"besides, what right did i have to say anything? it's not as though i didn't know what i was getting into. your occupation was part of the package. where did i get off telling you to keep this and change that?"

i went to her window and looked across at queens. queens is the borough of cemeteries, it overflows with them, while brooklyn has only green-wood.

i turned to face her and said, "besides, i was scared to say anything. maybe it would lead to an ultimatum, choose one or the other, quit turning tricks or i'm out of here. and suppose you didn't pick me?

"or suppose you did? then what does that commit me to? does it give you the right to tell me what you don't like about the way i live my life?

"if you stop going to bed with clients, does that mean i can't go to bed with other women? as it happens i haven't been with anybody else since we started keeping company again, but i've always felt i had the right. it hasn't happened, and once or twice i made a conscious choice to keep it from happening, but i didn't feel committed to that course. or if i did it was a secret commitment. i wasn't about to let either of us know about it.

"what happens to our relationship? does it mean we have to get married? i don't know that i want to. i was married once and i didn't much like it. i wasn't very good at it, either.

"does it mean we have to live together? i don't know that i want that, either. i haven't lived with anybody since i left anita and the boys, and that was a long time ago. there are things i like about living alone. i don't know that i want to give it up.

"but it eats at me, knowing you're with other guys. i know there's no love in it, i know there's precious little sex in it, i know it has more in common with massage than with lovemaking. knowing this doesn't seem to matter.

"and it gets in the way. i called you this morning and you called back an hour later. and i wondered where you were when i called, but i didn't ask because you might say you were with a john. or you might not say it, and i'd wonder what you weren't saying."

"i was getting my hair done," she said.

"oh. it looks nice."

"thanks."

"it's different, isn't it? it does look nice. i didn't notice, i never notice, but i like it."

"thank you."

"i don't know where i'm going with this," i said. "but i figured i had to tell you how i felt, and what's been going on with me. i love you. i know that's a word we don't speak, and one reason i have trouble with it is i don't know what the hell it means. but whatever it means, it's how i feel about you. our relationship is important to me. in fact its importance is part of the problem, because i've been so afraid it would change into something i won't like that i've been withholding myself from you." i stopped for breath. "i guess that's it. i didn't know i was going to say that much and i don't know if it came out right, but i guess that's it."

she was looking at me. it was hard to meet her gaze.

"you're a very brave man," she said.

"oh, please."

" 'oh, please.' you weren't scared? i was scared, and i wasn't even talking."

"yes, i was scared."

"that's what brave is, doing what scares you. walking into those guns at the cemetery must have been a piece of cake in comparison."

"the funny thing is," i said, "i wasn't that fearful at the cemetery. one thought that came to me was that i've lived long enough so that i don't have to worry about dying young."

"that must have been comforting."

"well, it was, oddly enough. my biggest fear was that something would happen to the girl and that it would be my fault, for doing something wrong or not taking some useful action. once she was back with her father i relaxed. i guess i didn't really believe anything was going to happen to me."

"thank god you're all right."

"what's the matter?"

"just a few tears."

"i didn't mean to-"

"to what, to reach me emotionally? don't apologize."

"all right."

"so my mascara runs. so what." she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "oh, god," she said. "this is so embarrassing. i feel so stupid."

"because of a few tears?"

"no, because of what i have to say next. my turn now, okay?"

"okay."

"don't interrupt, huh? there's something i haven't told you, and i feel really stupid about it, and i don't know where to start. all right, i'll blurt it out. i quit."

"huh?"

"i quit. i quit fucking, all right. my god, the look on your face. other men, silly. i quit."

"you don't have to make that decision," i said. "i just wanted to say how i felt, and-"

"you weren't going to interrupt."

"i'm sorry, but-"

"i'm not saying i quit now. i quit three months ago. more than three months ago. sometime before the first of the year. maybe it was even before christmas. no, i think there was one guy after christmas. i could look it up.

"but it doesn't matter. i could look it up if i ever want to celebrate my anniversary, the way you celebrate the date of your last drink, but maybe not. i don't know."

it was hard not saying anything. i had things to say, questions to ask, but i let her go on.

"i don't know if i ever told you this," she said, "but a few years ago i realized that prostitution saved my life. i'm serious about that. the childhood i had, my crazy mother, the kind of teenager i turned out to be, i think i probably would have killed myself, or found somebody to do it for me. instead i started selling my ass, and it made me aware of my worth as a human being. it destroys a lot of girls, it really does, but it saved me. go figure.

"i made a nice life for myself. i saved my money, i invested, i bought this apartment. everything worked.

"but sometime last summer i started to realize that it wasn't working anymore. because of what we have. you and i. i told myself that was meshugga, what you and i have is in one compartment and what i do for money is way over there, but it got harder to keep the doors of the compartments shut tight. i felt disloyal, which was strange, and i felt dirty, which was something i never really felt hooking, or if i did i was never aware of it.

"so i thought, well, elaine, you had a longer run than most of them, and you're a little old for the game anyway. and they've got all these new diseases, and you've had a scaled-down practice the past few years anyway, and just how many executives do you figure would throw themselves out of windows if you hung it up?

"but i was afraid to tell you. for one thing, how did i know i wouldn't want to change my mind? i figured i ought to keep my options open. and then, after i'd told all my regulars i was retired, after i sold my book and did everything but change my number, i was afraid to tell you because i didn't know what it would do. maybe you wouldn't want me anymore. maybe i'd stop being interesting, i'd just be this aging broad running around taking college courses. maybe you'd feel trapped, like i was pressuring you into marriage. maybe you'd want to get married, or live together, and i haven't ever been married but then again i haven't ever wanted to be. and i've lived alone ever since i got out of my mother's house, and i'm good at it and i'm used to it. and if one of us wants to get married and the other doesn't, then where are we?

"so that's my dirty little secret, if you want to call it that, and i wish to god i could stop crying because i'd like to look presentable, if not glamorous. do i look like a raccoon?"

"only the face."

"well," she said. "that's something. you're just an old bear. did you know that?"

"so you've said."

"well, it's true. you're my bear and i love you."

"i love you."

"the whole thing's very fucking gift-of-the-magi, isn't it? it's a beautiful story and who can we tell?"

"nobody diabetic."

"send 'em right into sugar shock, wouldn't it?"

"i'm afraid so. where do you go when you slip away for mysterious appointments? i assumed, you know-"

"that i was going to blow some guy in a hotel room. well, sometimes i was getting my hair done."

"like this morning."

"right. and sometimes i was going to my shrink appointment, and-"

"i didn't know you were seeing a shrink."

"uh-huh, twice a week since mid-february. a lot of my identity is bound up in what i've been doing all these years, and all of a sudden i've got a lot of crap to deal with. i guess it helps to talk to her." she shrugged. "and i've gone to a couple of al-anon meetings, too."

"i didn't know that."

"well, how would you know? i didn't tell you. i figured they could give me tips on how to deal with you. instead their program is all about dealing with myself. i call that sneaky."

"yeah, they're devious bastards."

"anyway," she said, "i feel stupid for keeping it all to myself, but i was a whore for a lot of years, and candor's not part of the job description."

"as opposed to police work."

"right. you poor bear, up all night, running around brooklyn with crazy people. and it's going to be hours before you get a chance to sleep."

"oh?"

"uh-huh. you're my only sexual outlet now, do you realize what that means? i'm likely to prove insatiable."

"let's see," i said.

and, later, she said, "you really haven't been with anybody else since we've been together?"

"no."

"well, you probably will. most men do. i speak as one with professional knowledge of the subject."

"maybe," i said. "not today, though."

"no, not today. but if you do it's not the end of the world. just so you come home where you belong."

"whatever you say, dear."

" 'whatever you say, dear.' you just want to go to sleep. listen, as far as the other's concerned, we can get married or not get married, and we can live together or not live together. we could live together without getting married. could we get married without living together?"

"if we wanted."

"you think so? you know what it sounds like, it sounds like a polish joke. but maybe it would work for us. you could keep your squalid hotel room, and several nights a week you'd put on call forwarding and spend the night with moi. and we could... you know what?"

"what?"

"i think this is all something we're going to have to take a day at a time."

"that's a good phrase," i said. "i'll have to remember that."

chapter 24

a day or so later, an anonymous tip led officers of brooklyn's seventy-second precinct to the house albert wallens had inherited upon his mother's death three years before. there they found wallens, a twenty-eight-year-old unemployed construction worker with a record of sexual offenses and minor assault charges. wallens was dead, with a length of piano wire fastened around his neck. in the same basement room they also found what appeared to be the mutilated corpse of another man, but thirty-six-year-old raymond joseph callander, whose employment history included a seven-month hitch as a civilian employee with the new york office of the drug enforcement administration, was still alive. he was removed to maimonides medical center where he regained consciousness but was unable to communicate, making simple cawing sounds until his death two days later.