Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, Lydia Millet [top romance novels .txt] 📗

floor tiles were pleasantly worn, but the air was rancid with stale cigarette smoke and spilled beer.

Big Glen was wearing a mustache of Guinness.

—I thought you were AA, Glen, said Ben.

—No, man. NA and OA. Not AA. Not my thing.

—I see.

—Hey Clint! Over here!

—You didn’t tell us Clint was coming, said Ben.

—Sorry, said Larry. —He just called and asked us.

—He’s an asshole.

—Yeah, but you know. He’s kind of a nice guy.

—What?

—I want to go, whispered Ann into his ear, but then a waitress descended with a pitcher of beer and Clint was already sliding onto the bench beside her. —Damn it!

—Hey little lady, said Clint, affecting a devilish charm that did not exist. He nudged her shoulder with his own. —Whatcha been up to?

—We’ve been steering clear of you, said Ben. —Weren’t you supposed to blow up a toilet or something?

—Oh man, is that a story, said Clint, and helped himself to a stein of beer from the pitcher. —So we were supposed to get Bradley’s guys’ attention diverted, right? And we had the powder from all these M80s, and you know, we packed it real tight. That’s the key. So we’ve got this stuff in my pack and we’re going through the trees at night without even a flashlight, right? All creeping and shit.

—Another couple of pitchers here, please, said Larry to the waitress.

—But we figure let our eyes adjust to the dark and all that and we’ll probably do OK. But what we weren’t banking on is fucking Bradley’s guys actually have this high-tech surveillance bullshit that takes readings off your body heat. You know, like they use to track animal migrations from planes and satellites and shit? I mean, Lar, we’re talking these guys got serious money. I thought you had money till I saw the gear Bradley’s got.

—They took you somewhere you could see it?

—Their satellite truck. You know, like the shit the TV news people have. You wouldn’t believe the setup they got in there.

—But they went easy on you, said Ben.

Ann wished Clint would not breathe on her as he told the story. She turned and looked at the wall on the other side of Ben, which featured a faded photograph of a softball team, circa 1920.

Today wherever she turned she saw old photographs, pictures of old people when they were young.

—Yeah, so what happened? Suddenly we got like eight guys descending on the two of us. The only reason they didn’t do a full cavity search is we had our IDs from the buses. If we’d been regular followers without ID badges? I tell you, man, we’d have been up shit creek. Those guys pistol-whip people. I’ve heard stories.

—Get outta here, said Larry.

—No, I swear. This guy Adalbert knew? Bradley’s soldiers found him stealing shit out of one of their tents and they broke all his fingers on his right hand.

—I told you, Lar! said Tamika. —Total Nazis.

—So then they took you into their van? asked Larry. —Without patting you down?

—They patted us down, they just didn’t search our things. We didn’t have guns, just the powder in the pack. We told ’em we were on our way to go smoke a joint with some chicks. So then this one guy got into showing us their whole system. And you know what? I was fucking impressed.

—Excuse me, said Ann, —can I get by there, Clint? I have to use the bathroom.

—You ladies, said Clint, getting to his feet slowly as though it required a Herculean effort and hefting his beer as he rose. —You and your peanut-size bladders.

—How do they get the images? asked Ben.

—They had these special thermal cameras rigged up in the trees and telephone poles around Bradley’s HQ. These people give new meaning to the word paranoid. I’m telling ya.

She left them behind and lingered in the hall outside the bathroom looking at more old photographs, black-and-white images from the bar’s heyday. There was a faded group picture of kitchen and wait staff, the kitchen staff in chef’s hats, the waiters in tie and tails, holding trays and looking austere. Underneath was marked the date, in spidery handwriting: 1936.

Oppenheimer could have been here then, she was thinking, Oppenheimer or even Szilard.

Back then they could have been patrons in their thirties, young and debonair.

Glen drove them back to the motel on the Jersey Shore to wait for the scientists, who were dining with foreign dignitaries. It was too cold to swim in the pool so they sat in the hot tub after dinner, both of them leaning against the tub walls opposite each other, their goosebumped arms stretching out along the cold cement deck. She found red and brown leaves at the end of her fingers and floated them on the bubbling water.

In the dark on the other side of the pool Big Glen practiced tai chi, a giant in slow motion.

—Room for me? asked Tamika, setting her towel down beside them, lifting her large T-shirt over her head to expose her stars and stripes bikini and slipping into the water. —Let’s play footsies!

—Or not, said Ben.

—That guy Clint makes me really nervous, said Ann. —How come Larry’s friends with him?

—Clint saved his butt once, is all. It was a drug thing. Before Larry cleaned up.

Szilard was pleased with the coverage in the New York Times.

—Our case is laid out succinctly, he said over breakfast.

—Can we move to a hotel where there’s somewhere other than that diner to eat at? asked Tamika. —The stuff’s all cooked in lard here.

—We’re leaving today. We’re going to Washington this afternoon, said Szilard. —Can I take one of your sausages?

—You know what Leslie told me? It was old Mrs. Purcell that got them to run that big article, said Larry, and dropped a sausage onto Szilard’s plate. —She pulled some strings. Someone in her family used to own the paper or something.

—Don’t be ridiculous, said Szilard. —We’re talking about the New York Times here. The UN talk was an historic event. That’s why they ran