'Jesus!'
'I'll take that as a yes,' she said, and took another sip of her martini. 'Is that the gun you did it with?'
'Does it matter?'
'Answer the question.'
'Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Can we change the subject to something more pleasant, like cancer, for example?'
'So you live upstairs, do you? In what Charles Dickens would call the 'garret'?'
'That's right.'
'Are you going to ask me if I want to go to your apartment and look at your etchings, Matthew Payne?'
'I don't have any etchings,' he said.
'I'll settle for a look at your gun,' she said.
'I beg your pardon?'
'You heard me,' she said. 'You show me what I want to see, and I will show you what you-judging by the way you've been looking down my front-want to see.'
'Jesus!'
'Actually, it's Helene,' she said, and took his hand. 'Deal?'
'If you're serious,' he said. 'The elevator is over there.'
'With a little bit of luck, there will be no one on it but you and me,' Helene said. 'Do you have some gin, or should I bring this with me?'
'I have gin,' he said.
She put her glass down, put her hand under his arm, and steered him to the elevator.
When it stopped at the lobby floor, the tiny elevator already held four people, but they squeezed on anyway. Matt was aware of the pressure of her breasts on his back, and was quite sure that it was intentional.
On the third floor, he unlocked the door to his stairwell and motioned for her to precede him. At the top, when he had turned on the lights, she turned to him and smiled.
'Dickens would have said 'tiny garret.''
'And he would have been right.'
'Make me a drink-martini?'
'Sure.'
'But first, show me the gun.'
He squatted, took the revolver from its holster, opened the cylinder, and ejected the cartridges.
'Those are the bullets, the same kind?'
'Cartridges,' he corrected automatically.
'Let me see one.'
He dropped one in her hand. She inhaled audibly as she touched it, and then rolled it around in the upturned palm of her hand.
'Show me how it goes in,' she said. He took the cartridge back and dropped it in the cylinder.
'It takes five,' he said.
He unloaded it again, dropped the cartridge in his pocket, and handed her the revolver.
As he poured gin over ice in his tiny kitchen, he could see her looking at the gun from all angles. Finally, she sniffed it, and then sat down, disappearing from sight behind the bookcase that separated the 'living area' from the 'dining area,' at least on the architect's plans.
When he went into the living area, she was sitting on the edge of his couch. The pistol was on the coffee table. She was running her fingers over it. To do so, she had to lean forward, which served to give him a good look down her dress.
'I found that very interesting,' she said, reaching up for her drink. ' 'Exciting' would be a better word.'
'We try to please,' he said. He picked up the pistol and carried it to the mantel over the fireplace. He was now more than a little uncomfortable. He didn't like her reaction to the pistol, and suspected that she was somehow excited by the knowledge that he had killed someone with it.
There's a word for that, and it's spelled P E R V E R S E.
When he turned around, she was on her feet, walking toward him.
'How old are you, Poor Patricia Payne's Boy Matthew?'
'Twenty-two.'
'I'm pushing thirty,' she said. 'Which does pose something of a problem for you, doesn't it?'
'I don't know what you mean.'
She laughed, just a little nastily.
'As does the fact that I am behaving very oddly indeed about your gun, not to mention the fact that I am married. Right?'
He could think of nothing whatever to say.
'So we will leave the decision up to you, Matthew Payne. Do I say good night and thank you for showing me your etchings, or do I take off my dress?'
'Do what you want to do,' Matt said.
She met his eyes, and pushed her dress off one shoulder and then the other, and then worked it down off her hips.
Then she walked to him, put her hands to his face, and kissed him. And then he felt her hand on his zipper.
When Margaret McCarthy got in Charley McFadden's Volkswagen he could almost immediately smell soap. He glanced at her and saw that her hair was still damp.
Charley immediately had-and was as immediately shamed by-a mental image of Margaret naked in her shower.
'You didn't have to do this, you know,' Margaret said.
'What? You got some guy waiting for you at the hospital?'
'Absolutely, and in my uniform we're going to a bar somewhere.'
'I'll break his neck,' Charley said.
'What I meant, honey,' Margaret said, 'was that you didn't have to stay up just to drive me to work.'
I really like it when she calls me 'honey.'
'I don't want you wandering around North Broad Street alone at midnight,' Charley said. 'Are we going to argue about this again?'
'No, Charley.'
'Call me 'honey' again,' Charley said. 'I like that.'
'Just 'honey.' Not 'sugar'? How do you feel about 'saccharine'?'
'Now, you're making fun of me.'
'No, honey, I'm not,' Margaret said, and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
'I like that too,' he said.
'Well, I'd do it more often if I didn't wear lipstick. When I go on duty, no lipstick, and you get a little smooch.'
'Now you know why I had to drive you to work,' Charley said.
She laughed.
'What are you going to do now? Go home? Or go back to the FOP and have a couple of beers with Matt?'
'If I went to the FOP and Payne was still there, I would have to carry him home. Anyway, he had a date.'
'A date? He doesn't have a girl, does he?'
'He has lots of them. Jesus, with that car, what did you expect?'
'A lot of girls, including this one, don't really care what kind of a car a fellow drives.'
'There's not a lot of girls like you.'
