Ed McBain - Kiss

Twenty-nine in Chicago. It was like the Caribbean up there, but he was freezing to death down here. The doorman told him a warm front was headed this way. He'd believe it when he saw it.

Meanwhile, the wind was howling outside. Nice and warm here in the lobby though. He hated having to go outside again. Maybe she'd be heading someplace warm.

"Good morning," she said.

Stepping out of the elevator, walking toward where he was sitting. A raccoon coat hung open over a yellow leotard, black tights, and black aerobic shoes. He said, "Good morning," his eyes studiously on her face and nowhere else. She pulled the coat closed, fastened it, took a woolen hat from one of the pockets, and yanked it down over her ears.

Together, they stepped out into the cold.

She walked at a brisk pace, saying nothing, vapor pluming from her mouth. They were heading in what he now knew was a southerly direction, toward the wide avenue that skewered this part of the city east and west. Its proper name was Stemmler Avenue, clearly visible on the corner signposts, but the natives here called it - The Stem, something he had discovered only yesterday, live and learn. He recognized the manicure shop he'd passed on the way to the apartment yesterday, recognized other little landmarks along the way, the laundromat, the deli, the Christ the Redeemer Billiards Parlor, the herbal shampoo store, the statue of the Civil War hero General Julian Pace sitting astride a rearing bronze horse on the center island. He was getting to know this city.

The aerobics studio was upstairs in a building that housed a Chinese restaurant on the ground floor. Emma led him up a long, narrow flight of stairs that terminated at a glass-paneled door lettered with the name of the place, Body Language, and decorated with its logo, a woman in silhouette leaping into the air with arms and legs impossibly spread-eagled. The door opened onto a room with a wooden bench on the wall to the right, a row of pegs on the wall to the left, a counter directly opposite the entrance door, with a doorless doorframe just beside it. A blonde wearing a pink aerobics outfit looked up as they came in.

"Hi, Mrs. Bowles," she said.

"Hello, Ginger," Emma said, and went directly to the row of wall pegs and hung the raccoon coat alongside a long down parka.

She glanced at the clock hanging over the bench- it was now twenty minutes to nine-and then turned to Andrew. "It's over at ten, ten-fifteen,”

she said. "If you want to go for a cup of coffee or anything ...”

"Too cold out there," he said. "I'll wait here, if that's okay.”

"Sure," she said, and shrugged as if to say there was no accounting for the odd ways of bodyguards hired by a person's husband. "This is Mr.

Darrow," she said to Ginger. "He'll be with me for the next little while.”

"Nice to meet you," Ginger said, and didn't question why he'd be with her for the next little while.

Andrew wondered how many men accompanied women to their aerobics classes. Emma disappeared through the doorless doorframe. He could hear her greeting other women inside there. He took off his coat, hung it on the rack alongside hers, and then went to sit on the bench. A small end table was cluttered with magazines like Vogue, Mademoiselle, Vanity Fair, and Cosmopolitan.

"I can get you some coffee, if you like," Ginger said.

"That'd be very nice, thank you," he said.

"How do you take it?”

"Light with one sugar, please.”

"Do you mind instant?”

"Not at all.”

"Back in a jiffy," she said, and smiled at him, and then walked out of sight somewhere behind the counter.

He was wearing a black cashmere jacket over worsted trousers in a small houndstooth check.

Gray broadcloth shirt with white collar and cuffs. Simple silver cuff links. Matching silver tie tack fastening a wine-colored silk tie. Black loafers shined early this morning at the shoemaker's two blocks from the apartment he was renting. He knew he looked casually but elegantly dressed, but he also knew he'd have attracted little Ginger here even if he'd been wearing mud-covered jeans and a ketchup-stained T-shirt. He had that effect on women.

Well, most women.

"Here you go," she said. "I hope it's light enough.”

Still smiling. Tightly packed into the pink leotard and tights. A beautiful body.

"Thank you," he said, and accepted the cup.

She did not immediately go back to the counter.

"What'd Mrs. Bowles say your name was?”

she asked.

"Andrew," he said.

"I'm Ginger," she said, and extended her hand.

"Yes, I know.”

He took her hand. The palm was fleshy, slightly damp. He wondered where else she might be damp.

"Nice to meet you," he said.

"Hi, Ginger!”

Through the doorway with the leaping-lady silhouette came a woman herself in silhouette and fairly leaping with energy. She bounded into the room, looked up at the wall clock, gave Andrew a cursory but appreciative glance, and then hung her coat on one of the wall pegs. She was tall and very slender, a woman in her late forties who'd obviously taken very good care of herself.

Good, firm breasts in the molded leotard, long, shapely legs in the black tights. She - glanced at Andrew again. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. She gave a slight, barely perceptible acknowledging nod and then went through the doorframe into the other room, where a tape now began playing.

He listened to the jolting music.

His eyes closed, he visualized them leaping around in there.

When at last they began flowing out through the doorframe again, he imagined each and every one of them in bed, knowing this was the way they would look after sex, out of breath, clothes sweaty and clinging, faces flushed, hair disarrayed, bodies pushed to the limit of exhaustion. They knew-or at least he thought they knew-that he was stripping them naked with his eyes. Emma seemed to sense this as well; she put on her coat with seemingly unnecessary haste.

"I hope you weren't bored," she said dryly.

"Plenty of magazines," he said, and they went down into the cold again.

They walked back to the Butler Street condo, and this time she asked him to come up. They rode the elevator in silence. They walked down the twelfth-floor corridor in silence. She unlocked both locks, the Medeco and the one below it.

"I'll only be a little while," she said, "make yourself comfortable." An airy hand gesture toward the living room. "There are magazines.”

Little note of sarcasm there? For having appreciated all those pretty aerobics ladies? He watched her as she went through a door into what he supposed was the master bedroom.

The door whispered shut behind her. There was a click. She had locked it.

He went into the living room, sat on a stainless-steel tubular sofa with vanilla leather cushions and back, and picked up a magazine from the similarly tubed glass-topped coffee table.

Forbes. Undoubtedly her husband's choice.

The magazine under it was Fortune. And beneath that, Business Week. He wondered where all the women's magazines were. In the bedroom?

He looked at his watch.

Twenty to eleven.

He began reading Fortune.

Lots of rich people in this country.

He wondered how many of them paid income tax.

He was deeply absorbed in a story about corporate takeover when she came out of the bedroom. She was wearing a gray cable-stitched turtleneck sweater and snug tailored slacks. Black boots. A red beret tilted low on her forehead.

"Ready to go?" she asked, and took her mink coat from the hall closet.

It was ten minutes to eleven.

The doorman hailed a taxi for them. She told the driver she was going midtown, and gave him an address. To Andrew she explained, though it seemed to pain her to have to do so, that she was going to Gucci's to leave a handbag for repair.