Falling in Love
locked the whole time.
    She wiggled, and he crawled, mouths
locked, until they were higher, with the pillows under her
head.
    She gasped and stroked his shoulders
and his head. As he bent to kiss her tummy and then came up again
to suck on her left nipple, her right hand went up to her hair,
elegantly curled and coifed and perfumed just so. Chauncey was
paying and cost was no object. Her fingertips found what she
sought.
    As he lifted and straightened up, they
were face to face. Her legs spread and wrapped around him. He
grinned, licking his lips and then his full weight was coming
down.
    Stroking his chest, popping the
buttons on his blue silk shirt, she found the ribs.
    Chauncey came in for another kiss and
she inserted the sturdy three-inch hatpin between the ribs and into
the heart with a furious shove.
    His eyes bugged out and he raised up,
and she pulled the needle out and plunged it down again just above
the collarbone with all of her force, as Chauncey’s right hand in
pure reflex pulled back to punch her.
    He never finished the move. A
spreading black stain soaked his shirt and his mouth opened and he
stared at her in puzzlement. Blood bubbled up from the back of his
throat.
    He looked like a lost little
boy.
    “ Why?”
    She gave a hard shove and Chauncey
went face-first onto the carpet beside the bed, legs trailing
behind but still on the edge of the mattress.
    Selena got up from the other side and
went around and stood over the body. She spat on Chauncey
Mifflin.
    “ Because I liked
him.”
    She gave the inert form a slight kick
but he was clearly gone. Whirling decisively, she went to where
Chauncey’s wall safe stood habitually unlocked.
    He always bragged that he was the only
schmuck in town who never had to worry about locking the safe.
Outside the room she heard vague mutters from the bodyguards,
probably drinking on their hard kitchen chairs, and not paying much
attention. They knew all about it by now, of course. Chauncey’s
habits. Chauncey’s tastes. His appetites.
    Sure enough, there were stacks of
greenbucks and a half a dozen bags of heavy coins, with the door
hanging open two inches. Selena made do with the bills, as it was
bulky but at least silent in the carrying. She wrapped herself in
her shawl after quickly pinning her dress together with paper clips
from Chauncey’s desk drawer. The blood stains were all up high,
hidden by the shawl. She checked herself in the mirror.
    Going to the window, she stepped over
the sill and onto the fire-escape.
    She spared one last look into the dead
eyes.
    “ Because I liked him. You
bastard.”
    She pulled a lever and the steps
dropped down with a screech that split the night.
    She tap-tapped down the stairs with
her chin up and an air of quiet calm, her bulging purse clutched
firmly under her arm.
    The hulking figure of Hal loomed at
the mouth of the darkened alley.
    “ Evening, Hal.”
    His jaw dropped and he tipped his hat.
He watched her walk by. She smiled sweetly, for he had once been a
good man and more than most, he was polite. Big, strong and not
particularly gifted in the head, Hal was just misguided, even
genuinely kind at times, a victim as much as anyone else around
here.
    “ Good evening, Miss
Selena.”
    He stood there with a bottle of beer
in one hand and a battered clay pipe in the other and watched with
mournful, lonely thoughts as Selena walked up the street into the
darkness that covered a multitude of sins.
     
     
     
    The Logic of Love

     
    Scene One
     
     
    Twenty-six years old and still not
married, according to her mother. Constable Laine Barrett left the
station after shift change and briefing. Her first call was a minor
roadside incident which turned out to be nothing much. Pickup in a
shallow ditch. That was on Brittelsfield Road, and then dispatch
wanted her somewhere else.
    The next incident was just some old
fellow who had pulled off to answer his cellular phone and got
sucked in by the dense snow, plowed off to one side.
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