The hab theory, p.10
The HAB Theory, page 10
At 2:15 a.m., agent Ed Grinelski emerged, walked directly to the limousine still at the curb and opened the back door, then returned to the entrance of the hotel. Here he spoke briefly with two other agents, who nodded and moved closer to the cordoned group where Boardman was waiting. Their steely glances studied each face there, including that of the oldest person present. Boardman’s sinews tightened, but there was no change in his gently smiling, anticipatory expression.
Five minutes later, with two agents preceding him, with Alex Gordon at his left and another two agents behind, the President emerged, smiling broadly and looking much less haggard than when he had arrived. It seemed evident that he was very well pleased with whatever had occurred during his meeting inside the hotel. Again, as news cameras whirred into action, focusing on him, the President shook hands with two other men who had followed the agents out after him, and then turned to his right and gave his characteristic wave of acknowledgment to the larger crowd on that side, where the onlookers were cheering and waving and inanely crying out, “Mr. President! Mr. President!”
For a moment Boardman’s heart sank. He had been so sure the President would turn to his left, if at all. And then suddenly, now unexpectedly, Robert Sanders turned his back to those to his right and, with Gordon still at his left side and the guards trailing them, walked directly toward Herbert Allen Boardman.
Despite his control, Boardman’s jaw dropped and he stared in amazement, but this was evidently construed by the guards as a quite normal reaction. The President passed the first four cordoned people with no more than a cordial nod, but to Boardman he held out his hand as he came to a stop. One of the television cameramen zoomed in his focus for a waist-up tight shot, with Boardman and the President filling his viewfinder.
“I was told,” the President said, “that there was a gentleman of quite advanced years who had been standing out here since around ten o’clock, just to see me. I must say, sir, that I am touched and pleased and I consider it a privilege to shake your hand.”
Alex Gordon at first had been looking at Boardman sharply, but now his attention went to other spectators crowding around and thrusting out their hands as they called greetings and hoped to touch or be touched by the nation’s most important figure. The other guards also were watching these people closely, with some degree of nervousness.
The President’s grip was firm and warm, lasting for about five seconds, and Boardman was able only to mutter shakily in response, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Robert Sanders released Boardman’s bony hand and then accepted the proffered hand of the man to Boardman’s right. At the same moment, Boardman began coughing raggedly and bent over with the spasm, bringing up his left hand to cover his mouth. An instant later he straightened and the revolver was in his right hand.
The President, still with his hand clasped by the other man, heard the coughing and glanced concernedly toward Boardman, and then his eyes widened as he saw the gun. There was no time for more than that. From this point-blank range, Boardman shot and the bullet struck Robert Sanders in the forehead about a half-inch above the right brow. The President’s head jerked with the impact and his eyes rolled upward until only the whites showed, but he was still standing. The sound of the shot was terrifying. People nearby were screaming in horror and attempting to scramble away, and those farther away were pressing forward and craning to see better. Agents were already plunging toward the scene.
At the shot, instantly Gordon had leaped in front of the President and already was throwing himself at Boardman and striking at the old man’s hand to knock it down as the gun was fired again. The second bullet hit the President on the far right side of his chest and slammed him backwards onto the sidewalk, where he lay motionless.
In a daze, Herbert Allen Boardman felt himself being struck, felt himself falling and colliding with the onlooker to his own left as he went down. His arms flailed out and he gripped the man and clung tenaciously to his waist. Someone jumped on him and bore him the rest of the way to the sidewalk. Then there was nothing more than a bedlam of screams and crying and hoarse shouting, the feel of fists hitting him and hands jerking at him, pulling him, punching him, and a forest of legs all around him. For an instant he was able to raise his head slightly, only to have a heavy brown fist thud into his forehead, and then there was silence.
It was exactly 2:22 a.m.
CHAPTER TWO
Who dares nothing need hope for nothing.
— Friedric H. von Schiller
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
— Machiavelli
1
Oddly enough, the American people were among the last in the world to become aware of the fact that an assassination attempt had been made against the President of the United States. This was not because the news was not almost instantly broadcast in all parts of the nation — even to the point where all three of the major television networks came back on the air with continuous television programming about the incident. The reason was the time of its occurrence.
Since the shooting had taken place in Chicago at 2:22 a.m., it was not until around 2:30 a.m. that the first radio bulletins began being flashed around the nation and the world. CBS was the first nationwide television network to resume operation — at 3:02 A.M. Chicago time — followed by NBC-TV at 3:08 a.m., and ABC-TV at 3:24 a.m. But at such an hour, few people are watching their television screens. By the time all three networks were back in operation, it was after 4:00 a.m. in New York, after 2:00 a.m. in Denver, and after 1:00 a.m. in Los Angeles.
England was the first major country where the news became widely known. By 8:45 a.m. in London, less than half an hour after the shooting in Chicago, the BBC was broadcasting the news on both radio and television. Most of the morning newspapers already were on the streets, but the four largest dailies immediately went into special editions. The London Daily Express approached the subject without editorial comment but with a sense of subdued shock and with its usual caution concerning first reports of major news events. The front-page bulletin, accompanied by a Telecom photo of President Sanders with his hand upraised in the familiar wave in front of the hotel prior to the shooting, was brief and to the point.
U.S. PRESIDENT REPORTED SHOT
(May 22 — UPI) First reports that President Robert Morton Sanders was the victim of an assassination attempt in the predawn hours today have been confirmed. The President was shot at least twice by a lone assassin at 2:22 a.m. (8:22 a.m. London time) as he emerged from a Chicago hotel following a late-night meeting with financial and industrial leaders.
Reports still unconfirmed state that the bullets, fired at close range, struck the U.S. President in the head and chest, but that the wounds were not fatal. The victim has been taken under heavy guard to a Chicago hospital, but no official report concerning his condition has yet been issued.
A White House spokesman has stated that the First Lady, Grace Vandelever Sanders, left Washington immediately upon learning of the incident and is at this time en route to her husband’s side.
Vice-President James Barrington expressed deep shock at the news and presently is standing by in Washington, where intensive security measures are being taken. Mr. Harrington already has temporarily assumed leadership of the nation and is prepared to be sworn in as President should President Sanders succumb to his wounds.
The assassin was apprehended at the scene of the shooting and was taken to the same hospital where the President is being treated. He is under close guard, but officials thus far have withheld identifying him other than with the comment that he is “an older man.”
Both the London Morning Post and Times carried similar stories and expressed “shock and horror” at the reports, promising their readers expanded details in following editions. The London Daily Mail described the shooting as “reprehensible and tragic.”
On the Continent, West Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegal lamented the incident and was first to suggest that the shooting was the result of an intricate conspiracy, though without any suggestion regarding who the conspirators might be. On the other side of the Wall in that city, the Berliner Zeitung reported the event with subtle innuendo that it was undoubtedly “the first move of the people rising against the imperialistic government’s oppression.” In Paris, L’Humanité expressed grave concern but clearly gave the impression that such an occurrence was not all that surprising, while Avanti!, in Rome, voiced outrage and sorrow over the act, which it ascribed to “criminal elements.”
Moscow’s Pravda carried the news in a brief, front-page bulletin and, perhaps surprisingly, showed restraint in avoiding any editorial asides of a derogatory nature. Such was not the case with Egypt’s Al Akhbar in Cairo, which headlined its first report WARMONGERING U.S. PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED and obliquely suggested in an accompanying editorial that it “already has been discovered through secret sources that the United States President has been slain by a group of Israeli terrorists.”
In Kenya, the Nairobi Daily Nation reassured its readers that the assassination attempt had occurred some hours after the conclusion of talks between the President and Kenya’s own chief of state, Daniel Ngoromu, and that the latter was “greatly grieved” upon learning of the incident, had expressed his concern to both the First Lady and Vice-President James Barrington, and later in the day would be returning to East Africa.
Peking’s Renmin Rabao carried no mention whatever of the monumental news, and the Tokyo Times had a first report which was practically a carbon copy of that which had appeared in the London Daily Express.
It was only after all this had occurred that the majority of the American people became aware of the shooting of President Robert Sanders.
2
In the modest Oak Park apartment of Paul Neely, Elizabeth Boardman sat with her eyes closed and her feet propped comfortably on the coffee table in front of the sofa. An old Glenn Miller piece, “String of Pearls,” was softly playing on the muted FM radio in the stereo console in the hallway leading to the bedroom and bath — the only place there had been room enough to put it — and the faint clinking of the glasses as Paul mixed drinks in the kitchen was a pleasant sound. She was tired, though not especially sleepy, and for perhaps the third or fourth time tonight her thoughts returned to what her father had said about Paul possibly popping the question. She had been flip in her reply then, but it was a question that had been in her own mind. Paul was not an easy man to read, despite their closeness, and she had no real idea when — or even if — Paul would indeed, as Dad had put it, “pop the question” tonight or any night.
Liz Boardman loved Paul in a quiet but very deep way and thought he loved her similarly, yet neither she nor he had ever actually said the words. Hers was not the passionate bloom of first love; Sam Goldstein had effectively stripped her of that forever. When their divorce had become final after all those years together, there had been, on her part, not the slightest twinge of regret in their parting. There was, instead, a strong reticence about ever again becoming so involved with any man that her entire life was affected. Meeting Paul Neely at Oakmont High School did not immediately alter that attitude. It was only after several years of association with him — he as principal and she as school librarian — that they had become closer. A dozen or more different school functions each year, both professional and social, had thrown them together frequently, and so they had known one another remarkably well before he finally had asked her to dinner two years ago, and she had accepted. After that they dated infrequently for a while and then with increasing regularity until now they spent as much time together as possible when away from the school. So far as they knew, no one at Oakmont was aware of their close personal association.
Liz was not entirely sure what her own reaction would be if Paul asked her to marry him. The “if” was the big matter, because even though they’d never discussed it much, she knew that Paul’s two previous marriages had gone on the rocks and he probably was disinclined to try it a third time. She was only too aware that the very fact that his two divorces had occurred made him not the best risk in the world as a husband. That the first divorce may have been no fault of his at all was quite possible, just as in her case the reason for her divorce quite patently had been Sam’s fault. But the odds against Paul not being at fault to some degree rose astronomically with the second divorce.
“Asleep?”
She opened her eyes and saw Paul standing close by with a misted whiskey sour on the rocks in each hand. She shook her head as she accepted one of them from him.
‘‘Uh-uh. Just contemplating and becoming very relaxed.” She tipped her head toward the drink. “Thanks. Looks good.”
Paul took a seat beside her and, in the light little ritual they always followed, they touched rims and murmured simultaneously, “To you,” and then laughed and sipped their drinks.
“Contemplating what?” Paul asked, adjusting his gold-rim eyeglasses as he placed his drink on a coaster on the coffee table. “Me? Our dinner? Your navel?”
She matched his grin. “Definitely not my navel. As a matter of fact I was thinking about you.” She arched a brow in an impish expression, “I sometimes do that, you know.” She paused, but before he could reply she continued. “The dinner was good, Paul. Better than good, in fact. Excellent. Let’s go there again.”
He agreed they would and picked up his drink again, twirling it to move the orange slice out of the way so he could sip it. As he so often did, he changed the subject abruptly.
“How’s your father? You said earlier he was acting sort of preoccupied, but how’s his health?”
“Oh, as far as that’s concerned, he’s fine. Incidentally, he said to give you his best.”
Paul grunted. “An incredible man. Just as sharp and active as any man half his age.”
“Mentally sharp, yes, but he’s been slowing down physically a lot.” She took the long-stemmed Maraschino cherry from her drink, put it between her teeth, and pulled the stem away. “Mmmm, good.” She set her glass down and looked at him more directly. “I’ve noticed his slowing down more and more lately, Paul, especially in the mornings. He doesn’t really seem to get his feet under him very well these days until he’s been up for an hour or so.”
Paul bobbed his head without speaking. He was a nice-looking man of near sixty, whose somewhat flaring ears and thin, neat moustache were somewhat reminiscent of Clark Gable’s, but with gray hair instead of dark. He took another small sip of his drink, then a larger swallow and set it down. Then he half-turned so he was facing her, his arm on the back of the couch and the hand of that arm gently touching her hair, twirling it between two fingers. He leaned toward her and she responded, meeting his lips in a quiet, pleasant way. Other than an occasional kiss of slightly greater intensity, this had been the extent of their physical contact. It was Paul who broke their touch.
“Has he asked?”
She frowned at the change of pace. “Dad? Asked what?”
“About our intentions?”
She looked at him levelly for a long moment and felt her stomach muscles tighten. “Do we have intentions, Paul?” she asked quietly.
“Don’t you think we should have by now?”
“Paul,” she said, touching his arm, “let’s not play games with each other and let’s not end each sentence with a question mark. We’re neither of us children.”
He smiled and put his hand atop hers on his arm. “We aren’t children,” he echoed, slowly shaking his head, “and you’re right, we needn’t play games. I’ll answer the question myself. I think we should have intentions. I know I have, Liz. For a long time I was pretty sure I’d never say the words again. Liz, I’d like you to marry me.”
“All right, I will.”
The words seemed to have come without conscious volition and her eyes widened at what she had said. For an instant they were both startled at her response and then she lowered her eyes and her voice was less steady than it had been previously.
“I… don’t usually reach important decisions so quickly. I won’t ask if you’re sure. I know you well enough by now to know that you wouldn’t have asked at all if you weren’t.”
“Are you?” He laughed and added, “Another question mark.”
“That one’s permissible. Paul, I am as far as I can know. I guess no one ever really knows for sure. They can only think they’re sure at any particular moment. In that respect, I’m sure. I’ve loved you for quite a while, Paul.”
“It’s the first time you’ve said so.”
“You never have.”
“I’ll rectify that right now. I love you. I think we can be very good for each other.”
He drew her to him and they embraced with considerable depth of feeling. This time it was Liz who pulled away, a light laughter in her throat as she did so. Paul looked at her questioningly.
“It’s Dad,” she said. “I’ll swear, he’s positively psychic. As I was leaving, he asked if you were going to pop the question tonight, and I told him I had no idea. Evidently he did.”
She lay her head in the hollow of his shoulder and reveled in his touch as his hand came up and cupped her cheek, raising her face to him to kiss again. It was a long kiss and, when finished, she snuggled back comfortably on his chest and resumed speaking without looking up, her whispered words barely audible over the soft music.
“He made another comment about us, too.”
“What?” Paul’s whisper was louder than hers.
“He asked why I didn’t stay with you all night.”
Paul Neely was quiet for a moment and then, when she looked up at him, he spoke seriously. “Did you answer him?”
Five minutes later, with two agents preceding him, with Alex Gordon at his left and another two agents behind, the President emerged, smiling broadly and looking much less haggard than when he had arrived. It seemed evident that he was very well pleased with whatever had occurred during his meeting inside the hotel. Again, as news cameras whirred into action, focusing on him, the President shook hands with two other men who had followed the agents out after him, and then turned to his right and gave his characteristic wave of acknowledgment to the larger crowd on that side, where the onlookers were cheering and waving and inanely crying out, “Mr. President! Mr. President!”
For a moment Boardman’s heart sank. He had been so sure the President would turn to his left, if at all. And then suddenly, now unexpectedly, Robert Sanders turned his back to those to his right and, with Gordon still at his left side and the guards trailing them, walked directly toward Herbert Allen Boardman.
Despite his control, Boardman’s jaw dropped and he stared in amazement, but this was evidently construed by the guards as a quite normal reaction. The President passed the first four cordoned people with no more than a cordial nod, but to Boardman he held out his hand as he came to a stop. One of the television cameramen zoomed in his focus for a waist-up tight shot, with Boardman and the President filling his viewfinder.
“I was told,” the President said, “that there was a gentleman of quite advanced years who had been standing out here since around ten o’clock, just to see me. I must say, sir, that I am touched and pleased and I consider it a privilege to shake your hand.”
Alex Gordon at first had been looking at Boardman sharply, but now his attention went to other spectators crowding around and thrusting out their hands as they called greetings and hoped to touch or be touched by the nation’s most important figure. The other guards also were watching these people closely, with some degree of nervousness.
The President’s grip was firm and warm, lasting for about five seconds, and Boardman was able only to mutter shakily in response, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Robert Sanders released Boardman’s bony hand and then accepted the proffered hand of the man to Boardman’s right. At the same moment, Boardman began coughing raggedly and bent over with the spasm, bringing up his left hand to cover his mouth. An instant later he straightened and the revolver was in his right hand.
The President, still with his hand clasped by the other man, heard the coughing and glanced concernedly toward Boardman, and then his eyes widened as he saw the gun. There was no time for more than that. From this point-blank range, Boardman shot and the bullet struck Robert Sanders in the forehead about a half-inch above the right brow. The President’s head jerked with the impact and his eyes rolled upward until only the whites showed, but he was still standing. The sound of the shot was terrifying. People nearby were screaming in horror and attempting to scramble away, and those farther away were pressing forward and craning to see better. Agents were already plunging toward the scene.
At the shot, instantly Gordon had leaped in front of the President and already was throwing himself at Boardman and striking at the old man’s hand to knock it down as the gun was fired again. The second bullet hit the President on the far right side of his chest and slammed him backwards onto the sidewalk, where he lay motionless.
In a daze, Herbert Allen Boardman felt himself being struck, felt himself falling and colliding with the onlooker to his own left as he went down. His arms flailed out and he gripped the man and clung tenaciously to his waist. Someone jumped on him and bore him the rest of the way to the sidewalk. Then there was nothing more than a bedlam of screams and crying and hoarse shouting, the feel of fists hitting him and hands jerking at him, pulling him, punching him, and a forest of legs all around him. For an instant he was able to raise his head slightly, only to have a heavy brown fist thud into his forehead, and then there was silence.
It was exactly 2:22 a.m.
CHAPTER TWO
Who dares nothing need hope for nothing.
— Friedric H. von Schiller
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
— Machiavelli
1
Oddly enough, the American people were among the last in the world to become aware of the fact that an assassination attempt had been made against the President of the United States. This was not because the news was not almost instantly broadcast in all parts of the nation — even to the point where all three of the major television networks came back on the air with continuous television programming about the incident. The reason was the time of its occurrence.
Since the shooting had taken place in Chicago at 2:22 a.m., it was not until around 2:30 a.m. that the first radio bulletins began being flashed around the nation and the world. CBS was the first nationwide television network to resume operation — at 3:02 A.M. Chicago time — followed by NBC-TV at 3:08 a.m., and ABC-TV at 3:24 a.m. But at such an hour, few people are watching their television screens. By the time all three networks were back in operation, it was after 4:00 a.m. in New York, after 2:00 a.m. in Denver, and after 1:00 a.m. in Los Angeles.
England was the first major country where the news became widely known. By 8:45 a.m. in London, less than half an hour after the shooting in Chicago, the BBC was broadcasting the news on both radio and television. Most of the morning newspapers already were on the streets, but the four largest dailies immediately went into special editions. The London Daily Express approached the subject without editorial comment but with a sense of subdued shock and with its usual caution concerning first reports of major news events. The front-page bulletin, accompanied by a Telecom photo of President Sanders with his hand upraised in the familiar wave in front of the hotel prior to the shooting, was brief and to the point.
U.S. PRESIDENT REPORTED SHOT
(May 22 — UPI) First reports that President Robert Morton Sanders was the victim of an assassination attempt in the predawn hours today have been confirmed. The President was shot at least twice by a lone assassin at 2:22 a.m. (8:22 a.m. London time) as he emerged from a Chicago hotel following a late-night meeting with financial and industrial leaders.
Reports still unconfirmed state that the bullets, fired at close range, struck the U.S. President in the head and chest, but that the wounds were not fatal. The victim has been taken under heavy guard to a Chicago hospital, but no official report concerning his condition has yet been issued.
A White House spokesman has stated that the First Lady, Grace Vandelever Sanders, left Washington immediately upon learning of the incident and is at this time en route to her husband’s side.
Vice-President James Barrington expressed deep shock at the news and presently is standing by in Washington, where intensive security measures are being taken. Mr. Harrington already has temporarily assumed leadership of the nation and is prepared to be sworn in as President should President Sanders succumb to his wounds.
The assassin was apprehended at the scene of the shooting and was taken to the same hospital where the President is being treated. He is under close guard, but officials thus far have withheld identifying him other than with the comment that he is “an older man.”
Both the London Morning Post and Times carried similar stories and expressed “shock and horror” at the reports, promising their readers expanded details in following editions. The London Daily Mail described the shooting as “reprehensible and tragic.”
On the Continent, West Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegal lamented the incident and was first to suggest that the shooting was the result of an intricate conspiracy, though without any suggestion regarding who the conspirators might be. On the other side of the Wall in that city, the Berliner Zeitung reported the event with subtle innuendo that it was undoubtedly “the first move of the people rising against the imperialistic government’s oppression.” In Paris, L’Humanité expressed grave concern but clearly gave the impression that such an occurrence was not all that surprising, while Avanti!, in Rome, voiced outrage and sorrow over the act, which it ascribed to “criminal elements.”
Moscow’s Pravda carried the news in a brief, front-page bulletin and, perhaps surprisingly, showed restraint in avoiding any editorial asides of a derogatory nature. Such was not the case with Egypt’s Al Akhbar in Cairo, which headlined its first report WARMONGERING U.S. PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED and obliquely suggested in an accompanying editorial that it “already has been discovered through secret sources that the United States President has been slain by a group of Israeli terrorists.”
In Kenya, the Nairobi Daily Nation reassured its readers that the assassination attempt had occurred some hours after the conclusion of talks between the President and Kenya’s own chief of state, Daniel Ngoromu, and that the latter was “greatly grieved” upon learning of the incident, had expressed his concern to both the First Lady and Vice-President James Barrington, and later in the day would be returning to East Africa.
Peking’s Renmin Rabao carried no mention whatever of the monumental news, and the Tokyo Times had a first report which was practically a carbon copy of that which had appeared in the London Daily Express.
It was only after all this had occurred that the majority of the American people became aware of the shooting of President Robert Sanders.
2
In the modest Oak Park apartment of Paul Neely, Elizabeth Boardman sat with her eyes closed and her feet propped comfortably on the coffee table in front of the sofa. An old Glenn Miller piece, “String of Pearls,” was softly playing on the muted FM radio in the stereo console in the hallway leading to the bedroom and bath — the only place there had been room enough to put it — and the faint clinking of the glasses as Paul mixed drinks in the kitchen was a pleasant sound. She was tired, though not especially sleepy, and for perhaps the third or fourth time tonight her thoughts returned to what her father had said about Paul possibly popping the question. She had been flip in her reply then, but it was a question that had been in her own mind. Paul was not an easy man to read, despite their closeness, and she had no real idea when — or even if — Paul would indeed, as Dad had put it, “pop the question” tonight or any night.
Liz Boardman loved Paul in a quiet but very deep way and thought he loved her similarly, yet neither she nor he had ever actually said the words. Hers was not the passionate bloom of first love; Sam Goldstein had effectively stripped her of that forever. When their divorce had become final after all those years together, there had been, on her part, not the slightest twinge of regret in their parting. There was, instead, a strong reticence about ever again becoming so involved with any man that her entire life was affected. Meeting Paul Neely at Oakmont High School did not immediately alter that attitude. It was only after several years of association with him — he as principal and she as school librarian — that they had become closer. A dozen or more different school functions each year, both professional and social, had thrown them together frequently, and so they had known one another remarkably well before he finally had asked her to dinner two years ago, and she had accepted. After that they dated infrequently for a while and then with increasing regularity until now they spent as much time together as possible when away from the school. So far as they knew, no one at Oakmont was aware of their close personal association.
Liz was not entirely sure what her own reaction would be if Paul asked her to marry him. The “if” was the big matter, because even though they’d never discussed it much, she knew that Paul’s two previous marriages had gone on the rocks and he probably was disinclined to try it a third time. She was only too aware that the very fact that his two divorces had occurred made him not the best risk in the world as a husband. That the first divorce may have been no fault of his at all was quite possible, just as in her case the reason for her divorce quite patently had been Sam’s fault. But the odds against Paul not being at fault to some degree rose astronomically with the second divorce.
“Asleep?”
She opened her eyes and saw Paul standing close by with a misted whiskey sour on the rocks in each hand. She shook her head as she accepted one of them from him.
‘‘Uh-uh. Just contemplating and becoming very relaxed.” She tipped her head toward the drink. “Thanks. Looks good.”
Paul took a seat beside her and, in the light little ritual they always followed, they touched rims and murmured simultaneously, “To you,” and then laughed and sipped their drinks.
“Contemplating what?” Paul asked, adjusting his gold-rim eyeglasses as he placed his drink on a coaster on the coffee table. “Me? Our dinner? Your navel?”
She matched his grin. “Definitely not my navel. As a matter of fact I was thinking about you.” She arched a brow in an impish expression, “I sometimes do that, you know.” She paused, but before he could reply she continued. “The dinner was good, Paul. Better than good, in fact. Excellent. Let’s go there again.”
He agreed they would and picked up his drink again, twirling it to move the orange slice out of the way so he could sip it. As he so often did, he changed the subject abruptly.
“How’s your father? You said earlier he was acting sort of preoccupied, but how’s his health?”
“Oh, as far as that’s concerned, he’s fine. Incidentally, he said to give you his best.”
Paul grunted. “An incredible man. Just as sharp and active as any man half his age.”
“Mentally sharp, yes, but he’s been slowing down physically a lot.” She took the long-stemmed Maraschino cherry from her drink, put it between her teeth, and pulled the stem away. “Mmmm, good.” She set her glass down and looked at him more directly. “I’ve noticed his slowing down more and more lately, Paul, especially in the mornings. He doesn’t really seem to get his feet under him very well these days until he’s been up for an hour or so.”
Paul bobbed his head without speaking. He was a nice-looking man of near sixty, whose somewhat flaring ears and thin, neat moustache were somewhat reminiscent of Clark Gable’s, but with gray hair instead of dark. He took another small sip of his drink, then a larger swallow and set it down. Then he half-turned so he was facing her, his arm on the back of the couch and the hand of that arm gently touching her hair, twirling it between two fingers. He leaned toward her and she responded, meeting his lips in a quiet, pleasant way. Other than an occasional kiss of slightly greater intensity, this had been the extent of their physical contact. It was Paul who broke their touch.
“Has he asked?”
She frowned at the change of pace. “Dad? Asked what?”
“About our intentions?”
She looked at him levelly for a long moment and felt her stomach muscles tighten. “Do we have intentions, Paul?” she asked quietly.
“Don’t you think we should have by now?”
“Paul,” she said, touching his arm, “let’s not play games with each other and let’s not end each sentence with a question mark. We’re neither of us children.”
He smiled and put his hand atop hers on his arm. “We aren’t children,” he echoed, slowly shaking his head, “and you’re right, we needn’t play games. I’ll answer the question myself. I think we should have intentions. I know I have, Liz. For a long time I was pretty sure I’d never say the words again. Liz, I’d like you to marry me.”
“All right, I will.”
The words seemed to have come without conscious volition and her eyes widened at what she had said. For an instant they were both startled at her response and then she lowered her eyes and her voice was less steady than it had been previously.
“I… don’t usually reach important decisions so quickly. I won’t ask if you’re sure. I know you well enough by now to know that you wouldn’t have asked at all if you weren’t.”
“Are you?” He laughed and added, “Another question mark.”
“That one’s permissible. Paul, I am as far as I can know. I guess no one ever really knows for sure. They can only think they’re sure at any particular moment. In that respect, I’m sure. I’ve loved you for quite a while, Paul.”
“It’s the first time you’ve said so.”
“You never have.”
“I’ll rectify that right now. I love you. I think we can be very good for each other.”
He drew her to him and they embraced with considerable depth of feeling. This time it was Liz who pulled away, a light laughter in her throat as she did so. Paul looked at her questioningly.
“It’s Dad,” she said. “I’ll swear, he’s positively psychic. As I was leaving, he asked if you were going to pop the question tonight, and I told him I had no idea. Evidently he did.”
She lay her head in the hollow of his shoulder and reveled in his touch as his hand came up and cupped her cheek, raising her face to him to kiss again. It was a long kiss and, when finished, she snuggled back comfortably on his chest and resumed speaking without looking up, her whispered words barely audible over the soft music.
“He made another comment about us, too.”
“What?” Paul’s whisper was louder than hers.
“He asked why I didn’t stay with you all night.”
Paul Neely was quiet for a moment and then, when she looked up at him, he spoke seriously. “Did you answer him?”
