When Brenda Loring got out of a brown and white Boston cab, I was brushing off an old man in an army shirt and a flowered tie who wanted me to give him a quarter.
“Did you autograph his bra, sweetie?” she said.
“They were here,” I said, “but I warned them about your jealous passion and they fled at your approach.”
“Fled? That is quite fancy talk for a professional thug.”
“That’s another thing. Around here I’m supposed to be writing a book. My true identity must remain concealed. Reveal it to no one.”
“A writer?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to be doing a book on the Red Sox and baseball.”
“Was that your agent you were talking with when I drove up?”
“No, a reader.”
She shook her head. Her blond hair was cut short and shaped around her head. Her eyes were green. Her makeup was expert. She was wearing a short green dress with a small floral print and long sleeves. She was darkly tanned, and a small gold locket gleamed on a thin chain against her chest where the neckline of the dress formed a V. Across Jersey Street a guy selling souvenirs was staring at her. I was staring at her too. I always did. She was ten pounds on the right side of plump. “Voluptuous,” I said.
“I beg your pardon.”
“That’s how we writers would describe you. Voluptuous with a saucy hint of deviltry lurking in the sparkling of the eyes and the impertinent cast of the mouth.”
“Spenser, I want a hot dog and some beer and peanuts and a ball game. Could you please, please, please, pretty please, please with sugar on it knock off the writer bullshit and escort me through the gate?”
I shook my head. “Writers aren’t understood much,” I said, and we went in.
I was showing off for Brenda and took her up to the broadcast booth to watch the game. My presence didn’t seem to be a spur to the Red Sox. They lost to Kansas City 5-2, with Freddie Patek driving in three runs on a bases-loaded fly ball that Alex Montoya played into a triple. Maynard ignored us, Wilson studied Brenda closely between innings, and Lester boned up on the National Enquirer through the whole afternoon. Thoughtful.
It was four ten when we got out onto Jersey Street again. Brenda said, “Who was the cute thing in the cowboy suit?”
“Never mind about him,” I said. “I suppose you’re not going to settle for the two hot dogs I bought you.”
“For dinner? I’ll wait right here for the cowboy.”
“Where would you like to go? It’s early, but we could stop for a drink.”
We decided on a drink at the outdoor café by City Hall. I had draft beer, and Brenda a stinger on the rocks, under the colorful umbrellas across from the open brick piazza. The area was new, reclaimed from the miasma of Scollay Square where Winnie Garrett the Flaming Redhead used to take it all off on the first show Monday before the city censor decreed the G-string. Pinball parlors, and tattoo shops, the Old Howard and the Casino, winos, whores, sailors, barrooms, and novelty shops: an adolescent vision of Sodom and Gomorrah, all gone now, giving way to fountains and arcades and a sweep of open plaza.
“You know, it never really was Sodom and Gomorrah anyway,” I said.
“What wasn’t?”
“Scollay Square. It was pre-Vietnam sin. Burlesque dancers and barrooms where bleached blondes danced in G-strings and net stockings. Places that sold plastic dog turds and whoopee cushions.”
“I never came here,” she said. “My mother had me convinced that to step into Scollay Square was to be molested instantly.”
“Naw. There were ten college kids here for every dirty old man. Compared to the Combat Zone, Scollay Square was the Goosie Gander Nursery School.”
I ordered two more drinks. The tables were glass-topped and the café was carpeted in Astroturf. The waitress was attentive. Brenda Loring’s nails were done in a bright red. Dark was still a long way off.
Brenda went to the ladies’ room, and I called my answering service. There was a message to call Healy. He’d be in his office till six. I looked at my watch: 5:40. I called.
“This is Spenser, what have you got?”
“Prints belong to Donna Burlington” He spelled it. “Busted in Redford, Illinois, three-eighteen-sixty-six, for possession of a prohibited substance. That’s when the prints got logged into the bureau files. No other arrests recorded.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.”
“You owe me,” Healy said and hung up. Mr. Warmth.
I was back at the table before Brenda.
At seven fifteen we strolled up Tremont Street to a French restaurant in the old City Hall and had rack of lamb for two and a chilled bottle of Traminer and strawberry tarts for dessert. It was nearly nine thirty when we finished and walked back up School Street to Tremont. It was dark now but still warm, a soft night, midsummer, and the Common seemed very gentle as we strolled across it. Brenda Loring held my hand as we walked. No one attempted to mug us all the way to Marlborough Street.
In my apartment I said to Brenda, “Want some brandy or would you like to get right to the necking?”
“Actually, cookie, I would like first to take a shower.”
“A shower?”
“Uh-huh. You pour us two big snifters of brandy and hop into bed, and I’ll come along in a few minutes.”
“A shower?”
“Go on,” she said. “I won’t take long.”
I went to the kitchen and got a bottle of Rémy Martin out of the kitchen cabinet. Did David Niven keep cognac in the kitchen? Not likely. I got two brandy snifters out and filled them half full and headed back toward the bedroom. I could hear the shower running. I put the two glasses down on the bureau and got undressed. The shower was still running. I went to the bathroom door. My bare feet made no noise at all on the wall-to-wall carpeting. I turned the handle and it opened. The room was steamy. Brenda’s clothes were in a small pile on the floor under the sink. I noticed her lingerie matched her dress. Class. The steam was billowing up over the drawn shower curtain. I looked in. Brenda had her eyes closed, her head arched back, the water running down over her shiny brown body. Her buttocks were in white contrast to the rest of her. She was humming an old Billy Eckstine song. I got in behind her and put my arms around her.
“Jesus Christ, Spenser,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” I said. “Want me to wash your back?”
She handed me the soap and I lathered her back. When I was finished, she turned to rinse it off, and her breasts, as she faced me, were the same startling white that her buttocks had been.
“Want me to wash your front?” I said.
She laughed and put her arms around me. Her body was slick and wet. I kissed her. There is excitement in a new kiss, but there is a quality of memory and intimacy in kissing someone you’ve kissed often before. I liked the quality. Maybe continuity is better than change. With the shower still running we went towelless to bed.