The knock woke me quickly. I sat up and reached for the gun I kept on the nightstand. Bureau training is hard to break. I grabbed my pants and tugged them on, managing to stub my toe against the bureau as I did so. I had to swear real, real quietly.
I tiptoed to the curtain and peeked out.
Tandy stood there hugging a bottle of wine. She looked cute and sweet and sexy and scared. The night was mauve and alive with the mercury vapor lights of the parking lot and the blowing dust and cosmic seeds the prairie winds were whipping across the open spaces. I couldn't smell the impending rain in here, but I could feel it.
I went and opened the door.
TWO
"You forget about me, Robert?"
"No. Huh-uh." Yawn.
"God, you did, didn't you? You were asleep, weren't you? I told you I'd sleep in your bed tonight and you forgot me?"
I'd forgotten how personally Tandy took everything. I plucked the bottle of wine from her hand. "I really appreciate you delivering the wine, though, young lady."
"Very funny. God."
"I'm sorry. I was tired. I fell asleep."
"It's barely eleven." And pushed past me, inside.
She pulled out the chair and sat down. "Your room doesn't smell as bad as ours."
"I'm sure the management will be glad to hear that."
"It's a good thing you're cute because otherwise I'd be pissed right now. I really would."
"I fell asleep. I'm sorry."
"You have so many women throwing themselves at you that you forget when somebody tries to be tender and affectionate toward you?"
"How about some wine?"
"You could at least say you were sorry."
"I did. Twice."
"Well, then, you could at least say it again."
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. How's that?"
"I even took a shower and put on special panties."
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."
Which is how it went for the first fifteen minutes, the banter and her hurt feelings.
By the time I went into the bathroom and came back with two plastic glasses, she'd calmed down. I poured us vino and we drank, sitting up in bed, MTV on real low on the tube.
"Noah was pretty drunk tonight."
"Good for him."
"He got into it with Laura again."
"About getting married?"
"Yeah. In a weird way, I feel sorry for him. He's a jerk but he loves her. He really does."
"I kind of got that impression."
"I wish you loved me that much."
"Well, I wish you loved me that much, too."
"Really?"
"Well, sort of."
"You dipshit."
"Thank you."
"Here I was all ready for some romantic talk. You know, loveydovey. It's still hard for me to sleep around. Without some sort of lovey-dovey, anyway. But you've probably slept around a lot more than I have and you're used to it."
"I haven't slept around that much."
"You faithful to your wife?"
"Absolutely."
"But you've been sleeping around since she died?"
"Not much. I've had two long relationships."
"That's all."
"God," I said, "you working on a new Kinsey report? And while we're at it, how many have you slept with?"
"I keep strict count."
"How many?"
"Should I count the one who was so drunk he fell asleep inside me?"
"That must've been a nice experience."
"And he was as big as a bear. It took me half an hour to get him off me."
"Don't count him. So how many?"
"Eight."
"Well, that's not bad."
"That's home runs only-"
"Ah. So just getting to first, second, or third-"
"That stuff's just sort of high school, don't you think? I mean, I don't think I should have to count that."
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
She laughed. And put her head on my shoulder. "Some kinds of wines make me really horny."
"Is this one of them?"
"I'll have to see."
That's how it went from roughly eleven-fifteen to eleven forty-five. I'd forgotten how easily she got drunk. Two modest glasses and she was well on her way.
"You want to see my underwear?"
"I thought you'd never ask," I said.
"I'm serious."
"Sure, I want to see your underwear. You want to see mine?"
"But that doesn't mean we'll, you know, do anything."
"Understood."
But it would be, I figured, a pretty good start.
So she stood up and dropped trou and showed me her underwear. They were microbikinis and almost totally transparent. The shape of everything could be seen. They had happy faces all over them. Except these happy faces were red and had tiny devil horns sticking out of them.
"Like 'em?"
"They're great."
"It was kind of embarrassing buying them. The clerk looked kind of superior when I handed them to her."
"She should've been embarrassed for selling them, then."
"That's what I thought."
She came over and got back on the bed. "I'm scared to try it."
"Try what?"
"Sex."
"How come?"
"Because I haven't enjoyed it for a long time. Not since I stopped getting those images in my head. I'm not too smart, Robert, as you know. I mean, Laura got the brains. Seeing those images-helping you and the police-that's the only thing I could ever do that mattered. And now I can't even do that anymore. And it's spoiled my whole life for me. Every part of my life. It's even screwed up my periods. Laura says that's impossible. But I know better."
"We'll just sleep if you want to."
"Won't you get horny?"
"Sure."
"Then what?"
"I'll resent you and then I'll probably make a vague pass at talking you into it and then I'll go to sleep."
"I could give you a hand job."
"Well, I could give you a hand job, too."
She laughed. "I guess I never thought of it that way. I guess you could, couldn't you?"
So we lay next to each other in the bed. It was still warm. We pushed the blanket to the end of the bed. "You mind if I turn that song up?"
"Huh-uh."
I actually hated the song. An unending string of love-song clichés sung by this sneering white kid with too much hair and too little talent. I seem to remember my parents saying something like that about Alice Cooper. But this kid didn't have mascara and a snake.
We lay like that for twenty minutes. Both of us in our underwear. Not quite touching.
"You have an erection?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"You have an erection?"
A giggle. "No, but I am getting kind of horny, actually. Lying like this is kind of sexy. It's like when I was a freshman in college. I was still a virgin. There was this kid I really liked. But the AIDS scare was everywhere. So night after night we'd just lie on my dorm bed."
"Whatever happened to him?"
"I found out later he was gay. Or at least bi."
"See what you did to him? All those nights of bottled-up temptation."
Then her hand was on me. "Yeah, you've got an erection, all right." Then, "I guess we may as well do it, huh?"
"What changed your mind?"
"Hormones."
And she wasn't kidding.
We had two goes at it, one quick and frantic, the other, later, slow and tender. Afterward, she said, "I almost came."
"We can keep working on it."
"No, that's OK. I haven't even come close in a long time. That must mean I'm better. You know, sort of working my way back to it."
"You want to tell each other how good we were?"
"You were fabulous."
"You were fabulous, too."