‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ Naomi said. ‘Half.’
‘What’s the other half?’
‘Wildcat,’ she said, and grinned, and then lifted her glass. She was drinking C.C. and soda, which she thought was sophisticated. She looked up at him seductively over the rim of her glass, which she had learned to do from one of her women’s magazines, where she had also learned how to have multiple orgasms, occasionally.
Actually she was half-Italian and half-Jewish, which she guessed accounted for the black hair and blue eyes. The tip-tilted nose was Irish, not that her parents could claim any credit for that. The nose’s true father was Dr. Stanley Horowitz, who had done the job for her three years ago, when she was twenty-two years old. She’d asked him at the time if he didn’t think she should get a little something done to her boobs as well, but he’d smiled and said she didn’t need any help in that department, which she supposed was true.
She was wearing a low-cut blue nylon blouse that showed her breasts to good advantage and also echoed the color of her eyes. She noticed that the deaf man’s eyes—what’d he say his name was?—kept wandering down to the front of her blouse, though occasionally he checked out her legs, too. She had good legs. That’s why she was wearing very high-heeled, ankle-strapped shoes, to emphasize the curve of the leg. Lifted the ass, too, the high heels did, though you couldn’t tell that when she was sitting. Dark blue shoes and smoky blue nylons. Sexy. She felt sexy. Her legs were crossed now, her navy blue skirt riding up over one knee.
‘I’m sorry, what was your name again?’ she asked.
‘Steve Carella,’ he said.
‘I got so carried away with your being Italian’ she said, rolling her eyes, ‘that I...’
‘A lot of people forget Italian names,’ he said.
‘Well, I certainly shouldn’t,’ Naomi said. ‘My mother’s maiden name was Giamboglio.’
‘And your name?’ he said.
‘Naomi Schneider.’ She paused and then said, ‘That’s what the other half is ... Jewish.’ She waited for a reaction. Not a flicker on his face. Good. Actually she enjoyed being a Big City Jewish Girl. There was something special about the Jewish girls who lived in this city—a sharpness of attitude, a quickness of tongue, an intelligence, an awareness that came across as sophisticated and witty and hip. If anybody didn’t like her being Jewish—well, half Jewish—then so long, it was nice knowing you. He seemed to like it, though. At least he kept staring into her blouse. And checking out the sexy legs in the smoky blue nylons.
‘So, Steve,’ she said, ‘where do you work?’
‘Uptown,’ he said, ‘At the Eight-Seven. Right across the street from Grover Park.’
‘Rotten neighborhood up there, isn’t it?’
‘Not the best,’ he said, and smiled.
‘You must have your hands full.’
‘Occasionally,’ he said.
‘What do you get up there? A lot of murders and such?’
‘Murders, armed robberies, burglaries, rapes, arsons, muggings ... you name it, we’ve got it.’
‘Must be exciting, though,’ Naomi said. She had learned in one of her women’s magazines to show an intense interest in a man’s work. This got difficult when you were talking to a dentist, for example. But police work really was interesting, so right now she didn’t have to fake any deep emotional involvement with a left lateral molar, for example.
‘Are you working on anything interesting just now?’ she asked.
‘We caught a homicide on the twenty-fifth,’ he said. ‘Dead woman in the park, about your age.’
‘Oh my,’ Naomi said.
‘Shot in the back of the head. Totally naked, not a stitch on her.’
‘Oh my,’ Naomi said again.
‘Not much to go on yet,’ he said, ‘but we’re working on it.’
‘I guess you see a lot of that.’
‘We do.’
She lifted her glass, sipped at her C.C. and soda, looking at him over the rim, and then put the glass down on the bartop again, empty. The bar at five-thirty in the afternoon was just beginning to get crowded. She’d come over directly from work, the long weekend ahead, hoping she might meet someone interesting. This one was certainly interesting; she’d never met a detective before. Good-looking, too. A naked dead girl in the park, how about that?
‘Would you care for another one?’ he asked.
‘Oh, thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s C.C. and soda.’ She waited for a reaction. Usually you said C.C. and soda to a wimp, he asked, ‘What’s that, C.C.?’ This one didn’t even bat an eyelash. Either he knew what C.C. was, or he was smart enough to pretend he knew. She liked smart men. She liked handsome men, too. Some men, you woke up the next morning, it wasn’t even worth the shower.
He signaled to the bartender, indicated another round, and then turned to her again, smiling. He had a nice smile. The jukebox was playing the new McCartney single. The rain beat against the plate glass windows of the bar. It felt cozy and warm and comfortably crowded in here, the hum of conversation, the tinkle of ice cubes in glasses, the music from the juke, the brittle laughter of Big City women like herself.
‘What sort of work do you do, Naomi?’ he asked.
‘I work for CBS,’ she said.
It usually impressed people when she said she worked for CBS. Actually what she did, she was a receptionist there, but still it was impressive., a network. Again nothing registered on his face. He was a very cool one, this one, well-dressed, handsome, a feeling of... absolute certainty about him. Well, he’d probably seen it all and done it all, this one. She found that exciting.
Well, maybe she was looking for a little excitement.
This morning, when she was dressing for work, she’d put on the lingerie she’d ordered from Victoria’s Secret. Blue, like the blouse. A demicup underwire bra designed for low necklines, a lace-front string bikini with a cotton panel at the crotch, a garter belt with V-shaped lace panels. Sat at the desk in the lobby with the sexy underwear under her skirt and blouse, thinking she’d hit one of the bars after work, find some excitement. ‘CBS, good morning.’ And under her clothes, secret lace.
‘Actually I’m just a receptionist there,’ she said, and wondered why she’d admitted this. ‘But I do get to meet a lot of performers and such. Who come up to do shows, you know.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said.
‘It’s a fairly boring job,’ she said, and again wondered why she was telling him this.
‘Uh-huh,’ he said.
‘I plan to get into publishing eventually.’
‘I plan to get into you eventually,’ he said.
Normally she would have said, ‘Hey, get lost, creep, huh?’ But he was looking at her so intently, not a smile on his face, and he appeared so ... confident that for a moment she didn’t know what to say. She had the sudden feeling that if she told him to disappear, he might arrest her or something. For what, she couldn’t imagine. She also had the feeling that he knew exactly what she was wearing under her skirt and blouse. It was uncanny. As if he had X-ray vision, like Superman. She was nodding before she even realized it. She kept nodding. She hoped her face was saying, ‘Oh, yeah, wise guy?’ She didn’t know what her face was saying. She just kept nodding.