“It won’t fit,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Wrong apartment. That one’s unfit for military service.”
“What?”
“Four-F. The draft classification. We’re looking for 5-R, remember?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. Her face reddened. “I was thinking I was at my place. On Bank Street.”
“You’re in the fourth floor front?”
“Well, fourth floor at the top of the stairs. There are four apartments to a floor; it’s not as narrow a building as this one.” We walked to the final flight of stairs and began climbing them. “I’m glad no one opened the door while we were there. It would have been embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry about it now.”
In front of Rod’s apartment she fished her keys out again, paused for a moment, then turned and deliberately dropped them back into her bag.
“I seem to have misplaced my keys,” she said.
“Come on, Ruth.”
“Let’s see you open it without them. You can do it, can’t you?”
“Sure, but what’s the point?”
“I guess I’d like to see you do it.”
“It’s silly,” I said. “Suppose someone happens to come along and sees me standing there playing locksmith. It’s an unnecessary risk. And these locks are tricky. Well, the Medeco is, anyhow. It can be a bitch to open.”
“You managed before, didn’t you?”
“Sure, but-”
“I already fed the cats.” I turned and stared at her. “Esther and Mordecai. I already fed them.”
“Oh,” I said.
“This afternoon, on my way back here. I filled their water dish and left them plenty of dried food.”
“I see.”
“I think it would excite me to watch you open the locks. I told you I felt confused about the whole thing. Well, I do. I think watching you unlock the locks, uh, I think it would get me, uh, hot.”
“Oh.”
I took my ring of picks out of my pocket.
“I suppose this is all very perverted of me,” she said. She put an arm around my waist, leaned her hot little body against mine. “Kinky and all.”
“Probably,” I said.
“Does it bother you?”
“I think I can learn to live with it,” I said. And went to work on those locks.
Quite a while later she said, “Well, it looks as though I was right. I’m a kinkier bitch than I realized.” She yawned richly and snuggled up close. I ran a hand lazily over her body, memorizing the contours of hip and thigh, the secret planes and valleys. My heart was beating normally again, more or less. I lay with my eyes closed and listened to the muffled hum of traffic in the streets below.
She said, “Bernie? You have wonderful hands.”
“I should have been a surgeon.”
“Oh, do that some more, it’s divine. No wonder all the locks open for you. I don’t think you really need all those curious implements after all. Just stroke the locks a little and they get all soft and mushy inside and open right up.”
“You’re a wee bit flaky, aren’t you?”
“Just a wee bit. But you have got the most marvelous hands. I wish I had hands like yours.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your hands, baby.”
“Really?”
And her hands began to move.
“Hey,” I said.
“Something the matter?”
“Just what do you think you’re doing, lady?”
“Just what do you think I’m doing?”
“Playing with fire.”
“Oh?”
The first time had been intense and urgent, even a bit desperate. Now we were slow and lazy and gentle with each other. There was no music on the radio, just the sound of the city below us, but in my head I heard smoky jazz full of blue notes and muted brass. At the end I said “Ruth Ruth Ruth” and closed my eyes and died and went to Heaven.
I awoke first in the morning. For a moment something was wrong. The ghost of a dream was flickering somewhere behind my closed eyelids and I wanted to catch hold of it and ask it its name. But it was gone, out of reach. I lay still for a moment, taking deep breaths. Then I turned on my side and she was there beside me and for this I was grateful. At first I did nothing but look at her and listen to the even rhythm of her breathing. Then I thought of other things to do, and then I did them.
Eventually we got out of bed, took our turns in the bathroom, and put on the clothes we’d thrown off hastily the night before. She made the coffee and burned the toast and we sat down in silence and had breakfast.
There was something wrong with this particular silence. Ray Kirschmann’s young partner Loren would have slapped his battered nightstick against his palm and said something inarticulate about vibrations, and maybe that would have been as good an explanation as any. Perhaps I read something in the tilt of her head, the set of her chin. I didn’t know exactly what it was but something was not at all right.
I said, “What’s the matter, Ruth?”
“Ruth,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Dear Ruth. That’s a play.”
“Baby Ruth,” I said. “That’s a candy bar.”
“Ruth Ruth Ruth. You said that last night. And this morning, too. At the very end.”
“You said ‘Sweet fucking shit I’m coming,’ but I hadn’t planned on throwing it in your face for breakfast. If you don’t like your name why don’t you change it?”
“I like my name fine.”
“Then what’s the trouble?”
“Shit. Look, Bernie, if you keep calling me Ruth I’m going to start calling you Roger.”
“Huh?”
“As in Armitage.”
“Oh,” I said. Then my eyes widened a bit and my jaw slackened and I said Oh again, but with a little more conviction, and she gave a slow nod.
“Your name isn’t Ruth Hightower.”
“Too true.” She averted her eyes. “Well, you were calling yourself Roger and I knew that wasn’t your name and I thought we ought to start on an equal footing. And then we got it straightened out who you were and it just seemed easier for me to go on being Ruth. There was never a convenient time to tell you.”
“Until now.”
“If you’re going to murmur a name into my ear at intimate moments I’d just as soon you got the name right.”
“I guess I can understand that. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, what’s your name? Take plenty of time, kid. Make sure you come up with one that’ll sound nice in a husky whisper.”
“That’s not nice.”
“Not nice! Here I am feeling like an utter zip, cooing some alias into your pink shell-like ear, and you tell me I’m not nice?” I turned her face so that I could see her eyes. There were tears welling up in their corners. “Hey,” I said. “Hey, come on now.”
She blinked furiously but the tears did not go away. She blinked some more, then erased the tears with the back of her hand. “I’m all right,” she said.
“Of course you are.”
“My name’s Ellie.”
“For Eleanor?”
“For Elaine, but Ellie’ll do just fine.”
“Ellie what? Not Hightower, I don’t suppose.”
“Ellie Christopher.”
“Pretty name.”
“Thank you.”
“I think it suits you. But then I thought Ruth Hightower suited you pretty well, so who am I to say? What do I know? Is Christopher your married name?”
“No. I took my maiden name back after the divorce.”
“What was your husband’s name?”
“What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you angry with me, Bernie?”
“Why should I be angry?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I went on not answering it and finished my coffee, then got to my feet. “We’ve both got things to do,” I said. “I want to go to my apartment.”
“I don’t know if that’s safe.”