Three Blind Mice

7

The police gym was the size of a good college gym, well equipped, air conditioned, and relatively empty at five o’clock that Tuesday afternoon. Save for Matthew and Bloom, there were only two other people in the vast, echoing room: a runner tirelessly circling the overhead track and a bare-chested man in blue trunks, pumping iron. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through the long, high windows. It had not yet rained today. It had not rained at all yesterday. Everybody in Calusa was saying that the Russians were monkeying with the weather. This in spite of glasnost. Some ideas were slow to take hold in the state of Florida.

Bloom was wearing grey sweatpants and sweatshirt, the Calusa P.D. seal in blue on the front of it. Matthew was wearing black warmup pants and a white T-shirt. Both men were wearing sneakers. Bloom had an inch or so on Matthew, in height and in reach, and some forty pounds in weight. But he was here to teach him tricks that automatically rendered physical superiority meaningless.

“You put on some weight,” he said.

“Ten pounds,” Matthew said.

“That’s a lot. You got a little paunch, Matthew.”

“I know.”

“You ought to come here every afternoon, run the track.”

“I should.”

“Those two cowboys catch you with a paunch, they’ll roll you down 41 all the way to Fort Meyers.”

He was referring to Matthew’s private spectres, two Ananburg cowboys who’d once made chopped liver of him in a Calusa bar, and whom he’d later caught up with and all but crippled. His nightmare was that they would find him again one day and next time he wouldn’t be quite so lucky. Bloom kept telling him it wasn’t a matter of luck, it was skill. Knowing how to break the other guy’s head before he broke yours. Bloom said that learning to maim somebody was merely a matter of how much fear you had inside you. If you didn’t care whether two cowboys beat the shit out of you and maybe buggered you, then forget learning how to fight dirty. For Matthew, the personification of fear was Two Cowboys. This was fear incarnate. Beat the Two Cowboys, and you vanquished fear. But to beat them, you had to know how to gouge out an eye or crack a man’s spine.

“You want to dance around a little before we start?” Bloom asked.

The men moved onto the mat. Bloom was very fast for a man his size. Matthew, with his paunch — well, it wasn’t quite a paunch — was slower, and therefore more susceptible to the open-handed slaps Bloom kept landing. Puffing, out of breath, he danced around Bloom, caught him with a good left-handed slap to the jaw—

“Good,” Bloom said.

— and then followed up with a right-handed slap to Bloom’s biceps, which, had it been a punch, would have hurt him badly.

“So we’re on opposite sides again, huh?” Bloom said, moving away, feinting, and then slapping a fast one-two to Matthew’s face. The slaps stung. Matthew backed off, circling, circling.

“You took the Leeds case, huh?”

“I took it.”

“You’re getting a reputation,” Bloom said.

“For what?”

“Defending sure things.”

Bloom was smiling. This was a joke. The last three had been anything but sure things.

“We make these wonderful arrests we think’ll stick,” Bloom said, “and then you come along and knock us on our asses. Tell me, Matthew, why don’t you make my life simple?”

“How?”

“Run for State Attorney. Then we can work these cases together.”

“Oh?” Matthew said. “Is Skye quitting?”

Across the gym, the weight lifter had begun working out on the punching bag. A steady rhythmic background patter now accompanied their dance over the mat, both men moving around each other, constantly jabbing, slapping, moving in again, backing away, circling, great blots of sweat staining their shirts, rivulets of sweat running down their faces.

“Skye’s looking northward to Tallahassee,” Bloom said.

“What’s this big one he’s sitting on, Morrie?”

“What big one?” Bloom asked innocently.

“I hear something’s in the wind.”

“Who told you that?”

“A little yellow bird.”

“Me, I’m deaf, dumb, and blind,” Bloom said.

“Supposed to break in the paper. I’m still waiting.”

“Maybe we’re still waiting, too.”

“For what?”

“Ask your little yellow bird. You had enough of this?”

“Sure,” Matthew said.

They walked over to where they’d put their bags against the wall, took out towels, wiped their faces and necks. Both men were breathing hard.

“Can I ask you some questions?” Matthew said.

“Not about that.”

“No, about the Leeds arrest.”

“Sure.”

“Tell me what happened that morning.”

“Nothing. We went there with a wallet we found at the scene. Unmistakably Leeds’s. He was in his pajamas when we talked to him. He identified the wallet as belonging to him, and we asked him to come along. Interviewed him in the captain’s office, pulled Skye in when we figured we had real meat.”

“When was that?”

“You mean when we knew we had him?”

“Yes.”

“When we got the call from Tran Sum Linh.”

“Saying?”

“Saying he’d seen the man who’d murdered his friends.”

“And?”

“We ran a lineup for him. He identified Leeds as the man he saw going into the house that night.”

“When did you get your other witness?”

“The next day. After Leeds was already charged.”

“Wednesday.”

“Whenever.”

“The fifteenth.”

“I’m winging this, but the dates and times are pretty much okay,” Bloom said. “911 clocked the call in at six-fifty on the morning of the fourteenth, a Tuesday. From this guy whatever his name was, these fucking Vietnamese names drive me crazy, he’d gone over there to pick up his pals and drive them to work, found all three of them dead. They were working two jobs, the victims. A factory during the day, the restaurant at night. I guess you know that. Anyway, the dispatcher sent Charlie car over, which radioed back with a confirmed triple homicide. The captain called me at home, and I met Rawles over there, it must’ve been eight, a little after. The minute we found the wallet, we drove out to the Leeds farm. I didn’t know farmers were so rich, did you?”

“Some of them.”

“Mmm,” Bloom said, and picked up the life vest he’d carried into the gym with him. Orange, with orange ties, stamped across the back with the words property of u.s. coast guard. “Anyway, Tran identified him that same afternoon, and we zeroed in on the second witness the next day. So you’re right, it was Wednesday the fifteenth. You know why I’m putting on this life jacket?”

“Because the gym is about to sink,” Matthew said.

“That’s very funny,” Bloom said, but he didn’t laugh. “I’m putting this on because it’s padded around the shoulders and neck, and that’s where you’re going to hit me a lot.”

“Tell me something, Morrie. When you went out to the farm, did you see any signs of forced entry?”

“We weren’t looking for a burglar, Matthew.”

“But did you see any marks around any of the doors or windows?”

“I told you. We weren’t looking for any.”

“I’m going to send somebody out there to do a check.”

“Sure. Just let Pat know if you find anything.”

“Better not call her Pat, Morrie.”

“But I’ll tell you, Matthew, you’ll be wasting your time. Look, I know just where you’re heading, you think somebody may have broken in there and stolen that jacket and hat, don’t you? And then returned them to the closet, right? But did somebody also steal Mrs. Leeds’s car keys? And then return them to her handbag in the upstairs closet? Or the duplicate set of keys Leeds was using, which were then returned to the top of the bedroom dresser? Because as I’m sure you already know…”

“Yes, Charlie Stubbs saw…”

“Yes, he saw Leeds drive up in the Maserati at around ten-thirty that night.”

“If it was Leeds.”

“Then who was it if not Leeds?”

“It was a man in a yellow hat and a yellow jacket.”

“Which Leeds just happens to own.”

“The hat was a giveaway item, and the jacket came from Sears. There could be a hundred people in this town with that same damn jacket and hat.”

“And are there a hundred people in this town who also have keys to the Maserati this person in the yellow jacket and hat was driving?”

“Well, I admit…”

“And keys to the boat?”

Matthew sighed.

“Yes,” Bloom said. “Matthew, I know I was wrong the last time around. But this time, there’s too damn much. Cop a plea, Matthew. Demming’s new and eager, she’ll make it easy for you. Do me that favor, will you? Save yourself a lot of embarrassment. Please?”

Matthew said nothing.

“Come on,” Bloom said. “I’ll teach you how to paralyze me.”

There were two messages on Matthew’s answering machine when he got home that night. The first was from Warren Chambers, telling him what he’d learned about the number on the license plate.

“Shit,” Matthew said.

The second was from Jessica Leeds, asking him to call back as soon as he could. Standing in his workout clothes, wanting nothing more than a shower, he opened his directory to the L’s, found the number at the farm, and dialed it. Jessica picked up on the third ring.

“Mrs. Leeds,” he said, “Matthew Hope.”

“Oh, hello, I’m so glad you got back to me,” she said. “Stephen phoned me this afternoon, right after you left him. He was so excited.”

The goddamn license plate, he thought.

“Well,” he said, “it turns out we were a bit premature.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no such number in the state of Florida.”

“Oh no,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“This is so disappointing.”

“I know.”

“Could it possibly have been an out-of-state plate?”

“Trinh is sure it was a Florida plate.”

“This’ll kill Stephen, it’ll positively kill him.”

“Did he tell you what the number was?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Does it mean anything to you?”

“Mean anything?”

“You wouldn’t have seen a car with that plate driving past the farm… or cruising the neighborhood… anything like that? Looking over the place?”

“Oh. No, I’m sorry.”

“Because if someone did break in there…”

“Yes, I know exactly what you mean. But we’re so isolated here… I think I would’ve noticed something like that. A car driving by slowly…”

“Yes.”

“… or making a turn in the driveway…”

“Yes.”

“But no, there was nothing.”

“Incidentally,” Matthew said, “I’ll be sending someone there to check your windows and doors. His name’s Warren Chambers, I’ll ask him to call you first.”

“My windows and doors?”

“For signs of forced entry.”

“Oh, yes, what a good idea.”

“He’ll call you.”

“Please.”

She was silent for a moment.

Then she said, “I don’t know how to tell this to Stephen.”

Neither did Matthew.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “Please don’t worry about it.”

Warren’s photographic memory had served him well for the better part of his life. In high school — and later during his short stint in college — while students everywhere around him were scribbling crib notes on their shirt cuffs or the palms of their hands, he was memorizing pages and pages of material that he could later call up in an instant. In its entirety. A photograph of the page suddenly popping into his mind’s eye. Exactly as it had appeared when he’d read it. Phenomenal. The trick worked beautifully for faces as well. When he was on the St. Louis police force, he’d look at a mug shot once and only once, and there it was in his head, recorded forever. See that same cheap thief on the street two years later, he’d follow him for blocks, trying to figure out what no-good mischief he was up to now.

If Warren had seen that license plate on the night of the murders, you could damn well bet he wouldn’t have remembered it wrong. It would have registered on the camera of his eye, click, and it would have been etched on his mind forever, in living color, orange and white for the colors of the state’s plates.

Mr. Memory, that was Warren Chambers.

Except for tonight.

Tonight, he could not for the life of him remember Fiona Gill’s unlisted telephone number.

Am I sure that my unlisted phone number is 381-2645?

Was what the lady had said.

Wasn’t it?

But when he dialed 381-2645, he got a man who sounded like a caged beast, spitting and snarling because Warren had woken him up in the middle of the night. Except that it was only eight-thirty. So he’d dialed the number a second time, certain that his renowned memory could not be at fault, thinking he’d merely made an error punching out the numbers, and lo and behold, the same roaring monster telling him to quit calling this number or—

Warren hung up fast.

He knew he wasn’t wrong about the 381 because that was one of Calusa’s seven prefixes and none of the others — 349, 342, 363, and so on — came even close. So 381 it had to be. So how had he goofed on the last four numbers? Had he remembered them in improper sequence? If so, how many possible combinations of the numbers 2, 6, 4, and 5 could there be?

Calling up a page from a long-ago college textbook chapter on permutations and combinations, he conjured the formula 4 X 3 X 2 X 1 = X, and came up with 4x3 = 12x2 = 24x1 = 24, and calculated that there were twenty-four possible ways of arranging the numbers 2,6,4, and 5. He had already dialed 2645 — twice, no less — so that left twenty-three possibilities.

He started with 2654, and went from there to 2564 and 2546, and next to 2465 and 2456.

No Fiona Gill.

So he moved on to the next sequence of six, this time starting with the number 6 itself, and dialing first 6245 and then 6254, and on and on and on until he ended the sequence with 6542, and still no Fiona Gill.

It was now almost nine o’clock.

He figured it was taking him about thirty seconds to punch out each telephone number, let the phone ring three, four, however many times, discover there was no one named Fiona Gill at that number, thank the party, and then hang up. Six different phone numbers in each sequence. A hundred and eighty seconds altogether. Three minutes, give or take, depending on the length of each conversation. It was five after nine when he finished the sequence beginning with the number 5. Still no Fiona. He went on to the last sequence.

381-4265.

Brrr, brrr, btrr…

“Hello?”

“May I speak to Fiona Gill, please?”

“Who?”

“Fiona Gill.”

“Nobody here by that name.”

And then 381-4256…

And 381-4625…

And down the line till he came to the last possible combination, 381-4562, the phone ringing, ringing, ringing.

“Hello?”

A black woman.

“Fiona?”

“Who?”

“I’m trying to reach Fiona Gill.”

“Man, you got the wrong number.”

And click.

He sat there despondently, his pride in his fabled memory considerably shaken. Now listen, he thought, there has got to be some mistake here. Maybe she gave me the wrong number. Maybe she was so excited, she forgot her own telephone number, that is a distinct possibility. So how can I get the right number if it’s an unlisted one? He picked up the receiver again, punched the O for Operator, let the phone ring once, twice…

“Operator.”

“Detective Warren Chambers,” he said, “St. Louis Police Department.”

“Yes, Mr. Chambers.”

“We’re trying to locate the sister of a homicide victim here…”

“Oh, my, a homicide,” the operator said.

“Yes, her name is Fiona Gill, her number seems…”

“The victim.”

“No, the sister. She lives down there in Calusa. I was wondering…”

“How’s the weather up there?”

“Terrific. Lovely. Lovely summer weather. Fiona Gill, that’s G-I–L-L. I don’t have an address.”

“Just one moment, sir,” the operator said. She was off the line for what seemed ten seconds. When she came back, she said, “I’m sorry, sir, that’s an unpublished number.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“We’re not per—”

“This is a homicide here,” Warren said.

Which always worked.

“I’m sorry, sir, it’s our policy not to give out unpublished numbers.”

“Yes, I realize that. May I speak to your Service Assistant, please?”

“Yes, sir, one moment, please.”

Warren waited.

“Miss Camden,” a woman said.

“Detective Warren Chambers,” he said. “We’re working a homicide here in St. Louis, and I need to get in touch with a woman named Fiona Gill in your city. Can you please ask your Floor Manager to…?”

“Working a homicide where?” Miss Camden said.

“St. Louis,” Warren said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, and hung up.

Warren looked at the mouthpiece.

Okay, so sometimes it didn’t work.

He put the phone back on its cradle, thought for a moment, and then opened his personal directory. On the last case he’d worked for Matthew, he’d hired two rednecks from the Calusa P.D. to do some moonlight housesitting. One of them had got himself killed on the job, but the other one was still alive, and he and Warren still shared a sort of tentative relationship, the only kind a redneck could offer a black man in this town. He looked up Nick Alston’s home number, glanced at his watch — twenty past nine — and dialed.

“Hello?” a voice said.

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Warren Chambers.”

“How you doin’, Chambers?”

Just overjoyed to be hearing from him again.

“I need a favor,” Warren said.

“Yeah?”

Still wildly enthusiastic.

“A phone number,” Warren said. “This case I’m working.”

“Where?”

“Here. Calusa.”

“The number, I mean.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, the number. It’s unlisted.”

“No shit? When do you need it?”

“Now.”

“I ain’t at work.”

“Can’t you get somebody up there to call it in for me?”

“Maybe. Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Where’s that? Newtown?”

Naming the colored section of Calusa.

“No, here on Hibiscus.”

“Give me the number there,” Alston said.

Warren gave him the number.

“What’s this person’s name?”

“Fiona Gill,” Warren said.

“She’s in the Tax Collector’s office, ain’t she?” Alston said.

“That’s right.”

“Motor Vehicles, right?”

“Right. I’m trying to get a line on a license plate.”

“So you have to call her at home, right?”

“Right,” Warren said.

“Yeah, right, shit,” Alston said. “I’ll get back to you.”

He got back some ten minutes later.

“The lady’s number is 381-3645,” he said.

“Ahhhh,” Warren said.

“Yeah, ahhhh,” Alston said. “Ahhh what?”

“A three. Instead of a two.”

“Which is supposed to make sense, huh? I don’t usually run a dating service, Chambers. I hope you realize that,”

“I owe you one.”

“You bet you do.”

“I won’t forget. Thanks a lot, Nick, I really app—”

“You remember my partner?” Alston said. “Charlie Macklin? Who got shot when we was sittin’ that house on the beach?”

“I remember him, yes,” Warren said.

“I still miss him,” Alston said.

There was a silence on the line.

“Let’s have a beer sometime,” Warren said.

“Yeah,” Alston said.

There was another silence.

“I’ll talk to you,” Warren said. “Thanks again.”

“Yeah,” Alston said, and hung up.

Warren put the receiver back on the cradle. It was twenty-five minutes to ten; he wondered if it was too late to try her. While he was debating this, the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” he said.

“Warren?”

“Yes?”

“Hi,” she said. “This is Fiona Gill.”

In Calusa, Florida, the beaches change with the seasons. What in May might have been a wide strand of pure white sand will by November become only a narrow strip of shell, seaweed, and twisted driftwood. The hurricane season here is dreaded as much for the damage it will do to the condominiums as for the havoc it might wreak upon the precious Gulf of Mexico shoreline.

There are five keys off Calusa’s mainland, but only three of them — Stone Crab, Sabal, and Whisper — run north-south, paralleling the mainland shore. Flamingo Key and Lucy’s Key are situated like massive stepping-stones across the bay, connecting the mainland first to Sabal and then to Stone Crab — which normally suffers most during autumn’s violent storms, precisely because it has the least to lose. Stone Crab is the narrowest of Calusa’s keys, its once-splendid beaches eroded for decades by water and wind. September after September, Stone Crab’s two-lane blacktop is completely inundated, the bay on one side and the Gulf on the other joining over it to prevent passage by anything but a dinghy. Sabal Beach historically suffers least — perhaps because there is a God, after all. It was on Sabal that the law-enforcement officers of the City of Calusa looked the other way when it came to so-called nude bathing.

Well, not quite the other way.

The women on Sabal were permitted to splash in the water or romp on the beach topless. But let one genital area, male or female, be exposed for the barest fraction of an instant, and suddenly a white police car with a blue City of Calusa P.D. seal on its sides would magically appear on the beach’s access road and a uniformed minion of the law would trudge solemnly across the sand, head ducked, eyes studying the terrain (but not the offending pubic patch) to make an immediate arrest while citing an ordinance that went all the way back to 1913, when the city was first incorporated.

Tonight, Warren’s old Buick was the only car on the access road. The main parking lot was far off down the beach, adjacent to the public pavilion, where each night Calusa’s teenagers gathered to practice their peculiar tribal rites. Someone off there in the distance was playing an acoustic guitar; tattered snatches of an unintelligible tune drifted listlessly on the humid air. Not a breeze was stirring. Warren was very nervous.

The last time he’d been this nervous was in St. Louis, when a sniper up on the roof was shooting down into the street and Warren and four other police officers in vests went up there and kicked in the metal fire door and barged on out there into a spray of rifle fire. That was when the nervousness turned to sheer terror. Man behind the rifle looked like a raving idiot. Hair sticking up on top of his head, eyes wild. Blue. Blue eyes flashing in the sunshine. Man. He had been the most frightening human being Warren had ever seen in his lifetime up till then. He had since met even more frightening people — the world was full of lunatics who caused your heart to stop cold — but his definition of terror would always be linked to that blue-eyed white man spraying bullets across a sunwashed black rooftop.

Tonight, he wasn’t terrified, he was merely nervous.

Because…

Well…

On the telephone, Fiona had apologized for calling so late, and then had told him how nice it had been, seeing him again this afternoon, and then she mentioned how hot the weather was…

“I don’t recall it ever being so hot down here, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Warren said.

“No rain the past two days,” she said. “Must be the Russians.”

“Must be.”

He was wondering why she’d called.

“This would be a lovely night for a swim,” she said, “except that I don’t have a pool. Do you happen to have a pool?”

Warren told her he was living in a studio apartment on the second floor of a converted bank on Hibiscus, and no, he did not have a pool. She told him it was too bad neither of them had a pool because this was such a splendid night for a swim, although it was probably too late for—

“No, I don’t think it’s too late,” he said.

And glanced quickly at his wristwatch.

“No, it’s only nine-forty,” he said.

“Little moonlight swim,” she said.

“Yes, that might be nice,” he said.

“Yes, mightn’t it?” she said.

There was a silence on the line. Like that silence in the Tax Collector’s office this afternoon, when the air had crackled with possibilities about to be lost.

“So,” Fiona said at last, and he would never know the kind of courage this had required, “do you think you might like to come on down here and…”

“Yes,” he said at once.

“… pick me up…”

“Yes, I would,” he said.

“And we can drive over to Sabal together?”

Sabal, he thought.

Which is when his heart had begun pounding and his hands had got all clammy.

Because Fiona might have suggested any one of the other beaches in Calusa for their moonlight swim — and there was a moon tonight — but she had chosen Sabal. And Sabal was the one and only topless beach.

She was wearing sandals and a blue jumpsuit zippered up the front. She took off the sandals as Warren locked the car and held them in one hand, dangling from the straps. He was wearing jeans and a cotton sweatshirt, loafers without socks. He went around to the trunk, unlocked it, and took out towels, a blanket, and a cooler on a strap. Resting on the ice inside the cooler, there was a capped orange juice bottle filled with martinis, a can of country pâté Warren had bought at The French Château on Gaines Street, a box of water biscuits, some paper plates, plastic cups and utensils, and a Colt.38 Detective Special.

“Help you with anything?” Fiona asked.

“If you could take the towels,” he said.

“Sure,” she said. “Let me have the blanket too.”

“No, that’s okay,” he said, and handed the towels to her. Slamming the trunk shut, he noticed his own license plate as if for the first time:

DTU 89R.

Three letters, two numbers, and then another letter.

Just as the lady had told him.

He set the cooler down for a moment, took off his loafers, and then threw the blanket over his shoulder like a serape. Picking up the cooler again, slinging it from the strap, he followed Fiona out onto the sand. The tide was just coming in. Not a hint of surf tonight, the waves gently nudging the shore, whispering in. They found a spot on dry sand some twenty feet back from the shore and spread the blanket. There was no need to anchor it; there was not a semblance of a breeze. Warren looked up and down the beach. Not a soul anywhere in sight.

Fiona was unzippering the jumpsuit.

“I was just about to call you,” he said, “but you beat me to it.”

“Liar,” she said.

“No, really.”

Unzippered to the waist now. She shrugged it off her shoulders, lowered it, stepped out of it. She was wearing a skimpy green bikini.

“I was going to ask you to have dinner with me,” he said.

She looked spectacularly beautiful.

“This is much better,” she said, and grinned, white teeth flashing in the moonlight, and then turned suddenly and ran toward the water. He watched her go. So beautiful, he thought, and wondered how many hours she put in at aerobics. He unbuckled his belt, took off the jeans and then the sweatshirt. He felt suddenly foolish wearing boxer trunks. He should have put on something sexier tonight, one of those Italian-made swimsuits that looked like a jock and came in fire-engine red, midnight black, and navy blue. But he didn’t own one.

She watched him from the water.

Tall and wiry, the body of an athlete.

So beautiful, she thought.

He came running across the beach, long strides, sand splashing up behind him, entered the water running, knees pumping, took a long, shallow dive, and surfaced grinning some ten feet from where he’d gone under.

“Water’s even warmer than the air,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Lovely,” he said.

He was talking about her.

“Lovely,” she said.

She was talking about him.

“I didn’t call because I forgot your number,” he said.

They were treading water, facing each other. Moonlight rippled the surface, silver coins floating everywhere around them.

“Shame on you,” she said.

“My memory is usually very good.”

“Maybe you wanted to forget it.”

“No, no, why would I want to forget it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re scared of me.”

“No, no.”

“Because I’m an older, more experienced woman.”

“I’ll bet,” he said.

“I’ll bet,” she said, and smiled mysteriously.

“You’re very beautiful,” he said.

“So are you.”

They kissed in the moonlight.

Only their lips touching.

Floating on that sea of coins, lips touching. Gently.

She said, “Mmmm.”

He said, “Yes.”

They swam for some ten minutes, the memory of that single kiss lingering, the night laden with expectation.

“So how were you about to call me?” she asked. “If you’d forgotten the number?”

“Oh. I got it from a friend of mine in the Calusa P.D.”

“Went to all that trouble.”

“Yes.”

“My my,” she said.

“381-3645,” he said.

“That’s it, all right.”

“Emblazoned,” he said, and ran a forefinger across his forehead.

“All that trouble,” she said, and kissed him again.

They were standing in shallow water this time. He put his arms around her, drew her closer to him. She lifted her arms, circled his neck. Kissed him harder. His hands cupped her buttocks. She moved in closer to him.

“Oh my,” she said.

They walked out of the water hand in hand. He looked up and down the beach again. Still empty. A crescent moon in the star-drenched sky. They were alone in the night, alone in the universe.

“I mixed martinis,” he said.

“So thoughtful,” she said.

He removed the lid from the cooler, reached in for the tin of pate, snapped off the key fastened to its top, inserted it into the groove, said, “These things never work,” and then swiftly and without difficulty peeled back the top. “A miracle,” he said. She was watching him. She was thinking how very handsome he looked in his boxer trunks and his high-top fade. She was wondering if she should take off the top of her bikini, this was a topless beach. No, she thought, let him take it off.

He opened the box of biscuits, and then took from the cooler a white plastic knife and a pair of translucent plastic cups. “I’ll pour if you fix,” he said, and handed her a white paper plate. She began spreading pate on the biscuits. He watched her, thinking how long and slender and elegant her fingers were, how studious she looked with her head bent, concentrating on the biscuits, evenly spreading the pate, moonlight catching her high cheekbones and perfect nose. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, he thought.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said.

“That’s very nice of you,” she said softly, and looked up at him.

“These aren’t the best glasses for martinis,” he said. “Plastic.”

He seemed suddenly embarrassed.

“They’re fine,” she said.

“I forgot to bring olives,” he said.

“Who needs olives?” she said.

He poured the drinks.

“I love martinis,” she said.

“So do I.”

“Silver bullets,” she said.

“Mmm,” he said.

They put the lid back on the cooler, using it as a low table, the plate with the crackers on it, the orange juice bottle with what was left of the martinis. Moonlight touched her hair. Moonlight touched the sloping tops of her breasts above the skimpy green bikini top. He wondered if she would take off that top, this was a topless beach. He thought he would die if she took off the top. He hoped she would not take off the top. Somehow, that would be cheap, and Fiona Gill was not a cheap woman.

“Did you see From Here to Eternity?” she asked.

“I think so. The movie, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I saw it on television.”

“I don’t mean the mini-series they made…”

“No, no, the movie. With Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr.”

“Yes. These are very good, Warren.”

“Thank you.”

“Strong but good. This reminds me of that movie.”

“It does?”

“The scene in that movie.”

“Which scene, Fiona?”

“Where they’re on the beach making love,” she said, “and the waves are rushing in.”

His heart began pounding hard again.

“The waves rushing in,” she said, and looked out over the sea. “Have you ever noticed,” she said, “that there aren’t too many scenes with black people making love? In the movies, I mean. Well, forget television, can you imagine Bill Cosby making love? But you’d think in the movies…”

“Well, I think I’ve seen love scenes,” Warren said.

“Where’d you see them?” she asked. “These scenes.”

“I think I saw Gregory Hines doing some love scenes. I think.”

“Did you ever see Eddie Murphy kissing anybody?”

“I think so, yes. In the one where he’s this African chief coming to find a bride here. I think he kisses her.”

“Kisses her.”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you kiss me?” she said.

He kissed her. Long and hard. They put down their drinks. He lowered her to the blanket and kissed her again.

“I love kissing you,” she whispered.

“I love kissing you,” he whispered.

His hand moved under the flimsy green top, found her naked breast. The nipple was hard. From the water, he guessed. But the water wasn’t cold.

“It’s because they’re afraid of it,” she said.

“Of what?” he said.

“Of showing sex between two black people,” she said.

“I’ll bet that’s it,” he said.

“They’re afraid we’ll incite the populace to riot,” she said, and laughed softly.

He kissed the laughter from her mouth. And untied the top of her suit. Her breasts spilled free.

“Yes,” she said.

He kissed her nipples.

Her hand slid down inside his trunks.

“Do you suppose it’s true what they say about black men?” she asked.

Which meant she’d never been to bed with a white man, and had no basis for comparison. He hoped. For that matter, he hoped she’d never been to bed with anyone but her ex-husband, hoped she was a virgin except for him, knew this was impossible, almost asked her if it was possible, but didn’t. Instead his hand moved flat over her belly and down into the bottom of the green bikini, his fingers questing.

“It must be true,” she said, “what they say.”

“Mm-huh,” he said.

“About black men,” she said.

“Mm-huh.”

Finding her.

“That must be why they’re so afraid of doing a real sex scene,” she said.

“Mm-huh,” he said.

Touching her.

“They’re afraid black men’ll run out into the streets with their big cocks…”

Grabbing him hard as she said this, illustrating her point.

“… and rape all the white women in the nation.”

“I’ll bet that’s it,” he said again, breathlessly.

“Don’t you want to kiss me again?” she asked.

He kissed her again.

He got dizzy kissing her again and again.

“I think you’d better be careful,” he said.

“Mmm,” she said.

“What you’re doing,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Because…”

“They’ll do all these steamy sex scenes between two white people,” she said, her hand moving recklessly, “but never between two blacks, yes, there it is, now you’ve got it, mmm. Oh maybe a little kissy-facy, mmm, yes, but never the real thing, oh no, oh yes, right there, oh God, yes, never a real sex scene, oh Jesus!” she said, and suddenly lifted her hips to him. He yanked the bikini pants down over her thighs and her knees. She kicked them away onto the sand and spread herself wide for him on the blanket. He was naked in an instant, rolling onto her.

“Never anything like this,” she said, “oh Jesus, never!”