and two young flunkies -- white clothes but no leather -- came in and started packing up the bags. I put my watch on, slipped the wallet in my pants pocket and the passport in my coat pocket. I saw the diary in the bottom of the suitcase, and glancing at her, I took that out. It meant I needed my shoulder bag, a kind of crushed canvas bag I carried with me all over, and I got that out from underneath everything, put the diary in it, and slung it over my shoulder. 'But what the hell's going on?' I asked her. 'Hurry up,' she said. The two flunkies were taking out the suitcases. She started walking after them. She still had the book in her left hand.
She was positively marching down the corridor when I caught up with her. 'Where are we going?' I asked. 'I don't understand.' 'Be quiet,' she whispered, 'until we get outside.' She cut right across the grass, and through the flower beds, her shoulders very square, her walk jaunty, almost swaggering. The flunkies were loading the bags into a little electric cart on the path up ahead. They both took the front seat as she gestured for me to get into the back. 'Will you tell me what it is we're doing?' I said squeezing in beside her. My leg was crushed up against her and I had a sense of how small she was as the cart took off a little too fast and she fell against me, her hand on my thigh. She was like a bird next to me, and I couldn't see her face under the brim of the hat. 'Lisa, answer me! What's going on?' 'Okay, listen to me,' she said. But she stopped. She was flashing as if she was angry, hugging the book to her chest. And the cart was tearing along now at a good twenty miles an hour right around the edge of the crowded pleasure gardens and past the pool. 'You don't have to go if you don't want to,' she said finally. Her voice was unsteady. 'It's heavy duty, going in and out, stripped down one minute, dressed the next. I can understand if you're not ready for it. So if you want, you can go straight back to my room. Strip down again. Hit the button on my desk for the handler, and they'll take you right off to Scott or Deena or one of the others.
I'll call from the gate. You want Scott, you can have him. Scott's the best. He's impressed with you, he wants you. He would have chosen you when you first got here, but I got you first. But if you want to come with me, then come with me. We'll be in New Orleans in an hour and a half. There's no big mystery. We're just doing what I want to do. And we come back when I say we come back.' 'Hmmmm, shrimp creole and coffee with chicory,' I said under my breath. Going to the moon all right and on to Venus and Mars. 'Smart ass,' she muttered. 'What about crawfish etouffe e and Dixie beer?' I started laughing. I couldn't help it.
And the more solemn she got the more I laughed. 'Well, make up your goddamn mind,' she said. The cart came to a halt at a pair of gates beside a lighted glass booth. We were between two banks of electronic scanners. And I saw another higher fence beyond. 'There's nothing like time to ponder big decisions,' I said, still laughing. 'You can walk back,' she said. She was really shaky. Her eyes were glittering under the shadow of the hat brim. 'Nobody will think you tried to run away or stole the clothes. I'll call from the booth right there.' 'Are you crazy? I'm going with you,' I said. I went to kiss her. 'Go on,' she said to the driver, giving me a hard shove in the chest.
The plane was a turbo jet monster, engines roaring as we drove up. She jumped out before we stopped and started up the metal steps. I had to run to catch up with her again -- I think she moved faster than any woman I'd ever seen -- the goons coming behind us with the bags. The interior was all brown and gold plush, luxurious, some eight or so club chairs arranged in a half circle in the salon. There was a