A Proposal for Christmas. Lindsay McKenna

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      4

      David bent and tapped the side of the glass fishbowl with an impatient index finger. The two goldfish floated, one above the other, just staring at him, their shimmering fan-shaped tails barely moving.

      “You guys are really boring, you know that?” he complained in an undertone. “I bought you to give this place some color and flash and what do you do? You just sit there, watching the world go by. Swim, dammit!”

      The fish regarded him implacably, still hovering midway between the surface of the water and the bottom, with its blue rocks and shifting plastic fern and dime-store diver.

      “No class,” David grumbled, turning away and wrenching the damp sweatband from his forehead in one irritated movement.

      Still breathing hard from his customary morning run, he stumbled into the bathroom and took a quick shower. Later, as he dried himself and dressed—in the living room, for God’s sake—he wondered how the hell he was ever going to impress Holly Llewellyn with a place like this.

      Draping a towel over his shoulders because his hair was still dripping wet, he took in the goldfish, the unmade sofa bed, the spots on the carpet. No class. Like those seventy-nine-cent goldfish, the place had no class.

      The telephone rang and David, who had been indulging in a fanciful nostalgia for his real apartment in faraway Georgetown, was startled. He put images of good art, the hot tub in his bathroom and the ivory fireplace out of his mind as he lunged for the instrument.

      “Goddard,” he answered, and the long-distance buzz coming over the wire told him that he’d been right. This was his call from Washington.

      “Zigman here,” Walt replied. “The Bureau staked out the address in L.A., Goddard, but they must have muffed it somehow, because Llewellyn didn’t bite.”

      David had a headache. He had hoped the FBI would be able to collar Llewellyn immediately; like a child about to have a sliver pulled, he’d wanted the whole thing to be over with. “He was an agent himself once. He probably knows the signs.”

      “Yeah.”

      “Does this mean I can drop the case and come back to Washington?” Part of David hoped it did, while another part wanted to watch Holly Llewellyn forever.

      “Hell, no. The little lady sent him a letter, didn’t she? You saw it with your own eyes, Goddard. That means she’s in fairly regular contact with our boy, doesn’t it?”

      David resented the “little lady” reference. Holly was so much more and the phrase seemed to demean her. “Holly is a woman, Walt. With a brain.”

      Zigman’s laugh traveled three thousand miles to annoy David as instantly as if he’d been in the same room. “Goddard, you are going soft. Don’t get to liking this broad too much. She’s in line for an indictment herself, you know.”

      “For what?” David snapped.

      “Christ,” Zigman swore impatiently. “For aiding and abetting a fugitive. Are you going to wake the hell up, Goddard, or do I have to send somebody else out there to handle this thing?”

      David bit back all the fury that surged like bile into his throat. He’d never been pulled from a detail in all the time he’d worked for the service, and he wasn’t about to start now. Besides, he couldn’t be sure how another agent would manage the situation. And it was delicate. Holly’s emotional state was delicate. “I can handle it,” he said.

      “Wouldn’t have sent you if I didn’t think you could,” Walt replied in smug tones. His cigar stub was probably bobbing up and down in his mouth, and David wished he could be there to squash it into the man’s teeth. “Keep a sharp eye out, Goddard. Llewellyn could turn up there. If he does, I want him busted. On the spot.”

      The thought made David half-sick, and he closed his eyes. His wet hair was dripping cold trails down his neck and he began drying it with one end of the towel. He could imagine the look on Holly’s face if he casually wrestled Llewellyn to the floor in her living room. “Yeah.”

      “Can you handle him by yourself or do you want a detail? The Bureau has an office in Spokane—”

      “You keep the Bureau the hell out of this, Walt! I mean it!” The outburst was too sudden, too emotional. David drew a deep breath and stopped toweling his hair to sigh. “Llewellyn is a former agent,” he reiterated a moment later, when he could speak more moderately. “If he sees a bunch of three-piece suits and crew cuts watching his sister’s house, how do you think he’ll react?”

      “He’ll split, just like he did in L.A.”

      “Right.” David sighed again, running one hand through his hair. “Let me handle this, will you, Walt? If I need the Bureau, I can always call them in.”

      “All right,” Walt agreed in his gruff, wry way. “But you remember why you’re there. It isn’t to make fruitcake, Goddard. Or time.”

      David’s headache was infinitely worse. “Yeah,” he agreed after a long, long time. “I’ll remember.”

      “Good,” came the brisk reply. “When do you see the broad again?”

      Enough was enough. He’d let that word pass once; he couldn’t do it again. “Don’t call her that again, Walt. If you do, your nose will be where your right ear is now. I’ll see to it.”

      Zigman swore and rang off.

      David held the receiver in his hand for a long time, doing some swearing of his own. Craig Llewellyn was going to show up in Spokane, he could feel it in his bones. It was only a matter of time. Holly was going to be destroyed by the inevitable arrest, by David’s deception.

      Why the hell had he accepted the dinner invitation, dammit? Suppose there was a replay of that episode when he’d kissed her, in the kitchen? What then? David had spent most of the night reliving that ill-guided indulgence and imagining all the sweet pleasures that could have come after it.

      He shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought, but his body recollected perfectly. Heatedly. He’d had his share of women, of course, but none had ever made him feel quite the way Holly did. She could reach past the hard finish painted over him by his Secret Service training. She could so easily reach past it.

      Maybe СКАЧАТЬ