Degree of Guilt Read Online Free PDF Page A

case had not yet broken, and Paget had been certain that it never would – that he was at the end of things, that Lasko had killed a witness with impunity, and that Lasko’s source within the agency, the one who had monitored Paget’s progress, would never be detected. Trapped in a deep and solitary anger, feeling that Mary was opposed to him, Paget had meant to spend the weekend alone. Then Mary had come to his apartment unannounced, as she had come today.
    They were both in their late twenties, Paget reflected now, so sure of what they already knew, so disastrously unknowing. Alone in his kitchen, with Mary and their son upstairs, he felt the blindness of the moment as they lived it then.
    At first, the sense of things unspoken had hung between them. They played backgammon, drank wine, smoked dope. They did not speak of Lasko.
    Finally, gradually, they talked about themselves.
    ‘What do you want in a woman?’ she had asked him.
    Her voice wasn’t intrusive, just curious. Paget felt stoned enough to try to answer; drugs, and defeat, seemed to have lowered his defenses. ‘A lot of what I look for in anyone, I guess. Curiosity. Dislike for the easy answer. That in a good moment they can imagine what it’s like to be an old woman or a small child. That they are more than what they do or what they are.’
    Mary smiled through the haze. ‘You don’t ask much.’
    ‘Not much at all.’
    They slid down the couch, heads resting on opposite arms, legs parallel on the pillows. The next record fell on the stereo.
    The Starship began singing.
    Paget’s limbs felt numb. The darkened room became images in a field of black, suspended in black: the spotlit Vasarely ball rolling toward them; the two empty glasses; the last roll of the dice faceup on the backgammon board. Her eyes.
    He began to feel lost in them. The notes of’Miracles’ came to him one at a time, from some great distance. He did not know or care how many moments had passed since anyone had spoken.
    Her voice broke the quiet.
    ‘You know, Chris, you’ve been very lucky. You’ve never wanted – or needed – anything.’
    It sounded like someone else, not him. But all he said was, ‘I keep hearing that.’
    ‘No, I mean it. Half the girls I knew growing up were married at eighteen. Sometimes I hate looking back.’
    Her words seemed to hang in the air. Paget realized that he had forgotten the bitterness she seemed to carry: about being Catholic; about her parents’ stillborn emotions and lack of encouragement; about the ex-husband who had wanted her to quit law school and have babies. Forgotten, more surprisingly, how much she needed to succeed. Forgotten her fierce pride at being assistant to the chairman of their agency, the ambition that had caused her to clash with Paget as many nights as they had made love.
    Tonight he wanted none of it.
    ‘No need,’ Paget answered smilingly. ‘You’ve done a lot. That’s something else I like in a woman.’
    She smiled back. Paget reached for her then. She looked at him with a clear black gaze. Then her arm rose in a graceful arc and pulled him down.
    They undressed each other slowly, mouths and fingertips stopping where they cared to. For a long time, they lay in a cocoon touching, finding, sounds that were not words. From one thing to another, mouth on her nipple, hand grazing her wetness, her hips rising, body twisting into him. Warm skin, thick clean hair against his face. Moments of suspended time, the absence of haste, the banishment of their ambitions and anything else that mattered in the daylight.
    Perhaps an hour passed before he was inside her.
    Even that felt different. Especially that.
    Her stomach and hips rose, pressing against him as if desperate to pull him inside, to touch as much skin with her skin as she could. When they moved together, it was without hesitance, subtle changes in rhythm passing between them without words, suddenly faster, almost desperate, until she shuddered as their mouths