Deep Cover

“No. I’m hooking a direct line from that red scrambler phone of yours into our receiver. It’ll be voice amplification through a speaker and mike so Dangerfield’s voice will sound metallic to you but you’ll have direct voice contact. It was a little tougher to work it out that way, but Dangerfield said if there’s a last-minute countermand he doesn’t want delays.”

Winslow’s toes curled inside his shoes. “All right,” he said. Doesn’t he ever sweat?

When Winslow returned to his office he found Ramsey Douglass waiting in his chair.

“Shut the door, Fred.” There was something wicked in Douglass’ eyes. “Come on in, sit down. There’s a chair.”

Winslow wanted to seize the offensive but with Douglass he never had learned how. To sit down would be to acknowledge his servility but to remain standing would be even more awkward: it would imply he intended to walk out soon and that was ridiculous since it was his own office.

He sat.

Douglass’ face was venomous but from the way his restless eyes kept combing the walls Winslow began to get the idea Douglass’ venom was not directed at him. Douglass said with a sarcasm that barely masked his utter lack of interest in the question, “I’ve got to check you out on procedure—you want to run through it for me? A nice quick recitation for teacher, that’s a good boy.”

Winslow slid down in the armchair until he was almost sitting on the back of his neck. His tired eyes came to rest on the Matthewson-Ward badge pi

“Fine,” Douglass said. “That’s fine, Fred.” It was hard to tell if he’d been listening at all.

“What’s the matter with you?”

Douglass made an abrupt and violent gesture of negation—a semaphore flash, crossing his hands over each other and whipping them apart. “Christ what a trap.”

“I know what you mean. The whole thing is sick.”

“It’s not that. The whole world’s sick; this is only a symptom of the disease. Who gives a damn anyway, Fred? In the long run it won’t matter. The universe will abide with us or without us.”

Winslow couldn’t follow the convolutions of Douglass’ wild swings of thought. Momentarily he shut his eyes and a pulse drummed blood-red behind his lids. “But what’s going to happen, then?”

“I’m not clairvoyant, Fred. All I can tell you is none of it matters. What do you want to do, make a moral crisis out of it? Find some pious rationalizations to justify it so you can score a few debating points with the Almighty? Hell, I’ll give you that for nothing—in war anything’s permissible, most of all murder, and we’re going to war. How’s that grab you? Make everything hunky-dory? Do you want a pep talk to prop up your sagging resolve, some more of the repetitious rhetoric of the party line?”

“That’s Nicole’s department, not yours.”

“Nicole is dead,” Douglass breathed, and closed his eyes and wrapped his two hands together and kneaded them violently.

“Dead?”

Douglass straightened his jacket with methodical care, cleared his throat, and answered: “She got a pistol from somebody. She stuck it in her mouth and blew the back of her head off. Yes, dead is the right word. She looked as if she’d never been alive.”

Winslow watched Douglass’ face twist up.

“God knows why I should care. She had lousy posture and she was always complaining of headaches and cracking fingernails and backaches and corns and the state of the world. She had a face like a rhesus monkey and for Christ’s sake I’ve kicked better ass than her out of bed. She never gave me the time of day. She used to look at me as if she was measuring me for a box.”

Winslow still didn’t say anything but it was becoming clear that Douglass was asking for something—beseeching. And finally Douglass stretched both arms forward along the top of the desk and looked him in the eye. “You know I’m lying, of course. The truth is when I took my clothes off and got in bed with her I had my climax before I touched her. She laughed every time.”

Winslow squirmed and tried to look away but the bleak desperate eyes pi

He said clumsily, “I’m sorry, Ramsey, I wish there was something I could do.”

“Maybe there is.”

Winslow immediately regretted having said it.

“Dangerfield’s on my ass,” Douglass said. “I’ve got to take over Nicole’s job—rounding up all our people in the area and getting them out to the airport. I won’t be able to be here tomorrow so you’re going to have to take over for me. You’ll have to double-check Hathaway to make sure absolutely everybody gets on those buses. Nobody gets left behind, Fred. Nobody. That was supposed to be my job. Shoot anybody who balks.”

Winslow blinked.

Douglass said, “They’ve got dossiers on every one of us. Anybody who doesn’t get on that plane can figure on being dead in twelve hours.”

“I see. Yes.” His mind whirled.

Douglass got to his feet. “Tell the bus drivers not to run any traffic lights but if a cop stops them, shoot him. You understand, Fred?”

“I understand that. I’m not sure I understand why you care any more whether I do it or not.”

“Because it comes down to survival, doesn’t it. All I want to do is keep them convinced that I’m beneath consideration. As long as they don’t notice me I’ll survive. If you trip up, it’ll be my fault and they’ll nail me for it. I need your help, Fred.” He looked hard at Winslow. “Nobody cares what we intended, Fred—nobody cares what our motives are. We’re judged by the consequences of our acts, not by our intent.”

“Yes,” Winslow said, and nodded, and Douglass strutted out.

Alone in the office he picked up the phone. “Get my wife for me, will you Lieutenant?”

He sat absolutely motionless, hardly breathing until the telephone buzzed.

“Celia?”

“Hello, darling.”

“About tomorrow night. We were thinking about not going to that damned party but I guess we ought to go.”

The silence was long and ragged but in the end she said, “All right, Fred,” and all the life had drained out of her voice.

“I probably won’t be home tonight.”

“I know. I’ll see you tomorrow evening then. At the party.”

“At the party.” He closed his eyes and his grip tightened on the receiver until the knuckles ached.

“Take care, darling.”

“Yes. You too.”

He depressed the cradle with his finger and released it again. “Lieutenant? Anything happening?”