The Sandler Inquiry Part 70

He quickly pulled off his clothes and dived back into the bed. He resumed the same sleeping position he'd been in before she left.

Seconds later, the door quietly opened.

She undressed quickly, laying each article of clothing exactly where it had been. Then she stood in the middle of the room, naked again, now with the moonlight cutting a ribbon of white across her.

She climbed back onto the bed, a bare knee first. She started to ease beneath the covers.

He sprang up, surprising her so that she began a slight scream.

He grabbed her shoulders with both arms and pushed her back down onto the mattress. An image flashed into his mind as he saw the scar across her throat: the image of the Italian youth who'd tried to kill her.

He lay on top of her, pinning her down playfully and trapping her between himself and the mattress.

He began to laugh, showing her that everything was all right.

"Did I scare you?" he asked.

"Half to death' she said, her British intonation sounding particularly indignant.

"What's wrong? Restless?"

"I couldn't sleep" "No?" He gently' slid off her and sat up, propping a pillow against his back. She sat up with him, the sheet falling away from her and resting across her lap.

"I went out" she said.

"For some air. I took some change from your dresser," she said.

"The air is free," he offered.

"Of course," she said.

"I was looking for a soft-drink machine. I was thirsty, too" "Find it?" he asked.

"Yes she said.

He smiled, watching her closely and seeing that she was perfectly at home with a lie.

"I guess customs are different here from in England," he said.

"Sorry?" she asked, c.o.c.king her head slightly and not knowing what he meant. He studied her carefully in the soft indirect light. He could see all of her, from the delicate features of her face to where the sheet lay motionless and slightly rumpled across her lap.

"Customs?"

"Yes," he said.

"Over here, people don't normally get sodas out of telephone booths."

There was a moment's awkward pause, as if she'd been slapped suddenly, not expecting it at all. Then her mouth flew open, not in defensiveness, it seemed, but in resentment.

"Why, you spy," she charged.

"You sneak!"

"Me? It wasn't me who was skulking around in the dark."

"Might just as well have been" she ranted indignantly. She folded her arms across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s so that he could see them no longer. She pulled up the sheet and held it to her.

"You're a wicked, distrustful man she declared.

"I know this trick," he said.

"You learn it in the first year of law school. Put your opponent on the defensive. Don't try it with me."

She looked away from him in disgust.

"Tell me who you telephoned " "No one" she said, abandoning her initial tactic and now playing the hurt little girl.

"The booth was out of order."

"I could see that much. Who'd you try to call?"

She reached to him and took his hand. His hand resisted slightly, indicating to her that he wanted the truth, not affection, not at that I moment, anyway. Her face appeared confused, as if torn between two confessions, neither attractive. Then she spoke to him with feeling, the same sincere voice that she'd first used to lure him into her case weeks earlier.

"The truth will hurt you, I suspect' "Not as much as the goon on the boat wanted to hurt me, I hope."

Her voice was quiet, appearing to come from the heart as much as from the scarred throat.

"No," she agreed with a weak smile.

"Not that much " She paused and then gave it to him, as if to thrust a dagger quickly to get it over with.

"I already have a lover," she said.

The bluntness of it took him aback. He could not find words. She could.

"In point of fact' she said slowly,

"I was living with a man in Montreal. Before I came down to see you.

When this is over I plan to go back to him. I love him."

He sensed a certain deflation within his chest, a sensation of hopes tumbling. He knew he had no right to her, no claim, other than a professional and theoretically dispa.s.sionate one. She too, like Andrea, like his ex-wife, was another man's woman. He had no right to expect otherwise.

"I've been thinking of him;' she said.

"Each time I've been in bed with you . . . Shall I go on?"

"Why not?"

"Each time I've been in bed with you, I've thought of him. At least part of the time. I wanted to hear his voice" she said, still holding his hand.