It seemed to Janek that they melted into each other when he arrived that evening at the loft. Caroline took him in her arms, they moved to her bed without a sound and there made love magically, he thought, as if they were made for each other and had known each other for months.
As a lover she employed no tricks, no actressy little touches she had learned from someone else. She was merely herself without pretense or illusion, more than enough, he thought, far more than he had hoped. Her lean young body was taut with craving. Her breasts pressed firmly against his chest. Her back was beautiful and proud. Her mouth was hungry. She played her fingers upon his shoulder blades, then thrust them deep into his hair.
He kissed her throat and then her eyes, ran his hands along her perspiring flanks and marveled at the sleekness of her legs. She used her toes to stroke his calves. He was awed by her shudders of desire.
He felt she was a sorceress, that in her embraces he was bewitched. They glided, joined, pulled back, then joined again, their bodies beating out a sweet slow rhythm, a long, slow, intoxicating dance. No frantic whisperings. No "What do you like?" and "Does this turn you on?" No need to ask, because they knew. There was a faultless surety to their every move, a deep, instinctive knowledge that told them how to satisfy.
Afterward, lying back, they looked at one another and broke into smiles.
She served him a simple dinner—salad, steak, Italian cheesecake—and as they ate they regarded each other with delight. Talking casually, he became aware he knew practically nothing about her. Family background, education, the men she had known and loved—such things were normally necessary knowledge if he was to fathom another human being. But now they seemed meaningless in the face of the things he had discovered: her vision of the world imparted through her photographs, and the smell and taste of her body, carnal knowledge he now possessed. It was such a relief not to have to care about the other things, to rely upon his feelings, to leave his detective's processes behind. He wondered why he hadn't learned to do this before, separate his life from his work. Until now repairing old accordions and playing them had been his only escape. How wonderful to have found this passionate woman who made him forget the awful sully of his job.
"Have you talked to Mrs. DiMona?"
He looked up at her, a little startled to hear her speak. "Lou? Not yet. I was thinking about going over there Sunday," he said.
"What are you going to tell her?"
"Don't know. Haven't decided yet. I'm not going to tell her how Al met you and how he used to drop around. He told her he was working on an old case. That's what she wants to think."
"You could go along with that."
"I could. Though I hate to lie."
"You could maybe smooth it out a little. Sort of turn it another way."
He understood what Caroline meant: Tell Lou that Al had been looking into something, but it hadn't meant anything, he'd just been puttering around.
"Trouble is I don't know what he told her. When she talked to me she seemed convinced. An idea like that, that he was onto something, had found something dreadful, unbearable—it gives her an explanation and she wants to hold on to that. It's unacceptable to her that she lived with him all those years and then on Sunday he shot himself and didn't even leave a note. It means she didn't mean anything to him, that he didn't care enough to explain. That's pretty hard to take, but if there was this old case, you see..."
"Sure. She could pin it on that."
"And be absolved."
"Absolution—God!"
"Yes, absolution. Cops are into absolution. And redemption too. And crime and punishment."
"For themselves, right? The punishment. Not for the criminals."
"You understand," he said. "Yes. For themselves."
She shook her head, almost furiously it seemed to him, as if she were trying to clear that thought away. He mustn't forget, he reminded himself, that she was the daughter of a cop. She knew all the strange torments that rotted out cops' minds.
"What about you?" he asked. "What did you do today?"
"Thought about you," she said, "and about what you said to me on my machine."
He had forgotten about that. So much had happened in the afternoon. "Was it okay? Didn't embarrass you?"
"No." She looked at him. "I loved it." She grinned.
As he helped her with the dishes she told him about her afternoon. She'd gone to Yankee Stadium, sat in the bleachers, then prowled the aisles taking photographs.
"You weren't shooting the players."
"I've already shot a lot of them. Today I was after the fans. The wild ones, you know, all curled with tension, ready to pounce out of their seats when they think they've seen a bad call and a favorite player getting robbed."
"Aggression."
She nodded. "Coming home I had a new idea for a book. The title would be Janek's World. I figured it all out. I'd follow you around for months, maybe a year, shooting the world you deal with and your reactions to it—the sordid side of the city through your eyes."
"That," he said, scrubbing her sauté pan, "would not be a very pretty book."
He was tempted then to tell her about Switched Heads, how the girls had been used, the awful merciless maniacal mind that had used them, but he hesitated because he didn't want to taint their relationship with the sordid passions of that tale. Anyway, he knew he couldn't tell it coherently. He hadn't sorted it out well enough himself. Perhaps when he knew more it would be all right to tell her; she would want to hear it because she would care about the things which anguished him, and he would want to tell it because speaking the words would help him to understand it better himself. Not now. He would wait and, hopefully, would have the full story for her soon. Hopefully because if he had the full story he would be done with it, which would mean, of course, that he was onto something else, another case as ugly or even uglier.
They listened to some Coltrane and necked on the bed, then they made love again, and afterward, their bodies slick, they lay back upon the pillows to rest. And then—he didn't know why—he felt swept by a wave of gloom.
"Hey, Caroline." He didn't dare look into her face. "Why me? This old detective with the pouches under his eyes? Wouldn't you do better with a younger guy, your age or thereabouts? One of those glossy types with thick black hair and a tan, dark glasses, driving a Porsche, in a thousand-dollar leather windbreaker with a gold watch flashing at his cuff. You know what I mean. Jesus—why am I asking that?"
"Janek, Janek..." She placed her hand on his chest, just above his heart, and he could feel it thumping inside, beating against her palm. She ran her fingers through his gray chest hair matted by the mixture of their sweat. "Janek...Janek..." She spoke his name as if she loved its sound.
He looked down at her. Her head was resting against him, her cheek against his stomach, and she was looking up at him, her hand still above his heart, her eyes large and serious.
"Why? Why me? Of all the guys—why me?" He had tried to pose the question first with humor, but now he could hear a strain of self-pity that made him feel ashamed.
"You're such a cop, you big lunk. So smart about everybody else, so smart and sharp and wise. But you don't know anything about yourself, do you? Or women either. You can figure them at a distance, but you lose sight when they get too close."
"Maybe."
"Sure. And now you're feeling sorry for yourself. You just can't believe it, right? This gorgeous doll—I mean what the hell could she ever see in you? You—Jesus! Mr. Middle-age himself. Mr. The-World-Has-Passed-Me-By. She's a broad, right? And everyone knows what broads are interested in. Beefy jocks in sports cars. Muscles, money, clothes and fun. Let's not forget fun, Janek. I mean that's what it's really all about. And, of course, you're just no fun at all. I mean you're so clumsy in the sack. Can't hack it. Make love like an aging ape."
He was laughing then, and she started laughing, too. During her tirade she'd reached up once and lightly pinched his cheek. Now she straightened out, lowered herself, went down on him, stroking him with her fingers and teasing him with her mouth. And when he was hard she jumped up laughing, grasped up her Leica, switched on some lights, pointed them toward the bed and started taking photographs of him as he lay watching, hands clasped behind his head, his body naked and sprawled out.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Getting the evidence."
"Going to blackmail me?"
"Sure. With proof that the old, beaten-up cop can still get it up, gets it up real good, in fact. Because that would ruin you, wouldn't it? I mean, your image of yourself, so sad and world-weary and, just to make the caricature complete, impotent besides."
She took another shot, then set down her camera and sat beside him and took his hand. Then she flung herself against him, grasped him, held him tightly, and at that moment he felt as though no one had ever loved him as much.