“Sort of pure,” I said.
She raised her head a couple of millimeters and kissed me hard on the mouth. It seemed ungallant to struggle. She pulled her head back.
“When you kiss me put your tongue in my mouth,” she said.
Her voice had thickened and grown richer, so that it had acquired the quality of butterscotch sauce. She kissed me again and opened her mouth. I kept my tongue to myself. She pressed harder. I thought that somewhere there must be laughter, as I clung to my chastity. Finally she pulled her head back and looked at me.
“Don’t you want to fuck me?” she said.
“Very respectfully, no.”
“My God, why not. I know you’re aroused.”
“You’re very desirable,” I said. “And I get aroused at green lights.”
“Then, what?”
“I’m not at liberty, so to speak.”
“My God, you’re Victorian. A Victorian prude.”
I disagreed, but arguing about my prudishness didn’t seem productive. I shrugged.
“It’s because of Susan?”
“Sure,” I said.
She had sat up and was no longer leaning against me. This was progress, it would help my arteries relax. KC poured some more white wine and drank a swallow.
“What’s so great about Susan?”
‘The way she wears her hat,“ I said. ’The way she sips her tea.”
“Seriously, what’s so special about her? I mean I’ve known her longer than you have, since we were in college. She’s so vain, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not so sure it’s vanity,” I said.
Better to be talking about Susan than about what to do with my tongue.
“Well, what the hell is it, then. Hair, makeup, clothes, exercise, diet, always has to look perfect.”
“Well,” I said, “maybe she thinks of her appearance as a work of art in progress, sort of like painting or sculpture.”
“And she’s so pretentious, for God’s sake. She’s always like lecturing.”
“And maybe not everyone gets it,” I said.
“Gets what?”
“Susan’s pretty good at irony.”
“What’s that mean?”
“She understands herself well enough to make fun of herself,” I said.
“You’ll defend her no matter what I say, won’t you?”
“Yep.”
KC got up and walked to the other side of the room and stared out the window at the blacktop parking lot behind her building.
“Do you think Louis is the stalker?”
“Could be.”
“But why would he?”
“Maybe he feels like he’s lost control of you.”
“But we love each other.”
“Not enough for him to leave his wife,” I said. “Not enough for you to sleep with him if he doesn’t.”
“Of course I won’t. Why would I give him what he wants when he won’t give me what I want.”
“I can’t think of a reason,” I said.
“Well, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe a thing you’ve said about him.”
“Just a hypothesis.”
“Why isn’t my ex a hypothesis?”
“Doesn’t seem the type,” I said.
“How the hell would you know what type he is?”
“I talked with him.”
“And you think that’s enough?”
“No, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m not a court of law here. I am allowed to go on my reactions, my guesses, my sense of people.”
“And you sense that Louis would stalk me and Burt would not?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, I don’t have to listen to you. And I won’t.”
“Reading cops still checking on you,” I said.
“Like you care.”
I stood. “Time to go,” I said.
“Past time.”
I walked toward the door. She turned slowly to watch me, her hands on her hips, her face flushed.
“I would have shown you things that tight-assed Susie Hirsch doesn’t even know.”
I smiled at her. “But would you have respected me in the morning?” I said.
“Prude.”
“Prudery is its own reward,” I said, and left with my head up. I did not run. I walked out the door and toward my car in a perfectly dignified manner.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When I came into my office in the morning there was a message on my answering machine from Prentice Lamont’s mother. It had come in late yesterday while I was in KC Roth’s condo preserving my virtue.
“Mr. Spenser, Patsy Lamont. I need to see you, please.” I had some coffee to drink and some donuts to eat and the tiresome-looking pile of homosexuals-to-be-outed list still to read. Reading it while eating donuts and drinking coffee would make it go better.
I called Patsy Lamont.
“Spenser,” I said. “When would you like to see me?”
She sounded like I’d awakened her, but she rallied.
“Could you come by around noon?” she said. “I have my support group in the morning.”
“Anything I can do on the phone?” I said.
“No, I, I need to talk with you.”
“Be there at noon,” I said and hung up.
I took a bite of donut, a sip of coffee, and picked up the Out list. There were some surprises on it, though none of them seemed like a clue, and by 11:30, with the coffee a dim memory, and the donuts a faint aftertaste, I put the list down and headed for my car. All I could think of was to talk with each of the people on the list. This, coupled with trying to find out who else Louis Vincent had been hustling, meant a great deal of boring legwork that made me think about becoming a poet.
I parked illegally near Mrs. Lamont’s three decker and rang her doorbell at noon. Prudish but punctual. We sat at her thick wooden kitchen table with the high sun shining in through the upper panes of the window over her sink. There was a big white envelope on the table in front of her. It had been mailed and opened.
“Would you like some coffee?” she said. “I have instant.”
“No thank you.”
“Tea?”
“No ma’am.”
“I’m going to have some tea.”
“By all means,” I said.
I sat at the table with my hands folded on it, like an attentive grammar school student, and looked around. It was a kitchen out of my early childhood: painted yellow, with Iuan mahogany plywood wainscoting all around, yellow, gray, and maroon stone patterned linoleum on the floor, white porcelain sink, an off-white gas stove with storage drawers along one side. The kitchen table top was covered with the same linoleum that covered the floor. The hot water kettle whistled that it was ready, and Mrs. Lamont poured hot water into a bright flowered teacup. She plopped in a tea bag and brought the teacup in a matching saucer to the table. She took a spoon from a drawer in the table and prodded the tea bag gently until the tea got to be the right shade of amber. Then she took the tea bag out and put it in the saucer. She picked up the teacup with both hands and held it under her nose for a moment as if she were inhaling the vapors. Then she sipped and put the cup back down.
“I barely know you,” she said.
“That’s true,” I said.
“And yet here you are,” she said.
“Here I am.”
“My husband took care of all the financial things,” she said.
I nodded.
“When he left I didn’t even know how to write a check.”
I nodded again. You find something that works, you go with it.
“I don’t know any lawyers or people like that.”
I nodded. She had some tea. I waited.
“So when this stuff came in the mail, I didn’t know who to ask.”
“This stuff?” I said and patted the big envelope.
“Yes. Now that he’s… gone, his mail comes to me.”
I knew who he was. I knew that parents tended to think of their children as he, or she, or they, as if there were no one else that could be so designated. And I knew that when something bad happened to a child the tendency exacerbated.
“Would you like me to look at it?” I said.
“Yes, please.”