“background noise be the evidence.”
I picked up a small tape recorder from the backseat and held it in my lap. I plugged the adapter into Hawk’s cigarette lighter. Tested the thing for a minute, rewound it again, and shut it off.
“What she gonna think when she gets home later,” Hawk said, “fi nds that thing in her bag?”
“If she knows what it is she’ll know she’s been caught.”
“Think she’ll stop seeing this guy?” Hawk said.
“No.”
“Even though she fi gure the husband know?”
“He knows now,” I said. “I had to guess, I’d say she wants him to know.”
“So why don’t she just tell him?”
“She also doesn’t want him to know.”
“And this a better way she can get even with him?” Hawk said.
“Maybe,” I said. “If there’s something to get even for.”
Hawk grinned.
“There always be something to get even for,” Hawk said. The rain was heavy tonight, and there was a hard wind that made it seem even heavier. The Mercedes went into the garage beneath the condo, and the Prelude went in behind it.
“His place is in the back, this side of the building,” I said.
“How you know?” Hawk said.
“Detective,” I said.
“I keep forgetting,” Hawk said.
Hawk parked near the back of the building.
In a moment the sound of the hip-hop stopped, then the wipers. The car door opened and closed. I pressed the record button on the tape recorder. I heard Jordan’s voice, slightly muffl ed, but suffi cient to understand.
“I can’t wait to get naked,” her voice said.
I could hear a man laugh.
“Do you think we’re oversexed?” Jordan said.
Male laughter.
“Probably,” the male voice said.
Footsteps.
“Isn’t that good,” Jordan’s voice said.
Elevator doors. Elevator sound. Jordan giggled.
“What if someone opened the elevator door?” the man’s voice said.
“We could say I was helping you look for your keys,” Jordan said.
The male voice said, “I think we should wait until we’re in my apartment.”
“Damn,” Jordan’s voice said.
More giggling. Elevator doors. The giggling stopped. Footstep sounds. A door.
“A drink fi rst?” the man said.
“Maybe a short one while I fl uff up.”
The bag bumped on the floor, a rustle of movement, then, faintly, a sound that might have been a shower. I was uneasy. I felt slightly short of breath. I could feel Hawk looking at me.
“Maybe we got enough,” Hawk said.
I shook my head.
“Hear it through,” I said.
Which we did. All of it. Sitting in the darkened car with the wind driving the hard rain straight in against the window. We listened to the sounds of obvious intimacy. At one point Jordan actually screamed. And giggled.
Once she said, “Perry, what are you doing to me?” in a littlegirl voice. Perry laughed. Otherwise he was quiet. Things culminated and then there was quiet.
After a time Jordan’s voice said, “Oh my God.”
Perry said, “Ever like this at home?”
“No,” Jordan said. “Nothing.”
I felt as if my soul were clenching like a fist. I was listening to something I had no right to hear. I thought about Doherty. Would I share this with him? Not unless I had to. I could probably convince him by playing the
