"Matt ..."

"Ready so soon?"

"Come on up to my room. It's the third door to the left of the stairs."

"Sure."

"Would you shut off the radio, too?"

He flipped the radio switch and climbed the stairs to the upper landing.

Margaret's door was slightly ajar. "That you, Matt?"

"The old pirate himself." He pushed the door open.

Margaret was standing near her bed, freshly bathed and completely naked.

"I changed my mind," she said, thickly.

"Margaret ..."

"No. Don't talk." She had her arms around him, her mouth against his lips. The pine salts of her bath and the sharp perfume in her hair and behind her ears choked in Hall's throat.

"You're biting my lips," she said.

He picked her up and carried her to the bed while she undid the b.u.t.tons of his shirt with closed eyes and steady fingers. "I knew you were a pirate," she smiled.

Hall kicked his shoes off, drew the blinds.

"Are you surprised?" she asked.

He locked the door and joined Margaret. "Don't talk," he said. "You kiss too well to talk in bed."

There was the pine scent and the perfume and the savage odor of whisky on hot breath and then there was the faint saline taste of blood on his tongue and the rigid b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the girl pressed against his bare skin and she was trying to gasp an insane gibberish of love words and s.e.x words and sounds that were not words at all. He shut off the gibberish with his hard mouth and then he started to lose himself in the devils that were coursing through his blood and the sharp pain of her nails digging fitfully into the back of his shoulders and the taut smoothness of her writhing thighs. For a searing moment the emptiness and the agonies of the past four years rose to the surface like a two-edged razor in his brain, rose slashing wildly to torture and torment, and then, as suddenly, they were lost in the devils and the blood and the white, pine-scented thighs of the girl and Hall stopped thinking and gave himself completely to the one, to the only one, to the only thing that could answer the devils and the pain and the moment.

Then she lay at his side, limp, whispering, "G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d,"

and smiling at him with tear-filled eyes.

"h.e.l.lo."

"Was I good? Was I, Matt?"

And he realized how adept she actually was at it. s.e.x was a soy bean, something you used, developed, exploited. "You're very good at this sort of thing," he said, "and you know it."

"I'm not always good," she said. "This is one thing that takes two for perfection. Like now." She reached into the drawer of the night table.

"Cigarette?"

"No."

"Light mine for me, darling. I'm half dead."

She smoked her cigarette in happy, satisfied silence, moving closer to Hall and putting her free arm under his neck. Then, with an abrupt movement, she ground the b.u.t.t into the ash tray and kissed the scar on Hall's chin. "Who cut you up?" she asked. "Some Frenchwoman's husband?"

But before he could answer she was lying on his chest with her open mouth pressing heavily against his lips.

This time he could ignore the devils until the hot furies that drove the girl finally moved him to respond. But what had earlier been an experience which reached in and shook the guts was now a performance--overture, theme, variations, theme and soaring climax and maybe it was what she wanted and maybe it wasn't but baby that's the best you get this trip. When it was done she seemed happy enough. She smoked another cigarette and then she fell into a light sleep, her head nuzzling under his arm pit like a puppy's.

Hall lay watching the sun rays as they stretched between the shuttered windows and the smoothness of Margaret's glistening back.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked when she awoke.

"Really want to know?"

"Uh huh."

"About a girl from Ohio."

"Your wife?"

"No. Just a girl I know. I've been wondering if she has freckles on her back."

"Well, anyway, you're frank."

"When are you going back to San Hermano?"

"Tonight. I'll drive you back. I think we should get ready. The help might start straggling back in an hour or so." She kissed him tenderly, then savagely. "No, but this is silly," she said. "We'll get caught."

She rolled away and got out of bed.

Later in the living room, Margaret made two rum drinks. She had changed her tennis dress for a dark suit, and her fingers now carried three elaborate rings. "Now I'm dressed for town again," she laughed. "Without my rings I'd feel naked." One of them was a wedding ring; Hall asked no questions about it.

"Are you still interested in San Hermano politics?" Margaret asked.

"Sort of."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Fernandez and his friends had one set of ideas. I guess you know what they are. The Tabio crowd speaks differently. What's the lowdown?"

Margaret went to the wide window of the room. "Look," she said, "see all that land between the fence and the top of that hill? I've got some of it in soy and the rest is just lying fallow. What do you think it's worth?"

"I couldn't say."

"Neither can anyone else. That all depends on the politics down here."

"That's true back home too, isn't it?"

"In a way, yes." She poured another drink for herself and sat down on the settee. "I'll let you in on a secret, Matt. I'll tell you how I came to buy this place. Sit down. It's a long story. And it leads right into the thing you're interested in."

"When did you get it?"

"Two years ago. A young mining engineer in San Hermano met me at a party given at the University. He wanted me to put him in touch with an American financing outfit. On a field trip he had undertaken as a student, the young engineer inadvertently stumbled across a treasure in manganese. The deposits lay in an area he alone could reveal, and for a consideration and a share in the profits, he was willing to lead the right parties to the site of his discovery.