The drought had brought summer early and with it one of the electrical storms that usually waited for July. Outside Weber’s house, Connolly could see the giant dark anvil of a thunderhead rolling toward the mesa, the sky crackling with branches of lightning that shot through the air like X-rays, leaving an inverted image on the eye. Inside, an Indian maid was refilling the coffee urn, edging her way through the crowded living room. Despite the absentees down at the test site, the room was full, the low thunder outside barely audible over the noise of the party voices. Nothing seemed to have changed. Kitty Oppenheimer was again curled up in a corner of the sofa, while Johanna Weber scurried about, playing her hostess memory trick. The air was close, warm with bodies, and Connolly, bored and beginning to sweat, had been there only a few minutes before he began planning an escape. Weber came to his rescue, asking him to fetch Eisler from his lab.
“He’s always forgetful, Friedrich. But it’s the Beethoven. Without him, we can’t-”
The music was outside, deep cello moans of thunder under the viola staccato of the moving clouds. For once there was no dust; even the earth was holding its breath. Eisler’s lab was near the edge of the plateau, not far from X Building, where the cyclotron was, and the rain began before Connolly could reach it, so that he sprinted the last few yards. Now the noise was everywhere, and when the wind banged the door behind him it was lost in a crack of thunder. The hallways brightened for a minute with lightning, and Connolly expected the dim of a power surge, but the overhead lights were steady. When he opened the lab door and stepped in, the sounds were hidden by more thunder, so that Eisler was unaware of his coming. He was about to call out but instead stood for a moment watching, afraid to interrupt.
Eisler was bending over a table in front of a blackboard, stacking small plum-colored metal cubes in a surrounding well of what looked like soft aluminum blocks. Critical assemblies. His body was tense, his long fingers barely moving with slow precision. In the noise of the storm he seemed to stand in his own vacuum, oblivious to anything beyond the table. Connolly watched as he tentatively lowered his right hand, dropping the metal a fraction, then held it still to listen for the increased clicking sound, his whole frame rigid with concentration. So this is what it was like, this awful attention, tickling the dragon’s tail. Then he straightened for a minute, staring ahead at the blackboard as if it were a mirror, and took a deep breath. When he bent over again his movements were fluid, no longer hesitant, and Connolly watched, fascinated, as he lowered another cube in a steady, deliberate push.
Suddenly the clicking erupted and a blue light flashed in the room, some terrible new lightning, and Connolly gasped. Eisler whirled around, seeing him for the first time, then swept his arm across the pile of blocks, knocking them over to the floor with a crash. Connolly instinctively froze. The blue light and the frantic clicking noise stopped. For a moment they held their positions, Connolly listening to his own ragged breath, Eisler looking at him in anguish. When Connolly moved, Eisler held his hand up in warning.
“Please stay where you are,” he said calmly. “You’ve been exposed.” Then slowly, with the inevitable movements of a dream, he went over to the blackboard. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Connolly,” he said distantly, absorbed. “How many meters would you say? Ten?” The blocks lay scattered at his feet, now just harmless metal. He picked up a piece of chalk and quickly sketched an outline of the room, like one of Connolly’s maps, then began to fill the space to its side with the numbers and signs of a formula. Connolly stood trembling, watching him move his chalk across the board, methodical as a madman.
“What are you doing?” he said finally, his voice hoarse, scraped by shallow breathing.
“The effect of the radiation,” Eisler said, his back still to him. “It can’t have been more than two or three seconds. That’s something. But it’s the distance that matters. It’s good you stopped where you are. You have good manners, Mr. Connolly,” he said dispassionately, as if it were no more than another factor to compute. “Not to walk in. They may have saved your life.”
“You did,” Connolly said, shaking involuntarily.
Eisler turned to face him. “Unless I have taken it.” He paused. “We will have to do some tests.” Then, sensing Connolly’s shock, “I think you will be all right. It was a very small exposure.”
“But what happened? Was that a chain reaction?”
“Oh yes.” Eisler came away from the board, his shoulders drooping. “I am so very sorry, Mr. Connolly. I didn’t know-”
“But what-what should I do?” Connolly said, his voice still urgent and unsteady.
“Do? There’s nothing to do.” Eisler looked at him, then moved over to the table. “We must go to the infirmary. But first, you will permit me? One note.”
Connolly watched, hypnotized, as Eisler wrote on a sheet of paper. So fast, a simple flash. What if he died? Radiation poisoning was a grisly, painful death. Everyone knew that. But nobody knew anything. Minutes ago he had been hurrying through the rain. Just a flash, like a bullet in combat. Here, as far away from the war as anyone could get.
“May I ask,” Eisler said, “why you came here?”
“Weber sent me. To remind you. The Beethoven.”
“Ah, the Beethoven,” he said wistfully. “He will have to wait, I’m afraid. We must get you to a doctor. Right now.” As he moved forward, Connolly involuntarily stepped back. “No, don’t worry, it’s not contagious. I am not myself radioactive. It doesn’t work that way.”
Connolly flushed. “Sorry.” And then, embarrassed that it had not occurred to him before, “But what about you? Are you all right?”
Eisler shook his head gravely, but his voice had the tone of a wry smile. “No, Mr. Connolly, for me it’s fatal. It’s in the numbers, you see,” he said, pointing to the board. “The numbers don’t lie.”
They lay side by side on the small infirmary examination tables as nurses drew blood samples and the doctor ran tests that, incongruously, reminded him of an annual physical.
“Is there anything wrong with me?” Connolly said. “I don’t feel anything.”
“We’ll just keep you overnight to be sure,” the doctor said. Then, to Eisler, “How long did you say he was exposed?”
“A second. Two. Three. It was not significant. There have been worse cases,” Eisler replied, but he was looking at Connolly, reassuring him. “They don’t know, you see,” he said gently. “They put you under observation, but what can they observe? So now we are to be roommates.”
“Just for the night,” the doctor said. “Just to be sure.” But he meant Connolly. The questions, the light reassurances, were directed to him. Eisler, lying quietly in his hospital smock, would not be expected to leave. He was dying.
Connolly knew it when Oppenheimer arrived. Eisler had busied himself sending apologies to Weber, politely teasing the doctor, making small jokes to Connolly about the makeshift hospital, so that it all seemed no more unpleasant than an interrupted seminar. Then Oppenheimer came into the room, his porkpie hat dripping with rain, and Connolly saw his pale face, the bright, quick eyes for once still and afraid.
“Robert,” Eisler said softly.
Oppenheimer looked at him, a silent exchange, then took off his hat.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he said, his eyes never leaving Eisler.
“I’m sorry, Robert.”
“Friedrich.” He came over and took Eisler’s hand. The gesture surprised Connolly. It was something new in Oppenheimer. He had seen frustration, even a kind of haunted wisdom. He’d never seen simple affection. “We’ll have you moved to Albuquerque,” Oppenheimer said, falling back on authority.
Eisler smiled. “Albuquerque? And leave the project? What could they do in Albuquerque? Here is fine. I’ll have it all to myself. Mr. Connolly here will be leaving tomorrow-he’s quite all right.”
Oppenheimer took him in for the first time. “What the devil were you doing there?” he said quickly, and it occurred to Connolly that it might have been his fault, the interruption.
“Robert, Robert,” Eisler said soothingly. “You blame the messenger. It was nothing to do with him. An accident. Stupid. My own stupidity.”
“Are you all right?” Oppenheimer said to Connolly, an apology.
Connolly nodded. “I guess so.”
“How did it happen?” He turned back to Eisler.
“The dragon. It went critical. You can see the notes.”
“I told you-”
“Yes, yes, a thousand times.”
“How long was the exposure?”
“Long enough.”
“My God, Friedrich.” Oppenheimer took his hand again, disconcerted, and Connolly felt the impulse to turn away, his face to the wall.
“It’s a risk, Robert, that’s all. You don’t take risks? Every day? How else can we go forward?”
“It was foolish.”
“Perhaps. But now there’s much to be done. We have the moment now. We need to calculate-”
But Oppenheimer had got up and was nervously lighting a cigarette, glancing toward the open door.
“Robert, a hospital-”
“It’s my hospital,” Oppenheimer snapped, drawing some smoke. He turned back. “It’s over, Friedrich,” he said quietly. “I can’t allow it.”
“Allow? I’m not dead. The effects aren’t immediate, you know. There will be a week. Maybe two. I can still-”
“I’m asking you to stay here. Or Albuquerque.”
Eisler looked up at him to protest, then, seeing his face, settled back on his pillow. “Under observation.”
“Yes,” Oppenheimer said reluctantly, “under observation.”
Eisler was quiet for a minute. “So I am to be the guinea pig.”
“Friedrich-”
“No. Of course you are right. I myself should have thought of this. Each day we observe and then, in the end, we go a little forward. But you will allow me to help organize it, the experiment?”
“Friedrich.”
“No, no, please. We are not sentimentalists. It’s important to know. We can observe the elements break down-how the body reacts.”
Oppenheimer walked over to the sink and doused his cigarette under the faucet. “I’m not asking you to-”
“No, not you. I volunteer. It’s my idea. My wish. For the project.” Eisler’s voice was clear, eager. “It seems fair it should be me.”
Connolly looked over at him, puzzled, but there seemed no irony in his voice. He was back at the blackboard, going about his business, getting ready to keep the chart on his own death.
Oppenheimer turned away from the sink, and Connolly saw that his eyes were moist. “Is there anything I can get for you?”
Eisler thought for a minute. “You have morphine? For later? I’ll need that, I think. I’m a coward when it comes to that. And there’s nothing to learn then. Just the pain.”
“Of course,” Oppenheimer said, almost a whisper.
“Nothing to learn,” Eisler repeated.
The nurse drew a screen between them at night, white cotton stretched on a wheeled frame, but Connolly couldn’t sleep. He had never been in a hospital before and it unnerved him-the constant light in the hall, the discreet sound of rubber soles in the corridor, even, once, the faint smell of night-shift coffee. But Eisler was quiet behind his screen, so Connolly was forced to lie still as well, listening to occasional bursts of rain on the asphalt shingles of the roof. He would drift into a kind of half-sleep, then find himself peering at the shadows on the ceiling, his mind moving from one to the other, making pictures, until he no longer knew when he was awake.
He saw Eisler bending over the lab table, then Emma biting her bottom lip, then, oddly, his friend Lenny Keazer, who had been killed in New Guinea. Shot down. Connolly wondered whether he’d seen anything more than a flash before the plane tipped. He had never imagined dying before. Now he saw that it was being nothing. And everything else just went on. Lenny didn’t know whether they’d won or-But what was the point? It wouldn’t matter if you weren’t there. Karl found his secret and then it didn’t matter. And Eisler, who’d said his war was over. Then Connolly was back on his street in Washington, home that afternoon, with the bay window of the little room open to the spring air. Magnolia trees. And he leaned out to see the brown army car move slowly down the street, looking for house numbers. Was anyone else looking out, holding a crack open in the curtains? A soldier got out across the street, carrying an envelope, and walked up the steps to the house, and the next thing Connolly heard was a scream, a long wail that tore the air. A sound from the ancients, a lamentation. He watched the soldier get back in the car and drive away. Then a truck drove down the street, the paper boy on his rounds, another car, and everything went on. That had been the afternoon he thought he had seen the war, the brown car going down one street after another. It would be worth anything to end that. A quick flash and it would stop, the Japanese, finally, startled out of their mad reverie. A hundred to save a thousand. A new kind of mathematics. Did Oppenheimer think of it that way?
The rain woke him, a little spurt of gunfire, and he heard Eisler breathing. The fancies of the night. The ceiling was dark, like the blackboard, and he filled it with chalk marks. So many minutes, so many meters. Eisler had saved his life, then calmly gone about his business. Connolly had been the surprise. He closed his eyes, looking at the lab again, the steady hand on the cube, the cool dispassion of science. He watched Eisler bend over, carefully inching the metal down, and suddenly he knew what was bothering him, all this fitful dreaming. There hadn’t been any accident. He had been the accident, quickly corrected. The cube had been deliberate. It had done just what Eisler had wanted it to do. Not an accident. He heard him tell Oppenheimer, an easy lie. He wanted to be nothing.
Connolly turned toward the screen, his whole body awake now, and listened. The breathing was light, barely audible, not the heavy patterned rhythm of sleep.
“Professor Eisler,” he said quietly.
“Mr. Connolly?” Eisler’s voice was alert, politely surprised.
“When you said before that it was fair it was you, what did you mean?”
Eisler did not answer right away. When he did, his tone was interested, as if the phrase intrigued him. “Did I say that? I don’t remember. You must have-what is the sound equivalent of a photographic memory?” The question, disembodied, seemed to rise in the dark. Connolly stared at the ceiling, waiting for it to float over the screen. He said nothing. “I suppose I meant that one of us should feel-what? The effect of what we’re doing here. Yes, you might put it that way.”
“Won’t people be killed outright? Like an ordinary bomb?”
“Most, yes. But there will be others. We just don’t know.”
“But why you?”
Eisler was quiet for a minute. “I can’t say, Mr. Connolly. Some things even I can’t answer.” He paused. Then, more lightly, “Maybe you will tell me. You must use your Oppenheimer Principle-your leap in the dark. On the map. How is your other problem coming along?”
Connolly felt he was being diverted. His ear searched for nuance in an idle phrase. But clearly Eisler wished to be left alone with his demons. “Not very well,” he said, playing along.
“Ah,” Eisler said. “But you will get there, I’m sure. The elegant solution. Yes, I think so. But now-you don’t mind? — a little sleep.”
Connolly said nothing, and after a while the breathing deepened and he fell in with it, so that he wondered whether they’d talked at all or whether he’d been having a conversation with the dark.
The next morning brought a flood of visitors. Weber was there early, fluttering, then a graver Fermi, then Bethe and what seemed to be all of Bathtub Row. They nodded politely to Connolly or ignored him, drawn to Eisler with an embarrassed mix of concern and prurient curiosity, like people at a highway accident. No one stayed long, and no one talked about the radiation. Once in the room, good instincts and duty satisfied, they were at a loss, talking around the incident until they could excuse themselves to work. Only Teller asked for details, precise and brisk, a consulting resident brought in for a second opinion. By the time Emma arrived, Connolly was dressed, waiting to be released. She looked at him in surprise, expecting to find him in bed, and her eyes filled with relief. She smiled at him, a broad, involuntary grin, then caught herself and turned to Eisler, the ostensible point of the visit.
“You too, Mrs. Pawlowski,” Eisler said. “Has everyone heard?”
“News travels fast,” she said.
“Bad news.”
“Well, I don’t think Johanna Weber makes the distinction.”
Eisler laughed out loud. Connolly realized it was the first time he’d ever heard Eisler laugh, and for a second he was filled with an odd embarrassed pride that it was Emma who could make the joke. It flustered her, however, and she said apologetically, “How are you feeling?”
“No, don’t be somber,” Eisler said gently. “Everyone here plays the nurse. Tell me the gossip. What else does Frau Weber say?”
“She’s baking you a cake.”
“Excellent,” Eisler said, smiling, and Connolly thought again how little he knew anyone. Last night he had spoken to a dead man, and now he saw the eyes were alive and playful, taking delight in a young woman. Had he been like this at Gottingen with Oppenheimer, a world ago?
They talked, making an awkward joke about angel food, but it was Connolly she had come to see and her eyes kept moving away, sliding over to where he sat on his bed, the night screen now gone. Eisler, courtly in his smock, seemed not to notice, but Mills caught it immediately. He stood in the doorway, looking at them like three points of a triangle, and Connolly could see him putting it together, a theorem proof. He raised an eyebrow at Connolly as he walked in.
“Lieutenant Mills,” Eisler said. “At last, a visitor for Mr. Connolly. Or have you come to arrest me?”
“Arrest?” Mills said.
Eisler leaned forward conspiratorially to Emma. “My parking tickets. We have to give them to him and then he scolds us. What do you do with them?” he said to Mills. “Do you make the apologies?” Then, again to Emma, “But I can’t help it. If the space is straight, I can do it, but to back up for those little slots? It’s too difficult. My driving-” He waved his hand.
Mills smiled, a little surprised by the party atmosphere. “Parking’s the least of it,” he said to Emma, joining in. “He’s a menace behind the wheel.”
“Not only there, it seems,” Eisler said smoothly, indicating his presence in the bed.
No one knew what to say. Connolly felt the air go out of the room. In the awkward silence, Mills turned to him. “You look all right,” he said.
“I’m just waiting for my walking papers.”
Eisler, aware that the atmosphere had changed, now looked moodily down at the bed.
“I’d better be going,” Emma said, getting up. She went over to Eisler and put her hand on his arm. “You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
He patted her hand. “No, nothing. Mr. Connolly here will get my few things,” he said, a question to Connolly, who nodded. “It’s absurd. I’m still all right, but now I’m a prisoner here. My jail,” he said, with a nod to the room.
“Just walk out,” Emma said, sympathetic. “They can’t make you stay.”
“But where will I go? No, this suits me.”
“C’mon, Mike,” Mills said, fidgeting, “let’s go fix you up with the doc.”
“Mr. Connolly,” Eisler said as Emma and Mills headed for the door. “You don’t mind? A few things?”
“No, of course not.”
“Some clothes. I don’t want to be in bed. I’m not an invalid. Not so soon.”
“Do you have the key?”
“The key?” Eisler smiled. “It’s not locked. We never lock things at the project. There’s nothing to steal.”
“Anything else? Books?”
“You pick. Do you know German? No. Well, pick anything. And-” He looked up to see if the others had gone.
“Yes?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, a Bible, please.” He smiled. “No, not for the angels. I’m a scientist, you know. But I like the stories. So simple. An eye for an eye. Wonderful stories.”
“I’ll get one.”
“Of course, the angels,” Eisler said wryly. “Nothing is proven, you know. Not yet.”
Outside, the three of them walked together for a while. Then Mills, with a pointed glance at Connolly, spun off to head for the office.
“I’m just going to get cleaned up,” Connolly said. “I’ll be over in a bit.”
“Take your time. I’ll cover,” he said, almost winking. “I’m good at that.” He tipped his head, a little bow, to Emma.
“He knows,” Connolly said, watching him walk off.
“I don’t care. I had to come.”
Connolly smiled. “The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.”
“It’s not funny. I was out of my mind with worry. What if-”
“It didn’t. I’m all right.” He put his hand on her arm, facing her.
“No, not here.”
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“But not like this, not in the open. Oh, I don’t know what I want anymore. More time, I guess. Until I know what to do,” she said, almost to herself. “But you’re all right, that’s the main thing. Now I feel silly. What must Eisler have thought? Charging over there. I hardly know him well enough for that.”
“I don’t think he noticed. He has other things on his mind.”
“Poor man,” she said. “He’s the nicest of the lot, too. It’s not fair. All your life and then one slip-”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“What?” she said, stopping.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
She stared at him for a minute. “You mean he tried to kill himself?”
“He did kill himself. He’s just waiting it out.”
She shivered. “That’s an awful thing to say. How do you know?”
“I was there.”
“But why?”
He shrugged and continued walking. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he knows. It’s all mixed up in his mind. Something about the gadget. He feels guilty about that. I think he sees this as a kind of penance. I don’t know-is there ever a good reason? Can there be?”
“That’s insane.”
“Maybe. Anyway, it’s his life. I doubt we’ll ever know.”
“Funny your saying that. You always want to know everything,” she said, not looking at him.
“Not this time.”
They had reached the turnoff for Connolly’s building. Emma stared down at the drying mud in the road. “I wish you hadn’t told me. It’s so-unhappy. All alone like that. Oh, Michael,” she said, looking up, “don’t let’s-Why shouldn’t we be happy? When I heard this morning-”
“Are you happy now?” he said, taking her arm again.
She nodded.
“All right.”
“And miserable. Happy. Miserable. Scared. Everything.”
“All that?”
“Don’t tease. Anyway, it’s your fault.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Just come tonight, that’s all,” she said, looking at him.
“That’ll make it better?”
“No. But come anyway.” Then, in broad daylight, she took his hand and put it against her face for a second before she walked off.
He showered and changed and headed for Eisler’s apartment. The office, Mills’s smug discretion, could wait. Eisler lived in one of the Sundt units, a modest one-bedroom that was nevertheless several steps up from Connolly’s spartan room. There was a fireplace, with a Morris chair and a floor lamp to one side and Indian carpets scattered over the hardwood floor. It was clean without being really tidy-old coffee cups still in the sink, a tie flung over the edge of the couch. There were books everywhere, a pipe near the chair, another on the nightstand, and rows of shelves lining the wall, full of German books, some bound in leather, others with the yellowing paper of European books whose edges you sliced as you read. Connolly ran his finger along the shelves, recognizing a few names. Which would you take to a desert island? Goethe? Mann? He took out a title, then stopped, sliding it back. It was too long. There would never be enough time to finish it.
He went into the bedroom to get the clothes. The bed was made but lumpy. Next to it was the photograph of a young woman, her hair bobbed-presumably his wife. A girl. What had he said about how she died? You just turned down the wrong street, that’s all it took.
He was in the bathroom, filling the old leather shaving kit, when he heard the door open. He looked up into the mirror, waiting for someone to appear, but the steps went to the kitchen. He heard water running. He stepped out of the bedroom and peered around the corner, surprising Johanna Weber. She was busy at the sink, washing the cups, and she jumped when she saw him. “Oh,” she said, grabbing the saucers with two hands before they could rattle. “Mr. Connolly.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. I was just getting a few things.”
“You? Oh, yes, you were with him, weren’t you? Terrible.” But she was busy again, putting the cups on the drying rack, wiping her hands. “Such mess. A bachelor. Always the same. You found the satchel?”
He held up his palms, a helpless gesture.
“Under the bed,” she said, smiling. “Here, I’ll show you. You sit, and let me pack. A man can’t do it. Look at this.” She picked up the tie. “Clothes everywhere.”
In the bedroom, she scurried around, opening drawers, rolling socks, talking to herself as she worked, drawing the air into her circle of activity like a whirl of dust. She picked up the photograph by the bed and held it for a minute before she put it in the satchel.
“His wife?” Connolly said.
She nodded. “He never forgot her. All these years. Such a long time.” She shook her head and Connolly saw her at one of her parties, a frustrated matchmaker. Or had she been in love with him herself, checked by a memory? Nobody knew anything.
He retreated to the living room and ran his eye again along the shelves. You could tell a man by his books, but the language made these meaningless. There was no visible order. All Connolly could tell was that he’d never left Germany. He thought of Karl’s modest shelf, all new, the dictionary, the Westerns. But these had the depth of a culture remembered. He bent down, searching the lower shelf for a Bible. Heine. Das Leben von Beethoven. Principia Mathematica. Historic Santa Fe. His eye paused, intrigued by the English. He took out the book, with a glossy photograph of the cathedral on the cover, and flipped through the pages. One of the corners had been turned down and the book opened to it, a black-and-white picture of San Isidro. His heart stopped. No. The picture seemed to blur, as if Connolly had moved it out of focus, and when he stood up it swam back again. A paragraph of history, the reredos dates marked in boldface, the church with its belltower, the smooth adobe walls, the alley parking lot to the side. No. The corner turned down, bent. To remind him? No, he would never violate a book that way. Someone else had marked the page, a message. Why hadn’t he turned it back? But who would look?
Connolly stared at the book, his face growing warm. This wasn’t what he’d wanted to find. Just a Bible. Why hadn’t Eisler thrown it away? But he never threw books away. Look at the room. The parking lot was easy, no problem there, everything straight. Had he gone into the church at all? What had they said to each other? Connolly drew in a breath, still staring at the picture. He heard the voices in his head, crossword clues falling into place, until they came to a blue flash. An eye for an eye. But not for the gadget. Something else.
“Mr. Connolly?” He looked up. “Is something wrong? I’ve been calling you.”
“No, nothing.” He stood there, startled, holding the book in front of him.
“Are you sure? You look-”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking.”
She clicked her tongue. “Just like Hans. Once he puts his head in a book-”
She glanced toward it, and for a second Connolly wanted to snap it shut, before anyone else could know. He looked down. It was absurd. A tourist guide. There could be any number of explanations. But he knew there wouldn’t be. Eisler. But how? The head had been smashed in.
“You were reading?” Frau Weber said, drawing him back.
“No, just looking for something to take him. I’m afraid I don’t know German.”
She smiled. “I’ll find something for him. I know what he likes. Go to work now-I’ll take the valise. You’ve been very kind.”
“Isn’t it heavy?”
“This? A feather. Wet laundry is heavy. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”
He started to turn away, the book still in his hand, and she looked at him strangely, as if he were stealing.
“I thought I might borrow this,” he said, closing it. “I don’t think Professor Eisler would mind. It’s just what I’ve been looking for.”
“Sightseeing?” Mills said when he saw the book in Connolly’s hand.
“You still have those bank files?”
“Boy, you never stop, do you? Who’s the suspect this time?”
“Let me see Eisler’s.”
“Now what? What are you going to do, cuff him in his bed?”
“Do you have the file?”
“No, but I can tell you. It’s all up here.” He placed a finger by his temple. “There’s nothing in it.”
“But he opened one?”
Mills nodded, now curious. “When he got here. One deposit, the first month. Nothing after that. Guess he kept it himself.”
Karl had recognized Emma right away. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Let me see it anyway.”
“What’s all this about, Mike?” Mills said, but Connolly just looked at him until he backed away from the desk, holding up his hand. “Okay, okay. I’ll get it.” He went over to rifle through the stack on his desk.
Connolly sat looking at the book. Adobe Press, something local; copyrighted before the war. Glossy paper, but thin, photographs darker than they should be. He took out the Santa Fe directory and when he couldn’t find a listing called Holliday instead.
“Ever hear of something called the Adobe Press?”
“Sure. Now what made you think of that?”
“Where are they?”
“Well, ‘they’ is a he. It’s just old Art Perkins. Made that guidebook. I guess that’s what you mean. Not bad either. But the tourists just kinda dried up during the war, so he closed the shop. Well, shop. Garage was more like it. What’s the interest?”
“Where can you buy them?”
“Anywhere. Art had a nice little business with that. I’ve got one myself if you need it, but they’re still around in the stores.”
“He do any mail business?”
“Not now. Art died about a year ago.”
“Oh.”
“Now you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“In a day or two, Doc. Some things I want to check out first.”
Mills had slid the account sheet in front of him, an empty column with one deposit, just as he’d promised.
“Don’t forget to call, now,” Doc said, hanging up. “The suspense’ll kill me.”
Connolly pushed the sheet aside and looked at the book. You could buy it anywhere. So Eisler had walked into a store, maybe one of those near the plaza, and bought-no, it was too elaborate. How would he know where to mark? If it was a message, it had to be sent. But not by the Adobe Press.
“Mills, the mail censor’s off-site, right?”
“Right. The envelope goes unsealed. They check it out, then seal it and send it on its way so no one out there’s the wiser. Or it comes back here if they’ve got a problem with it.”
“What about incoming?”
“That just goes to the post office here. Problem’s in the other direction.”
“But the top scientists. Somebody must look.”
Mills shifted in his chair. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he said carefully. Again Connolly just stared at him. “Check with Bailey, two doors down,” he said finally. “And don’t mention my name.”
Bailey had no such scruples. He was sitting in front of a pile of unread mail, glad of the interruption. “We don’t keep a record,” he said. “No point. But what are you looking for?”
He was small and delicate, not quite filling the neatly pressed uniform, and when he took off his glasses he looked no older than fifteen.
“Dr. Eisler.”
“That’s easy. He doesn’t get any. No letters. Nothing.”
“Ever?”
“Not since I’ve been here.” He noticed the book in Connolly’s hand. “Well, there was that,” he said nervously, as if he’d been caught in a lie.
Connolly, unaware that he was still carrying it, held the book up. “You remember this?” he said skeptically.
“Well, he never got anything, so it stuck out.”
“Any letter with it?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” he said, slightly prissy, a craftsman challenged in his work.
“When was this?”
Bailey looked at the book again, then closed his eyes, concentrating. “April,” he said, opening them.
“You’re wasted here,” Connolly said, impressed. “And nothing with it. Just the envelope.”
“Right. I figured it was something he sent for.”
“What about a return address?”
Again he closed his eyes. Connolly waited.
“No. Nothing.”
Connolly sighed. “Okay. Thanks,” he said, turning to leave.
“But it was from Santa Fe,” Bailey said, eager to help.
“How do you know?”
“The postmark. Santa Fe.”
“You remember a postmark?” Connolly said, amazed. The boy nodded. “Christ. You are wasted here.”
“No, I enjoy it. It’s interesting.”
Connolly looked at his open young face, imagining him reading Oppenheimer’s correspondence, witnessing history. Another Hill story. But now there wasn’t time. “Thanks,” he said, “I appreciate it.”
When he got back to his desk he lit a cigarette and took out Eisler’s security file, leaning back in his chair to read. He wasn’t looking for anything specific; the trick was to look at the same information differently, like turning a prism. Wasn’t the money enough? Why not, all of a sudden? The book arrived in April, a meeting notice. But Karl had been there too.
“Mike,” Mills said, interrupting him. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to figure it out.”
“But you’re not going to tell me. Look, if you don’t think you can trust me, you should-”
“I trust you,” he said, stopping him. “I just don’t trust myself. Not yet.”
Mills shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m going to get some air.” He headed toward the door. “One thing.” Connolly looked up. “Karl liked to work alone too.”
When he was gone, Connolly didn’t turn back to the file but looked at the wall instead. Karl did like to work alone. Nobody planned to kill him. A snake would attack if surprised. But the meeting was planned, and he was there. Connolly pictured the road down from the mesa. The alley. The car in the box canyon. All the lines were there, waiting to be connected. You just turned down the wrong street, that’s all it took.
He didn’t notice it was beginning to get dark, and when Mills came back and flipped on the light, it startled him. He got up without a word and started for the infirmary. Lights had gone on everywhere; the hive still busy. The thin air, as always, carried gasoline fumes and coal smoke, but he was oblivious, his mind still on the blackboard. When he got to the room, he found Eisler dressed, sitting up to read. He looked over the top of his glasses when he saw Connolly standing in the door, holding the guidebook. His eyes moved from the book to Connolly’s face and stayed there, calm and bold. For a minute neither of them said a word. Then, gravely, he sighed and slowly took off the glasses.
“Mr. Connolly,” he said.
“I’ve finished my map.”