Read Online Assignment - Quayle Question by Edward S. Aarons - Free Book Online

up across her bare, smooth stomach. Stared him in the eye, challenging him. She saw no response. She was touched by an inner destructive fury. “No,” she said again.
    “You have the ability to put things together, to take data from this and that source, to make that jump toward a conclusion, Deborah.”
    “Try the computers.”
    “They tell us nothing. They have no . . . no . . He was rarely at a loss for words.
    “Instinct?” she had asked.
    “I suppose so.”
    “You surprise me. Shall I get dressed?”
    “Listen, can you meet me in New York? The data output is there. Maybe you can make something out of it.” “Go to hell, Martin. I’m not your computer anymore. I’m a woman.”
    “I know.”
    “Can you see me, me, when you look at me, Martin?”
    “I see you,” he said helplessly.
    “So?”
    “I can’t do it without love,” he whispered.
    “And you don’t love me anymore?”
    “No.”
    “What a confession. Impotent without love.” Her fury exploded. Her naked body trembled. “Go to hell, Martin. Go climb that mountain out there and fall off it. I won’t help you.”
    “Your father—”
    “I don’t know my father. He doesn’t know me. Rufus Quayle couldn’t care less about me.”
    He said desperately, “But will you meet me in New York?”
    “Maybe. Maybe not.” 
                                  ****************************************
    “Miss Quayle, you are not listening, are you?”
    “I was thinking of something else.”
    “Of Martin, in Zermatt?”
    “I guess so.”
    “You sound tired.”
    “I’ve been sitting here for hours.”
    “Only thirty-eight minutes.”
    “Well, it seems like hours.”
    “Would you like to rest?”
    “I’d like to go home.”
    “Do you have a home?”
    “You ask embarrassing questions.”
    “You have no place to call home?”
    “I have apartments. I have three houses. None of them are home.”
    “How sad. You did decide, however, to meet Martin after you saw him in Zermatt?”
    “Yes.”
    “In New York City?”
    “Yes.”
    “In your apartment there?”
    “On Park Avenue. Yes. God, I’m getting tired of you, whoever you are.”
    “Did you discover what motivated Martin’s urgency?” 
    “No.”
    “Then what changed your mind about meeting him?”
    “I don’t know. A woman’s prerogative, I guess.”
    “But you' do not think or feel or live much like a woman, do you?”
    “I suppose not.”
    “But you did meet Martin in New York?”
    “Yes. You know the answers, all of them, don’t you? Zermatt was not our last meeting. You knew that. But you let me babble on.”
    “Babbling lies. A pattern begins to form. When did you meet Martin in New York?”
    “Three days ago, I think.” “For how long?”
    “When are you going to let me go? What do you want? Money? I can arrange money for you, you son of a bitch. Is that what you’re after? Is that why you broke in and snatched me and took me here?”
    “Here? Where are you, Miss Quayle?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “And who am I, Miss Quayle?”
    “I don’t know. You sound fat.”
    “What?”
    “The way you breathe. Like a fat man.”
    “Yes. Immaterial. I believe we were discussing—”
    “I can smell you, too.”
    “Yes.”
    “Something bad.”
    “Like fire and brimstone?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Can one smell evil, Miss Quayle?”
    “If what I smell is evil, yes.”
    “You are correct. This world is held in hostage to the Dark One. I am his Messenger.”
    “Oh, boy, you really are freaked out.”
    “We shall find out who is sane and who is not, Miss Quayle, before our interviews are finished.”
                                  ****************************************
    They had come in with a rush, after she answered the bell at the service door. Their efficient violence was utterly appalling. She was stunned and shattered by the force with which they took her. The brutality. She had seen violence before, but she had always kept a cold,