“You don’t have that trouble with me,” Carol Thackerty said.
He looked at her in much the same way that the village wives probably had looked at Hester and her scarlet letter. Necessary had some curious standards. “Hell, you’re a broad. Besides you’re older than he is.”
“Three months older.”
“Well,” Necessary grumbled, “you act older. You remember things.”
“You mean I’ve read a lot,” she said.
“Yeah, you read a lot. Between Johns.” He paused for another swallow. “But you know what about Orcutt? You tell him something that he doesn’t know about and he’ll get that funny look on his face and then he’ll stop talking about whatever you were talking about and make you tell him everything that you know. I mean, he’ll milk you dry and then a couple of weeks later he’ll bring it up and use it to make a point to you just like you hadn’t told him about it in the first place.” Necessary shook his head.
“Any other complaints?”
“I wasn’t complaining, Dye. I was just talking about working for somebody who’s younger than I am. I never did it before.”
“Homer was chief of police at twenty-seven,” Carol Thackerty said. “He’ll never get over it. He still expects to be the youngest man in the room.”
“Like Peter Pan,” I said.
“Who?” Necessary said.
“Just somebody else who took a long time to grow up,” Carol Thackerty said.
“I don’t know him,” he said. From his tone it was plain that if Necessary hadn’t heard of them, they weren’t worth bothering with.
“You want another drink?” I said to Carol Thackerty.
“All right,” she said. She was drinking Campari.
“Homer?”
He looked at his watch and shook his head. “I got to go.”
“Where?” Carol said.
“I’d better start looking for that ‘just a guy.’ ”
“You need any help?” I said.
He shook his head again. “I’ll sort of nose around.”
“They know you’re doing it,” I said.
“You mean Lynch and his crowd?”
“Yes.”
“I want them to. You going to see Lynch tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Ask him about ‘just a guy.’ ”
“I plan to.”
“You think Lynch set it up?”
“Maybe,” I said.
He rose and leaned over the table, resting his weight on his fists. “There’s one thing I’m pretty sure of. Maybe a couple of things.”
“What?”
“One is that I’ll find out who ‘just a guy’ is before you do, and two is that Lynch didn’t have anything to do with him.” He winked one of his eyes at me, the brown one, and left.
Carol Thackerty stared into her fresh drink after Necessary had gone. “We make a lovely crew, don’t we?” she said.
“Since you put it that way.”
“The crooked ex-cop, the ex-whore, the ex-secret agent — that’s what you were, weren’t you?”
“That’s close enough.”
“I should say the cashiered ex-secret agent and the boy wonder boss who’s not as swish as he sounds or looks.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know,” she said.
“You know what?” I said. “That I didn’t ask or that he’s not swish?”
“Both. He’s indifferent to sex. It just doesn’t exist for him.”
“You found out, I assume?”
“You assume nothing. I just know. As Homer would say, I’ve had enough Johns to know whether they can, can’t, or just don’t care about it. Orcutt just doesn’t care about it.”
“That’s too bad,” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He may be lucky.”
“Do you think he is?”
She stopped staring into her drink and looked at me. “I was wondering how you were going to bring it up.”
“Now you know.”
“It’s not especially innovative.”
“I’m not trying.”
“You’re not interested?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She blew a thin plume of uninhaled smoke at me. I waved it away. “Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“Do we romance each other for a while or do we just go up and fall into bed?”
“It’s been more than three months. I can skip the romance.”
She finished her drink, gathered her large purse into her lap, and said, “Let’s go.”
“Your room or mine?” I said.
“Mine. I don’t like the walk home.”
She had a room on the ninth floor, 912. It could have been the twin of mine on the floor below. There was a bed and some chairs and a dresser and a writing table. The floor was carpeted with a synthetic fiber. The pictures on the wall looked synthetic, too. She put her purse on the dresser and looked into the mirror and did something to her hair, something imperceptible that never changes it but which they all do anyway. “How kinky are you?” she said. She could have been asking if I thought that the United Nations had adjourned too early.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On how you like it.”
She turned and leaned against the dresser so that both her pelvis and her breasts arched out, thrusting against the fabric of her dress. She threw her head back slightly and opened her mouth letting her tongue play around her lips. It was an excellent parody of all of those film star pictures of the late fifties and early sixties and she knew it. Then she threw her head back even farther and laughed. I found myself laughing with her for what must have been the first time in more than three months.
Her hands went behind her neck to the fastener and she slipped out of her dress. She left it lying on the floor. Her half-slip followed it. She moved over to me and put her arms around my neck. She ran her tongue over her lips again. “Any fetishes?” she said. “High heels, wet towels, or the like?”
“I’ll think of something if you need it,” I said, skillfully undoing her bra, pleased that I hadn’t lost my touch. She lowered her arms to slip out of the bra and let it fall to the floor in a slow practiced movement. “You like them?” she said, fondling her breasts. She was good.
“Very much.”
Her hands went to the zipper on my trousers and then the belt. Then her hands went exploring. As I’ve said, she was very good. “It feels more like a year than three months,” she said and stepped back and slowly slid her bikini panties off. She was about to display the feature attraction and she didn’t want to rush it. When they were off, she explored herself there too, her head back again, her mouth slightly open. “You like it?”
“It’s fine,” I said, the words coming thick and a little phlegmy. “You sure you wouldn’t really rather do it yourself?”
She caught my hand and guided it home. Then she started working on my tie and shirt, moving her hips langorously against my exploring hand. The tie came off, then the shirt, and she worked my shorts down to my ankles, where they joined my trousers. “Your shoes,” she said and knelt slowly to undo them. She didn’t rise for quite a while and when she did we decided to try the bed.
Chapter 22
Mischief arose early in Swankerton and it was afoot and pounding on my door at seven-thirty the next morning. The pounders were the chief of police, Cal Loambaugh, and Ramsey Lynch himself, with the remains of his breakfast on display between the crevices of his upper teeth. I though of offering him a toothpick, but merely shuddered instead, averted my eyes, and opened the door wider. They came in.