said.
He nodded, his eyes scanning the sidewalks.
“I want this one to be a knockout,” he said.
“Your choice,” she said.
He photographed a tall woman in a lavender warm-up suit.
“This is fun,” he said.
She turned the car right onto a street leading to the waterfront.
“I suppose it shouldn’t be fun,”
she said.
“You mean other people would think it was awful?”
“Yes.”
He put the camera on his lap and leaned back against the seat.
“When I was in college,” he said,
“we had to read something in
English class by some old-time guy called the Venerable Bede. I don’t remember it much, but I always remember one scene.
There’s
this big banquet hall and it’s brightly lit and there’s a big warm
fire. Outside it’s cold and dark. But inside everybody’s eating and
drinking and having a hell of a time. A sparrow flies into one end of the hall, out of the cold darkness, and flies through the bright warm hall and out the other end into the cold darkness again.”
She glanced at him as she drove. He loved to pontificate.
“So?” she said.
“So human life is like the flight of the sparrow. Or maybe it
was a swallow. I can’t remember, but the point’s the
same.”
She pulled into the little parking lot by the town landing and parked in front of the restaurant.
“We’re only here for a little
while,” she said, “and we have the
right to make the most of it.”
“Some people collect postage stamps,” he said. “We like to kill
people.”
“Is it really the same?” she said.
“After we’ve done it, and we’re
making love, and the sex is like
nothing else either one of us has ever known … the feeling
… wouldn’t you kill for that?”
She breathed in deeply for a moment and reached over and put her
hand on the inside of his thigh.
“Yes,” she said.
“Me too,” he said.
They sat silently for a while watching the people. A dark-haired
woman in a tailored suit came out of the Gray Gull. She was carrying a briefcase and talking on a cell phone. He raised his camera and aimed.
“Her,” he said.
30
“I don’t know why I
went there,” Jesse
said.
“Why did you think you were going?” Dix said.
“She wasn’t returning my calls. I thought maybe I could catch
her coming out and we could have a drink or something.”
“Catch her,” Dix said.
