LITMIR.BIZ

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slacks taut over her rounded hips. Her hands reached out and drew my head toward hers. She kissed me. Her lips were soft and fragrant and clinging. She let go. I reached for her again. But there was a trill of laughter from her. She wriggled away and sat down cross-legged on the ground.

      “Tell me about yourself,” she said.

      I grinned at her. “You’re smart. Any time you want to stop a man, let him talk about himself. He’ll forget everything.”

      So I told her. I told her I was born and brought up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from Harvard. That I graduated from Cambridge High and Latin and spent a year at Boston University, majoring in chemistry. And how I went into the Army and spent a year in Korea with the Second Division. And how I came home, took the examinations for the State Police, and went to the Training School at Framingham for three months. And, finally, how I was assigned to Troop E.

      “And you’re going to make it your career?” she asked.

      “I once wanted to be a chemist,” I said. “Sometimes you never do the things you start out to do.”

      “Why not?” she asked. “What stopped you?”

      “It’s a long story,” I said. “I’ll tell you some time.” I turned on my side and faced her. I noticed for the first time the small white scar behind her ear. “Where did you get the scar?”

      “When I was a child,” she said. “Mastoid. That’s why I wear my hair so long.”

      “It hardly shows,” I said. “I’ll bet you were the prettiest child in Cleveland.”

      She looked at me blankly. “Cleveland?”

      “Isn’t that where you’re from?”

      “Well–around there,” she said, looking away.

      “Where are your folks?”

      “They’re dead. They died when I was very young.”

      “What made you decide to come to Danford?”

      She threw a small stone into the lake, making circular, ever-widening ripples on the still water. “Staley Woolen was advertising for clerical help. I’d never been to New England before.”

      “Do you like Massachusetts?”

      “Oh, yes. This part of the state is so rocky and hilly. And the towns with their village greens and white churches are so quaint and historical. There seems to be a certain everlasting strength.”

      “But you have no friends here. None at all?”

      “It takes me a long time to choose friends.” Then she smiled at me. “You’re the exception to the rule, Ralph.”

      I reached out and tried to draw her in to me. Her back arched. “Wait, darling,” she said. “I have to know something first.” Then the words rushed out, tumbling over one another. “Do you believe a girl could meet a boy and in a few days be so in love with him that she’d marry him in a minute? I mean if the boy would have her?”

      There was no sound for a moment but the lapping of the water. “Meaning you?” I asked slowly.

      “Meaning us,” she said tremulously.

      “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s been so quick. Sure, I believe those things happen, but–” I stopped. I wasn’t sure what more to say.

      She turned away from me, her face flushed. She stood up and began brushing the pine needles from her slacks. “I think we’d better go,” she said distantly. “The sun is going down and it’s getting cool.” She bent down and opened her big leather handbag. She took out a metal lipstick tube.

      I stood up. “Wait,” I said. “I’m sorry. Maybe I was a little abrupt, but you took me by such surprise–” My voice caught in my throat. I had been looking at the handbag and I had seen something gleam inside. “Hold it open,” I said.

      “What?” she asked. She quickly snapped the bag shut. I took it from her. I opened it again.

      I brought out a pearl-handled .32-20 Colt revolver with an ice-blue two-inch barrel. I stared at her.

      “It’s mine,” she said, her face contorted. “There was a pair of them once. I only have this one now.”

      I broke it open. There were six cartridges in the cylinder. I said, “It’s loaded full. You mean you carry this around with you all the time?”

      “It’s mine.” Her lower lip began to quiver. “I own it.”

      “But what reason could you have for carrying a concealed weapon?” I asked. “What are you afraid of, Manette?”

      “Because I’ve been involved in things,” she said in a tight, strangled voice. “You’ve seen a scar behind my ear. It shows because it’s on the outside. But things happened to me inside. Mental things, causing mental scars. They don’t show. That’s why you think you can keep them hidden.”

      “What things are you talking about?” I asked harshly.

      “Not nice things,” she said tonelessly. “Nothing we can talk about.”

      “We have to talk about it. You’re carrying a loaded gun. You don’t have a license for it, do you?”

      Her laugh was hard, brittle and despairing. “And it’s against the law and you’re a cop. Where do we go now? To the barracks?”

      “Don’t be silly,” I said. I put the gun back in her bag and handed it to her. “Take it home and bury it in a bottom drawer. Promise?”

      “Yes, I promise.”

      “Now, be a good kid and tell me what the trouble is.”

      She shook her head. “There’s no more trouble,” she said in a strained voice. “Nothing is going to happen.”

      “No, you’re in a jam.”

      “Not now. It’s over. I’m going to forget you, Ralph. You can go back to the nice little girl next door. She’s for you. Not me.”

      “How did you know there was a girl next door?”

      “Because every boy has a girl next door, or in the next block, or somewhere in his neighborhood. He wouldn’t be normal otherwise. And you’re very normal, Ralph.”

      “We’re not talking about me,” I said. “Don’t twist it around.”

      “I’m giving you your chance to get out. Take it. You don’t know how lucky you are. Go back to your girl.” Her eyes were brimming. “What’s her name?”

      “Her name is Ellen,” I said. “Look, maybe I don’t want to be rushed into things, and I can change my mind about going back, too.”

      “No, it wouldn’t work with us,” she said dully. “I thought there was a chance, but there isn’t. I shouldn’t have bothered to try. Now take me home, please.”

      I tried to talk to her some more. But she wouldn’t listen and she wouldn’t answer. Her lips were compressed stubbornly as she began to gather her things.

      So I drove her home. She sat silently beside me, her shoulders slumped, her face pale and drawn. When we turned into Glen Road it had grown dark. I walked with her by the lantern post to the front door. She turned to me.

      “Just one thing more,” she said softly. “Would you kiss me good-by, please?”

      I put the basket down and drew her in close. Her face came up and I saw her eyes were wet with tears. Then suddenly there was a sharp intake of her breath and her body tensed and her hands gripped my arms. Behind me I heard a car start up. I turned around. It was a black sedan. It flashed by us, went swiftly up Glen Road, its red rear lights dipping over the crest of the hill and disappearing.

      “Who was that?” I asked

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