Criminal Conversation

by Ed McBain

  He took her hand in his, and led her swiftly to another wood-paneled staircase on the wall opposite the bookcases, climbing with her to the floor above where she glimpsed a kitchen and a dining room, and then to the floor above that, which was a bedroom at last, the one place in time she wanted to be with this man, the only place she’d wanted to be with him from the moment he’d kissed her on that morning beach in St. Bart’s.

  They both shed clothing as they moved toward the bed. He tossed his jacket wherever it landed, unbuttoned his shirt down the front and at the cuffs, took off that as well, and pulled her to him again, kissing her, her hands on his bare chest, his hands clutching her buttocks. Breathlessly, she broke away and sat in a chair facing a smaller fireplace than the one downstairs, took off the low boots and dropped them to the floor, stood again to pull the sweater over her head, draped it over the back of the chair, tossed the bra over that, unbuckled her belt and lowered her jeans, and stepped out of them and threw the jeans over the rest of her clothing, and turned to him wearing only white woolen socks and white cotton panties cut high on the leg.

  He was naked.

  Her eyes moved over his body, grazed his cock, boldly lingered there. She wanted to touch him, suck him, take him inside her. She felt suddenly girlish standing there in the woolen socks and cotton panties, suddenly virginal though she was nothing such, suddenly so wet that she thought she would come in the next instant whether he touched her again or not.

  She went to him still wearing the socks and panties.

  He stood with his legs slightly parted, his arms opening to accept her. She moved into his embrace, felt at once the enormity of him between her legs, nudging the moist panties covering her crotch. They stood this way, joined but yet unjoined, for several seconds, her arms on his shoulders, his arms on her waist, she looking up into his eyes, his eyes coveting her mouth. He lowered his face to hers again and found her lips, and parted them with his tongue, gliding his tongue into her mouth, his hands reaching around her to claim her buttocks again. She rode his cock gently, her panties very wet now, rocking herself back and forth on him, her eyes closed, her mouth joined to his. He lifted her at last and carried her to the bed.

  Lying beside him in his arms, she started to say, “I’ve never …”

  “Shhh,” he said, and kissed her again.

  She thought she would faint. When finally he took his mouth from hers, she was sure her eyes were rolled back into her head. Gasping for breath, she tried to find the voice to tell him she’d never done anything like this before, never been unfaithful to her husband, never so much as even thought of …

  He lowered his head to her breasts.

  She clutched him to her passionately, twisting on the pillow, tossing her head and her hips as he licked first one nipple and then the other, fondling her breasts, yes, she thought, oh God yes. He suddenly clenched both breasts in his hands, bringing them together caught in his hands, the nipples almost touching, took both nipples in his mouth simultaneously, and sucked on them, and licked them, she was delirious, she had never in her life felt anything like, flicking them with his tongue, his fingers tightening on her as he worked her nipples relentlessly. She was going to come, oh Jesus she thought, don’t make me come yet, just fuck me, damn it, put that cock in me, “Oh Jesus,” she said aloud, and wondered if she’d remembered to take the pill this morning, and wondered if he had any dread disease she wouldn’t care to catch, and breathlessly started to say, “Listen, you don’t …” but his hand was between her legs now.

  As deliberately as he’d worked her stiffened nipples, he now began to work the crotch of the saturated white panties, his hand moving mercilessly, stroking and caressing, oh God, she thought, you’re going to make me, Jesus I am going to come. “Listen,” she said, “you don’t … you’re not … you don’t have anything I can catch, do … ?” and he said, “No, nothing,” and she nodded in brisk relief and immediately rolled away from him, out of his arms and onto her back, raising her buttocks and hooking her thumbs into the waistband of her panties at the same time. She was yanking them down over her hips, when he said, “No, don’t.”

  He gave her no time to register puzzlement. He clutched her hands by the wrists instead, her thumbs still hooked in the panties, and glided his body down the long length of hers, kissing her breasts again in passing, trailing a wet line between her ribs, licking her navel, kissing the fingertips of each hand captured in his, brushing his lips over the flat of her belly above the panties, and finally pressing them to the bulge of her cotton-covered crotch.

  She felt the pressure of his mouth and chin on her pubic mound, knew he could feel how wet she was, how saturated the white panties were, how revealingly soaked she was, how drenched and dripping and desperate for him she was, and she thought For Christ’s sake fuck me already, unwilling to say the words out loud, saying them over and again in her head like a mantra, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, damn it! He’s going to lose me, she thought, he’s going to tease me right out of an orgasm, he’s going to bring me there and strand me there, and it’ll serve him right, the son of a bitch, kissing the insides of her upper thighs on either side of the panties now, licking the tender flesh there, moving the panties aside just the merest fraction of an inch to lick the soft secret skin close to her pubic patch, please, she thought, oh please, just please, bunching the panties in one hand so that they created a narrow thong covering only her slit, yanking up on the thong to capture the slit, working her clitoris with the cloth, slit and clit and cloth so thoroughly shamelessly sodden now, please for God’s sake just …

  And suddenly he grasped the panties in both hands, his fingers inside each leg hole, and tore them wide open over her crotch, exposing her completely. She whispered, “Do it,” as he lowered himself between her legs, “Yes, do it,” easing himself down to where she was waiting open for him, “Yes, fuck me,” entering her now, filling the wet aching void of her, “Oh Jesus,” she said again, and wrapped her legs around him, and lifted herself to him, and said “Fuck me, yes,” and realized she was still wearing the silly white socks. She felt herself cresting almost at once, dissolving moistly around him, felt his simultaneous explosion within her.

  Later, as they lay spent and sweating beside each other, he murmured, “I love you, Sarah,” and she thought, Yes, that’s me, and felt completely herself for the very first time in her life.

  The guilt overtook her some ten minutes later.

  He had kissed her gently on the nose and the cheeks and the forehead and then had eased himself out of her and out of bed, and was walking naked to the bathroom when suddenly she was shocked by the realization that this was a strange man with her, this was not Michael walking across the room with his ass white against a lingering suntan, this was a stranger who had just fucked her.

  She almost got out of bed that very moment. Almost threw back the covers and dashed naked across the room to where her boots were on the floor and her jeans and sweater and bra were on the back of the chair. Her coat and her handbag were, downstairs, but if she moved fast she could be dressed and out of here in a flash, disappearing from his life and reappearing in her own.

  What time was it, anyway?

  Was Michael already … ?

  In sudden panic, she looked at her watch.

  No, that couldn’t be right.

  Was it really only twenty to twelve?

  Had they been here in the apartment for only twenty minutes?

  Had what they’d done together taken only twenty minutes?

  It had seemed like an eternity.

  An ecstatic etern—

  No, listen, she thought, are you out of your mind?

  Get out of here. Get dressed and get the hell out of here before it’s too late. That man in the bathroom is not your husband. He’s a boy who momentarily turned your head, flattered you into thinking you were … you were … a … a passionate and desirable wom
an who … who …

  God, I loved it, she thought.

  Stop it, she thought. Don’t even think it anymore. Just get dressed and get out. Go home to your loving husband who’s been working all morning while you …

  “Sarah?”

  She did not turn to him at once.

  He called her name again.

  “Sarah?”

  She turned. He was standing in the bathroom doorway. He had draped a towel around his waist. He looked very concerned. His serious little-boy look.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “But I have to go.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  He did not move from the doorway. She felt suddenly embarrassed, not wanting to get out of bed naked, not wanting him to see her naked again. But she could not imagine clutching a sheet to her the way they did in the movies, she was not a dumb college girl, she was a thirty-four-year-old mother, God, what had she done? Without looking at him, she got out of bed, her back to him, still wearing the white socks and the torn panties, and went swiftly to the chair where the rest of her clothes were draped. She put on her bra first, covering her breasts, and then her sweater immediately afterward and was reaching for her jeans when he appeared suddenly behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in against him.

  He was hard again.

  She stood quite still, feeling all at once drained of all will, helpless to stop whatever was happening to her because the moment he touched her again, the moment his arms encircled her again, the moment he was there again with his cock hard against the torn cotton panties, she was instantly wet again.

  She turned in his arms.

  She looked up into his face.

  He nodded.

  She nodded, too.

  For each of them, this was the true beginning.

  Dominick Di Nobili’s body was found in the trunk of an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme on Tuesday morning, the nineteenth day of January, in one of the parking lots at La Guardia Airport. There were two bullet holes in the back of his head, which—given Di Nobili’s recent gambling and borrowing habits—almost certainly indicated a gangland-style slaying. The detectives assigned to protect him had allowed him out of their sight only because he’d begged for a lousy two minutes to go say hello to his girlfriend in Queens. He’d gone into her building and disappeared—until now.

  On the afternoon of that same day, Regan and Lowndes located the blue Acura with the FAV-TWO vanity plate parked in front of a lighting-supply store near Kenmare and Bowery. There were no parking spaces anywhere near the car, so they double-parked their Ford Escort on the same side of the street, some half dozen cars behind the Acura. At about three o’clock, two cops riding Adam One from the Fifth Precinct pulled up alongside the Ford and asked to see a driver’s license. Regan flashed his detective’s shield. The officers nodded and rolled on.

  At twenty minutes past four, a tall, hatless man with brown hair approached the Acura. He looked a lot like the picture Michael had Xeroxed from People magazine.

  “Bingo,” Regan said, and started the car.

  Andrew Faviola, if that’s who the man was, glanced at the windshield as if expecting a parking ticket—small wonder, given his history—and then unlocked the car on the driver’s side and climbed in. The moment the Acura pulled away from the curb, Regan moved the Ford in behind it.

  “Heading downtown,” Lowndes said.

  Which was a big surprise, Regan thought, since Bowery was a two-way thoroughfare and the Acura had been parked facing downtown.

  “Probably going to Brooklyn,” Lowndes said.

  Another big surprise in that if the driver of the Acura made an immediate left, he’d be heading directly over the Williamsburg Bridge, or if he drove further downtown to Canal, he could take the Manhattan Bridge over the river, or yet further south, he could go over the Brooklyn Bridge, any of which would take him to Brooklyn, fuckin’ mastermind partner Regan had.

  It was already starting to get dark at four thirty. This city in January, you could have sunshine all day or you could have a day like today which was gloomy all day long and which got dark before you could take a deep breath. Streetlights were on already, car headlights beginning to come on as Regan nosed the Ford through the harsh gathering dusk, sticking close behind the Acura, not wanting to lose Faviola if, in fact, he decided to make the Delancey Street turn onto the Williamsburg Bridge. Which is just what he did do.

  “Told you,” Lowndes said.

  Fuckin’ genius.

  The lights on all the bridges were on. You could look up and down the East River and see this winter wonderland of lights in both directions. Regan memorized the bridges on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in ascending alphabetical order. Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg. B, M, W. Like the car. Further uptown, his alphabetical system started all over again, but it still worked. Q and T for the Queensboro and Triborough bridges. It worked on the West Side of Manhattan, too. Everything in ascending alphabetical order from downtown to uptown. The Holland Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, and then the George Washington Bridge. H, L, and W. If you had a system, everything in the world was simple.

  They were on the Brooklyn-Queens elevated highway now, the lights of apartment buildings and factories flickering on sporadically as they moved into the fast-approaching darkness, the Acura speeding into the night ahead of them.

  “Probably heading for the LIE,” Lowndes said.

  Brilliant fuckin’ deduction, Regan thought sourly.

  The Long Island Expressway was jammed with traffic at this hour, the way it was every weekday all year round and on weekends, too, during the summer months. Get a snowstorm anytime during the winter, you could spend the better part of your life trying to get home on the LIE.

  “Lots of these wiseguys live on the island,” Lowndes said.

  Sighing heavily, Regan settled back for a long ride.

  He could not stop thinking of her.

  She had left him at two o’clock yesterday afternoon, making a phone call to her husband first, telling him she was in a phone booth at Saks, and would be heading home in a little while. He was not surprised by the speed and ease with which she’d learned to lie. He had earlier told her that he didn’t go around making passes at married women, but that had been a lie, too. He didn’t care if a woman was married or not, so long as she wasn’t married to anyone in any of the families. That could lead to serious trouble, hitting on the wife of anyone connected.

  Before she left, he asked her where he could reach her, and she told him he couldn’t call her, she was a married woman, he had to understand that. He said, Okay, sure, nodding, shrugging, giving her a hurt little look, and then he wrote down both his numbers for her, the one on Mott and the one out on the Island. She’d promised to call. But if she didn’t, he’d wait for her outside the school again, or her apartment building, he wasn’t about to let this one get away from him.

  They’d kissed each other deeply and hungrily just inside the door to the apartment, and then he’d walked her downstairs to the street door. Just before he unlocked the door to let her out, he’d said again, “I love you, Sarah.” She’d said nothing in response, just reached up to touch his cheek, her eyes searching his face, and then she kissed him quickly and ducked out onto the sidewalk.

  I love you.

  He said those words a lot, he guessed, to a lot of different women. He’d even said them to Oona Halligan last Friday, Oona, I love you, the three cheapest words in the English language, I love you. He didn’t suppose he loved Sarah Welles, but he sure loved fucking her.

  Smiling, he glanced in the rearview mirror to see if there were any highway cops behind him, and then picked up the speed a little, pushing it as far as he could in this heavy traffic. When at last he pulled into the driveway of the house in Great Neck, he didn’t even notice the black Ford Escort
that drove past the house as he hit the clicker and the garage door rolled up.

  He was thinking that next time he saw her, he would insist on a number he could call. He didn’t like her being in control this way.

  The twenty-four-hour surveillance of Andrew Faviola began the moment Regan and Lowndes reported to Michael at home that afternoon. Sarah was in the kitchen preparing dinner when the telephone rang. Regan told Michael that they’d located an address for the suspect, and Michael said he would immediately assign some detectives to work through the night, but that he wanted them back on the job first thing tomorrow morning. Regan asked Michael how he planned to run this thing, the usual eight-hour shifts, or what? Because it was now close to six o’clock and him and Lowndes had been on the job since eight this morning, which meant they’d been sitting on their asses in an automobile for ten straight hours. If somebody came out there to relieve them by seven, say, then why couldn’t a third team relieve tomorrow morning …

  “. . . instead of us again, “Regan said. “This would give me and Alex till four tomorrow afternoon to pick up on Faviola again. That’s what I’m suggesting.”

  Michael said he would prefer the second team relieving by seven, as Regan had suggested, but then have the third team come on at midnight, with Regan and Lowndes picking up the next morning at eight …

  “. . . because you’re the two best people I have, and I want you on him during the daytime. And that’ll put us on a regular eight-hour schedule. Eight to four, four to midnight, midnight to eight. With you and Alex working the day shift every day. Till we find out what the hell’s going on here.”

  “Well, we were working the day shift today, too,” Regan complained, “but now the night shift is half over, and we’re almost into the fuckin’ graveyard shift, and we’re still out here on Long Island. What I’m saying is I don’t want this to happen every day of the week, Michael, I don’t care if this guy is the boss of all bosses, you understand?”