'Based anywhere in particular?'

'London. But I'm hoping to go on to Spain. I think things are

happening there.'

'Bad things.'

'I guess so.'

Over the meal, Bradley told her what he knew about Europe, which

was considerable, and all the time he felt himself falling into her, as if

in a dream. She wasn't like the women he knew she was rough-edged

and laconic but that very difference, which seemed more p.r.o.nounced

here, in these sophisticated surroundings, made her even more

attractive to him.

Talking about their first meeting in the Roswell hotel's gloomy

lobby, she said, 'You had the East Coast written all over you and I

thought that was cute.' She also joked about how shocked he had

seemed when, after informing her that he was in Roswell to interview

the members of G.o.ddard's rocket team, she responded by not only

telling him she had been Wilson's mistress, but by describing in

drunkenly mischievous, intimate detail just what she and her

remarkably youthful sixty-year-old lover had done together in bed.

'You looked as shocked as a cheerleader trapped in a baseball team's

locker room after a winning game. G.o.d, that was something!' Finally

she reminded him that he had found her attractive, that she'd seen it in

his face, and that his blushing response to her teasing had simply

confirmed it.

'Yes,' Bradley murmured, 'I guess it did.'

He had never had an affair before and certainly didn't plan to start

one now, but when he thought of her going off to Europe, probably

never to be seen again, he was filled with an unutterable sense of loss.

It was an unexpected, inexplicable feeling, and it left him bewildered. So bewildered, in fact, that he almost forgot to ask her about Wilson though eventually, over the coffee and brandy, he did get down to

business.

'You said you'd been to Cornell,' he reminded her. 'Is that true or

not?'

Gladys turned more serious then. 'Yeah,' she said, 'it's true.' Opening her handbag, she withdrew two sheets of typed notes,