"I don't think of you as short," Parker said.
"Oh, I'm short, all right."
"I think of you as delicate."
"Well, thank you. There's this man Hans, he's one of the Flying Dutchmen, an aerial act, you know?"
"Uh-huh."
"He wrote me this very hot love letter, I memorized it. What made me think of it was your use of the word delicate."
"Well, you are delicate."
"Thank you. Would you like to hear the letter?"
"Well… sure," Parker said, and glanced over his shoulder to see where Peaches was. She was nowhere in sight. "Go ahead," he said.
"He said he wanted to disrobe me."
"Take off your clothes, you mean."
"Yes. He said he wanted to discard my dainty delicate under things… that's what made me think of it, delicate."
"Yes, I see."
"And pat my pubescent peaks… this is him talking now, in the letter."
"Yes."
"And probe my pithy pussy, and manipulate my miniature mons veneris and Lilliputian labiae…"
"Uh-huh."
"And caress my compact clitoris and crisp pauciloquent pubic patch. That was the letter."
"From one of the Flying Dutchmen, huh?"
"Yes."
"He speaks good English."
"Oh, yes."
"That isn't the guy you're with tonight, is it? The guy you came in with?"
"No, no. That's Quentin."
"He's not one of the Flying Dutchmen, huh?"
"No, he's a clown."
"Oh."
"A very good one, too."
"So how long have you been in town? I didn't even know the circus was here, I'll tell you the truth."
"Well, we're not here. We won't be here till the spring sometime. We go down to Florida next month to start rehearsing the new season."
"Oh, so you're just visiting then, is that it?"
"Yeah, sort of."
"You're not married or anything, are you?"
"No, no. No, no, no, no, no."
Shaking her head like a little doll.
"How long will you be in town?"
"Oh, I don't know. Why?"
"I thought we might get together," Parker said, and shrugged.
"How about the big redhead you're with?"
"Peaches? She's just a friend."
"Uh-huh."
"Really. I hardly know her. Alice, I've got to tell you, I've never met a woman as delicate and as attractive as you are, I mean it. I'd really like to get together with you."
"Well, why don't you give me a call?"
"I'd like that," he said, and took his pad from his pocket.
"That's some notebook," she said. "It's bigger than I am."
"Well, you know," he said, and wondered again if he should tell her he was a cop. Lots of women, you told them you were a cop, it turned them off. They figured all cops were on the take, all cops were crooks. Just because every now and then you accepted a little gift from somebody. "So where can I reach you?' he said.
"We're staying at Quentin's apartment. The four of us."
"Who's the four of us? Not the Flying Dutchmen, I hope."
"No, no, they went back to Germany, they'll be joining us in Florida."
"So who's the four of you?"
"Willie and Corky… they're married… and Oliver and me And of course Quentin, whose apartment it is. Quentin Forbes."
"What's the address?" Parker asked.
"Four-oh-three Thompson Street."
"Downtown in the Quarter," he said, nodding. "The Twelfth."
"Huh?"
He wondered if he should explain to her that in this city you didn't call the Twelfth the "One-Two." Any precinct from the First to the Twentieth was called by its full and proper designation. After that, it became the Two-One, the Three-Four, the Eight-Seven, and so on. But that would have meant telling her he was a cop, and he didn't want to chance losing her.
"What's the phone number there?" he asked.
"Three-four-eight…"
"Excuse me."
Voice as cold as the second day of February, hands on her hips, green eyes blazing.
"I'd like to go home now," Peaches said. "Did you plan on accompanying me? Or are you going to play house all night?"
"Uh… sure," Parker said, and got to his feet. "Nice meeting you," he said to Alice.
"It's in the book," Alice said, and smiled up sweetly at Peaches.
Peaches tried to think of a scathing midget remark, but nothing came to mind.
She turned and started for the door.
"I'll call you," Parker whispered, and ran out after her.
The house was a white clapboard building with a white picket fence around it. A matching white clapboard garage stood some twenty feet from the main structure. Both buildings were on a street with only three other houses on it, not too far from the turnpike. It was two minutes past midnight when they reached the house. The first day of November. The beginning of the Celtic winter. As if in accordance, the weather had turned very cold. As they pulled into the driveway, Brown remarked that all they needed was snow, the turnpike would be backed up all the way to Siberia.
There were no lights burning on the ground floor of the house. Two lighted windows showed on the second story. The men were inappropriately dressed for the sudden cold. Their breaths plumed from their mouths as they walked to the front door. Hawes rang the doorbell.
"Probably getting ready for bed," he said.
"You wish," Brown said.
They waited.
"Give it another shot," Brown said.
Hawes hit the bell button again.
Lights snapped on downstairs.
"Who is it?"
Marie's voice, just inside the door. A trifle alarmed. Well, sure, midnight already.
"It's Detective Hawes," he said.
"Oh."
"Sorry to bother you so late."
"No, that's all… just a minute, please."
She fumbled with the lock, and then opened the door. She had been getting ready for bed. She was wearing a long blue robe. Laced ruff of a nightgown showing in the V-necked opening. No slippers.
"Have you found him?" she asked at once.
Referring to Jimmy Brayne, of course.
"No, ma'am, not yet," Brown said. "Okay for us to come in?"
"Yes, please," she said, "excuse me," and stepped back to let them in.
Small entryway, a sense of near-shabbiness. Worn carpeting, scarred and rickety piece of furniture under a flaking mirror.
"I thought… when you told me who you were… I thought you'd found Jimmy," she said.
"Not yet, Mrs. Sebastiani," Hawes said. "In fact, the reason we came out here…"
"Come in," she said, "we don't have to stand here in the hall."
She backed off several paces, reached beyond the door jamb for a light switch. A floor lamp came on in the living room. Musty drapes, a faded rug, a thrift-shop sofa and two upholstered armchairs, an old upright piano on the far wall. Same sense of down-at-the-heels existence.
"Would you like some coffee or anything?" she asked.
"I could use a cup," Brown said.
"I'll put some up," she said, and walked back through the hall and through a doorway into the kitchen.
The detectives looked around the living room.
Framed photographs on the piano, Sebastian the Great doing his act hither and yon. Soiled antimacassars on the upholstered pieces. Brown ran his finger over the surface of an end table. Dust. Hawes poked his forefinger into the soil of a potted plant. Dry. The continuing sense of a house too run down to care about—or a house in neglect because it would soon be abandoned.
She was back.
"Take a few minutes to boil," she said.
"Who plays piano?" Hawes asked.
"Frank did. A little."
She'd grown used to the past tense.
Mrs. Sebastiani," Brown said, "we were wondering if we could take a look at Brayne's room."