“Why’d you do it?”
She hesitated a moment. “Why does anyone defect? Ideological reasons.”
“But your own father?”
“I didn’t shoot the motherfucker. I just stole his film. He’ll live.”
Elliot shook his head. “All right, don’t tell me, then. But don’t give me any crap about ‘ideological reasons.’“
Lorimer hesitated a long moment, took a drag on her cigarette, then answered flatly, unemotionally, as if what she was reporting had happened many years before. But Elliot could Alongside Night
153
hear an undertone of great tension and much bitterness. “My father,” she began. “My father committed my mother to a mental institution. My mother was a saint whose only insanity was telling members of the press that she thought my father was a monster—which he is. Last week, after a shock treatment, my mother killed herself. She had been saving up sleeping pills. She knew my father had the connections to keep her in there forever. I stole the film while my father was at her funeral. A political showcase—I wouldn’t have let my face be seen with him there anyway.”
Elliot had listened closely, worried that he had bullied her into relating too-painful events. Lorimer was silent for a moment, then looked up and said, “Your turn,” then added softly,
“Prick.”
Elliot answered quietly, “My mother and sister are locked upat a nice little prison in Massachusetts. Code name Utopia.”
“My father’s personal dungeon,” said Lorimer. “Why do they rate?”
“I think it’s because they can prove that my father did not die of natural causes.”
She looked puzzled.
“My father was Dr. Martin Vreeland.”
It was her turn to be shocked.
“Might as well start calling me Romeo, Juliet. By the way, not-Lorimer, what is your name?”
“Deanne Powers.” She pronounced her first name in one syllable.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I’m Elliot Vreeland.”
“Charmed,” she replied.
Elliot extended his hand formally. They shook.
“Listen, Deanne—No, on second thought we’d better not break the habit of using our code names.” She nodded. “Okay, then. Lor, we’re teaming up for a while, right?”
“Right, Joe.”
154
Alongside Night
Elliot winced. “Okay. My problem is this. All I have to do is spring my mother and sister from your father’s personal dungeon. The Cadre says they can’t do it, but on Monday I start checking out other possibilities. There’s also the slightest chance that my father is still alive—although I don’t believe it anymore—but if he is, then the Cadre will give me their best shot at finding him, and if my father is dead …well, dead is dead.” He paused. “I know that may sound pretty coldblooded but I can’t afford the luxury of feeling for a while.”
“Feeling is a luxury?”
“When the only thing stopping your ass from getting caught—or shot off—is your being able to think clearly, then feeling is a luxury, yes. It’s been pretty marginal for me lately. And for you, too, judging by what I’ve seen.”
“You mean that bastard commandant?”
“Lor, much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think the commandant was being a bastard. Or at least not much of one. A real bastard would’ve tried getting us locked up for six months—
and seeing as how I don’t know the way these arbitration hearings turn out, he might’ve made a good case of it. As it was, all he was going to do was evacuate us separately, and now that we know how Cadre communications work, we probably could’ve gotten in touch on the outside.”
“Maybe not. The computer station in my room said I was going to Montreal.”
“If we’d tried paying for the trouble instead of your silly-ass stunt of pulling a gun, he might’ve been more cooperative.”
“That’s not very complimentary,” said Lorimer. “Actually, I thought it was rather machisma.”
“Great. I could have paid tribute in the morgue. By the way, as long as we’re laying it on the line, why did you proposition me? I may be egotistical but I’m no Don Juan.”
“You may not be Don Juan but you’re not Quasimodo, either.”
Alongside Night
155
“You’re evading again.”
“Okay, I can be blunt, too! I wanted to lose my virginity.”
Elliot remained silent for a half-moment, then said, “But there was no …”
“I haven’t had a cherry since I was thirteen. Gymnastics.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you couldn’t manage to get laid before you ran into me?Are the guys in Washington all eunuchs?”