Read Online Wetware by Craig Nova - Free Book Online Page A

elevator he buttoned his coat and took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, and when he came into the lobby he saw Carr’s reddish hair, her pale skin, her arm with a diamond bracelet on it under the fan of a palm tree. The band had stopped playing “Fascination.” Blaine sat down next to her and said, “Would you like a glass of champagne?”
    “Is something wrong?” said Carr.
    “No,” said Blaine. He got a waiter’s attention and ordered a bottle of champagne.
    “I missed you today,” said Carr.
    He was thinking about the indices and guessed that he had a chance, but then it was possible that he hadn’t seen the latest report. Had he looked at them before he left the office, or had he only seen the ones in the early afternoon? He didn’t know. The champagne arrived and they each took a glass. He put his on the small table between them.
    “Well?” she said.
    “Excuse me,” he said.
    “You don’t even know I’m here,” she said.
    “Please,” he said. “Let’s just sit here for a moment.”
    His glass sat on the table, and she saw the room distorted there, bent into a shape like that reflected on the surface of a shiny spoon.
That’s
perfect,
she thought,
everything here is distorted.
    “You are trying to tell me to be quiet,” she said. “Aren’t you?”
    “No,” he said. “I’m trying to say I want a moment to relax. That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
    He closed his eyes.
    “I want to talk to you,” she said.
    “This may not be the best time,” he said.
    She shrugged.
    “There’s nothing I can do about that,” she said.
    “Yes, there is,” he said. “You can wait.”
    “Why won’t you look at me?” she said.
    He turned his pale green eyes on her, the expression in them seeming as crisp and shiny as a scientific instrument, like the lens of a microscope. The glance seemed extremely bright, almost as though a light were being shined in his eyes, and she supposed that this was a matter of his remoteness, his refusal to be intimate.
    “Is that better?” he said.
    “Yes,” she said. “This way I can see what you are thinking.”
    “Can you?” he said. “And what would that be?”
    She looked away.
    “Not about me,” she said.
    “And is that a crime?” he said.
    “Right now it is,” she said.
    “Leslie,” he said. “I’m trying to decide whether or not I have made a mistake. If I have, why, then I have to do something.”
    “Oh,” she said. “You’ve made a mistake, all right. You’ve had many opportunities to discuss this with me, but you haven’t taken them. So if this is a bad time, it is your fault. Your mistake is thinking you can put me off. Well, sometimes there are people who will not be put off. Are you listening?”
    “Don’t,” he said. “Please.”
    “I want you to tell me you love me,” she said. “I want to know if you would risk everything for me.”
    He closed his eyes.
    “Risk,” he said. He opened his eyes and looked at her with that same bright glance, which was almost mesmerizing in its intensity. “And what do you know about risk?”
    “Plenty,” she said. “Tell me. I want to hear it.”
    “I love you,” he said.
    He trembled with the effort.
    “Say it like you mean it,” she said.
    “Please,” he said. “I am asking you to wait just a few minutes. That doesn’t seem like too much.”
    “I bet you are going to a concert tonight to watch that Russian woman. Is she in town?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Well, well,” she said. “Say it like you mean it.”
    Beyond the palms, which opened with a fan of green fronds, the musicians picked up their instruments. Everything about them was so crisp and starched that it was almost possible to hear the scrape of their white collars against the skin of their necks. They looked at one another, each nodding his head, counting, One, Two, Three . . .
    “I think this has gone far enough,” said Blaine.
    “What has gone far enough?” she said. “This discussion?