The time projected on the ceiling by the clever little machine that had been Amelia Payne, M.D.'s birthday present to her little brother showed that it was quarter past eleven.
It should be later than that, Matt thought, considering all that's happened.
He bent one of the pillows on the bed in half and propped it under his head. Then he reached down and pulled up the blanket. The sheet that covered him wasn't enough; he felt chilled.
He could hear the shower running in the bath, and in his mind's eye saw Helene at her ablutions, and for a moment considered leaping out of the bed and getting in the shower with her.
He sensed that it would be a bad idea, and discarded the notion.
Three times is a sufficiency. At the moment, almost certainly, the lady is not burning with lust.
Well, two and a half, considering the first time was more on the order of premature ejaculation than a proper screw.
With an effort, she had been very kind about that. He was not to worry. It happened sometimes. But she had been visibly pleased at his resurgent desire, or more precisely when El Wango had risen phoenix like from the ashes of too-quickly burned passion.
And clearly done his duty: There is absolutely no way that she could have faked that orgasm.
Orgasms?
Passion followed by sleep, followed by slowly becoming delightedly aware that what one is fondling in one's sleep is not the goddamn pillow again, but a magnificent real live boob, attached to a real live woman.
One who whispered huskily in the dark 'Don't stop!' when, ever the gentleman, I decided that copping a feel was perhaps not the thing to do under the circumstances.
And El Wango, God bless him, had risen to the occasion, giving his all for God, Mother, and Country, as if determined to prove that what good had happened previously was the norm, and that 'oh, shit' spasm earlier on a once-in-a-century aberration.
She had said, 'I'll be sore for a week,' which I understand could be a complaint, but which, I believe, I will accept as a compliment.
The drumming of the shower died, and he could hear the last gurgle as the water went down the drain, and he could hear other faint sounds, including what he thought was the sound of his hairbrush clattering into the washbasin.
And then she came out. In her underwear, but still modestly covering herself with a towel.
'You're not leaving?' Matt said. 'The evening is young.'
'The question is what about the Opera Ball people?'
She sat on the edge of the bed, keeping the towel in place.
I was right. Thrice, or even twice and a half, is a more than a sufficiency, it is a surfeit.
'I haven't heard the elevator in a while. I guess they're all gone. Would you like me to take you home?'
'I have a car.'
'Where?'
'In the garage in the basement.'
'Parked right next to the elevator?'
'How did you know that?'
'You're the Cadillac in my parking spot. Spots. The gods-the GrecoRoman ones, who understand this sort of thing- obviously wanted us to get together.'
'I don't know about that, but I do know what got us together. It's spelled G I N. As in, I should know better than to drink martinis.'
'Are you sorry?'
'Yes, of course, I'm sorry,' Helene said. 'I expect you hear this from all your married ladies, but in my case it's true. I normally don't do things like this.'
'Well, I'm glad you made an exception for me,' Matt said. 'And just for the record, you're my first married lady. I would like to thank you for being gentle with me, it being my first time.'
She laughed, and then grew serious.
'I would like to say the same thing,' she said. 'But you're the third. And I decided just ninety seconds ago, the last.'
'I didn't measure up?'
'That's the trouble. You-left nothing to be desired. Except more of you, and that's obviously out of the question.'
'Why is it obviously out of the question?'
She got up suddenly from the bed, dropped the towel, and walked out of the bedroom, snapping, 'I'm married,' angrily over her shoulder.
She'll be back, Matt thought confidently. She will at least say goodbye.
But she did not come back, so he picked up the towel she had dropped and put it around his waist and went looking for her.
She was gone.
I don't even know what her last name is.
During his military service Staff Inspector Peter F. Wohl had learned that rubber gloves were what smart people wore when applying cordovan shoe polish to foot wear, otherwise you walked around for a couple of days with brown fingernails. When the last pair had worn out, the only rubber gloves he could find in the Acme Supermarket had been the ones he now wore, which were flaming pink in color and decorated in a floral pattern. At the time, their function, not their appearance, had seemed to be the criteria.
Now he was not so sure. Mrs. Samantha Stoddard, the 230-pound, fiftytwo-year-old Afro-American grandmother who cleaned the apartment two times a week had found them under the sink and offered the unsolicited opinion that he better hope nobody but her ever saw them. 'I knowyou like girls, Peter. Other people might wonder.'
Mrs. Stoddard felt at ease calling Staff Inspector Wohl by his Christian name because she had been doing so since he was four years old. She still spent the balance of the week working for his mother.
When the telephone rang, at ten past seven in the morning, Wohl was standing at his kitchen sink, wearing his pink rubber gloves, his underwear, an unbuttoned shirt, and his socks, examining with satisfaction the shine he had just caused to appear on a pair of loafers. At five past seven, as he prepared to slip his feet into them, he had discovered that they were in desperate need of a shine.
From the sound of the bell, he could tell that it was his official telephone ringing. He headed for the bedroom, hurriedly removing the flaming pink rubber gloves as he did so. The left came off with no difficulty; the right stuck. Before he got it off, he had cordovan shoe polish all over his left hand.
'Shit!' he said aloud, adding aloud. 'Why do I think this is going to be one of those days?'
Then he picked up the telephone.
'Inspector Wohl.'
'Matt Lowenstein, Peter. Is there some reason you can't meet me at Tommy Callis's office at eight?'
'No, sir.'
'Keep it under your hat,' Lowenstein said, and hung up.
Wohl replaced the handset in its cradle, but, deep in thought, kept his hand on it for a moment. Thomas J. Callis was the district attorney. He could think of no business he-that is to say Special Operations, including Highway Patrol-had with the district attorney. If something serious had happened, he would have been informed of it.
A wild hair appeared-Tony Harris was on a spectacular bender; he could have run into a school bus or something- and was immediately discarded. He would have heard of that too, as quickly as he had learned that they had held Tony overnight in the 9^th District holding cell.
He shrugged, and dialed the Special Operations number. He told the lieutenant who answered that he would be in late. He did not say how late or where he would be. Lowenstein had told him to keep the meeting at the DA's office under his hat. He looked at his watch, then shook his head. There was no time to go somewhere for
