And yet, for all that Pete thrilled to the brittle glamour of the office girls in Manhattan or the studied nonchalance of the black-clad beatniks in the East Village, he’d always felt, when he thought about it at all, that he’d end up marrying someone like him. Someone from a small town with the polish of a decent college, but someone with values and ambitions he could understand. Someone rosy and fresh who maybe wore her skirts a little shorter than they wore them back home, but who could otherwise have gone to high school with him. That was the kind of girl he understood.
And here was Ruth Malone, who wasn’t like that at all. Who wasn’t like any woman he’d ever met before.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. It wasn’t just about the case: she was stuck in his head like a toothache, and that scared and excited him.
His mind drifted over her slow smile, the sound of her laugh.
He said her name out loud and it tasted like chocolate on his lips. Chocolate with something sharp and hot beneath, like a dessert with a good slug of brandy.
He imagined his own name on her lips. He saw her neat white teeth flash as she formed the long-ee sound, and then heard the noise of her tongue tuck in against the roof of her mouth. Like the smallest, softest kiss.
Friedmann called Pete into his office again. The piece about Ruth and Paul Beckman was lying on his desk. Friedmann poked it with a stubby finger.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Uh. It’s . . .”
“I know what it is, it’s a goddamn Cholly Knickerbocker item. Since when do we publish a gossip column, Wonicke?”
“I don’t . . .”
“Damn right you don’t. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Mr. Friedmann, she’s still news. Mrs. Malone. She’s . . .”
“Sure she is. And if the cops had arrested her or this . . . Paul Beckman for murder, or if you had a confession on tape, I’d be the first to shake your hand. But this . . . This ain’t news. This is like Eugenia Sheppard and the goddamned National Enquirer rolled into one!”
He looked disgusted.
“You even got any proof she’s screwing this guy?”
“I saw them together.”
“Doing what?”
“I saw them having dinner, I saw her going back to his apartment.”
“That’s what I pay you for now, to watch Mrs. Malone eating dinner?”
“I did it on my own time.”
“You sat outside Beckman’s apartment while they were screwing, on your own time. You think that makes it sound any better?”
“I just . . .”
Friedmann held up his hand. “Shut up, Wonicke.”
He took off his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose. Replaced them and looked hard at Pete.
“You won’t leave this damn case alone. Well, I’m telling you now, you drop it until I say otherwise. Is that understood?”
“I . . .”
“Is that understood?”
“Yes sir.”
“You are skating on some very thin ice right now, kid. Don’t push it. You come in, you do as you’re told, and you don’t fuck up. And that’s it. No getting your rocks off on Mrs. Malone’s sex life. No playing detective. And no more of this bullshit.”
He screwed the article into a ball, and aimed the wad of paper at the trash can.
“Now get the hell out of my office.”
But Pete couldn’t stay away. He tried to focus on other stories, on other articles, and on deadlines, but every afternoon he found himself on the freeway, heading out to Long Island City to make sure he was at Beckman’s office by five. He watched them leaving together and followed them to whichever restaurant they were having dinner in. Sat in dark parking lots gazing at their figures in bright windows and surrendered to the sensation of her, of how she made him feel. She’d come into his life and shaken it up and made him question everything he’d once taken for granted about himself.
A week later, Ruth moved some of her things into Beckman’s apartment. Pete watched him carry her suitcase inside as the cops on the afternoon shift made a note, and that night, in McGuire’s, he watched Devlin’s reaction.
“If she was my wife, I’d kill her. I’d kill her myself.”
For days, Devlin kept talking about finding Beckman’s limit. What would make him crack and drop her from his life. It was becoming an obsession.
Then one night he came into the bar grinning broadly. He’d figured out Beckman’s weak point.
“The guy hired her, he slept with her, but I bet he won’t let her threaten his marriage, break up his family. So I made some calls, got hold of his home address in Delaware. And I sent his wife a letter. Express delivery. I’d bet money that Mrs. Beckman will be arriving in New York tonight. Let’s see how those two deal with this.”
He was in a celebratory mood. Tipped his soda glass toward Pete. “Got something for you, kid”—and he nodded to Quinn, who passed him a thick manila envelope.
Pete slid his finger under the flap and looked inside. A sheaf of paper, a smaller envelope, and a tape.
Devlin leaned forward. “You got a few photos of the inside of the Malone apartment there. Plus the autopsy report on the girl. And something to go with it.” He winked. “Something that will explain the significance of what the doctor found.”
The next day, Pete watched Beckman and Ruth in the restaurant. Watched him avoid her eyes.
Helen had arrived late the night before, he told her. Had gone crazy, cut up Ruth’s clothes, thrown her makeup in the garbage.