Now and Then

7.

Iwaited near the entrance to the lobby bar at the Marriott. Jordan and Perry were in place, having a drink. At about 7:40 they finished. Perry paid the bill while Jordan organized her things, and put the strap of her big purse over her shoulder. As they came out of the bar, I went in, jostled her slightly, dropped a small listening device into her bag, and said, “Excuse me.”

She smiled absently and nodded and they kept going. As soon as they were gone, I turned and went out and ran through the rain to Hawk’s Jaguar, which was idling across the street.

“Doorman had his car,” Hawk said. “Silver Mercedes.”

“Follow that car,” I said.

Hawk looked at me as he put the car in gear.

“You being Boston Blackie?” he said.

“That would be you,” I said.

“Lawzy,” Hawk said. “Racial humor.”

The silver Mercedes stopped by the Concord College park ing lot. Jordan got out with her shoulder bag and went to her car. When she was in and the car was started, the Mercedes pulled away, and Jordan followed in her Honda Prelude.

“How come they splitting up,” Hawk said.

“Save him driving her back afterwards, maybe.”

“Or maybe they know we on the case and they given up.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “Radio tuned right?”

“Uh-huh.”

I turned it on. There was a slightly muffled quality to the sound, but I could hear hip-hop being sung. I could also hear her windshield wipers. Pretty good.

“This isn’t one of your stations,” I said.

“Not my style,” Hawk said. “She listening to the radio. ”

The Prelude followed the Mercedes west on Broadway, which meant that she wasn’t going home.

“Where you get the bug?” Hawk said.

“Voyeurs-R-Us,” I said.

“Didn’t know you was a spy tech guy.”

“I consulted Emmett Sleeper,” I said.

“Sleeper the Peeper,” Hawk said. “Top drawer.”

“He says this thing will listen at fifty feet and transmit an FM signal half a mile. Only problem would be background noise.”

“They be doing what you think they doing,” Hawk said,

“background noise be the evidence.”

I picked up a small tape recorder from the backseat and held it in my lap. I plugged the adapter into Hawk’s cigarette lighter. Tested the thing for a minute, rewound it again, and shut it off.

“What she gonna think when she gets home later,” Hawk said, “fi nds that thing in her bag?”

“If she knows what it is she’ll know she’s been caught.”

“Think she’ll stop seeing this guy?” Hawk said.

“No.”

“Even though she fi gure the husband know?”

“He knows now,” I said. “I had to guess, I’d say she wants him to know.”

“So why don’t she just tell him?”

“She also doesn’t want him to know.”

“And this a better way she can get even with him?” Hawk said.

“Maybe,” I said. “If there’s something to get even for.”

Hawk grinned.

“There always be something to get even for,” Hawk said. The rain was heavy tonight, and there was a hard wind that made it seem even heavier. The Mercedes went into the garage beneath the condo, and the Prelude went in behind it.

“His place is in the back, this side of the building,” I said.

“How you know?” Hawk said.

“Detective,” I said.

“I keep forgetting,” Hawk said.

Hawk parked near the back of the building.

In a moment the sound of the hip-hop stopped, then the wipers. The car door opened and closed. I pressed the record button on the tape recorder. I heard Jordan’s voice, slightly muffl ed, but suffi cient to understand.

“I can’t wait to get naked,” her voice said.

I could hear a man laugh.

“Do you think we’re oversexed?” Jordan said.

Male laughter.

“Probably,” the male voice said.

Footsteps.

“Isn’t that good,” Jordan’s voice said.

Elevator doors. Elevator sound. Jordan giggled.

“What if someone opened the elevator door?” the man’s voice said.

“We could say I was helping you look for your keys,” Jordan said.

The male voice said, “I think we should wait until we’re in my apartment.”

“Damn,” Jordan’s voice said.

More giggling. Elevator doors. The giggling stopped. Footstep sounds. A door.

“A drink fi rst?” the man said.

“Maybe a short one while I fl uff up.”

The bag bumped on the floor, a rustle of movement, then, faintly, a sound that might have been a shower. I was uneasy. I felt slightly short of breath. I could feel Hawk looking at me.

“Maybe we got enough,” Hawk said.

I shook my head.

“Hear it through,” I said.

Which we did. All of it. Sitting in the darkened car with the wind driving the hard rain straight in against the window. We listened to the sounds of obvious intimacy. At one point Jordan actually screamed. And giggled.

Once she said, “Perry, what are you doing to me?” in a littlegirl voice. Perry laughed. Otherwise he was quiet. Things culminated and then there was quiet.

After a time Jordan’s voice said, “Oh my God.”

Perry said, “Ever like this at home?”

“No,” Jordan said. “Nothing.”

I felt as if my soul were clenching like a fist. I was listening to something I had no right to hear. I thought about Doherty. Would I share this with him? Not unless I had to. I could probably convince him by playing the I-can’t-wait-to- get-naked part. The stuff before she was noisily in bed with another man.

“We got plenty,” Hawk said.

I nodded and shut off the tape. Hawk reached for the radio switch.

“Shall we have a drink while we talk about what you know?”

Perry said.

Hawk’s hand stopped. He looked at me.

“Postcoital?” he said to me.

“Let me get my body covered,” Jordan’s voice said.

“I like your body the way it is,” Perry said. “Stay here. I’ll get us a drink and we can talk in bed.”

“Perfect,” Jordan said. “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from Dennis.”

I turned the tape recorder back on.