Willis listened intently to every syllable she uttered, feeling a closeness that transcended the love they'd earlier made; no woman on earth had ever talked to him this way before. He held her in his arms and listened.
"I went out there, you know, to California," she said, "so I could get away from my father, I mean who the hell wanted to get batted around every time he had a few drinks? So I got involved out there with this beach boy who used to be a weight lifter. He had muscles like an ape, hair all over his back, too, I hate men with hair on their backs, don't you? And tattoos. You should always watch out for men who have tattoos, they're the craziest bastards in the world. It's a fact that most armed robbers have tattoos, did you know that?"
"Yes," Willis said.
"Well, sure," she said, "you're a cop. This guy didn't happen to be an armed robber, but he used to beat me up regularly, just the way my father would've if I'd stayed home in Majesta. That's something, don't you think? The irony of it? He told me he used to be a skinny runt till he started lifting weights, and that lifting weights made all the difference in the world, gave him the self-confidence he needed, you know, and the assurance, and made him feel like a whole new individual. This was after he almost sent me to the hospital one night.
"I finally called the cops, they're so polite, the cops out there, not like here, oops, excuse me. They tip their hats, they say, 'Yes, Miss, what's the problem, Miss?' I'm standing there with a black eye and a swollen lip, and Mr. America is flexing his muscles all over the place, and they ask me if I'm sure I want to press charges. I told them forget it. I mean, what was the sense? But the next time he raised his hand to me, I split open his forehead with a wine bottle. I told him this time you call the cops, you bum! He didn't call the cops, but he didn't hit me anymore, either. In fact, we broke up the very next week. I guess he couldn't stand being around somebody he couldn't smack from wall to wall. Some guys just like to beat up girls, I guess, don't ask me why. You don't, do you?"
"No," Willis said.
"I didn't think so," Marilyn said. "Anyway, I was out there for a bit over a year when my mother found me, a few months before my seventeenth birthday. Told me she'd married this big Texas oil millionaire… well, Jesse, my stepfather… and I went to live with them in Houston. A happy ending, right? I love happy endings, don't you?"
The afternoon lengthened imperceptibly into the night. And because she'd been so honest with him, had given to him so unreservedly of her body and her mind, he started to tell her about what he'd felt that afternoon long ago when he'd shot the twelve-year-old boy, but her mind was elsewhere now, her mind was where her hand had gone, her mind was on what her hand was doing to him.
"You never know how life is going to turn out, do you," she said, "come on, I want you hard again. This girl I know, she used to pose for Nelson, you met Nelson Riley, the artist, come on, baby, she was a dancer who couldn't get a job but she refused to get discouraged, and finally she had an audition with this choreographer, there we go, that's better, I forget his name, a very important choreographer, and that's how she ended up with the Isola Ballet, uh-uh, not till you're enormous," until finally he rolled onto her and into her again and she screamed again in orgasm that must have shattered every window in the city.
Now she listened.
Now that the urgency had passed, now that their secret had been reaffirmed and lay divulged between them, their bodies covered with perspiration, the sheet tangled at their feet, the nighttime sounds of the city pulsatingly alive beyond the bedroom windows—now she really listened.
They pulled the blanket over them, and she lay in his arms, and he whispered to her in the night, trying to reveal the other secret, the darker secret, told her again about the two dead women and the liquor store owner on the floor, and the gun in the twelve-year-old's hand, the glazed look in his eyes, " 'Put it down,' I said, and he came at me. I fired twice, two to the chest, but he kept coming at me, and I put the last one in his head, between the eyes. I think he was already dead, though, I think his coming at me was a reflex, the body just moving, like a chicken when you cut off his head. The last shot wasn't necessary. I'm sure one of the other shots took him in the heart."
He paused.
"His brains spattered all over me," he said.
There was a long silence. He could hear her breathing heavily beside him.
"You poor thing," she said at last. "But you mustn't let it get to you, really. You were doing your job, the man had already killed three people…"
"Yes, but…"
"He would've killed you, too, if you'd let him. You were only doing your job."
"You don't understand," he said.
"Sure, I do. You…"
"I enjoyed it," Willis said.
She fell silent again. He wondered what she was thinking. Then she said, "Well, don't worry about it," and drifted off to sleep, her legs scissored around his thigh, one arm across his waist. He did not fall asleep for a very long time. He kept thinking of what he'd told her: I enjoyed it.
They woke up at eleven in the morning. She yawned and said, "Hi, sweetie, how's the big killer?" and then stretched and sat up, and glanced idly at the clock on the dresser, and jumped out of bed at once.
"Jesus," she said, "I've got a twelve o'clock doctor's appointment!" and started across the room toward the adjoining bathroom. "Put up some coffee, will you?" she said. "Jesus, we should have set the alarm," and ran into the bathroom.
He went downstairs to the kitchen, took a container of orange juice from the refrigerator and set a pot of coffee on the stove. She came downstairs ten minutes later, wearing what looked like a designer suit, blue to match her eyes, white blouse under it, low-heeled walking shoes. Sitting opposite him at the kitchen table, she said, "Do you remember what you said last night? Would you pour me some more coffee, please? About enjoying it, do you remember? Killing him?"
He carried the coffee pot from the stove and began pouring into her cup. Their eyes met. "Well, that's okay, your enjoying it. I mean, there are plenty of things I've done in my life, kind of awful things, and I had to admit to myself later that I enjoyed them. Also, man, this is the city, you know what I mean? I mean, all kinds of terrible things happen here… well, you know that, you're a cop. But you either let them get you down or you put them out of your mind and you survive. What time is it?"
"Half past," he said.
"I think I'll be okay. It's just that he takes a fit if a patient is even a minute late. What I'm saying is you can let this city poison you or you can drink it down like honey from a cup. So you killed a man and you enjoyed it. So what? Forget about it." She swallowed what was left in her cup, reached into her handbag, and took out a lipstick and mirror.
Secrets.
Mysteries.
Lips puckered to accept the bright red paint. Tissue pressed between her lips, imprint of her mouth coming away on the tissue. She crumpled the tissue, tossed it into the wastebasket under the sink. Pale horse, pale rider, pale good looks.
"Well, at least I'm not a total wreck," she said.
"You look beautiful," he said.