American Quartet Read Free Page B

industry.
    “She thinks that women get into police work so they can get laid a lot,” Teddy had confessed. “Even though she likes you.”
    Can’t be helped, she had decided. It hadn’t been her motivation. Police males hardly made a dent in her libido. For that reason she tried to neuter herself, not an easy task in a sea of men who played with guns and their precious Johnsons. The uniforms, the camaraderie, the occasional brutality were all a man’s game. That, she knew, made homicide all the more challenging.
    Whatever the motive, it was an unlikely setting for a killing. The National Gallery of Art! Nobody ever murdered anybody in an art gallery. And why in that specific spot under Childe Hassam’s painting? She made a mental note to check out Hassam. And the crime lab reports would tell them a great deal. When she grew drowsy, she fitted herself against Bruce’s body, two embryos, and let her mind idle. Soon she was asleep.
    His hands wakened her, their movements sensual and probing, lifting her out of the mud of unconsciousness. At first her sense of place was confused, but soon a warm wave of pleasure overtook her, and she yielded to its power.
    “I love this woman,” he whispered as his lips smoothly glided over her body. No one should be allowed such joy, she told herself, with a nod at the old Catholic guilt. It had long lost the power to inhibit her. She threw herself into the sexual duet with fierce joy, hearing the echo of her cries of pleasure in the cool room.
    “A regular screamer,” he laughed, biting her earlobe. She felt her heart pounding against the hand on her breast. “And very much alive.”
    “Maybe it’s compensation for all that death around me,” she said, and instantly regretted saying it. “Sorry. I’m getting too analytical.”
    A buzzing began, and Bruce reached over and pressed the clock button, which threw a time reading on the ceiling. It was after nine.
    “I forgot to shut it off,” he murmured. He embraced her again. “A whole weekend,” he sighed.
    “Not all of it, I’m afraid.” She realized that she had blurted it out too soon. It struck right at the heart of their major point of contention . . . time together.
    “You’re getting to be an Indian giver,” he said, releasing her.
    “You can’t schedule a killing,” she said. “I had scene.”
    “After the weekend, I’m going to be hounded until November. I’ve got a race on my hands. A Hispanic lady with a Harvard law degree, who talks street talk. Her name is Rodriguez. Her brother is married to a Rosenbaum. And she has a voice like Lauren Bacall.”
    “And her looks?”
    “Disgustingly attractive.”
    “You’re just running scared.”
    “Scared?” He got up and opened the blinds, squinting into the sun. “I’m petrified. I need this win. Otherwise, I don’t have a shot at the Senate seat.”
    “Doesn’t a dozen years count?” she asked.
    “They count for change. The district’s gone to seed.”
    She could see the fine glaze of his long slender body, the hairs swathed in the glow of bright light. His manhood was still engorged. She patted it.
    “You’ll make it. Eight the hard way.”
    “In craps, it’s not an easy roll to make, Fi. I just got the poll yesterday. Only twenty percent even know who I am. I’ve been their congressman for seven terms and only twenty percent know who I am. Can you believe it? That’s not merely a disaster. It’s a catastrophe.”
    “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” she mumbled foolishly.
    “You’re trivializing it.”
    He went into the bathroom and she heard the steady gush of the shower. She started to brood, then picked up the phone and called a man at headquarters.
    “Odd as hell,” Jim Hadley said in his Baltimore twang. He was one of the examiners in the Firearms Examination section. “A forty-four. From the lands and grooves it could be either an English Bulldog or a Wembley. It’s the ammo that bugs me. Ancient. Like