"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 quite 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 bookcase 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 something 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 etchings, 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 Volkswagen 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 somewhere."

"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 'saccharine'?"

"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 Marines, 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 having those kind of thoughts, carnal thoughts too, and drove right across Broad Street without thinking where I'm supposed to be going.