Ed McBain - Three Blind Mice

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.