“Jesus!”
“Actually, it’s Helene,” she said, and took his hand. “Deal?”
“If you’re serious,” he said. “The elevator is over there.”
“With a little bit of luck, there will be no one on it but you and me,” Helene said. “Do you have some gin, or should I bring this with me?”
“I have gin,” he said.
She put her glass down, put her hand under his arm, and steered him to the elevator.
When it stopped at the lobby floor, the tiny elevator already held four people, but they squeezed on anyway. Matt was aware of the pressure of her breasts on his back, and was quite sure that it was intentional.
On the third floor, he unlocked the door to his stairwell and motioned for her to precede him. At the top, when he had turned on the lights, she turned to him and smiled.
“Dickens would have said ‘tiny garret.’”
“And he would have been right.”
“Make me a drink—martini?”
“Sure.”
“But first, show me the gun.”
He squatted, took the revolver from its holster, opened the cylinder, and ejected the cartridges.
“Those are the bullets, the same kind?”
“Cartridges,” he corrected automatically.
“Let me see one.”
He dropped one in her hand. She inhaled audibly as she touched it, and then rolled it around in the upturned palm of her hand.
“Show me how it goes in,” she said.
He took the cartridge back and dropped it in the cylinder.
“It takes five,” he said.
He unloaded it again, dropped the cartridge in his pocket, and handed her the revolver.
As he poured gin over ice in his tiny kitchen, he could see her looking at the gun from all angles. Finally, she sniffed it, and then sat down, disappearing from sight behind the bookcase that separated the “living area” from the “dining area,” at least on the architect’s plans.
When he went into the living area, she was sitting on the edge of his couch. The pistol was on the coffee table. She was running her fingers over it. To do so, she had to lean forward, which served to give him a good look down her dress.
“I found that very interesting,” she said, reaching up for her drink. “‘Exciting’ would be a better word.”
“We try to please,” he said. He picked up the pistol and carried it to the mantel over the fireplace. He was now more than a little uncomfortable. He didn’t like her reaction to the pistol, and suspected that she was somehow excited by the knowledge that he had killed someone with it.
There’s a word for that, and it’s spelled P E R V E R S E.
When he turned around, she was on her feet, walking toward him.
“How old are you, Poor Patricia Payne’s Boy Matthew?”
“Twenty-two.”