Westermann lay naked in Morphy’s bed, Jane Morphy next to him, drinking from a glass of water.
“You don’t have him off somewhere dangerous tonight, do you?”
The question made Westermann uncomfortable and he found himself looking around the room for his discarded clothes. “Of course not. Just a nighttime walk-through in Godtown. Safest place in the City, if you look at the stats.”
“Which you do.”
“Which I do.”
“The reason I asked is that it probably wouldn’t look too good if something happened to him while you’re carrying on with his wife; you sending him out so you can make time for yourself.”
She was needling him and he tried to let it roll off his back, but couldn’t manage it entirely. He didn’t feel like talking, but she kept at it.
“If you don’t mind my asking, why are you doing a walk-through of our safest neighborhood?”
“Long story, but they’re not being helpful with an investigation.”
“An investigation? I thought you said it was safe.”
“Might be peripheral, we don’t know yet.”
“So, what, they don’t want you poking around in their church?”
“Something like that,” Westermann said, feeling uncomfortable making pillow talk with Morphy’s wife while he, Morphy, was out on the beat.
“You know, it might have to do with them not wanting you in their affairs, more than having a problem with the investigation, as such.”
“I’m not sure I see a distinction.”
“Well, you might not have been brought up religious, but I was. Some people, they like to make a real fine separation between their church and the rest of the world. They don’t like the rest of the world leaking into their church community, no matter if they don’t have anything to hide. They think it’s like an infection.”
Westermann nodded, rolling out of bed, going for his clothes. “Well, that’s fine, but I still have to conduct this investigation and I need some cooperation from them.”
“I’m just … I just thought maybe you wouldn’t know.”
“Okay,” he said, pulling on his pants, needing to get out of there; trying not to imagine Morphy’s footsteps on the stoop outside.
Jane sat up in bed, exposing her breasts to Westermann, and lit a cigarette.
“Are you in love with me, Piet?”
Westermann grunted something noncommittal.
Jane ignored his nonanswer, talking dreamily. “Men, I don’t know what it is, but they all fall in love with me. Larry, of course, and you. You do love me, right, Piet?”
Westermann didn’t speak. Jane, as she so often managed, had the edge on him.
“Larry says that Tor Grip only visits whores with red hair. He says, ‘What do you think of that?’ And I say, ‘What do you think? He wants me, he finds whores that remind him of me.’ ”
Westermann, feeling cruel, said, “But he’s not man enough for the real thing?”
Jane laughed. “Man enough? Oh, he’s man enough. You’re man enough. But neither one of you is the man that Larry is. He’s out of your league. No, Tor is smart and he’s not going to kick the hornets’ nest just to prove that he can. He knows his way in this world. You don’t, so you kick the nest to find out what might happen.”