3

IT WAS LATE in the afternoon when Ginny heard that Mike Braddock was downstairs asking for her. She’d been asleep. She put on the white corset that she knew he liked, pushing up her breasts while checking herself in the mirror. Her best black stockings were snapped to the white garters and she threw a Chinese silk robe over her shoulders as she left her room, tying it loosely as she went down. It showed her legs almost up to the thigh. She didn’t bother with panties.

As she went down the front stairs she imagined all sorts of things to say, but when she saw him and how he looked she abandoned them all.

“I read what happened,” she said, putting her arm through his. “I want to know everything.”

Mike just smiled and nodded. He’d told the story all night long and into the afternoon, to his captain, to reporters, to other detectives, and to the captain of the harbor patrol, who had wanted to hear it over and over again. This was the one place he knew he wouldn’t be judged. It was Ginny’s true talent, though she didn’t seem to realize it. Hers was the ear of a priest without the moralizing, the worldliness of a bartender without the advice. She drew her robe closed as Mike followed her to her room.

“Do you want anything,” she asked, “a drink or something?”

“No, thanks,” Mike said as she closed her door behind them. “I can’t stay too long,” he added, not taking off his jacket as he usually did. He felt her arms come around him from behind, felt her breasts on his back and breath in his ear. She hugged him and kissed his neck.

“You stay as long as you like. I’m just glad you’re here.”

Mike turned around in her arms and buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent. His hands didn’t go to her ass as they always did. They encircled her, lingering at the small of her back. “Do you think I’m a hero?” he asked, pulling back so he could look into her eyes.

“The papers say so.”

“The papers don’t know shit,” he said, breaking their embrace. He took off his jacket then and hung it on the back of the door. Ginny noticed for the first time that it was stained a deep red-brown on the sleeves and back. He unbuckled the shoulder holster and hung it too, the heavy Colt banging against the door. Mike shuffled to the bed and bounced on the edge, his legs seeming to give out. He started to take off his shoes, but couldn’t seem to untie the laces, so Ginny took them off for him.

“It was a damn bloodbath. One patrolman dead, two more wounded. One’s got a broken back. They don’t know if he’ll walk again.”

“Did you break his back?” Ginny asked.

“No, of course not. A body came over the side. They were throwing it overboard. Landed right on us.”

Ginny nodded. “The one who was killed, the other cop, what happened?” Mike told her about the shoot-out at the fo’c’sle, that he should have gone first down the dark gangway.

“But then you’d be dead,” Ginny said without inflection.

“I should be dead,” Mike answered. “I would be except for him. He wanted to go first. Said he knew those ships better than me.”

“Did he?”

“Sure, I suppose. He was harbor police…”

“But heroes go first?”

“Yeah, damn it! They do,” Mike almost shouted, standing in his socks, his hands in fists at his side. “And I’m no damn hero. Half the time I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Fuckin’ papers can say what they want, but they don’t know.”

Ginny walked over and sat down, patting the mattress for him to sit beside her.

“Who shot the man on the stairs?” she asked.

“Me, I guess. Didn’t know what I was shooting at really. Too fast an’ too dark.”

“You shot them. And the others?”

“The Oysterman, I’m sure,” Mike said, easing back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling as if the scenes were playing out up there. “Right in the eye. Smilin’ Jack too, but him I’m not so sure. Maybe.”

“They shot at you, right?”

“They missed, yeah. Don’t know how, but they missed.”

“You didn’t miss,” Ginny said, putting his feet in her lap. She massaged his toes and arches, kneading with practiced fingers.

“That’s nice,” Mike said. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. “Nice.” She didn’t say anything more, just watched his face as his eyes fluttered. He was asleep in minutes. Ginny set his feet on the bed and lay down beside him. She pulled close, ignoring the dirt and blood on his clothes and the stink of sweat from the night before. She lay on her side so she could watch his face while he slept.

*   *   *

Mike woke with a start, waking Ginny, too. “Damn. How long’ve I been asleep?”

Ginny looked at the clock. “Four hours, more or less. You needed it. I could see right away.”

Mike grunted. “That’s the first I’ve slept in near two days.” He sat up and rubbed his face, knuckling the sleep from his eyes. “All the questions, reports … everything. And the shoot-out playing over an’ over in my head like one of those picture shows.” He turned and kissed her cheek. “Thanks. How’d you do that, with the feet I mean? Like somebody switched off a light.”

Ginny smiled, half in remembrance. “My mom used to do that for my father sometimes.”

Mike nodded. He ran a hand up her thigh, parting her robe and pulling her close. “You never stop surprising me, Gin,” he said as his hand cupped her ass. He grinned. “No panties. That’s just what I mean.” He lifted her robe. “And the white corset too. Mmm. You’re too good to me.” He bent to nuzzle her breasts where they spilled over the tight satin. Ginny sighed and threw a thigh over his, pulling him closer. She guided his hand just where she wanted it. Mike didn’t object.

“I thought you couldn’t stay long,” Ginny teased in a breathless whisper a few minutes later.

“Mom’s for dinner,” Mike growled around her left nipple. “When I tell her why I’m late she’ll understand.”

Ginny landed a playful slap on his head. “You wouldn’t!”

Mike grinned but said, “Nah, I guess not, but Dad sure would like to know.”

She slapped at his head, harder this time. “You better not.” She laughed, slapping at him with both hands now. “What would he think of his good little boy?”

Mike covered his head with a pillow and in a muffled voice said, “He’ll think I’m a chip off the old block. My mom was a whore, too. Hell, they met when he arrested her,” he said, laughing. The slapping stopped. Mike poked his head out. “I surrender,” he said with an unsuspecting grin.

Ginny wasn’t smiling. She looked at the clock as she pulled her robe closed. She seemed about to say something, but stopped herself with a visible effort. She slipped her feet into slippers that lay at the side of the bed. “You should get going then,” she said after a deep breath. “You really shouldn’t be late for your mother’s dinner.” She’d almost said, “Your whore’s dinner,” came so close to saying it she could taste the bitter words on her tongue.

Mike frowned but then agreed, “She is gonna be mad, I guess. She married a cop though, so she should be used to it.”

Mike put his shoes on in silence as Ginny watched, her arms crossed over her closed robe.

“You all right, Gin?” he said as he got up. “Listen, I’m sorry I have to go, but you know how it is. I’ll make it up to you.”

Ginny just nodded. There was much she couldn’t say. This was the life she’d chosen after all, the shackles that confined her. She had no right to blame Mike for naming her chains.

“Sure you will, Mike. I know,” she found herself saying, “I had a mother once, too.” She stopped, surprised at what had slipped through her teeth.

“Oh, Gin,” Mike said in a guilty whisper. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I can be so damn stupid sometimes.” He stepped toward her. Ginny took a half step back before letting him hold her, her arms at her sides. “I’m sorry, Ginny. I know how you must miss her,” he said with sudden feeling. Puzzled that she didn’t hold him too, he tried holding her tighter, wishing he could make her pain go away. He knew about loss. He’d lost his whole family by the age of twelve, though not as she had. Hers was a voluntary loss, a casting aside, an abandonment by those she loved. That kind of loss might be even harder to stand, he figured. He’d been fortunate to be adopted by Tom and Mary those many years ago. Ginny, however, had no one. He felt her heart beating against his but this time it was more than just a muscle in a cage of bone. There were emotions now, coursing through them both in electric pathways long unused. Mike suddenly realized that he possessed the power to alter another’s heart. There was deep responsibility in that; the weight of another heart. It was a weight he’d long been unwilling to bear.

Ginny let herself be held. She could tell that he cared, that his concern was genuine. Even if it was misdirected, it was true emotion. She consoled herself with that and rested her hand on his shoulder. Maybe it was better this way, she thought. Why let the truth come between them when a fiction was so much more palatable. He cared. In his own way he cared and that was enough for now. It had to be.

“We’ll go to Tony Pastor’s,” Mike said. “That’ll brighten you up. I told you I’d make it up to you. Tomorrow. We can catch an early show. Okay?”

Ginny nodded and forced a smile.

“It’s a date then,” Mike said. He hoped this would help, but looking at Ginny he doubted it. “We’ll have fun.”

“Sure,” Ginny said with wary enthusiasm. “Sounds wonderful.” She had never gone out with a customer before, though she hadn’t thought of Mike precisely as a customer for some time. Mike gave her a kiss and pressed a twenty-dollar gold piece into her hand, at least double her usual rate.

“Tomorrow then,” he said. Ginny stood silently as Mike closed the door behind him. The gold in her hand was heavy. It weighed her down. Her shoulders bent and at last the heavy coin dropped to the floor, where it bounced and spun as if it might never stop.