needs to be on this special metal. All the information in the Vaults is going to be transferred onto these sheets.”
Heart racing, Puskis looked over at the Chief. The Chief smiled.
“We have fifty machines for typing on these sheets. We’ll have one hundred and fifty people working in three shifts around the clock. We think it will take two or three years to transcribe all the documents.”
Puskis closed his eyes. My God, he thought, they’re trying to destroy the evidence.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nora’s head rested on the flesh between Frings’s shoulder and his sternum. He gazed down at her tangled blond hair and the smooth back beneath it, rising and falling with each breath. They had made love in semiconsciousness, and she had fallen asleep afterward, and now he was hopelessly awake and wondering how to get out of bed without disturbing her.
The previous night was a reminder of how things had been at the beginning for them. He had returned from his meeting with Bernal to find her asleep on the couch, an open book spine-up on her stomach. She had listened with great interest as he told her about the meeting with Bernal and the impending meeting with the bombers. He watched her face, more beautiful without the makeup, brightening with excitement from the stories. This was the essence of their relationship in its best sense. She, entranced by the intrigue of his work. He, entranced simply by her—her beauty, her aura, the confidence she had as a star.
This morning he lay still, breathing shallowly so as not to disturb her, and wondered what it all meant. Was this the end of a period of discontent in a continuing relationship, or a brief instant where everything was as good as it could possibly be as their attachment eroded? He thought about the reefer in his coat pocket and the appeal of banishing these thoughts with the pleasant haze. He inched slowly away from her, eventually cupping her head in his hand and letting it down gently onto the pillow. She muttered something without actually gaining consciousness, and her regular breathing resumed. Frings rolled out of bed and walked naked to the kitchen to boil water for coffee.
He had finished a full pot by the time Nora came out to the kitchen. She was wearing a lavender silk gown and came over to kiss him at the table with half-shut eyes.
“That was nice last night,” she said, her lips close to his ear.
Frings nodded, and something in his manner made Nora straighten up. “Is something wrong?”
Frings looked up at her. “Don’t you keep your bedroom window locked?”
She nodded, her lips pursed in uncertainty.
“Because it wasn’t locked this morning.”
“That’s queer,” she said. “I haven’t opened it in ages.”
“I crack it sometimes.”
“To smoke.”
“To smoke. But I am absolutely conscientious about relocking it.”
“How can you—”
“I am conscientious about it because of who you are,” he said with a seriousness that made her pause. “It’s not locked now. Why isn’t it?”
“I . . .”
“Someone unlocked that window, Nora. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t you. Has anyone else been in here?”
“Oh, shit, is this some jealousy thing? Because, you know, if that’s an issue, then—”
“Of course not. Like you said, it’s queer. You have to be inside to unlock it, and if neither of us unlocked it, that means somebody else has been in here.”
“I think you’re getting all balled up over nothing,” she said. “Maybe it was Clarice.” The cleaning woman.
Frings hadn’t considered this possibility and it calmed him. The reefer was getting to him, he thought. He pulled her to him, his right hand bunched in her hair. They stood that way in silence, and Frings was overwhelmed with the feeling that this might be the last time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Puskis was in the men’s bathroom at Headquarters. He cupped his hands under the tap and doused his face with the cold, amber water. The drops that stuck to his lips tasted like rust. His hat rested on the sink next to him, and he ran his wet hands through his thin hair, plastering it back against his skull. His skin was stretched tightly over his cheekbones, nearly translucent except for the darkness under his clear, focused eyes. He locked gazes with his reflection in the mirror, staring himself down—finding that a focal point helped him slow the thoughts that were threatening to overwhelm him.
The final fifteen minutes of the Retrievorator demonstration were lost on him. He knew what was happening, and no further explanation was