Ed McBain - Eight Black Horses

‘And your name?’ he said.

‘Naomi Schneider.’ She paused and then said, ‘That’s what the other half is ... Jewish.’ She waited for a reaction. Not a flicker on his face. Good. Actually she enjoyed being a Big City Jewish Girl. There was something special about the Jewish girls who lived in this city—a sharpness of attitude, a quickness of tongue, an intelligence, an awareness that came across as sophisticated and witty and hip. If anybody didn’t like her being Jewish—well, half Jewish—then so long, it was nice knowing you. He seemed to like it, though. At least he kept staring into her blouse. And checking out the sexy legs in the smoky blue nylons.

‘So, Steve,’ she said, ‘where do you work?’

‘Uptown,’ he said, ‘At the Eight-Seven. Right across the street from Grover Park.’

‘Rotten neighborhood up there, isn’t it?’

‘Not the best,’ he said, and smiled.

‘You must have your hands full.’

‘Occasionally,’ he said.

‘What do you get up there? A lot of murders and such?’

‘Murders, armed robberies, burglaries, rapes, arsons, muggings ... you name it, we’ve got it.’

‘Must be exciting, though,’ Naomi said. She had learned in one of her women’s magazines to show an intense interest in a man’s work. This got difficult when you were talking to a dentist, for example. But police work really was interesting, so right now she didn’t have to fake any deep emotional involvement with a left lateral molar, for example.

‘Are you working on anything interesting just now?’ she asked.

‘We caught a homicide on the twenty-fifth,’ he said. ‘Dead woman in the park, about your age.’

‘Oh my,’ Naomi said.

‘Shot in the back of the head. Totally naked, not a stitch on her.’

‘Oh my,’ Naomi said again.

‘Not much to go on yet,’ he said, ‘but we’re working on it.’

‘I guess you see a lot of that.’

‘We do.’

She lifted her glass, sipped at her C.C. and soda, looking at him over the rim, and then put the glass down on the bartop again, empty. The bar at five-thirty in the afternoon was just beginning to get crowded. She’d come over directly from work, the long weekend ahead, hoping she might meet someone interesting. This one was certainly interesting; she’d never met a detective before. Good-looking, too. A naked dead girl in the park, how about that?

‘Would you care for another one?’ he asked.

‘Oh, thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s C.C. and soda.’ She waited for a reaction. Usually you said C.C. and soda to a wimp, he asked, ‘What’s that, C.C.?’ This one didn’t even bat an eyelash. Either he knew what C.C. was, or he was smart enough to pretend he knew. She liked smart men. She liked handsome men, too. Some men, you woke up the next morning, it wasn’t even worth the shower.

He signaled to the bartender, indicated another round, and then turned to her again, smiling. He had a nice smile. The jukebox was playing the new McCartney single. The rain beat against the plate glass windows of the bar. It felt cozy and warm and comfortably crowded in here, the hum of conversation, the tinkle of ice cubes in glasses, the music from the juke, the brittle laughter of Big City women like herself.

‘What sort of work do you do, Naomi?’ he asked.

‘I work for CBS,’ she said.

It usually impressed people when she said she worked for CBS. Actually what she did, she was a receptionist there, but still it was impressive., a network. Again nothing registered on his face. He was a very cool one, this one, well-dressed, handsome, a feeling of... absolute certainty about him. Well, he’d probably seen it all and done it all, this one. She found that exciting.

Well, maybe she was looking for a little excitement.

This morning, when she was dressing for work, she’d put on the lingerie she’d ordered from Victoria’s Secret. Blue, like the blouse. A demicup underwire bra designed for low necklines, a lace-front string bikini with a cotton panel at the crotch, a garter belt with V-shaped lace panels. Sat at the desk in the lobby with the sexy underwear under her skirt and blouse, thinking she’d hit one of the bars after work, find some excitement. ‘CBS, good morning.’ And under her clothes, secret lace.

‘Actually I’m just a receptionist there,’ she said, and wondered why she’d admitted this. ‘But I do get to meet a lot of performers and such. Who come up to do shows, you know.’

‘Uh-huh,’ he said.

‘It’s a fairly boring job,’ she said, and again wondered why she was telling him this.

‘Uh-huh,’ he said.

‘I plan to get into publishing eventually.’

‘I plan to get into you eventually,’ he said.

Normally she would have said, ‘Hey, get lost, creep, huh?’ But he was looking at her so intently, not a smile on his face, and he appeared so ... confident that for a moment she didn’t know what to say. She had the sudden feeling that if she told him to disappear, he might arrest her or something. For what, she couldn’t imagine. She also had the feeling that he knew exactly what she was wearing under her skirt and blouse. It was uncanny. As if he had X-ray vision, like Superman. She was nodding before she even realized it. She kept nodding. She hoped her face was saying, ‘Oh, yeah, wise guy?’ She didn’t know what her face was saying. She just kept nodding.

‘You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Walk into a bar, sit down next to a pretty girl...’

‘You are,’ he said.

‘Think all you have to do...’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Man of few words,’ she said. Her heart was pounding.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Mmm,’ she said, still nodding.

The record on the juke changed. Something by the Stones. There was a hush for a moment, one of those sudden silences, all conversation seeming to stop everywhere around them, as though E. F. Hutton were talking. And then a woman laughed someplace down the bar, and Mick Jagger’s voice cut through the renewed din, and Naomi idly twirled her finger in her drink, turning the ice cubes, turning them. She wondered if he liked sexy underwear. Most men liked sexy underwear. She visualized him tearing off her blouse and bra, getting on his knees before her to kiss her where the cotton panel covered her crotch, his big hands twisted in the garters against her thighs. She could feel the garters against her thighs.

‘So ... uh ... where do you live, Steve?’ she asked. ‘Near the precinct?’

‘It doesn’t matter where I live,’ he said. ‘We’re going to your place.’

‘Oh, are we?’ she said, and arched one eyebrow. She was jiggling her foot, she realized. She sipped at the drink, this time looking into the glass and not over the rim of it.

‘Naomi,’ he said, ‘we are...’

‘Bet you can’t even spell it,’ she said. ‘Naomi.’

Her magazines had said it was a good idea to get a man to spell your name out loud. That way, he would remember it. But it was as if he hadn’t even heard her, as if her statement had been too ridiculous to dignify with a reply.

‘We are’ he repeated, giving the word emphasis because she’d interrupted him, ‘going to your apartment, wherever it is, and we are going to spend the weekend there.’

‘That’s what ... what you think,’ she said.

She was suddenly aware of the fact that her panties were damp.

‘How do you know I’m not married?’ she said.

‘Are you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘How do you know I’m not living with someone?’

‘Are you?’

‘No, but...’