the Third Twin (1996)

The cleaners and the electrician froze, watching.

The guard’s hands were shaking as he pointed the gun at Steve.

Steve felt his muscles seize up as he stared down the barrel. With an effort he shook off his paralysis. A Pentagon guard would not fire at an unarmed civilian, he was sure. “You won’t shoot me,” he said. “It would be murder.”

He turned and walked to the door.

It was the longest walk of his life. The distance was only three or four yards, but it felt as if it took years. The skin on his back seemed to burn with anticipation.

As he put his hand on the door, a shot rang out.

Someone screamed.

The thought flashed through Steve’s mind He fired over my head, but he did not look back. He flew through the door and ran down the long flight of steps. Night had fallen while he was inside, and the parking lot was lit by street lamps. He heard shouting behind him, then another shot. He reached the bottom of the stairway and veered off the footpath into the bushes.

He emerged onto a road and kept running. He came to a row of bus stops. He slowed to a walk. A bus was pulling up at one of the stops. Two soldiers got off and a woman civilian got on. Steve boarded right behind her.

The bus pulled away.

The bus drove out of the parking lot and onto the expressway, leaving the Pentagon behind.

51

IN A COUPLE OF HOURS JEANNIE HAD COME TO LIKE LORRAINE Logan enormously.

She was much heavier than she seemed in the photograph that appeared at the top of her lonelyhearts column in the newspapers. She smiled a lot, causing her chubby face to crease up. To take Jeannie’s mind and her own off their worries, she talked of the problems people wrote to her about: domineering in-laws, violent husbands, impotent boyfriends, bosses with wandering hands, daughters who took drugs. Whatever the subject, Lorraine managed to say something that made Jeannie think, Of course—how come I never saw it that way before?

They sat on the patio as the day cooled, waiting anxiously for Steve and his father to return. Jeannie told Lorraine about the rape of Lisa. “She’ll try for as long as she can to act as if it never happened,” Lorraine said.

“Yes, that’s exactly how she is now.”

“That phase can last six months. But sooner or later she’ll realize she has to stop denying what happened and come to terms with it. That stage often begins when the woman tries to resume normal sex and finds she doesn’t feel the way she used to. That’s when they write to me.”

“What do you advise?”

“Counseling. There isn’t an easy solution. Rape damages a woman’s soul, and it has to be mended.”

“The detective recommended counseling.”

Lorraine raised her eyebrows. “He’s a pretty smart cop.”

Jeannie smiled. “She.”

Lorraine laughed. “We reprove men for making sexist assumptions. I beg you, don’t tell anyone what I just did.”

“I promise.”

There was a short silence, then Lorraine said: “Steve loves you.”

Jeannie nodded. “Yeah, I think he really does.”

“A mother can tell.”

“So he’s been in love before.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” Lorraine smiled. “Yes, he has. But only once.”

“Tell me about her—if you think he wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay. Her name was Fanny Gallaher. She had green eyes and wavy dark red hair. She was vivacious and careless and she was the only girl in high school who wasn’t interested in Steve. He pursued her, and she resisted him, for months. But he won her in the end, and they dated for about a year.”

“Do you think they slept together?”

“I know they did. They used to spend nights together here. I don’t believe in forcing kids to make out in parking lots.”

“What about her parents?”

“I talked to Fanny’s mother. She felt the same way about it.”

“I lost my virginity in the alley behind a punk rock club at the age of fourteen. It was such a depressing experience that I didn’t have sexual intercourse again until I was twenty-one. I wish my mother had been more like you.”

“I don’t think it really matters whether parents are strict or lenient, as long as they’re consistent. Kids can live with more or less any set of rules so long as they know what they are. It’s arbitrary tyranny that gets them mixed up.”

“Why did Steve and Fanny break up?”

“He had a problem.…He should probably tell you about it himself.”

“Are you talking about the fight with Tip Hendricks?”

Lorraine raised her eyebrows. “He told you! My goodness, he really trusts you.”

They heard a car outside. Lorraine got up and went to the corner of the house to look out into the street. “Steve’s come home in a taxicab,” she said in a puzzled tone.

Jeannie stood up. “How does he look?”

Before Lorraine could answer, he appeared on the patio. “Where’s your father?” she asked him.

“Dad got arrested.”

Jeannie said: “Oh, God. Why?”

“I’m not sure. I think the Genetico people somehow found out, or guessed, what we were up to, and pulled some strings. They sent two military police to grab him. But I got away.”

Lorraine said suspiciously: “Stevie, there’s something you aren’t telling me.”

“A guard fired two shots.”