Denver Is Missing Page 4

  So we sat and chatted, and I kept the conversation on her. Always keen on the sea—it was the reason she took the research ship post—she had joined a group practice downtown, near the waterfront. I had, at first, thought there was some angle to this sea fever, such as seamen, but that was not so. She just hated to be far from the water; the Swede in her, I suppose. So now she was set up. With a little money of her own, she had an apartment to herself and a sailboat, and was as happy as a hog in an apple barrel.

  We went someplace and ate. I don’t remember details, except that I kept clear of SARAH as a topic of conversation. We chattered of nothing much, laughing together, happy. Afterwards, I wanted to walk, and naturally enough, we ended up on Fisherman’s Wharf with all the lights of San Francisco sparkling specially for our benefit. For a change it was a clear, wonderful night.

  We leaned on a low wall, shoulders touching. Bette was intent upon the harbor scene, and she spoke without turning. “You know, Mitch, you’ve said exactly nothing about your trip. That’s not like you—or any other man.”

  I had one arm around her. “You have a wide experience of men?”

  “There you go, ducking again! You’re only making me more and more curious!”

  “And more beautiful.” That was an error.

  “Mitch! Really, such corn!” She laughed, but there was a trace of annoyance in her tone. She wriggled slightly. “This isn’t a teenager’s first date—grow up!”

  Hurt, I reluctantly withdrew my arm. “Aw, hell! Do we have to talk business? Here am I, fresh in from sea, thinking what a wonderful girl you are. I don’t want to think of work—what man would?”

  I studied her profile against the lights. Good, firm face, but the lower lip, sensuous….

  She sighed, and I thought she smiled in the dark. “Okay, play it your way. Tell me I’m too inquisitive and shouldn’t be interested in what you are doing.”

  I liked that. “Interested in me?”

  “I didn’t say that; I said I was interested in what you did.”

  I persisted. “But what about me?”

  Not unreasonably, she was defensive. “I’d hardly be here if I disliked you.” Her tone was very chilling.

  “Aw, that’s what I call real encouraging!” Although I’d asked for it, it still annoyed me slightly. For a while we were silent, staring across the glittering water. Bette broke the silence, her head averted, even in the darkness.

  “Sorry, Mitch, but you musn’t rush me.” She hesitated. “You have to know sometime.” She evidently did not find this prospect pleasing. “Just over two years back, I got hurt and hurt badly. It takes time to get over that sort of thing.” She tried to laugh. “I was knocked flat. For a year I just plain hated men, all men. I’m on my feet now, but, as I said, it takes time.”

  “He must have been a first class—”

  She laid a cool hand on mine. “No, please Mitch, let it go.” Her tone softened.

  So it turned out to be quite a good evening, after all. I drove her back to her apartment, was not invited up, collected a very chaste kiss and left, ridiculously happy.

  The euphoric feeling was still with me when I woke the next morning. Even my dingy apartment looked good, but not that good. Hoping it might figure in my future plans, I got down to cleaning it up as well as my natural ham-fistedness would allow. The day improved still further when Bette called me from her office, just to say how she had enjoyed the evening. Encouraged, I pressed my luck and managed to date her for that evening, and, as someone said, joy was unconfined.

  Of course, it was too good to last. Just after eleven o’clock the phone rang again. It was Suffren, wanting to know what the hell I was doing. I reminded him of my leave, but he thrust that aside with something like his old fire. An hour later, I was back in the office.

  “You look tired!” It was an accusation, not a greeting. To be less than one hundred percent when he wanted you was practically an un-American activity. He glowered awhile, then got down to my report.

  “This is not bad—as far as it goes.”

  High praise, from him. He certainly seemed a lot more interested, but I hadn’t quite got over his attitude the day before—or my curtailed leave.

  “Glad you like it.”

  He managed not to boil over, but I had never seen him so edgy.

  “Cut out the snide cracks! You’re the only professional man who has had a good, long look at SARAH. If anyone should be alive to the situation, it’s you!” He stabbed a finger at me. “You’re good at your job—wouldn’t keep you otherwise—but you’re too goddam flip, too smart! This is no time for either! We’re in trouble, real trouble with Washington! Politically—not that I give a damn about politics, but they do—they dislike this a lot. They’re bending over backward to keep it quiet.” He had sidetracked from the defects in my personality. “The idea of the Russians or the UN getting on to it gives them the creeps! The image of the US as the great despoilers is very popular—contamination of space, dustbowl agriculture, H-bombs in Spain, in the Greenland ice—all sticks to beat the giant with!” He raised a hand as if taking an oath. “In some of these things they’re right, although given the same chances, a hell of a lot of foreigners would be a damned sight worse!”

  I got back to SARAH. “What do they expect us to do about it?”

  “Do? Nothing—except keep quiet, and explain in not more than two-syllable words how all this came about.” He gave me a very sardonic look. “No, Mitch. We do nothing; this is a Federal matter now. We explain to an investigation committee in two days’ time—we’re the main course!” He laughed shortly. “Those films of yours will surely shake them! A small party of Federal oceanologists sail for SARAH in the Tuscarora tomorrow—not that they can do any more than you—Scripps are sending their deep-sea research vessel as soon as they can. There’s a lot of action coming up, but we’re excluded—we’re the bad boys.”

  “For the record, who are ‘we’?”

  He looked puzzled. “We? Us! The Institute!” Amazement spread across his unlovely face. “Godalmighty! Surely you have more wit than to think I’m worried about my personal position?”

  I hoped my face was noncommittal.

  He glowered at me, then spoke with great emphasis, slowly. “I don’t give a damn about me! Think! This could mean the end of our financial grants. No more Navy research contracts—nothing!”

  He was sincere, and I apologized. “What do we tell Washington?”

  “They want to know why we drilled at that spot. I can answer that. I’ve a rough idea why the seismic readings did not reveal this formation; the submarine geophones just weren’t sensitive enough. I’m confident I can satisfy the people who know what I’m talking about—Scripps crowd and the rest. It’s the damned politicians that worry me. Then there’s SARAH, as of now. That’s where you come in. They’re bound to want an idea how long it will go on—”

  “That’s impossible! You know as well as I—”

  “I know, I know! Well, we just have to get that point over.” His voice dropped. “You’re sure you observed no sign of a recession?”

  “Not one iota.”

  He shook his head and stared at the cover of my report. “There must be a tremendous amount of gas there,” he said moodily. “At that pressure—you stick to the thirty kilobar figure?”

  “As a guess, yes.”

  Suffren got up and peered at the wall map. “It can’t go on—it just can’t!”

  “Maybe not, but don’t look at me for an estimate. Hell, we don’t even know what we hit!”

  Suffren revived a little. “I think we do! I’ve gone over every single piece of data we have, I know it by heart, and I’m certain that part of that ridge is the mantle. I don’t say it’s a common formation—who knows?—but pressure, possibly the nitrogen, forced the mantle up into this anticline, and the top was made more accessible by later erosion of the crustal layer.” He prodded the map. “That nitrogen’s further proof; quite unprecedented. You know there ar
e plenty of theories about the mantle, but we know practically nothing.” He changed direction. “We’ll give them the facts, and if they don’t like it, they can go to hell!”

  Brave words, but he was deeply worried. He wanted me along for moral support.

  “So what now?”

  “We go over the whole situation; make sure we really know our case, starting with those seismic readings.” He fairly hissed the word “seismic.”

  We hammered away until six o’clock, and then stopped. The hammering process would begin again at nine next morning, and continue until we caught the night plane for Washington.

  I called Bette. We had not fixed details of the evening’s program. She suggested, somewhat diffidently, that we eat in her apartment at eight. I was delighted, not least because she clearly trusted me to be little Sir Galahad.

  Bette’s apartment on the fourteenth floor of a modem block made mine look pretty sick. At one end of the large living room, beneath a window overlooking the distant bay, was her desk, arrayed with medical books, phone, and blotter, all neatly arranged and businesslike. At the other end of the room was the centerpiece, a large framed print of a Black Ball clipper under full sail. On the shelf below were two photographs of sailboats, a nice model of a fishing boat, and a pair of chunky glass ashtrays, again, all very unfeminine and professional. Knowing she was crazy about the sea, I half expected cushions covered with anchors, table lamps disguised as yachts, and a clock stuck in a miniature steering wheel. There was none of that.

  Yet, when on the conducted tour—her tactful way of showing me where the bathroom was—I noted that her bedroom was as feminine as one could wish. There was even a battered teddy bear, yet no photographs of people— apart from one, which I assumed was of her mother. I wondered if the other photos were kept beneath her undies in some drawer….

  Supper was all right, but she was no great hand in the kitchen. Once more we chatted of everything and nothing. She liked, apart from sailing: walking, corn on the cob, a wide range of music, dogs, and had a great weakness for expensive soaps. She hated subways, asparagus, and crowds. A psychologist, I later thought, could have had a ball with that list, but that, as I say, was later.

  I admitted, truthfully, I liked sailing, but was only a beginner, which boosted my stock. I did not, of course, mention I was very fond of asparagus and frequented ball-games.

  Afterward we did the dishes, and I told her, very casually, that my sea trip had been to collect an important piece of data, missed when our drilling program was canceled. If she thought it strange that the USCG was prepared to cooperate, she did not show it. Naturally, she asked after the “gas leak,” but I disclaimed all knowledge or interest.

  Later, sitting on the sofa holding hands in an accidental sort of way, we discussed the day’s events. I gave a powerful description of life with Suffren, and she told me about her work.

  It was then I first heard of William John Visick. This British yachtsman had been her only interesting patient, showing up at her office with a badly burned arm. From this, she moved to another subject, and I dismissed W.J. Visick from my mind.

  By the time I had to go, we had moved a long way; I no longer saw that wary look in her eyes. When I left, it was with the memory of a warm and strangely innocent kiss. It may not sound like much, but if I read her character correctly, it meant a great deal.

  Twenty-four hours later, Suffren and I left for Washington. As soon as we arrived, Suffren began overtaxing the telephone system. Ours was a small Institute, and he was fighting for its life. Then we toured some offices where our reception ranged from the guardedly careful to the guardedly cordial—with reservations. As Suffren had said, we were the bad boys; a lot of people wanted to see how the committee regarded us, and that we discovered in the afternoon.

  Suffren was very good. His thick glasses flashed defiance and he counterattacked with great vigor and skill, extracting the admission from two high-level geophysicists that they too would have arrived at the same conclusion from the seismic data. I was questioned closely about SARAH, and as Suffren predicted, the films really shook them. It ended with us being thanked for our cooperation, but the goodwill was not high-grade, and we were left in no doubt that we were vastly unpopular. So that was that. We were cleared, because no one had accused us in the first place.

  Later, Suffren summed it up. “Verdict, not guilty, but suspected of being technically innocent. Most unsatisfactory, Mitch, most.”

  We did, however, learn one new item about SARAH, and that, I thought, unintentionally—if the chairman’s face was anything to go by. Aircraft taking air samples had found excess nitrogen concentrations as far inland as two hundred miles, well over four hundred miles from SARAH….

  Chapter 6

  A week went by; the weather was hot, and the air conditioner in my apartment packed up in a shower of blue sparks and a nasty rubbery smell. Not that it mattered much; I was seldom there.

  I saw little of Suffren. He was busy playing politics with all the energy of a small-town mayor. I gathered the grants and contracts situation was bad.

  My personal life was very good. Bette took me sailing, and I saw another side of her character. In a boat she lost all diffidence; as I had suspected, she was a professional. That small boat had to be sailed as well as she knew, which was way above my standard. Ashore, we went most places together, she was wonderful company and very much a woman, but afloat—. Not that I minded being cast as the character with two left feet when at sea. If anything, it enhanced her charm elsewhere.

  One minor incident—as I thought then—occurred. In a moment of unaccountable weakness, I told her about SARAH. As soon as I had blabbed, I regretted it, but it was too late to do anything about it.

  Next day, sailing, I tried to do what I could. Bette was, naturally, steering. “Bette, honey, I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth the way I did yesterday. I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

  She didn’t like that. She jibed the boat around, and I ducked only just in time as the boom whammed viciously over. She gave me a chill stare. “I don’t talk!”

  I was sure this was true, but it still had me worried. On Monday, very reluctantly, I told Suffren of my indiscretion. One of the fascinations of working for him was his unpredictability.

  “You must learn to hold your tongue, but I don’t think you need worry about her.” He was at his most courtly best, as if he had just left his buddy, Benjamin Franklin. He reassured me, “Don’t worry. I know the type.”

  I wondered about the last bit, but that was another of his fascinations; he was a man of many parts. Perhaps he did know.

  It was then he suggested, very casually, that I might care to take up the standing invitation I had to visit my old ship, the Tuscarora. She was back, he told me, unloading the oceanologists. I took the hint.

  The captain and the exec, were pleased to see me, which I found surprising, but it got a little clearer when I learned that his late guests had been very high class on demands, and low on sailoring.

  The captain did not know that Suffren and I had been frozen out as far as SARAH was concerned. I felt like a heel at not telling him, but my first loyalty was to Suffren. I learned that SARAH, judged by wave height, was still the same, and that there was a lot of aircraft out there these days.

  Suffren made no notable comment when I told him, but he left me looking mighty thoughtful.

  I also did a little ship visiting with Bette. She had seen her British yachtsman professionally a couple of times, and he had invited her down to his boat.

  She got some clue from my expression when she told me this for she laughed, “Wrong, Mitch! He has some woman with him. You’re invited too!”

  So one evening we went down to the yacht harbor, and I saw Mayfly and W.J. Visick for the first time. At first sight, Mayfly struck me as nothing but a tub. However, you do not say so when you know the aforesaid tub had sailed from England, via South Africa, the East Indies, and the Philippines, clear a
cross the Pacific to the West Coast.

  She was certainly a beamy boat, built in the old, classic ratio of one to three and one-half. This meant that with a length of around forty feet, her beam was just over eleven feet.

  I went aboard prepared not to like the owner, chiefly because Bette’s manner when she mentioned him was indefinably different. For some reason, genuinely beyond me, she liked me, trusted me, but I saw that this feeling did not extend to other males. With them, I observed that old wary look, noticed that she tended to move closer to me. Of course, as far as I was concerned, this was marvelous and very good for my vanity, and I could stand that situation forever. But Visick was different. He had something for her, and that alerted me.

  Back on the research ship, one or two of the men who fancied themselves, had boasted that they would thaw her out—this was before I had made any score with her-—and they dreamed up reasons to see her professionally. Afterward they were all remarkably reticent about their experiences, and thereafter treated her with very untypical respect.

  Not that I thought she had fallen for Visick. If she went overboard for someone else, I was certain she would tell me. All the same, there was something….

  Certainly Visick was an unusual type. Ordinary men do not turn their backs on normal life and go sailing alone around the world. Not that he was a salty seadog with a hair-covered barrel for a chest and a taste for rum for breakfast. Rather the opposite; five foot eight, perhaps thirty-eight years, one hundred and sixty pounds and not aggressively muscular, he looked pretty average. Naturally, he was tanned, but did not make a cult of it. Fine wind-etched lines around his blue eyes were not quite average, and a beaky nose added up to a striking face which even the receding brown hair did not modify. As befitted a man who recognized no boss, his dress was casual, often downright sloppy. But paint-stained and patched, they were always clean. He had a mania for cleanliness, a trait Bette also had.