Because I’m not going to lie to you, and I’ve got something to say to you.”
I thought that over a long time.
Because that was just what I had been doing.
Lying there beside her, just straining to think of a way I could kill her.
“All right, then.
I was.”
“I knew it.”
“Were you any better?
Weren’t you going to hand me over to Sackett?
Wasn’t that the same thing?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re even.
Even again.
Right back where we started.”
“Not quite.”
“Oh yes we are.”
I cracked up a little, then, myself, and put my head on her shoulder.
“That’s just where we are.
We can kid ourself all we want to, and laugh about the money, and whoop about what a swell guy the devil is to be in bed with, but that’s just where we are.
I was going off with that woman, Cora.
We were going to Nicaragua to catch cats.
And why I didn’t go away, I knew I had to come back.
We’re chained to each other, Cora.
We thought we were on top of a mountain.
That wasn’t it.
It’s on top of us, and that’s where it’s been ever since that night.”
“Is that the only reason you came back?”
“No.
It’s you and me.
There’s nobody else.
I love you, Cora.
But love, when you get fear in it, it’s not love any more.
It’s hate.”
“So you hate me?”
“I don’t know.
But we’re telling the truth, for once in our life. That’s part of it.
You got to know it.
And what I was lying here thinking, that’s the reason.
Now you know it.”
“I told you I had something to tell you, Frank.”
“Oh.”
“I’m going to have a baby.”
“What?”
“I suspicioned it before I went away, and right after my mother died I was sure.”
“The hell you say.
The hell you say.
Come here.
Give me a kiss.”
“No.
Please.