her neck, and fastened the clasp again.
“I’m not trying to insult you or pay you for going out with me or something,” he said. “It’s an impulse present. If you’ll look in the other boxes, you can see I got more women’s jewelry on that deal than I know what to do with. I picked out that one because it looked like something you could use. If you can, good for you. If you can’t, pawn it and take a vacation sometime. That’s probably what the last owner did.”
She came to the couch, watching him as she let it dangle from the end of a finger. She sat down, unclasped it again, and turned away from him, holding the ends over the back of her neck. “Can you fasten it again?”
He clasped it. She stood and walked across the room with her drink, and sipped it. She turned on his radio and fiddled with the dials. Finally, she found a song with a beat. She turned it up and began to nod her head with the rhythm. She set her drink on the shelf beside the radio and began to dance, swaying her hips to the music. Her eyes were closed and her features assumed an expression that was transported. She turned away from him, tugged the zipper at the back of her dress down a few inches, then in a writhing motion reached up her back from below to pull it down farther. Her left hand rested on her thigh and began to slide up beside her haunch, bringing the dress with it.
“Wait,” said Prescott. “Hold it.”
She half-turned to look over her shoulder expectantly as she let the dress slide down to bare it, still moving with the music. “Something wrong?”
“Yes,” said Prescott. He stood, stepped beside her, and turned off the music. “Don’t do this,” he said.
She turned the rest of the way to face him, holding the front of her dress up at the neck. “Don’t?” she repeated, looking alarmed. “You don’t want me to?”
“No,” he said. “Please.”
Her eyes were worried, almost frightened. “Why not?”
“I asked you to go out to dinner with me, and try to have a good time. Not to work another shift.”
She shook her head like a person shivering, her eyes now earnest, pleading. “No,” she said. “I want to. This isn’t working, it’s just for you.” She seemed to search for an explanation. “It’s an impulse present too, not something I agreed to do or planned ahead.” She looked into his eyes again. “You have money, jewels. All I have . . .” She shrugged, and the dress slipped a little lower, the diamonds now sliding off the fabric to rest on the smooth skin between her breasts. She felt them and looked down, then quickly back up into his eyes, expecting that she had made the only argument she needed to. She saw something unexpected, his eyes delivering his accusation that her accidental gesture had been premeditated. She recognized it too, and he could tell she was fighting the sensation that nothing she did was, or could be, uncalculated. “Don’t you like me?”
He said, “Thank you. I like you very much. I want you to be my friend. But this . . . this isn’t the way for me to be yours. It wouldn’t be good for you. It’s my fault. I wanted to take you out, have a nice time, take you home, have you give me a good-night kiss, and leave. I still want to do that. The diamonds are nothing to me, just a little token like flowers. I didn’t even buy the necklace in advance, just picked it, like a flower in my garden, and handed it to you.”
Her eyes were beginning to look wet now. “You didn’t find me in some art museum or something,” she said. “This is what you like. You came to watch me all those times.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “You’re right. You don’t know how hard this is to resist. But tomorrow when you get up, what I want you to remember is that you had a nice date with a man who isn’t so bad, and went home without having to do anything but be pleasant. I don’t want you to remember that a man gave you a necklace in return for a private strip show.”
She shook her head hard, and put her hands on the sides of his head to force him to look into her eyes. “This is not hard for me, not humiliating or anything. I have a beautiful body. I like having you see it.” Finally she said, her eyes telling him it was extremely hard for her, “This isn’t like work. Don’t you get it? I want to have sex with you.”
He reached around her and zipped up the dress as he said, “Not like this.” He stepped back and walked toward the couch. “Not the first time we were ever alone together.”
She looked devastated. She stepped toward the door. “You’d better take me home now, okay?”
He put down his drink and walked toward the door. She seemed to take his acquiescence as a confirmation that he didn’t like her. He said, “You said you weren’t free again right away. Can I call you and see if we can arrange another dinner the first night you’re not busy?”
She looked at him, confused. She said skeptically, “You won’t call me again.”
“If you think that, then let’s arrange something now. Have you ever been to the Veranizzi restaurant at the Prince Andrew Hotel?”
“No.”
“Good. Neither have I, so it’s worth exploring.”
She was silent for a moment, her eyes averted, looking down at her feet.
At last he said, “Well? What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him, the tears now coming, but her mouth turned up, trying to keep from laughing at the same time. “I lied to you before,” she said. “About my schedule—in case I didn’t like you. I’m not really busy every night. I’m on break before summer session starts.” She struggled. “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’ll just say it. I’m working one to two tomorrow, and I’d like you to pick me up tomorrow at three-thirty, take me to the Prince Andrew so we can check in at four.”
“I’ll pick you up at six-thirty,” he said. “For dinner.”
He drove her back to the apartment complex, but when he pulled up to her building, she said, “Not here.” She looked at him apologetically. “My building is way down there. I lied to you about that too, so if you were crazy or something, you wouldn’t know where I lived.”
He drove her to the distant building, let her out of the Corvette, and walked her to the door. She stopped, whirled, stood on her toes, and kissed him deeply, lingering for a long time.
“This is where you pick me up tomorrow. Three-thirty, sharp. Not six-thirty.” She released him, then took a step toward the door, came back, and whispered in his ear, “Come and watch me work tomorrow. I would like it.”
Prescott watched her disappear through the security door, heard the click as the automatic lock slid in. As he got into his car, he reviewed the evening. If there was any relationship between crimes and punishments, in a minute or two he was going to have to expect a big truck to come through the intersection at seventy, go right over his stupid little car, and drive the steering column straight through his chest.
27
Prescott walked into Nolan’s at twelve-thirty, and the usual range of customers were there: men in sport coats, younger ones in khaki pants too well-pressed to be anything but clothes they wore to work. The bartenders and waitresses were busy getting tables set up and bottles and taps in order. But Dick Hobart was waiting for Prescott. It was easy for Prescott to see, because Hobart seldom watched the door until the dancers went on, when he could take his census of customers.
As Prescott stepped in the door, Hobart dropped his polishing rag, poured two draft beers from the tap, and carried them around to a table. He sat down and beckoned to Prescott.
“I’ve never seen you drink during working hours, Dick,” said Prescott as he sat down.
“As a rule, I don’t meet many customers I’d drink with,” said Hobart. “I just thought I’d have a quick one with you before the crowds come in.”
“Well, thanks,” said Prescott. He took a sip and smiled. “I appreciate that.”
Hobart looked around him as though checking to see that he would not be overheard. “She showed me the necklace you gave her. I was right about you. That was a thing not many sensible men have the class to do right.”
Prescott shrugged and took another drink. “It wasn’t a big deal. I’m glad she liked it.”
Hobart’s eyes made their regular rounds of the bar, the door, the stage, the few tables that were already occupied. “She told me about your problem.”
Prescott’s eyebrows went up. “Problem?”
