“I told you,” his mother said. “She telephoned me. From that house.”

“How did she sound?”

“Like a girl.”

“Thanks.”

She leaned forward tensely in the raspberry-colored chair, splendid in pink chiffon. “Raymond?”

“What?” He handed her one of the filled glasses. She took it with her bandaged left hand. “What did you do to your hand?” he asked, seeing the bandage for the first time.

“I got careless in Washington this afternoon and got it caught in the door of a taxi.” He grunted involuntarily. “Raymond,” she said, transferring the wine to her right hand and lifting it shakily. “Why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”

Twenty-One

MARCO SQUEEZED THE INSIDE OF EUGÉNIE Rose’s splendid thigh, not at all sexually—well, perhaps just a little bit sexually—but mostly out of the greatest of good spirits because, after all this time of sick fear, the work seemed to be leading to the conclusion which they had dreaded they would never be able to find.

“Hey!” Eugénie Rose said.

“What?”

“Don’t stop.”

It was after midnight and it was Marco’s dinner break from the unending games of solitaire, from the examinations of Hungarian Charlie, the bookmaker, and the young, dumpy blonde, from the number systems and symbol systems, and Marco knew the end was in sight.

“This time tomorrow night, oh boy! I’ll have lunch with Raymond tomorrow, then a little solitaire, then a nice long chat about the good old days in Korea and a few Russian and Chinese friends of ours, then a few suggestions made to crumble up their systems and mechanisms forever—sort of removing the controls, ripping out the wiring—and, lady, it’s all over. All over. All done with. Done.”

“Finished.”

“Completed.”

“Through.”

“Mission accomplished.”

“Check.”

They were in an all-night restaurant on Fifty-eighth Street, and when he wasn’t clutching her hands, Rosie nibbled on cinnamon toast as daintily as a cartoon mouse. Marco was shoveling in large wedges of gooey creamed chipped beef and humming chorus after chorus of “Here Comes the Bride.”

“That’s a pretty tune you’re humming. What is it?” she asked.

“Our song.”

“Oh, Benny boy. Oh, my dear colonel!”

Twenty-Two

RAYMOND FOUND THE CARDS IN THE DESK. They were elegant rented cards that had come with the house. They had gold edges and were imprinted with the name and the grotesque crest of a hotel maintained for the expense-account set on the North Side of Chicago. He dealt out the play. The queen of diamonds did not show in the first game. As he placed the cards precisely his mother sat on the edge of her chair with her face buried in her hands. When she heard him squaring up the pack she sat up straight and her face was twisted bitterly. Raymond placed the red queen faceup on top of the deck and studied it noncommittally.

“Raymond, I must talk to you about a problem with Colonel Marco, and I must talk to you, as well, about many other things but there will be no time tonight. It seems that there is never time.” There was a brisk knocking at the door, which she had locked. “Damn!” she said and walked to the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s me, hon. Johnny. Tom Jordan is here. I need you.”

“All right, lover. I’ll be right out.”

“Who the hell are you in there with anyway?”

“Raymond.”

“Oh. Well, hurry it up whatever it is, hon. We have work out here.”

She walked back and stood behind Raymond with her hands on his shoulders. As he watched the red queen she repaired her face as best she could. Then she leaned over him and took the card. “I’ll take this with me, dear,” she said. “It might bring mischief if I leave it here.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Yes, Mother.”

She left the library, locking the door behind her. As soon as she was gone something rattled at the terrace door. Raymond looked up just as the smiling, beautiful young woman closed the door behind her. She was dressed for the masquerade party, costumed as a playing card. The rich gold and scarlet cowl fell from her crown to her shoulders. Gold incrusted jewels banded the lush black and white ruff at her throat. The kaleidoscopic complex of inlays of metallic oranges, yellows, purples, scarlets, blacks, and whites fell to her bodice and below. From the top of her head, stiffly parallel to her shoulders, then falling at right angles full down the sides of her body, was a white papier-mâché board on which was printed a regal Q, a red diamond standard directly below it at the left corner, while at the right there stared a large red diamond against the shining white background. It was the queen of diamonds, his patron and his destiny. She spoke to him.

“I saw you through my window just before we left the house,” she said huskily. “My heart almost shot out of my body. I had to see you alone. Daddy went around the front way and I slipped through that old iron door in the stone wall.”

“Jocie.” She was Jocie and she was his queen of diamonds. She was the queen of diamonds, his special lady from the stars, and she was Jocie.

“Your letter—oh, my darling.”

He moved across the room and held her by the shoulders, swaying. He looked down at her with such a force of pure love that she shivered and they were together in love forever. He kissed her. It was the first time he had ever kissed her after having possessed her completely in imaginations through nine risings of April and the deaths of eight Decembers. He pulled her down on the couch and his hands fumbled with her royal clothes and royal person while his mouth and his body sought his salvation with the only woman he would ever love, and the only woman who had ever allowed him to love her; the cardboard queen he served, and the lovely girl he had adored from the moment he had come to life beside her near a lake, near a snake, within an expanding dream.

Senator Jordan’s costume was the toga and sandals of a Roman legislator, combined with a blanked expression. He stood next to Senator Iselin, equidistant from the marble walls at the center of the foyer. The three cha combo scattered sounds over them from the bottomless fountain of its noises. When the two men spoke they spoke guardedly, like convicts in a chow line.

“I am here,” Senator Jordan said to Johnny, “because my daughter asked me to come, saying that it was extremely important to her, that is to say, important to her happiness, that I come. There is no other reason and my presence here is not to be misunderstood nor is it to be exploited by that industry of gossip which you control. I feel loathing toward you and for what you have done to weaken our country and very nearly destroy our party. Is that clear?”

“That’s all right, Tom. Glad to have you,” Johnny said. “I was tickled when Ellie told me that we were going to be next-door neighbors.”

“And I am wearing this ridiculous costume because my daughter cabled ahead for it from Puerto Rico and because she asked me to wear it, assuring me that I would be less conspicuous at this Fascist party rally if I did.”

“It looks great on you, Tom. Great. What are you supposed to be, some kind of an athlete or something?”

“An interne. Furthermore, I hope none of this lunatic fringe who are your guests tonight, and who are ringing us like hyenas to watch us chat so amiably, are getting the wrong idea about me. If they link you with me I’ll take ads to repudiate you and them.”

“Don’t give it a thought, Tom. If anything, old buddy, they’re probably getting the wrong idea about me. They are very possessive about their politics. They’re a great bunch, actually. You’d like them.”

The restless guests moved all around them. The scent of masked ambergris mixed with abstraction of carnations and musk glands, lemon rinds, and the essences of gunpowder and tobacco. Raymond’s mother came like a flung harpoon through the crowds to greet her honored guest. She shook his hand vigorously, she said again and again and again how honored they were to have him in their house, and she forgot to ask where Jocie was. She asked Johnny to represent them among their other guests because she just had to have a good old-fashioned visit with Senator Tom. Before Johnny slunk away gratefully he mumbled amenities and moved to shake hands, which Senator Jordan tactfully overlooked.