Part 8 (2/2)

Harry scowled and blew a stream of smoke across the bed. ”Yes, but I don't want to talk about it. Why spoil a nice evening? Anyhow, it's not as if it was going to be for much longer.”

The hum of the dryer stopped, and Sandra reappeared through the doorway, her robe on again. For the first time that afternoon her expression was serious and her manner tense. ”You are still sure you want to go through with it?” she said. ”You haven't changed your mind?”

Harry hesitated for just a second, then nodded once decisively. ”I don't change my mind,” he told her, stubbing the b.u.t.t of his cigarette in the ashtray by the bed and looking up. ”Did you get the . . . things?”

”Do you really want to talk about that now?” she asked. ”Why not leave it until we get back?”

He shook his head. ”Let's get it over with and out of the way now. Then we'll be able to enjoy dinner without it hanging around in the background. . . .” He grinned crookedly. ”Not to mention afterward.”

Sandra nodded and, keeping her face cool and expressionless, walked over to the wall closet. She slid open the door and reached up to the shelf inside for a padded brown mailer. She drew out a small white package, replaced the mailer on the shelf, and came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. Harry watched as she opened the white package to reveal a preformed plastic container-flat and about two inches square-of the kind used for holding one-shot medical infusers. She flipped the lid open with her thumbnail and uncovered slender metal tubes lying side by side in three of the container's slots, the remaining two slots being empty. Each tube was a little longer and slightly thicker than a match, and was tipped by a gla.s.s bead at one end. Two of them had a tiny dot of red paint on the outside about halfway along; the third was plain. Sandra selected the plain one and lifted it from the container. She handled it delicately but surely, her movements telegraphing a cool determination that Harry found momentarily chilling.

”Anyone would think you're unwrapping candy or something,” he murmured. ”Doesn't this bother you at all?”

”Objective thinking,” she said, glancing up at him from under her long, curling eyelashes. ”It doesn't have to be like this, Alex. You could always walk out and get a divorce. I thought you wanted it this way.”

Harry inhaled deeply and was surprised to feel his breath coming shakily. ”And get screwed out of every penny I'm worth to keep her in Scotch and hippie boyfriends who don't have the brains to earn their own suppers?” The sound of the bitterness in his own voice steeled his resolve; he nodded curtly. ”Yes, I do want it this way. Come on, explain it again and show me how this thing works.”

Sandra held up the tiny tube she had taken from the plastic container. ”This is a standard medical infuser for injecting drugs as an atomized jet straight through the skin,” she said. Harry nodded. Though he was not on any course of medication that required their use, he knew about them, since such devices were not uncommon. Sandra indicated the container in her other hand. ”Those other two, with the dots on, are not filled with anything prescribed by any doctor. They're a special kind you can get if you know the right people, and they contain a volatile nerve toxin that's lethal within seconds of becoming active. You'd use one of them like this.” She put the container with the two ”special” infusers in it down on the bedside table and pulled a cigarette out of the pack lying beside it. Then she snapped the gla.s.s bead off the end of the tube she was still holding and touched it lightly against the side of the cigarette just below the end.

Nothing happened for about a second, and then the tube began emitting a faint hissing sound. As soon as the hiss started, Sandra drew the tube smoothly and slowly along the length of the cigarette, timing her movement such that it just reached the filter as the sound died. ”It takes four or five seconds,” she told him. ”Make sure you get rid of the gla.s.s tip. A few people are doing long stretches because they got careless over that.”

Harry took the cigarette from her fingers and examined it curiously. There was nothing on its surface to indicate anything abnormal. Actually he did know about ”squirts,” as the lethal brand of infusers were called in the underworld, which was where they were usually procured. In fact he could have obtained some himself from Max or Tony or a couple of his other less salubrious acquaintances in Vegas; but there had been no point in risking leaving a trail that might lead back to him there, where he was known, especially not after Sandra had suggested such a solution independently and offered to obtain the stuff for him. But too much familiarity with such matters would not have gone with the image of Alexander Moorfield, commodity broker and investment banker from Maryland, currently living in Surrey, England.

So he pretended to be fascinated and just a little nervous.

”That's all you have to do,” Sandra said, watching his face. ”Then there'll be no alimony to worry about, and you'll be able to afford some nice flowers out of the life insurance.”

”Wouldn't I taste anything funny when I smoked it?” he asked, looking up at her with a mild frown that was fitting to his role.

Sandra shook her head. ”The poison enters the bloodstream though the lungs and doesn't become active until about half a day,” she said. ”Then, when it reaches a certain center in the brain, it works almost immediately. It's quite painless. You get hit by a sudden feeling of tiredness that lasts maybe a couple of seconds, and then it's all over. The molecules break down into residues that are indistinguishable from waste toxins produced naturally in the body, so there's no way that anything could show up in an autopsy.”

”What about the b.u.t.t?” Harry said. ”Wouldn't a lab be able to find traces in that?”

”That's possible, but you'd have to be really unlucky,” Sandra replied. ”Just remember to clean out all the ashtrays before anybody has a chance to think about getting suspicious.”

He met her eyes for a second. They were calm and unwavering, and seemed to be challenging him to prove he was everything he said he was by not backing down at the last minute. He drew a long breath to give the impression of a respectable citizen bracing himself to take an irrevocable plunge and found that the nervousness he tried to feign was coming naturally. ”Okay,” he said from somewhere down in the back of his throat. ”It looks simple enough.”

Sandra closed the plastic container and returned it to the white package, then took it across the room to the closet and slipped it into a jacket pocket of his suit. When she came back to the bedside table, she picked up the gla.s.s bead, the empty infuser, and the cigarette that she had treated, and carried them through to the kitchen where she dropped the lot into the garbage incinerator.

”Where the h.e.l.l did you get those?” Harry asked as she came back into the bedroom.

”You don't really expect me to answer that,” she said reproachfully. Her manner was becoming more teasing now that they had the worst of that particular subject out of the way. ”Let's just say I've got friends, and they're not all pillars of virtuous society.”

”Did you have to go to bed with someone?” he asked. His voice was matter-of-fact, but his eyes were studying hers curiously as he spoke.

”If I did, would it bother you?”

”Aw, come on . . .” Harry spread his hands appealingly. ”We're both grown-up people. If that's what you have to do, it's what you have to do.”

Sandra hesitated for a split second, then said, ”Yes, I did.”

With her chin raised a fraction, she was looking at him defiantly. Harry had the feeling that her answer was meant to test his reaction. ”Hey, stop glaring at me as if that's supposed to cut any ice,” he told her.

”I've been around too much for that.” He lay back against the pillows and grinned. ”Anyhow, what's new? I already knew you were a b.i.t.c.h. That's why we're right for each other. Boy, are we gonna go places together when all this is over.”

”So when will that be?” Sandra asked, moving a step nearer. ”Have you worked something out yet?”

Harry nodded. ”I've got a business meeting scheduled at one of the banks in town for Tuesday morning,” he said. ”I'll take care of it sometime just before I leave. That'll give her all day with me out of the way, and I could see you here in the afternoon to celebrate.”

”And after that, are you still planning on selling up the house in Surrey and moving into town?” He detected a trace of disappointment in her voice. ”It sounds such a nice place.”

”h.e.l.l, I wouldn't want you in there,” Harry said, pulling a face. ”I could use a break in town for a while.

After that-aw, there are plenty of nice places.”

Sandra nodded in resignation. ”How long do you think it'll take?”

”Who knows?” Harry spread his palms. ”But there's no reason why I couldn't move out right away-the end of next week, maybe. So if you owe any outstanding payments on those little babies, you'd better get 'em cleared up pretty quick.”

Sandra brought her hands up to her hips and stared down at him accusingly. ”You really are a b.a.s.t.a.r.d,”

she told him. ”You don't give a d.a.m.n how I got them, do you?”

Harry clasped his hands behind his head and grinned up at her. ”You said I shouldn't ask about that, and I believe you. Anyhow, now tell me you don't like b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.”

”Mmm . . . maybe there are one or two around that I could find time for,” she said, breaking into a smile.

Sandra had been gone for a few hours by the time Harry emerged from the apartment late the next morning, the white package zipped securely in an inside pocket of his jacket. He went to Marble Arch and retrieved the briefcase from the deposit box, added the package to its contents, and then took the briefcase to a store in Edgware Road that handled a variety of lines including packaging materials. For a small fee one of the a.s.sistants boxed and wrapped the briefcase in a manner suitable for mailing, and Harry then took the parcel to the Marble Arch post office, where he consigned it to himself under a box number in Las Vegas. After that he walked half a block along Oxford Street and into the central London branch of Remote-Activated Biovehicles (U.K.), Limited.

The girl at the reception desk greeted him with a warm smile of recognition. ”Good morning,” she said.

”Was your trip enjoyable?”

”Very enjoyable, thanks,” Harry told her. ”I need another reservation for Tuesday. Any problems?”

”The same model?” the girl inquired, activating the computer terminal beside her.

”Oh, yes. It's very important.”

The girl scanned quickly down the table of information that appeared on the screen and began tapping a string of commands into the touchpad with deft motions of her fingers. ”No problem,” she announced brightly. ”The reservation is made, and you can pick up the confirmation in Las Vegas.” She looked up from the screen. ”Are there any problems to report?”

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