Evan Hunter: Candyland

He cannot help being flirtatious.

He isn't even aware that he's being flirtatious.

He is merely trying to convince the only woman in the room…

He seems to have forgotten Manzetti entirely…

… that he is really a nice guy worth knowing.

"The first time I met her," he says, "she was bleeding from the lip. He'd split her lip. There was a drunk up there who got insulted because… well, you know, Emma. Stanley, the big movie star from Private Ryan and Sixth Sense, I would've killed him if he'd still been there. I offered her my handkerchief. Clean white handkerchief, I always take a clean handkerchief when I leave the house in the morning. She took the handkerchief, dabbed at her lip with it. I gave her my handkerchief, Emma."

"She was… I don't know. Different. I must know, what, a thousand hookers? More. She didn't seem like a hooker. She was wearing this little white nightie, she looked like a kid who'd wandered into a whore house by accident, I wanted to read her a fuckin bedtime story, you know what I'm saying? Stood there dabbing at her lip. That pigeon-toed way of standing they have? Little girls? Fiona still stands that way sometimes. No panties, well, she was a whore, you know, I realized that, this was a whore house, after all, we were responding to a disturbance in a whore house, was what it was. Shaved little pussy. A whore. They have no modesty. Standing there half-naked, dabbing at her lip with my handkerchief, describing the son of a bitch who'd hit her and this other girl, you met her, T.J., we talked to her yesterday. But Cathy didn't look like one, that was the thing of it. She looked like… I don't know. Well, you saw her, Emma, you were at the scene. Did she look like a hooker? I mean, she looked like a teenager, didn't she? Tell me the truth, didn't she?

"I took her aside — Lou was talking to the other girl, T. J. — and I told her if she was afraid the guy who hit her might be waiting downstairs or anything, Stanley, I'd be happy to escort her home. She said Oh, well, yes, gee, that's very nice of you, I am kind of shaken up, Detective, that's very nice of you to make such an offer, all that. You know how girls talk, her hands fluttering, all flushed kind of, just let me change, I'll meet you downstairs, okay?

"That's how it started. I sent Lou on his way, he's oblivious half the time, anyway, doesn't know what the hell's going on. This is now three, three-thirty in the morning, she comes down wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, she shoulda had a lollipop, I have to tell you. Cute as could be. Adorable. She took my arm. It was like we were both kids coming home late after a dance or something, I mean it, I felt I was still a kid growing up in the Bronx, she made me feel that way. I was still Jamie back then, in the Bronx, I didn't begin calling myself Jimmy till I joined the force. Jimmy's better for a cop, don't you think? Do you like the name Jimmy?" he asks Emma.

"It's a good name," she says.

"I think so. Lots of cops get brutalized by the job, you know, I'm happy that never happened to me. I wouldn't have been able to appreciate Cathy if that had happened to me. I mean, how many hookers have I met since I moved over to Vice? A thousand? It has to be at least a thousand. And yes, I've been tempted, yes, I'll admit that, I'm a human being, I've been tempted," sounding suddenly rabbinical, "some of these girls are very beautiful, you know. Well, take Cindy, for example, she's really a very beautiful girl, you have to wonder how some of these girls end up prostituting themselves. But, yes, I admit it, Emma, if you're in my line of work, you sometimes sample the sweets, I wouldn't be human if I hadn't been tempted, all those beautiful girls eager to oblige. But I never let the job brutalize me, I've always been Jimmy the Cop, same as when I was walking a beat. That's the thing. That's what made it possible for me to see Cathy as a human being and not some cheap whore peddling her ass."

"We went to bed together that very first night. She lives on Sixty-eighth, just off York, this little dump — well, you saw the apartment, Jesus. She was… I can't tell you what that first time with her was like. I'm divorced, you know — well, I told you all this, Emma, you know my whole life's history, I'm practically an open book. The point is, I've been with other women since the divorce, not only hookers, my life doesn't revolve entirely around hookers, you know, in spite of my occupation, I'm a cop, okay? I'm a Vice cop. My job is to suppress vice in this city. I know my job, and I do my job, believe me. What I'm trying to say, though, is I've known other women — straight women — and none of them compared to what it was like with Cathy. None of them. What Cathy and I knew together…

"Emma, do you remember what it was like when you were a teenager? The first time you fell in love? That's what we had together. It was pure. Innocent. That's the only way I can describe it. Pure. I loved her, Emma. I truly guess I loved her. In fact, I can't think of anyone I ever loved more. Well, my daughter maybe. But aside from her, nobody. Do you understand what I'm saying?

"Last night, when I called Lois… I shouldn't have lied to you about that, Emma, that was stupid. I apologize for that. That showed a lack of respect. Of course you'd find out, did I think I was dealing with a person who didn't know her job? Forgive me for that, Emma. But the reason I called her… with Cathy gone… with no one to… I thought… I tried to… you see. Without Cathy, I was afraid I…

"Did you ever have the feeling something terrible was about to happen? Last night, laying there in bed… I had the feeling that with Cathy gone, something terrible might happen, I didn't know what. This wasn't the first time I called a girl for phone sex. I mean, well… I'm exposed to sex day and night, you know what I mean? So, yes, I've called girls and had sex with them on the phone, yes. Even though that's against the rules. And I admit calling Lois last night. But she wanted it as much as I did, nobody forced her to do what she did. You never have to force any of these young girls on the phone, they know more about sex than we do. You know what I mean?"

Sure, Emma thinks. It was consensual.

"They get younger and younger, the girls cruising the bars. I go to bars all over the city. One of the rules is no hookers, I can get hookers anytime I want, I just stop by and say Who wants me to padlock this place, and there are a dozen girls on their knees in a minute. That's one of my rules, no hookers. Which I broke, of course, the minute I started seeing Cathy. But she didn't look like a hooker, did she? Tell the truth. No phone sex, either, that's another rule. But I broke that one last night because… I don't know why I called her, I honestly don't. I just had the feeling something bad might happen this weekend. With Cathy gone, something terrible might happen."

What rules? Emma wonders.

"I used to meet her after work," he says. "Young girl on the street that hour of the night, hey, it's just not safe. Well, you know this city. I'm afraid myself sometimes, that hour of the night, and I pack a nine. This city is fall of weirdoes, you know, Cindy was right to think it might've been some weirdo waiting downstairs. These girls get all kinds, believe me, they're wise beyond their years, these girls. You should've heard some of the stories Cathy told me, they'd curl your hair, the things men asked her to do. The things she had to do. She was hooking in Idaho, too, you know. Before she came to New York. You think What! Idaho? Hookers in Idaho? Well, there are more hookers in America than there are manicurists, believe me, I've been a Vice cop for a thousand years. That's my first rule. No hookers."