Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

“First time,” he says.

“I’ll bet.”

Jennifer nods again, thinking it over. She is still jiggling her foot.

Rafe moves his glass around on the tabletop, making wet rings. He is sure her shoe will fall off.

“So what do you think?” he asks.

“I think I’d like another Cosmo,” she says.

Alice has just brought a pillow and a blanket into the living room when car headlights splash across the drawn blinds. Both she and Charlie turn at once toward the windows. Outside, they hear a car engine quitting. A car door slamming. Moments later, the front doorbell rings.

The grandfather clock reads 10:45 P.M.

“I’ll get it,” Charlie says, and motions for Alice to move back. She steps away from the door. Charlie glances over his shoulder to make certain she cannot be seen from the outside, and then he says to the closed door, “Who is it?”

“Dustin Garcia,” a man’s voice says.

“Who’s Dustin Garcia?”

“Cape October Trib. Could you open the door, sir?”

“Send him away,” Alice whispers.

“Only make it worse,” Charlie says, and motions again for her to stay out of sight. He unlocks the door, opens it, peers out through the mesh of the screen door. Bugs are clattering around the porch light.

The man standing there is short and slight. He is wearing a tan suit with a dark brown sports shirt, no tie. He is also wearing a brown snap-brim straw hat and brown shoes. He holds up a card with his photo on it and the word PRESS in green across its face.

“Sorry to bother you this time of night,” he says. “My editor says he talked to you earlier…”

“Yes, what is it?” Charlie says.

“Rick Chaffee, do you remember him calling?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“You are, sir?”

“Charlie Hobbs.”

“Nose for news, Rick has,” Garcia says. “He thought I ought to stop by and talk to you.”

“Is that what he thought?”

“Yes, sir. All right for me to come in?”

“Sorry,” Charlie says. “No.”

“Awfully buggy out here.”

“Then go back to your car,” Charlie says. “Bet it’s not buggy there.”

“Rick seems to think somebody’s been kidnapped here.”

“Rick’s wrong.”

“Two little kids, Rick seems to think.”

“Look, Mr. Garcia, it’s late…”

“I’d like to come in and talk to Mrs. Glendenning.”

“She’s asleep.”

“Do you live here, sir?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Where are the Glendenning children, Mr. Hobbs?”

“Asleep. Where are your children this time of night?”

“I don’t have any children.”

“I don’t, either,” Charlie says. “Mr. Garcia, it was nice of you to stop by, but nothing’s happened here, and you’re wasting your time.”

“Then let me talk to the kids.”

“No.”

“I’ll talk to someone at Pratt first thing tomorrow morning, you know,” Garcia says. “That’s where they go to school, isn’t it?”

“School’s closed tomorrow,” Charlie says.

“I’ll find somebody.”

“Good night, Mr. Garcia,” Charlie says, and closes and locks the door.

Rafe realizes that it might not be provident to ask a lady if she’d mind your parking a truck and trailer weighing some forty thousand pounds empty in front of her house overnight. He suggests that she follow him to a truck stop he knows near the airport — which is a good half hour away from Ronnie’s Lounge out on Willard — and she tells him to go park the truck there all by himself, thanks, and then catch a cab to her house if he’s still interested. He does not get to Mangrove Lane until eleven-thirty.

The only light burning in any of the houses on the street is a little blue one in the house next door to hers. Someone watching television. Otherwise the street is dark. He pays and tips the cabby, goes to the front door, and rings the bell. Jennifer answers it a moment later.

She is wearing red silk lounging pajamas, a black silk robe, and the same strappy black sandals she had on earlier tonight.

“Thought you’d never get here,” she says.

“The last flight came in from Tampa at nine,” he says. “Not a taxi in sight. I had to phone for one.”

“But you’re here,” she says.

“It would appear so, yes.”

“That’s a verbal tic,” she says.

“What’s a verbal tic?”

He doesn’t know what a verbal tic is. But she thinks he’s asking her to clarify exactly which words constitute the verbal tic, whatever it may be.

“Saying ‘It would appear so, yes.’ You said the same thing when I asked if you were alone for the night.”

“Then it must be true,” he says. “I am in fact alone for the night, and I am also in fact here.”

“While your wife is in a motel on the interstate.”

“That’s where I guess she is.”

“What does she look like, your wife?”

“She’s about five-six, and she has brown hair and blue eyes.”

“But you prefer blondes, is that it?”

“I prefer blondes who look like you,” he says.

“Do you have any children?”

“Two.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself, fucking around this way.”

“Well,” he says, “so far I’m not doing much fucking around, am I?”

Jennifer laughs. Her laugh is raw and sexy. He hopes this doesn’t turn out to be a false alarm here, because he’s already getting hard in his jeans and he doesn’t want to have to call another cab.

“Would you like a drink?” she asks.

“I think I’ve had enough to drink.”

“I’m going to have another drink,” she says, and crosses the living room to where the drop-leaf front of a wall unit is hanging open. The black silk robe flutters about her like the wings of a butterfly. He wonders if she’s wearing anything under those red silk lounging pajamas. He’s never seen Carol in lounging pajamas. Do women wear anything under lounging pajamas? He sure as hell hopes she doesn’t turn out to be a cock tease.

“Sure?” she says, and turns from the bar to hold up a glass.

“Positive,” he says.

She shrugs, pours vodka for herself into a short fat glass, and screws the cap back onto the bottle. Leaving the glass on the open bar top, she moves to the audio equipment in the wall unit, slides a couple of CDs into the player, and presses a button. A female singer whose voice he can’t recognize begins singing a bluesy number. Jennifer picks up her glass and dances over to him, arms wide, robe fluttering, floating again to where he is still standing across the room. She takes a swallow of her drink, looks at him over the rim of the glass, smiles, and kisses him on the mouth. She pulls away just as he starts getting hungry.

“How do I know you’re not fucking Alice?” she asks.

“Nobody’s fucking Alice,” he says. “Her husband drowned eight months ago. She’s still grieving.”

“Did you try?”

“I knew better,” he says.

“How come you didn’t know better with me?”

“Did your husband drown?”

“I don’t have a husband.”

“Then let’s go to bed,” he says.

“No, let’s dance,” she says, and sips at the drink again, and goes into his arms.

They move about the floor slowly. His hand slides from the small of her back to the swell of her ass under the silk garments. She backs away from him, raises her eyebrows like a virgin, and then moves out of his arms completely to sip at her drink again. Her nipples are puckered under the silk. Jesus, he thinks, please don’t let this be a false alarm.

“What time will your wife be getting down here tomorrow?” she asks.

Back to the wife again.

“Around breakfast time, I’d guess.”