Hark!

'A lot more American.'

'Never hurts to rearrange the letters of your name here in the land of the free and home of the brave, does it? Especially when someone might be looking for you.'

'It's called an anagram, Gloria.'

'What is?'

'Rearranging the letters to form another word.'

'Is that right?'

'Anstdorf to Stanford. An anagram.'

'Is that what I did? An anagram? I'll be damned.'

'Never hurts to use anagrams here in the land of the free and home of the brave.'

'I suppose not.'

'But I found you anyway, Gloria.'

'So you did. So why don't we make the most of it?'

'Was that your German ancestry, Gloria?'

'Pardon?'

'Tying me to the bed that way?'

'I thought you liked that part.'

'The Hamilton Motel, remember, Gloria?'

'Oh, how I remember.'

'In the town of Red Point. Across the river.'

'And into the trees,' she said, and smiled.

She was feeling fairly confident now. She sat on the edge of the bed, patted it to indicate she wanted him to sit beside her. He kept standing. Kept pointing the gun at her chest. She took a deep brearh. Never hurt to advertise the breasts here in the land of the free and home of

the brave. He seemed to notice. Or maybe he was just searching for a spot on her chest to shoot her.

'Was that German, too?' he asked. 'Little bit of Nazi heritage there?'

'I don't know what you mean, Sonny'

'Shooting me twice in the chest that way?'

'Well

'Leaving me tied to the bed that way?'

'Speaking of beds

'Leaving me there to bleed to death?'

'I'm really sorry about that, I truly am. Why don't you let me show you just how sorry I am?'

'Turnabout is fair play,' he said.

'Come over here, honey,' she said. 'Stand right in front of me.'

'Fair is foul, and foul is fair,' he said.

'Unzip your fly, honey,' she said.

'Macbeth,' he said. 'Act One, Scene One.'

And shot her twice in the chest.

Pouf, pouf.

2.

"NOW THAT IS WHAT I call a zaftig woman,' Monoghan said.

'How do you happen to know that expression?' Monroe asked.

'My first wife happened to be Jewish,' Monoghan said.

Monroe didn't even know there'd been a first wife. Or that there was now a second wife. If in fact there was a second wife. The woman's skirt had pulled back when she fell to the expensive Oriental carpet, exposing shapely thighs and legs, which, in concert with her ample breasts, justified the label Monoghan had just hung on her. She was indeed zaftig, some five feet nine inches tall, a woman of Amazonian proportions, albeit a dead one. The first bullet hole was just below her left breast. The second was a bit higher on her chest, and more to the middle, somewhere around the sternum. There were ugly blood stains around each bullet hole, larger stains in the weave of the thick carpet under her. The detectives seemed to be staring down at the wounds, but perhaps they were just admiring her breasts.

Today was Tuesday, the first day of June, the day after Memorial Day. The dead woman lying there at Monoghan's feet looked to be in her mid-thirties, still young enough to be a mother, though not what anyone would call a young mother, which was the juiciest kind. Monroe's thoughts were running pretty much along similar lines. He was wondering if the woman had been sexually compromised before someone thoughtlessly shot her.

The idea was vaguely exciting in an instinctively primitive way, her lying all exposed like that, with even her panties showing.

Monoghan and Monroe were both wearing black, but not in mourning; this was merely the customary raiment of the Homicide Division. Their appearance here was mandatory in this city, but they would serve only in an advisory and supervisory capacity, whatever that meant; sometimes even they themselves didn't know what their exact function was. They did know that the actual investigation of the crime would be handled by the detective squad that caught the initial squeal, in this instance the Eight-Seven - which, by the way, where the hell were they? Or the ME, for that matter? Both detectives wondered if they should go down for a cup of coffee, pass the time that way.

The handyman who'd found the dead woman was still in the apartment, looking guilty as hell, probably because he didn't have a green card and was afraid they'd deport him back to Mexico or wherever. The super had sent him up to replace a washer in the kitchen faucet, and he'd let himself in with a passkey, figuring the lady . . .

He kept calling her the lady.

. . . was already gone for the day, it being eleven o'clock in the morning and all. Instead, the lady was dead on her back in the bedroom. The handyman didn't know whether or not it was okay to go back downstairs now, nobody was telling him nothing. So he hung around trying not to appear like an illegal, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he had to pee.

'So how do you wanna proceed here?' Monoghan asked.

Monroe looked at his watch. 'Is there traffic out there, or what?' he said.

Monoghan shrugged.

'You wanna hear what happened yesterday?' he asked.

'What happened?'

'I go get some takee-outee at this Chinese joint, you know?'

'Yeah?'

'And I place my order with this guy behind one of these computers, and I tell him I also want a coupla bottles non-alcoholic beer. So he . ...'

'Why you drinking non-alcoholic beer?'

'I'm tryin'a lose a little weight.'

'Why? You look okay to me.'

'I'm tryin'a lose ten, twelve pounds.'

'You look fine.'

'You think so?'

'Absolutely.'

Together, the detectives looked like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But Monroe didn't seem to realize this.

'Anyway, that ain't the point of the story,' Monoghan said. 'I told him I wanted two non-alcoholic beers, and he told me I'd have to get those at the bar. So I go over to the bar, and the bartender — this blonde with nice tits, which was strange for a Chinese joint. . .'

'Her having nice tits?'

'No, her being blonde . . . can you please pay attention here? She asks me, "Can I help you, sir?" And I tell her I'd like two non-alcoholic beers, please.'

'When you say "nice tits," is that what you really mean? "Nice tits"?' 'What?'

'Is that a truly accurate description? "Nice tits"?' 'Can you please tell me what that has to do with my story?'

'For the sake of accuracy,' Monroe said, and shrugged.

'Forget it, then,' Monoghan said.

'Because there's an escalation of language when a person is discussing breast sizes,' Monroe said.

'I'm not interested,' Monoghan said, and looked down again at the breasts of the dead woman.

'The smallest breasts,' Monroe said, undeterred, 'are what you'd call "cute boobs." Then the next largest breasts are "nice tits" . . .'

'I told you I'm not. . .'

'. . . and then we get to "great jugs," and finally we arrive at "major hooters." That's the proper escalation. So when you say this blonde bartender had nice tits, do you really mean . . . ?'

'I really mean she had "nice tits," yes, and that has nothing to do with my story.'

'I know. Your story has to do with ordering nonalcoholic beer when you don't even need to lose weight.'

'Forget it,' Monoghan said.

'No, tell it. I'm listening.'

You're sure you're not still distracted by the bartender with the great tits or the cute hooters or whatever the hell she had?'

'You're mixing them up.'

'Forgive me, I didn't know this was an exact science.'

'There's no need for sarcasm. I'm tryin'a help your story, is all.'

'So let me tell it then.'

'So tell it already,' Monroe said, sounding miffed.

'I ask the bartender for two non-alcoholic beers, and a Chinese manager or whatever he was, standing there at the service bar says, "We can't sell you beer to take home, sir." So I said, "Why not?" So he says, "I would lose my liquor license." So I said, "This isn't alcohol, this is nonalcoholic beer. It would be the same as my taking home