by Ed McBain
‘Would you care for another one?’ he asked.
‘Oh, thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s C.C. and soda.’ She waited for a reaction. Usually you said C.C. and soda to a wimp, he asked, ‘What’s that, C.C.?’ This one didn’t even bat an eyelash. Either he knew what C.C. was, or he was smart enough to pretend he knew. She liked smart men. She liked handsome men, too. Some men, you woke up the next morning, it wasn’t even worth the shower.
He signaled to the bartender, indicated another round, and then turned to her again, smiling. He had a nice smile. The jukebox was playing the new McCartney single. The rain beat against the plate glass windows of the bar. It felt cozy and warm and comfortably crowded in here, the hum of conversation, the tinkle of ice cubes in glasses, the music from the juke, the brittle laughter of Big City women like herself.
‘What sort of work do you do, Naomi?’ he asked.
‘I work for CBS,’ she said.
It usually impressed people when she said she worked for CBS. Actually what she did, she was a receptionist there, but still it was impressive., a network. Again nothing registered on his face. He was a very cool one, this one, well-dressed, handsome, a feeling of... absolute certainty about him. Well, he’d probably seen it all and done it all, this one. She found that exciting.
Well, maybe she was looking for a little excitement.
This morning, when she was dressing for work, she’d put on the lingerie she’d ordered from Victoria’s Secret. Blue, like the blouse. A demicup underwire bra designed for low necklines, a lace-front string bikini with a cotton panel at the crotch, a garter belt with V-shaped lace panels. Sat at the desk in the lobby with the sexy underwear under her skirt and blouse, thinking she’d hit one of the bars after work, find some excitement. ‘CBS, good morning.’ And under her clothes, secret lace.
‘Actually I’m just a receptionist there,’ she said, and wondered why she’d admitted this. ‘But I do get to meet a lot of performers and such. Who come up to do shows, you know.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said.
‘It’s a fairly boring job,’ she said, and again wondered why she was telling him this.
‘Uh-huh,’ he said.
‘I plan to get into publishing eventually.’
‘I plan to get into you eventually,’ he said.
Normally she would have said, ‘Hey, get lost, creep, huh?’ But he was looking at her so intently, not a smile on his face, and he appeared so ... confident that for a moment she didn’t know what to say. She had the sudden feeling that if she told him to disappear, he might arrest her or something. For what, she couldn’t imagine. She also had the feeling that he knew exactly what she was wearing under her skirt and blouse. It was uncanny. As if he had X-ray vision, like Superman. She was nodding before she even realized it. She kept nodding. She hoped her face was saying, ‘Oh, yeah, wise guy?’ She didn’t know what her face was saying. She just kept nodding.
‘You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Walk into a bar, sit down next to a pretty girl...’
‘You are,’ he said.
‘Think all you have to do...’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Man of few words,’ she said. Her heart was pounding.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Mmm,’ she said, still nodding.
The record on the juke changed. Something by the Stones. There was a hush for a moment, one of those sudden silences, all conversation seeming to stop everywhere around them, as though E. F. Hutton were talking. And then a woman laughed someplace down the bar, and Mick Jagger’s voice cut through the renewed din, and Naomi idly twirled her finger in her drink, turning the ice cubes, turning them. She wondered if he liked sexy underwear. Most men liked sexy underwear. She visualized him tearing off her blouse and bra, getting on his knees before her to kiss her where the cotton panel covered her crotch, his big hands twisted in the garters against her thighs. She could feel the garters against her thighs.
‘So ... uh ... where do you live, Steve?’ she asked. ‘Near the precinct?’
‘It doesn’t matter where I live,’ he said. ‘We’re going to your place.’
‘Oh, are we?’ she said, and arched one eyebrow. She was jiggling her foot, she realized. She sipped at the drink, this time looking into the glass and not over the rim of it.
‘Naomi,’ he said, ‘we are...’
‘Bet you can’t even spell it,’ she said. ‘Naomi.’
Her magazines had said it was a good idea to get a man to spell your name out loud. That way, he would remember it. But it was as if he hadn’t even heard her, as if her statement had been too ridiculous to dignify with a reply.
‘We are’ he repeated, giving the word emphasis because she’d interrupted him, ‘going to your apartment, wherever it is, and we are going to spend the weekend there.’
‘That’s what ... what you think,’ she said.
She was suddenly aware of the fact that her panties were damp.
‘How do you know I’m not married?’ she said.
‘Are you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘How do you know I’m not living with someone?’
‘Are you?’
‘No, but...’
‘Finish your drink, Naomi.’
‘Listen, I don’t like men who come on so strong, I mean it.’
‘Don’t you?’ he said. He was smiling.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘You do,’ he said.
‘Do all detectives come on so strong?’ she said.
‘I don’t know what all detectives do,’ he said.
‘‘Cause, you know, you really are coming on very strong, Steve. I don’t usually like that, you know. A man coming on so strong.’
‘I’m giving you sixty seconds to finish that drink,’ he said.
God, I’m soaking wet, she thought, and wondered if she’d suddenly got her period.
‘Are you married?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said, and pushed back the cuff of his jacket. He was wearing a gold Rolex. She wondered briefly how come a detective could afford a gold Rolex.
‘Sixty seconds,’ he said. ‘Starting now.’
‘What if I don’t finish it in sixty seconds?’
‘You lose,’ he said simply.
She did not pick up her glass.
‘Fifty-five seconds,’ he said.
She looked into his face and then reached for her glass. ‘I’m drinking this because I want to,’ she said. ‘Not because you’re looking at your watch.’
‘Fifty seconds,’ he said.
Deliberately, she sipped at the drink very slowly, and then suddenly wondered if she could really finish the damn thing in whatever time was left. She also wondered if she’d made the bed this morning.
‘Forty seconds,’ he said.
‘You’re really something, you know that?’ she said, and took a longer swallow this time.
‘In exactly thirty-eight seconds ...’ he said.
‘Do you carry a gun?’ she asked.
‘Thirty-five seconds now...’
“Cause I’m a little afraid of guns.’
‘Thirty seconds...’
‘What is this, a countdown?’ she asked, but she took another hasty swallow of the drink.
‘Twenty-six seconds...’
‘You’re making me very nervous, you know that?’ she said.
‘Twenty seconds...’
‘Forcing me to...’
‘Fifteen...’
‘Slow down, will... ?’
‘In exactly twelve seconds...’
‘I’m gonna choke on this,’ she said.
‘Ten seconds...’
‘Jesus!’
‘You and I ... eight seconds ... are going to ... five seconds ... walk out of here ... two seconds...’
‘All right, already!’ she said and plunked the empty glass down on the bartop.
Their eyes met.
; ‘Good,’ he said, and smiled.
* * * *
She had found the ribbons for him in her sewing box. He had asked her for the ribbons. By then she would have given him the moon. Silk ribbons. A red one on her right wrist. A blue one on her left wrist. Pink ribbons on her ankles. She was spread-eagled on her king-size bed, her wrists and ankles tied to the bars of the brass headboard and footboard. She was still wearing the smoky blue nylons, the high-heeled, ankle-strapped shoes, and the garter belt. He had taken off her panties and her bra. She lay there open and exposed, waiting for whatever he chose to do next, wanting whatever he chose to do next.
He had put his shoulder holster and gun on the seat of the armchair across the room. That was when he was undressing. Jokingly she had said, ‘let me see your badge,’ which is what anybody in this city said when somebody knocked on your door in the middle of the night and claimed to be a cop. He had looked at her without a smile. ‘Here’s my badge, baby,’ he’d said, and unzipped his fly. She knew she was in trouble right that minute. She just didn’t know how much trouble. She had looked down at him and said, ‘Oh, boy, I’m in trouble,’ and had giggled nervously, like a schoolgirl, and suddenly she was in his arms, and his lips were on hers, and she was lost, she knew she was lost.
That had been four hours ago, before he’d tied her to the bed.
The clock on the dresser now read ten o’clock.
He had insisted that they leave the shades on the windows up, even though she protested that people in the building across the way might see them. There were lights on in the building across the way. Above the building the night was black. She wondered if anyone across the way could see her tied to the bed with silk ribbons. She was oozing below again, dizzy with wanting him again. She visualized someone across the way looking at her. Somehow it made her even more excited.
She watched him as he went to the armchair, picked up the holster, and took the pistol from it. Broad, tanned shoulders, a narrow waist, her fingernail marks still on his ass from where she’d clawed at him. She’d described herself to him, back there in the bar, as half-wildcat, but that was something she’d never believed of herself, even after she’d learned all about multiple orgasms. Tonight ... Jesus! Afloat on her own ocean. Still wet with his juices and her own, still wanting more.
He approached the bed with the gun in his hand.
‘Is there a burglar in the house?’ she asked, smiling.
He did not smile back.
‘A lesson,’ he said.
‘Is that loaded?’ she said. She was looking at his cock, not the gun, though in truth the gun did frighten her. She had never liked guns. But she was still smiling, seductively she thought. She writhed on the bed, twisting against the tight silken ribbons.
‘Empty,’ he said, and snapped open the cylinder to show her. ‘A Colt Detective Special,’ he said. ‘Snub-nosed.’
‘Like me,’ she said. ‘Do you like my nose?’
‘Are you ready for the lesson?’ he asked.
‘Oh my,’ she said, opening her eyes and her bound hands in mock fright. ‘Another lesson?’ The gun was empty, she wasn’t afraid of it now. And she was ready to play any game he invented.
‘If you’re ready for one,’ he said.
‘I’m ready for anything you’ve got,’ she said.
‘A lesson in combinations and permutations,’ he said, and suddenly opened his left hand. A bullet was in it. ‘Voila,’ he said. ‘Six empty chambers in the...’
‘There’s an empty chamber right here,’ she said.
‘... cylinder of the pistol.’
‘Come fill it,’ she said.
‘And one bullet in my left hand.’
He showed her the bullet.
‘I insert, this into the cylinder...’
Insert something in me, will you, please?’
“... and we now have one full chamber and five empty ones. Question: what are the odds against the shell being in firing position when I stop twirling the cylinder?’ He started twirling the cylinder, slowly, idly. ‘Any idea?’ he said.
‘Five to one,’ she said. ‘Come fuck me.’
‘Five to one, correct,’ he said, and sat on the edge of the bed, resting the barrel of the gun against the inside of her thigh.
‘Careful with that,’ she said.
He smiled. His finger was inside the trigger guard.
‘Really,’ she said. ‘There’s a bullet in it now.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘So ... you know ... move it away from there, okay?’ She twisted on the bed. The cold barrel of the gun touched her thigh again. ‘Come on, Steve.’
‘We’re going to play a little Russian roulette,’ he said, smiling.
‘Like hell we are,’ she said.
But she was tied to the bed.
He rose suddenly. Standing beside the bed, looking down at her, he began twirling the cylinder. He kept twirling it. Twirling it. Smiling.
‘Come on, Steve,’ she said, ‘you’re scaring me.’
‘Nothing to be scared of,’ he said. ‘The odds are five to one.’
He stopped twirling the cylinder.
He sat on the edge of the bed again.
He looked at her.
He looked at the gun.
And then, gently, he placed the barrel of the gun into the hollow of her throat.
She recoiled, terrified, twisting her head. The metal was cold against her flesh.
‘Hey, listen,’ she said, and he pulled the trigger.
The silence was deafening.
She lay there sweating, breathing harshly, certain he would pull the trigger yet another time. The odds were five to one. How many times could he...?
‘It’s made of wood,’ he said. ‘The bullet in the gun. You weren’t in any danger.’
He moved the barrel of the gun away from her throat.
She heaved a sigh of relief.
And realized how wet she was.
And looked at him.
His erection was enormous.
‘You ... shouldn’t have scared me that way,’ she said.
She was throbbing everywhere.
‘I can do whatever I want with you,’ he said.
‘No, you can’t.’
‘I own you,’ he said.
‘No, you don’t,’ she whispered.
But she struggled against the restraining ribbons to open wider for him as he mounted her again.
They did not budge from that apartment all weekend.
She did not know what was happening to her; nothing like this had ever happened to her in her life.
He left early Monday morning, promising to call her soon.
As soon as he was gone, she dressed as he had ordered her to.
Sitting behind the reception desk at CBS later that morning, she wore no panties under her skirt and no bra under her blouse.
‘CBS, good morning,’ she said into the phone.
And ached for him.
* * * *
CHAPTER FOUR
If a person is an armed robber and he moves to another state, chances are he’ll continue the pursuit of his chosen career. He will not, for example, suddenly become a used-car salesman or a television producer, however similar to felony violators those two professionals might be. He will, instead, buy himself a gun that isn’t hot—which is easy to come by in any city in the United States—find himself a mom-and-pop grocery store, and stick it up one fine night. If Mom and Pop are smart and cooperative, they will empty the contents of the cash register into his waiting hands and pray that he departs at once. If Mom and Pop feel that an armed intruder in their store is a personal as well as a criminal violation, they might foolishly resist this invasion of their turf, in which case they might lose more than the cash in the register. An armed robber isn’t armed because he belongs to the National Rifle Association. He is armed because he knows he is looking at twenty years down the pike if he’s caught doing his job, and he is quite ready—and often eager—to us
e the pistol in his fist. In America the most recent annual figure for deaths caused by handguns was thirty-four thousand nationwide, second only to deaths caused in automobile accidents. That is a whole lot of dead people. Carella sometimes wondered if the members of the NRA, while happily shooting deer in the forest, ever said a silent prayer for all those victims.