Ed McBain - McBain's Ladies - The Women of the 87th Precinct

He had not seen Teddy Franklin since Mike took the slugs.

Generally, in the course of running down something, he would drop in to see her, spending a few minutes with her before rushing off again. And, of course, he spent all his free time with her because he was in love with the girl.

He had met her less than six months ago, when she’d been working addressing envelopes for a small firm on the fringe of the precinct territory. The firm reported a burglary, and Carella had been assigned to it. He had been taken instantly with her buoyant beauty, asked her out, and that had been the beginning. He had also, in the course of investigation, cracked the burglary — but that didn’t seem important now. The important thing now was Teddy. Even the firm had gone the way of most small firms, fading into the abyss of a corporate dissolution, leaving her without a job but with enough saved money to maintain herself for a while. He honestly hoped it would only be for a while, a short while at that. This was the girl he wanted to marry. This was the girl he wanted for his own.

Thinking, of her, thinking of the progression of slow traffic lights which kept him from racing to her side, he cursed ballistics reports and coroner’s reports, and people who shot cops in the back of the head, and he cursed the devilish instrument known as the telephone and the fact that the instrument was worthless with a girl like Teddy. He glanced at his watch. It was close to midnight, and she didn’t know he was coming, but he’d take the chance, anyway. He wanted to see her.

When he reached her apartment building in Riverhead, he parked the car and locked it. The street was very quiet. The building was old and sedate, covered with lush ivy. A few windows blinked wide-eyed at the stifling heat of the night, but most of the tenants were asleep or trying to sleep. He glanced up at her window, pleased when he saw the light was still burning. Quickly, he mounted the steps, stopping outside her door.

He did not knock.

Knocking was no good with Teddy.

He took the knob in his hand and twisted it back and forth, back and forth. In a few moments, he hears her footsteps, and then the door opened a crack, and then the door opened wide.

She was wearing prisoner pajamas, white-and-black-striped cotton top and pants she’d picked up as a gag. Her hair was raven black, and the light in the foyer put a high sheen onto it. He closed the door behind him, and she went instantly into his arms, and then she moved back from him, and he marveled at the expressiveness of her eyes and her mouth. There was joy in her eyes, pure soaring joy. Her lips parted, edging back over small white teeth, and then she lifted her face to his, and he look her kiss, and he felt the warmth of her body beneath the cotton pajamas.

“Hello,” he said, and she kissed the words on his mouth, and then broke away, holding only his hand, pulling him into the warmly lighted living room.

She held her right index finger alongside her face, calling for his attention.

“Yes?” he said, and then she shook her head, changing her mind, wanting him to sit first. She fluffed a pillow for him, and he sat in the easy chair, and she perched herself on the arm of the chair and cocked her head to one side, repeating the extended index finger gesture.

“Go ahead,” he said, “I’m listening.”

She watched his lips carefully, and then she smiled. Her index finger dropped. There was a white tag sewed onto the prisoner pajama top close to the mound of her left breast. She ran the extended finger across the tag. He looked at it closely.

“I’m not examining your feminine attributes,” he said, smiling, and she shook her head, understanding. She had inked numbers onto the lag, carrying out the prison garb motif. He studied the numbers closely.

“My shield numbers,” he said, and the smile flowered on her mouth. “You deserve a kiss for that,” he told her.

She shook her head.

“No kiss?”

She shook her head again.

“Why not?”

She opened and closed the fingers on her right hand.

“You want to talk?” he asked.

She nodded.

“What about?”

She left the arm of the chair suddenly. He watched her walking across the room, his eyes inadvertently following the swing of her small, rounded backside. She went to an end table and picked up a newspaper. She carried it back to him and then pointed to the picture of Mike Reardon on page one, his brains spilling out onto the sidewalk.

“Yeah,” he said dully.

There was sadness on her face now, an exaggerated sadness because Teddy could not give tongue to words, Teddy could neither hear words, and so her face was her speaking tool, and she spoke in exaggerated syllables, even to Carella, who understood the slightest nuance of expression in her eyes or on her mouth. But the exaggeration did not lie, for there was genuineness to the grief she felt. She had never met Mike Reardon, but Carella had talked of him often, and she felt that she knew him well.

She raised her eyebrows and spread her hands simultaneously, asking Carella “Who?” and Carella, understanding instantly, said, “We don’t know yet. That’s why I haven’t been around. We’ve been working on it.” He saw puzzlement in her eyes. “Am I going too fast for you?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“What then? What’s the matter?”

She threw herself into his arms and she was weeping suddenly and fiercely, and he said, “Hey, hey, come on, now,” and then realized she could not read his lips because her head was buried in his shoulder. He lilted her chin.

“You’re getting my shirt wet,” he said.

She nodded, trying to hold back the tears.

“What’s the matter?”

She lifted her hand slowly, and she touched his cheek gently, so that it felt like the passing of a mild breeze, and then her fingers touched his lips and lingered there, caressing them.

“You’re worried about me?”

She nodded.

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

She tossed her hair at the first page of the newspaper again.

“That was probably some crackpot,” Carella said.

She lifted her face, and her eyes met his fully, wide and brown, still moist from the tears.

“I’ll be careful,” he said. “Do you love me?”

She nodded, and then ducked her head.

“What’s the matter?”

She shrugged and smiled, an embarrassed, shy smile.

“You missed me?”

She nodded again.

“I missed you, too.”

She lifted her head again, and there was something else in her eyes this lime, a challenge to him to read her eyes correctly this time, because she had truly missed him but he had not uncovered the subtlety of her meaning as yet. He studied her eyes, and then he knew what she was saying, and he said only, “Oh.”

She knew that he knew then, and she cocked one eyebrow saucily, and slowly gave one exaggerated nod of her head, repeating his “Oh,” soundlessly rounding her lips.

“You’re just a fleshpot,” he said jokingly.

She nodded.

“You only love me because I have a clean, strong, young body.”

She nodded.

“Will you marry me?”

She nodded.

“I’ve only asked you about a dozen times so far.”

She shrugged and nodded, enjoying herself immensely.

“When?”

She pointed at him.

“All right, I’ll set the date. I’m getting my vacation in August. I’ll marry you then, okay?”

She sat perfectly still, staring at him.

“I mean it.”

She seemed ready to cry again. He took her in his arms and said, “I mean it, Teddy. Teddy, darling, I mean it. Don’t be silly about this, Teddy, because I honestly, truly mean it. I love you, and I want to marry you, and I’ve wanted to marry you for a long, long time now, and if I have to keep asking you, I’ll go nuts. I love you just the way you are, I wouldn’t change any of you, darling, so don’t get silly, please don’t get silly again. It… it doesn’t matter to me, Teddy. Little Teddy, little Theodora, it doesn’t matter to me, can you understand that? You’re more than any other woman, so much more, so please many me.”