'No!'

  It was such a cry of pain that she shivered, even as she moved forward again, crouching, touching Tracy's chest with her spread fingers, sliding them blindly up towards the side of his neck to find the pulse. She could not risk taking her eyes off of him. Khieu. She recognized him as the man who had come to Louis Richter's apartment when she had been there; the man who had had such an extraordinary reaction to her.

  ^Have you killed him?' she found herself saying. She spat it out, her face distorted with fear and rage. Where was that artery?

  'I don't know.' His voice was very faint, almost as if he was fading away from her. She checked his position; he had not moved.

  She found the artery and the pulse at the same time. Tracy was alive! Thank God! a voice whispered inside her head. And she remembered her own words: /'// come after anyone who hurts you. That's our bargain. Hot tears traced her cheeks like flame. She had kept that bargain.

  She looked up into Khieu's hidden face. 'I'm going to take him out of here.' She did not know what she was saying.

  'How have you come back?' She heard his voice, strained, sing-song, almost as if he were speaking a litany. ' Why?' He moved slightly. 'I left everything behind: envy, greed, hate, fear

  748

  and ... love. All the human baggage I can no longer affof^ carry.' He came forward, bending into the light, 'why haV1! c< come here?' Again that cry of pain that shivered her sf^ contracted her scalp. y

  At the instant his face appeared in the moonljgnti bandit,?1 the shadows of the shaking trees outside, Lauren understood c* he would not make a move against her. She had a power ^$& him; a power that no one else possessed because ne himself given it to her. -t

  Til leave now,' she said softly, because she knew it was ^
  She began to gather Tracy up in her arms. She knew \C 1° far too heavy for her to be able to lift him. She would hav'^ drag him along the floor, back to the kitchen.

  'NO!> gfr

  And she felt his fingers clamp around her wrist His stre^-ffl' was appalling. Her head whipped up and she giared at ^h^r baring her teeth. 'Yes!' she whispered, pushing force jnt<7 voice. Til take him with me.' ^e

  'You cannot!' It was the whiplash of commancj -j t* 1 been charged with his death. I must see it carriecj o^ must.'

  Then I will stay, too. You'll have to kill me as well' 'But I cannot]' .j

  The agony that flooded his face stunned her What ^ *° derous deeds had he done to deserve the burden of pajn J* ^ into his face, she wondered.

  'Then I'll go ... and take him with me.' .^r

  'Don't!' he cried. 'Please!' And he began to weep t^M^ tears, shaking, his arms crossed tightly over his chest hu$^

  tears, sh I himself.

  n

  749

  She began to drag Tracy away, through the moonlight, silver on black.

  'Don't...'

  But there was no force behind it; the command was gone. It was the voice of a child.

  And Lauren went on, her mind racing, her body sweating, telling herself that it would be all right, he wouldn't come after them, he wouldn't slit their throats, that she was immune to his power and as long as she kept hold of Tracy it would be all right. AH right, oh God please! Keep us safe! She prayed, as her mother had always wanted her to, to a God she did not believe in or understand. Still she prayed as she dragged him further and further away from the madman, into the kitchen, through another patch of silvery light. Praying that she would not feel the brief chill wind of his passage as he came for them. As she pulled him past the refrigerator, the table, one arm getting twisted up with the chair leg, dragging it noisily for a foot until she could entangle him.

  Gasping and crying and then they were at the back door and she pushed it open, got him at last out of there.

  Ivory White had seen the tiny silhouetted figure moving across the corn field and, using his field glasses, had recognized Lauren immediately. He had relayed the information privately to Thwaite who had cursed her with every foul word he could think of.

  'What in Christ's name does she think she's doing?' he had asked himself under his breath.

  But then he saw her emerge with Tracy. He was in touch by walkie-talkie with the officers of the Pennsylvania State Police who had surrounded the house. He used it now to tell them to move in.

  Khieu slipped to his knees, watching the darkness dissolve Lauren into its heart. With her departure, the ache inside of him ceased to be. Seeing her once again, touching her had somehow healed him. His love for her was there, a reality. He had touched it at the precise moment he had touched her. He had felt it

  750

  acknowledged it. It had passed through him like the wind. It had reached a place deep inside him, changed that place, and then was gone. At last he had put love aside with all the other emotions. He knew what he had to do.

  He got up, turning his back on the entranceway to the kitchen. In the dining area he went to the highboy hutch and opened its glass doors. There were three or four boxes of candles inside. He took them out now, one by one, and began to light them.

  Tracy awoke to moonlight on his face. He turned, his head and shoulders aching, and saw Lauren, sitting on the stoop at the back of the house. Her head in her hands. He could not understand what had happened.

  He reached for her and she started, her eyes flying open wide and staring. Then she saw that he was awake and broke down, clinging to him, whispering his name softly over and over again.

  Tracy picked her up so that they stood together. He was facing the back door. He could see into the kitchen because only the screen door was closed.

  He saw a shadow moving in there now and, in a patch of falling moonlight, recognized Kim. Tracy was certain he had not been inside a moment ago; no one had seen him enter, not even Khieu. 'Stay here a moment,' he whispered into her ear. He felt her stiffen.

  'Where are you going?' Her fingers gripped him, pulling. She saw his face and her head shook back and forth. 'Not back in there. Oh, God. No.'

  He broke away from her. 'Just for a moment.'

  'He'll kill you!'

  And he saw in her face that she was right. What had she done in there? How had she got him out? He had no answers to thosequestions. He only knew he had some unfinished business with Kim.

  He recognized they were both right and he had to do something about it. Til stay in the kitchen,' he whispered. 'You'll be able to see me all the time.'

  She said nothing, knowing that he would go and how he had

  75i

  compromised by what he had just said She nodded and Tracy left her

  'He's in there, all right,' Thwaite said into the walkie-talkie 'I don't want to take any chances, Chief I want tear gas in there first We'll wait five minutes and then go in '

  'Why wait that long'" the chief of the Pennsylvania State Police said His voice sounded thin and far away through the

  mechanism

  'I've got two civilians in the immediate area of the house I can't signal them for fear of alerting the suspect We've got to give them time to get clear '

  'Okay,' the chief said, 'but I'll have my hands full containing these television people I've never had anything like this happen

  in my command '

  Til send one of my men over to help,' Thwaite said, thinking he'd like to get his hands on the bastard in the commissioner's office who leaked the location to the network news people

  'Right I'd be glad for all the help you can give me in that department' There was a crackle of interference 'Don't go away My men're just about in position '

  'Just tell me when,' Thwaite said

  'Two seconds, one Now '

  The barrage began

  Tracy and Kim faced each other in the darkness of the kitchen Ghostly light nickered, filtering in from the living room, waxing and waning along Kim's cheeks and forehead

  'Get away from there,' Kim hissed Til kill you if you don't

  let me pass '

  'You're already a dead man,' Tracy said 'And I'm meant to

  be the executioner '

  No waver of emotion crossed Kim's features, they were flat planes, going in and out of shadow with the inconstant

  light

  'If that's what you want,' Kim said, 'come on I'm going

  through one way or another '

  Because Kim had used him, because he did not want to kill

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  him, Tracy had to know it all. It was inside Kim's head, he knew. It was up to him to find the right key.

  'Kim,' he said, his voice softening, 'd'you remember that time in the jungle when I found you in the Khmer Rouge encampment.' Tracy had worded it carefully.

  Now something slid across Kim's face, furtive and momentary.

  Tracy knew that was all the sign he was going to get, so he went on. 'We stopped in a clearing,' he said. 'You needed to rest. So did I.'

  Kim stared at Tracy, his eyes desperately trying to see beyond the words. 'Yes,' he whispered at last. 'What happened then?' Each syllable seemed wrenched out of him.

  Tracy shrugged. 'I don't know. Perhaps I slept for a time; perhaps it was the other way around. Then we got up and went home.'

  Kim knew quite well why Tracy had brought up that story of long ago. His hand came up and the calloused pad on his thumb rubbed along the white scar along his neck. Tracy had seen what had happened there in the jungle but he would never tell. He had quite neatly trapped Kim.

  'I'm not sorry I brought you into this,' Kim said after a time. 'None of it would've been possible without you. Not with the Director breathing down my neck.'

  His eyes glittered. 'But I wanted something more than death for Khieu. I wanted his world to slowly come apart. And you were the honed tool I needed. Only you could've followed my clues. Only you had the expertise to do it.'

  Kim's throat contracted until it seemed composed entirely of ligaments, stretched taut. 'His brother ... his brother deliberately set fire to my family's house. They were Khmer. They hated us Vietnamese. We were Yuons to them. Barbarian invaders. But Sam, Khieu Sokha's older brother had an ... affair with my sister, Diep. He couldn't have her, couldn't perhaps live with the shame of what he was doing.

  'So he wiped them out.'

  'All of them?' Tracy's mind went cold.

  'All save my brother Thu.'

  753

  was aflame now but his nerves had already sealed themselves off

  from trauma

  Kim saw the glow, unearthly and impossible His eyes goggled and his heart missed a beat Breath hissed from him like an engine and for that one last moment of his life even his black hatred was gone from him, purged by the sight confronting

  him

  Then a great roaring filled his ears, an upward whoosh of sparks and a heat so intense he finally felt it engulf him as the charred floorboards gave way, sending him careening downward into oblivion

  How swiftly the flames spread, how easily they ate at the inside of the house, consuming as if famished

  'Let him deceive no one, threaten no one, despise no one, injure no one,' Khieu intoned 'As a mother her only child, so let him look full of pity and kindness on all beings, let him cultivate this sentiment every day and every hour As a deep mountain lake, pure and calm, so shall be the mind of him who walks on the Noble Eightfold Path '

  The Amida Buddha called and he felt the pull at his spirit 'Buddhdm sarandm gacchami, Dammdtn sarandm gacchami, Sanghdm sarandm gacchami ' It was as if his flesh had abruptly loosened, his joints dissolving, his skin flaccid, melting away At the same time he felt filled with a supranormal clarity of vision and feeling Not emotion but true feeling The cosmos opened wide its petals to him He had become loose inside himself

  Floating

  His gaze slid down from the Buddha's serene face and he reached forward, turned on the blank face of the television The dark grey screen, reflecting the dancing flames behind him, blossomed into life like a multi-coloured flower

  He saw an idiot's face, working soundlessly, hair blowing in the wind, a microphone held before his face He nodded behind him and the picture changed He saw a night sky, a country sky It was lit up by flames He saw the house within which he sat,

  he saw it burning

  It was a transcendent moment to see the image transmitted

  756

  via cathode ray and to be experiencing it at the same time. For an instant he knew that he was watching his own death.

  Then he felt the last loosening inside his unfeeling body and his spirit was released. He rose up towards the face of his beloved Buddha. For just a moment, he chased the clouds; he rode the wind, saw the light curve of the world. Then the sky cracked open. It was filled with fire and at last he saw the eternal face of his Amida Buddha change, a glow emanating from it, reaching out to encompass him. He thought of the energy he had once discerned in Preah Moha Panditto. He no longer wondered at it; he no longer stood in awe of it.

  He was part of it.

  757

  Tracy opened his eyes, heard the sound of the surf, a faraway crash and hiss that nevertheless penetrated the opened windows.

  Ocean scents were bright on the air. It was warm, though not uncomfortably so. The semi-detached villa had all the modern conveniences including air conditioning since it was part of an exclusive hotel. But they had chosen to keep the oldfashioned ceiling fan going.

  He turned over on his side, wincing slightly as he put pressure on a bruise, stared at Lauren's sleeping face. One arm was curled beneath her head, the other between her legs. She breathed slowly and deeply, her eyelids flickering from time to time as she dreamed.

  She came awake without his knowing; her hands reached across the narrow expanse between them, searching for the warm areas sleep had placed throughout his body.

  Her eyes seemed huge, her coral lips opened slightly. He felt her legs move, twining with his. Already he felt drunk with the contact of their bodies.

  'I'm hungry.' Her voice was furry with sleep; she moved closer to him, put her palm over the flesh above his heart. She closed her eyes, listening to the beat increase vibrations directly from him to her as she stroked him. She began to purr.

  'Lauren,' he whispered, 'I didn't want you to run away. I never meant to make you cry.'

  'I know,' she murmured, kissing his palm.

  And the curious thing was, Tracy thought now, she did know. She seemed to understand what he had to do almost as well as he had himself. But that was impossible, he told himself. How could she have known what Khieu was like?

  She murmured something but he could not hear the words. He buried his face in her hair and then he heard her.

  'I kept my part of the bargain.'

  758

  He held her tight. 'I love you,' he whispered.

  Thwaite had misgivings when Melody called him at the office and asked him over to her apartment. He went anyway.

  Melody met him on Eleventh Street in front of her building. She was wearing a dove grey pinstripe suit with a pleated white tuxedo shirt underneath, a string silk tie. She wore wide boots of glove leather. Her black hair was pulled back in a long pony tail. She looked like a lawyer fresh out of graduate school.

  She smiled when she saw him, leaning slightly forward to kiss him on the cheek, then she hooked her arm through his and they began to walk west. It was npt at all as he had imagined.

  'I wanted to congratulate you on your promotion,' she said.

  'Thanks. But I think it was more of a publicity ploy on the part of the commissioner.' But inside he was pleased. Becoming a lieutenant had always been a dream of his.

  They passed the small old church on Fifth Avenue.

  'And Tracy?' she asked. 'How is he?'

  'Tracy's with Lauren,' he said. 'Away on a long vacation.'

  Melody stopped and turned to face him. Sunlight lit her face obliquely and he was struck anew by her features, the contours that had been moulded and fused by her personality.

  'That's really why I wanted to see you.' She dropped her arm from his. 'I'm going away, too. To Sunset Key, off the tip of Florida. I've rented a small house for a month but' her shoulders shrugged - 'I may stay longer. Depending.'

  'On what?'

  She shrugged again.

  'What about the apartment here?'

  'I'm getting rid of it,' she said simply. 'I've got plenty of money: I don't need it now. If I ever come back here, I'll find another place easily enough.' She laughed shortly. 'Anyway, I was getting tired of the neighbourhood.' She looked down at her feet, dug into a pocket of her jacket. She thrust a folded slip of paper into his hand, wrapped his fingers around it with her own.

  'Here,' she said. 'Take the address. Who knows? You might want it one of these days.'

  759

  'Melody, I -'

  She smiled tightly up at him. 'Then again you may not Just do the decent thing, Thwaite, will you? Don't tear it up until after I've gone.' She lifted her face to his, kissed him on the lips.

  He felt the contact all the way down his spine; it made him feel warm inside.

  'Good-bye, Douglas' She turned, about to walk away.

  'Wait' Thwaite grabbed her arm, turned her back to him. His face was pained 'Melody, I don't know. I just don't.'

  She stared straight at him, saying nothing. At last she bent her head 'I have to live my life and you have to live yours'

  'Maybe -' A siren began to wail somewhere north of them and he waited until the crest of sound had passed them by. 'Maybe I could live in your apartment while you were away '

  She thought about this for a moment.

  'I have nowhere else to go '

 

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