W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 04 - The Witness

by The Witness(lit)

  "I have no idea what that means, but thanks anyway."

  "You know, the ones who sold tickets, did all the work. And, of course, gave money."

  "Oh," Matt said.

  He saw a very pretty face, surrounded by blond hair in a pageboy. She was looking at him with unabashed curiosity. All he could see was the head and shoulders. The lady was on her way down the narrow stairway to the second floor.

  Oh, that's what she meant by "circulating downward. "

  "I just came from the FOP," Matt said. "I wondered where everybody had come from."

  "This is better than the FOP," the Holmes man said. "Here the booze is free. There's a bar in the lobby."

  "But I don't belong."

  "They don't know that. That lady gave you a badge, and you got by me. I keep the riffraff out."

  The pretty face in the blond pageboy was no longer in sight.

  "Well, maybe I should do my part for the noble cause," Matt said.

  You're wasting your time. But on the other hand, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  The blonde was not on the second floor. He went down to the lobby and saw the bar.

  What I will do is get a drink, and then go upstairs.

  There was a small wait in line, and then he found himself facing the bartender.

  "Scotch, please. Water."

  "Any preference?"

  Matt looked and saw that whatever else it did, the Opera Ball Club or whatever the hell it was really served fine booze.

  "Famous Grouse, please. Easy on the water."

  He became aware, in less time than it takes to tell, first of an exotic perfume, then of an expanse of white flesh that swelled with exquisite grace before disappearing beneath a del-icate brassiere, and then of warm breath on his ear.

  "I hope you won't be offended by my saying so, but your gun is showing," the voice behind the warm breath on his ear said in almost a whisper.

  It was the blonde in the pageboy.

  For the first time he noticed that she was wearing a hat.

  If half an ounce of black silk and silk netting can be called a hat, he thought.

  What the hell did she say about a gun ? God, I bet she has nice teats!

  "I beg your pardon?"

  She smiled, and laughed softly, and tugged on his arm, pull-ing his head down.

  "Your gun," she said. "It's showing."

  This time when he smelled her breath, he picked up the smell of alcohol. Gin, he thought. He looked down at his leg and saw that his trouser leg was hiked up, caught by the butt of the pistol in his ankle holster.

  Shit!

  When I had to climb out of the goddamn car because of that asshole in the Cadillac in both my parking places, that's when it happened.

  He squatted and rearranged his trouser leg.

  "Thank you."

  "I don't think anybody else noticed," she said. "It was only because I was going downstairs that I saw it. You know what I mean?"

  "Thank you for telling me."

  "Could I ask you a question? Out of pure idle-there being not much else to think about around here-curiosity?"

  "Sure?"

  "How many of you are there here tonight?"

  What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  "How many do you see?"

  "That's why I'm asking," she said, laughing. "I'm curi-ous."

  Matt held up three fingers.

  "Let's start with the easy things. How many fingers?"

  "Three, wise guy," she said. "And I only see one of you. That's why I'm asking how many others there are of you. Just out of idle curiosity."

  "As far as I know, I am the only one like me here tonight."

  "The only one in regular clothes, you mean."

  "What?"

  "I mean not counting him," she said, pointing to a Holmes Security man taking invitations by the door, "and the one I saw you talking to upstairs."

  "Oh. I'm not a rent-a-cop. I had no idea what you were talking about."

  "Then what are you doing walking around with a gun strapped to your leg? Your ankle?"

  "I'm a cop!"

  "Are you really?"

  He nodded.

  "A detective, you mean? There are police here, too, in ad-dition to-what did you say, the rent-a-cops?"

  "No. Not a detective. A cop. Off duty."

  "You're pulling my leg. Aren't you?"

  "Boy Scout's honor," Matt said, holding up three fingers.

  "And you're active in, a sponsor, of the Cancer Society Ball?"

  "Regretfully, no."

  "Then what are you doing here?"

  "You mean, here?" Matt said, and nodded his head to take in the lobby.

  "Yes."

  "I got off the elevator and a lady told me she was so glad I could come, pinned this thing on me, and handed me a glass of champagne."

  She laughed and took his arm, which caused contact be-tween his elbow and her bosom.

  "All right, wise guy," she said. "What were you doing getting off the elevator?"

  "I live here," Matt said.

  "You live here?"

  He nodded. "In what Charles Dickens would call the 'gar-ret.'"

  She let go of his arm and stepped in front of him and looked at him intently.

  "And your name is Matt-Matthew- Payne, right?"

  "Guilty," Matt said. "You have the advantage, mademoi-selle, on me."

  "Don't go away," she said, and then asked. "What is that?"

  "Famous Grouse."

  He watched as she went to the bar and returned with another drink for him, and what, to judge by the gin on her breath, was a martini on the rocks.

  She handed him the Scotch and took a swallow of her mar-tini.

  "I needed that," she said. "The way they were talking about you-'Poor Patricia's Boy'-I thought you'd have acne and wear short pants."

  "Who was talking about me?"

  "It was the only interesting conversation I heard here to-night. You'll never guess who lives upstairs: Poor Patricia Payne's Boy, they sent him to UP and he paid them back by joining the cops right after he graduated. He's the one who shot the serial rapist in the head."

  "Oh."

  "And it's madam, not mademoiselle, by the way. I'm sort of married."

  "What does 'sort of married' mean?"

  "Among other things, that he's not here tonight," she said. "Can we let it go at that?"

  "Sure."

  "Did you really?"

  "Did I really what?"

  "Shoot that man in the head?"

  "Jesus!"

  "I'll take that as a yes," she said, and took another sip of her martini. "Is that the gun you did it with?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "Answer the question."

  "Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Can we change the subject to something more pleasant, like cancer, for example?"

  "So you live upstairs, do you? In what Charles Dickens would call the 'garret'?"

  "That's right."

  "Are you going to ask me if I want to go to your apartment and look at your etchings, Matthew Payne?"

  "I don't have any etchings," he said.

  "I'll settle for a look at your gun," she said.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You heard me," she said. "You show me what I want to see, and I will show you what you-judging by the way you've been looking down my front-want to see."

  "Jesus!"

  "Actually, it's Helene," she said, and took his hand. "Deal?"

  "If you're serious," he said. "The elevator is over there."

  "With a little bit of luck, there will be no one on it but you and me," Helene said. "Do you have some gin, or should I bring this with me?"

  "I have gin," he said.

  She put her glass down, put her hand under his arm, and steered him to the elevator.

  When it stopped at the lobby floor, the tiny elevator already held four people, but they squeezed on anyway. Matt was aware of the pressure of her breasts on his back, and was qui
te sure that it was intentional.

  On the third floor, he unlocked the door to his stairwell and motioned for her to precede him. At the top, when he had turned on the lights, she turned to him and smiled.

  "Dickens would have said 'tiny garret.'"

  "And he would have been right."

  "Make me a drink-martini?"

  "Sure."

  "But first, show me the gun."

  He squatted, took the revolver from its holster, opened the cylinder, and ejected the cartridges.

  "Those are the bullets, the same kind?"

  "Cartridges," he corrected automatically.

  "Let me see one."

  He dropped one in her hand. She inhaled audibly as she touched it, and then rolled it around in the upturned palm of her hand.

  "Show me how it goes in," she said. He took the cartridge back and dropped it in the cylinder.

  "It takes five," he said.

  He unloaded it again, dropped the cartridge in his pocket, and handed her the revolver.

  As he poured gin over ice in his tiny kitchen, he could see her looking at the gun from all angles. Finally, she sniffed it, and then sat down, disappearing from sight behind the book-case that separated the "living area" from the "dining area," at least on the architect's plans.

  When he went into the living area, she was sitting on the edge of his couch. The pistol was on the coffee table. She was running her fingers over it. To do so, she had to lean forward, which served to give him a good look down her dress.

  "I found that very interesting," she said, reaching up for her drink. " 'Exciting' would be a better word."

  "We try to please," he said. He picked up the pistol and carried it to the mantel over the fireplace. He was now more than a little uncomfortable. He didn't like her reaction to the pistol, and suspected that she was somehow excited by the knowledge that he had killed someone with it.

  There's a word for that, and it's spelled P E R V E R S E.

  When he turned around, she was on her feet, walking toward him.

  "How old are you, Poor Patricia Payne's Boy Matthew?"

  "Twenty-two."

  "I'm pushing thirty," she said. "Which does pose some-thing of a problem for you, doesn't it?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  She laughed, just a little nastily.

  "As does the fact that I am behaving very oddly indeed about your gun, not to mention the fact that I am married. Right?"

  He could think of nothing whatever to say.

  "So we will leave the decision up to you, Matthew Payne. Do I say good night and thank you for showing me your etch-ings, or do I take off my dress?"

  "Do what you want to do," Matt said.

  She met his eyes, and pushed her dress off one shoulder and then the other, and then worked it down off her hips.

  Then she walked to him, put her hands to his face, and kissed him. And then he felt her hand on his zipper.

  ***

  When Margaret McCarthy got in Charley McFadden's Volks-wagen he could almost immediately smell soap. He glanced at her and saw that her hair was still damp.

  Charley immediately had-and was as immediately shamed by-a mental image of Margaret naked in her shower.

  "You didn't have to do this, you know," Margaret said.

  "What? You got some guy waiting for you at the hospital?"

  "Absolutely, and in my uniform we're going to a bar some-where."

  "I'll break his neck," Charley said.

  "What I meant, honey," Margaret said, "was that you didn't have to stay up just to drive me to work."

  I really like it when she calls me "honey."

  "I don't want you wandering around North Broad Street alone at midnight," Charley said. "Are we going to argue about this again?"

  "No, Charley."

  "Call me 'honey' again," Charley said. "I like that."

  "Just 'honey.' Not 'sugar'? How do you feel about 'saccha-rine'?"

  "Now, you're making fun of me."

  "No, honey, I'm not," Margaret said, and leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  "I like that too," he said.

  "Well, I'd do it more often if I didn't wear lipstick. When I go on duty, no lipstick, and you get a little smooch."

  "Now you know why I had to drive you to work," Charley said.

  She laughed.

  "What are you going to do now? Go home? Or go back to the FOP and have a couple of beers with Matt?"

  "If I went to the FOP and Payne was still there, I would have to carry him home. Anyway, he had a date."

  "A date? He doesn't have a girl, does he?"

  "He has lots of them. Jesus, with that car, what did you expect?"

  "A lot of girls, including this one, don't really care what kind of a car a fellow drives."

  "There's not a lot of girls like you."

  "Is that the voice of experience talking?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. Matt was really bananas about one girl. A rich girl, like him. He met her when Whatsername, the girl whose father owns Nesfoods, got married."

  "What happened?"

  "She was a rich girl. She thought he was nuts for wanting to be a cop. Instead of like, a lawyer, something like that."

  "So why does he want to be a cop?"

  "I thought a lot about that. What it is, I think, is that he likes it. It's got nothing to do with him not getting in the Ma-rines, or that his father, his real father, was killed on the job. I think he just likes it. And he's working for Inspector Wohl. He gets to see a lot of stuff. I don't think he'd stick around if they had him in one of the districts, turning off fire hydrants."

  "You really like him, don't you?"

  "Yeah. We get along good."

  "You going to ask him to be your best man when we get married?"

  Charley had not thought about a best man.

  "Yeah," he said. "I guess I will, if I live that long."

  "Are we going to start on that subject again?"

  "I'm not starting anything. That's just the truth."

  "We want to have some money in the bank when we get married."

  "I'd just as soon go in hock like everybody else," Charley said. "Jesus, baby, I go nuts sometimes thinking about you."

  "Like when, for example?"

  "Like now, for example. Since you asked. I smell your soap, and then I-"

  "Then you what?"

  "I think of you taking a shower."

  "Those are carnal thoughts."

  "You bet your ass they are," Charley said. "About as carnal as they get."

  There was a long silence.

  "I guess I shouldn't have said that. Sorry."

  "You think you could live six weeks the way things are?"

  "What happens in six weeks?"

  "The semester's over. I could skip a semester. I wouldn't want to be a just-married, and work a full shift, and try to go to school. But I could skip a semester."

  "Jesus, baby, you mean it?"

  "I'll call my mother in the morning and tell her we don't want to wait anymore."

  "Jesus! Great!"

  "I get those thoughts too, honey," Margaret said. She reached over and caught his hand.

  At the hospital, when she kissed him, she kissed him on the mouth and gave him a little tongue, something she didn't hardly ever do.

  Where the fuck am I?

  I was thinking about that, and what she said about her hav-ing those kind of thoughts, carnal thoughts too, and drove right across Broad Street without thinking where I'm supposed to be going.

  "Shit!" he said, and slowed abruptly, and made the next left.

  There's Holland's body shop. That means I'm behind Hol-land Pontiac-GMC, just a block off North Broad. That's not so bad. I could have wound up in Paoli or somewhere not thinking like that.