She leaned in and rubbed her cheek against mine. “Mm-hmm,” she said. It was part sigh and part laugh. I felt the warm wind of it ricochet into my ear. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
Right then, I wanted her more than anything else in the world. And not just blind passion, not just wham-bam and to hell with the consequences. I wanted all of her, for all time. I wanted to drag her away to my cave forever and hide from the dragon together until we got too old and slow and it finally got us.
I settled for another kiss.
This one was every bit as good as the first two. I could feel myself sliding farther and farther away from where I thought I was, where I was supposed to be. For a few minutes I didn’t feel bad or guilty. I didn’t think about Hector McAuley and his sad, slick father.
And for a few minutes there, that was almost as good as the kiss. Almost.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The inside of Nancy Hoffman’s apartment was spare and restrained. It had a kind of old-fashioned feeling to it, even though the furniture was modern. Everything was clean and the surfaces gleamed.
In the living room there was a small and stiff couch, an easy chair, a coffee table, a floor lamp, and an end table. A small hooked throw rug was on the floor by the couch. Off in the corner stood a large stereo cabinet with a glass door. A stack of about thirty records leaned against it, and a larger box of cassettes and CDs sat on top.
There was a doorway at the far end of the room where Nancy had disappeared a few minutes earlier. I guessed it led to the bedroom and bathroom. Either that or she slept on the small couch. A neat row of windows took up about half of one wall. I stepped over and looked out.
The apartment was on the fourth floor of one of those old stone buildings they threw up in the thirties for people who thought they were stars. Out the row of windows I had a grand view of an oak tree that couldn’t quite hide a liquor store. Beyond that was a tremendous glare of bright colored lights.
Nancy had the great good taste to keep heavy curtains across the windows, and I let them drop back in place and turned to look at the room.
I’m a toucher. I admit it. I try not to be a pain in the ass about it, but if I’m left alone in a room, I’ll touch things. I knelt by the stereo and touched the records. She had some good old Motown albums, three by Funkadelic, some Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Josef Zawinul, and a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto featuring David Oistrakh.
Above and behind was a small alcove with a standing bookshelf. There were a couple of standard-issue best-sellers, three travel books on the Caribbean, and a stack of coffee-table books on ballet, tropical sunsets, and so on.
On the top shelf stood a row of photographs in silver frames. There was one of Nancy in a cap and gown. A large, bearded man was handing her a diploma. There was another of Nancy wearing a white nurse’s uniform, smiling against a studio background.
In the center was a picture of a group of people clearly celebrating something or other. At the center of the group were a thin, balding man and a very nice-looking black woman, both middle-aged.
I picked the picture up for some clue. Off on the left edge of the shot I could see a beaming Nancy, her hands held together in midclap. A very handsome black man stood next to her. There was a table on the other side of the picture. I could see a cake, a punch bowl, and some plates on the table. But no clue about the purpose of the celebration, or who the people were—
“My parents,” Nancy said. She had snuck up behind me. I almost dropped the picture.
Nancy took it from me as I turned, smiling fondly down at it. “Their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.”
I didn’t get it. “Your parents?” I said stupidly.
Nancy was still smiling, but it might have been a little forced at this point. “That’s right,” she said.
I leaned over and looked at the picture again. I still didn’t get it. “Which ones?”
Her finger moved right to the center of the picture, to the thin man and the black woman. “Right here,” she said. “Mom and Dad.” And then she gained a little steam, pointing to the handsome black man. “And that is my brother, the reporter.”
“Oh,” I said. Her tawny olive skin, the rich, tight curls of her coppery hair, the luscious lips: oh. “They seem very nice.”
She slammed the picture down, back on the shelf. “You mean, she seems very dark?”
“Nancy—”
“You mean, nice for a white man who married a black woman?”
“Come on, I was surprised, that’s all.”
“Because I don’t act black? You jes ain’t seen me dance is all.”
She had turned nasty so fast I wasn’t ready for that, either. It did not matter to me whether Nancy was half-black. It really didn’t.
She glared at me, waiting for some feeble defense. I opened my mouth to make it, but nothing came out. It was just—