so much sexual sport as a path to closer intimacy. Assure each other they could sleep clasped and never become aroused. It is the nearness. If they could inhabit each other’s body, they would. Their love is one.

  But they are betrayed by their fervor. If physical contact feeds emotional involvement, that fidelity in turn impels the lover to pleasure the loved. If they seek oneness, then their caresses become a kind of self-gratification.

  More correctly, they each worship a third. Their union and harmony. It is that glowing entity they kiss, nibble, and gently bite. They lose their identities in the unity of their love. Paying homage. Bringing vows and sacrifices. Submitting to their faith.

  Reasoned so, sexual passion becomes an offering. Burning incense or lighting candles. They are not too far from flagellants. Scourging themselves and each other to prove the intensity of their belief. In their love.

  They cannot get enough. Prove enough. Greedily woo delirium with grasping mouths. Frantic tongues. Sliding over each other with sweat-slick skins. Courting death, if necessary. It would be the final obeisance to their new god.

  Then, faint with exhaustion, they roll apart. Shaken by the magnitude of their worship. Lie silently. Cooling. Excitement of flesh yielding to hearts’ resolve.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  Spoken in scarcely heard voices. Whispers and murmurs. Adding intimacy. Soft privacy.

  “Are you all right, dear?”

  “Drained,” Sally says. “You?”

/>   “Wrung out. And frightened.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s so—so strong. It sweeps me away. I must learn to cherish that. Complete loss of control. I’ve always been so disciplined. And now this. I’m not used to it. Don’t know how to handle it.”

  “You don’t have to handle it. Just accept.”

  “Yes, I know that. I’m learning. But it’s shattering.”

  They lie awake. Whispering. Murmuring. Outside light comes dimly through slats of the Venetian blinds. Air conditioner hums. Airliner drones over. Someone laughs raucously. They hear a siren wail and fade. Motel plumbing chugs. But they are alone in all the world.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Angela says. “There is a way out for us.”

  “What?”

  “Defect. Go to the Corporation. Ask for religious asylum.”

  Silence. Then…

  “Will they take us?” Sally asks.

  “I think so. We can deliver intelligence they want. Names. Methods. Chains of command. Codes. Things like that.”

  “Can they protect us?”

  “They have offices all over the world. They could assign us anywhere. We’d have to cut a deal with them. That we’d never be separated. That would be our Number One demand.”

  “And no more active field work,” Sally says.

  Beginning to dream. “We’ll type, learn computers, be secretaries—whatever. As long as we’re together.”

  “Right! Let’s talk about it, darling. Plan how we’re going to do it. Who we go to and what we say. I can’t think of any other chance for us. Can you?”

  “No,” Sally says. “No chance at all.” They huddle. More murmurs. More whispers. How they may protect their own creed in a bigoted world.

  60

  Top Secret manuals of the Corporation devoted to proselyting have evolved over centuries. Are constantly being updated. The current Chief of Operations himself has contributed a modern section dealing with the converting of computer specialists and high-technology workers.

  The Department’s fat Chairman is not far off the mark when he reasons that the Corporation succeeds by appealing to the human fear of mortality. But that is only one of many missionary techniques taught during the training of case officers and field agents.