“No,” Christine said. “You’ll make advances.”
“That’s right.”
“I think a man and a woman should be married before he’s permitted to make advances.”
“You do, huh?”
“Sure, I do.”
“Sure.”
“What were you thinking about my legs?” Christine asked.
“How nice they are.”
“Nice? That’s a fine word to describe a woman’s legs.”
“Shapely.”
“Yes?”
“Well-curved.”
“Yes, go on.”
“Splendid.”
“Splendid?”
“Mmmm. I’d like to take off your stockings,” Hawes said.
Why?”
“So I can touch your splendid legs.”
“No advances,” Christine said. “Remember?”
“Right, I forgot. I’d like to take off your stockings so I can see your splendid legs better.”
“You’d like to take off my stockings,” Christine said, “so you can reach up under my skirt to ungarter them.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you bring it up…”
“You brought it up.”
“Are you wearing a girdle?”
“Nope.”
“A garter belt?”
“Yep.”
“I like garter belts.”
“All men do.”
“Why should all men like garter belts? And how do you know what all men like?”
“Are you jealous?”
“No,” Hawes said.
“If we were married, I wouldn’t have any opportunity to know what all men like,” Christine said. “You’d be the only man in my life.”
“You mean there are other men in your life?”
Christine shrugged.
“Who are they?” Hawes asked. “I’ll arrest them.”
“On what grounds?”
“Obstructing the course of true love.”
“Do you love me?” Christine asked.
“Come here, and I’ll tell you.”
Christine smiled.
“Come on.”
She smiled again. “How long would you say we’ve known each other, Cotton?” she asked.
“Oh, let me see. Four years?”
“Right. How many times would you say we’ve made love in those four years?”
“Twice,” Hawes said.
“No seriously.”
“Oh, seriously. Seriously, we’ve made love… how much is four times three hundred and sixty-five?”
“Come on, seriously.”
“Gee, I don’t know, Christine. Why do you ask?”
“I think we ought to get married.”
“Oh,” Hawes said, with an air of discovery. “Is that what you were leading up to? Ah-ha!”
“Don’t you like making love to me?”
“I love making love to you.”
“Then why don’t you marry me?”
“Come here, and I’ll tell you all about it.” Christine stood up abruptly. The move surprised him. A serious look had come onto her face suddenly, and it gave a curious purposefulness to her sudden rise. She walked to the window in her stockinged feet and stood there in silhouette for a moment, the dusky sky outside touching her face with the burnished wash of sunset, and then she pulled down the shade and turned toward Hawes with the same serious expression on her face, as if she were about to cry. He watched her and wondered how this had got so serious all at once. Or perhaps it had been serious all along, he wasn’t quite sure now. She took a step toward him and then stopped and looked at him with a long deep look, as if trying to resolve something in her own mind, and then gave a quiet sigh, just a short intake of breath, and unbuttoned her blouse. He watched her in the darkened room as she undressed. She hung the blouse over the back of a straight chair, and then unclasped her brassiere and put that on the seat of the chair. She pulled back her skirt and ungartered her stockings, and he watched her legs as she rolled the stockings down over the calves and then the ankles and then rose and put them over the back of the chair and stood facing him in her panties and garter belt, and then took off the panties and put them on the seat of the chair, too.
She walked toward him in the dim silence of the room, wearing only the black garter belt, and she stopped before him where he sat on the couch, and she said, “I do love you, Cotton. You know I love you, don’t you?”
She took his face between both slender hands, and she cocked her head to one side, as if seeing his face for the first time, studying it, and then one hand moved gently to the white streak in his red hair, touching it, and then trailing over his temple, and down the bridge of his nose, and then touching his mouth in exploration in the darkness.
“Nothing to say?” she asked. “Nothing to say, my darling?”
She stood before the couch where he sat, looking down at him with a curiously wistful smile on her mouth. He put his arms around her waist and drew her gently close, cradling his head on her breasts and hearing the sudden frantic beating of her heart and thinking there really was nothing to say to her, and wondering all at once what love was. He had known her for such a long time, it seemed, had seen her undress in exactly the same way so many times, had held her close to him in just this way, had heard the beating of her heart beneath the full breast. She was Christine Maxwell, beautiful, bright, passionate, exciting, and he enjoyed being with her more than any other person in the world. But holding her close, feeling the beating heart and sensing the wistful smile that still clung to her mouth, and knowing the serious expression was still in her eyes, he wondered whether any of this added up to love, and he suddenly thought of Irene Thayer and Tommy Barlow on the bed in the apartment filled with illuminating gas.
His hands suddenly tightened on Christine’s back.
He suddenly wanted to hold her desperately close to him.
She kissed him on the mouth and then sank to the couch beside him and stretched her long legs, and looked at him once more very seriously and then the wistful smile expanded, and she said, “It’s because it makes us look French.”
“What?” he said, puzzled.
“The garter belt,” Christine explained, That’s why men like it.”
* * * *
8
Tommy Barlow had been a strapping, well-muscled fellow, six feet and one inch tall, weighing a hundred and seventy-five pounds, with a high forehead and a square jaw and an over-all look of understated power. The understated power had been completely muted by death-there is nothing so powerless as a corpse-but even in death, Tommy Barlow bore very little resemblance to his younger brother.
The brother opened the door for Carella and Meyer four days after the burial of Barlow. Both men were wearing trench coats, but not because they wanted to feel like detectives. They wore them only because a light April drizzle was falling.