my nose?”
“Your mouth.”
“That’d be a fantastic feat, if I whistled through my nose. Probably’ve got me on The Gong Show.”
“Crang.”
Annie did a lot of rustling in the bed. She shifted one hundred and eighty degrees so that she faced me. She had my Greenpeace T-shirt on.
“Do you think Alex is serious?” she asked me in the dark. I could feel and smell her breath. It was still sweet. I knew mine would smell rank. All I had to do was lie down and my breath turned sour.
“I go one way, then the other,” I said. “I tell myself it’s an aberration of the temporary sort, what Alex was saying. But I don’t know, the way he sounded, he didn’t seem to be kidding.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Do you think he’s serious?”
“That’s why I’m having trouble getting to sleep.”
“What are you going to do about it?” I asked. “About Alex?”
“Back you up every way I can,” Annie said. “But, honey, you’re the one who’s had experience with this sort of thing.”
“With what sort of thing? A murdered person?”
“That exact sort of thing,” Annie said. She reached over and laid her right hand on my chest. I didn’t have on a Greenpeace T-shirt or anything else.
“Yeah,” I said. “But my experience, the few times I got involved, has always been after the people were already dead. What Alex is talking about, it’s before the fact. I don’t know where I’d start, apart from maybe putting a lock on Alex.”
“That’s okay,” Annie said. She withdrew her hand from my chest and sat up. “I have a plan.”
“I liked it when your hand was on my chest.”
“I was afraid you might be getting tumescent.”
“Getting?”
“My plan,” Annie said, “is you should beat Alex to the person he thinks he’s going to kill.”
“That’s your complete plan?”
“Unless you’ve got a better one.”
I propped my hands behind my head. “Another thing you should remember, toots, I didn’t choose to get in on these other murders you’re talking about. They were more or less thrust on me, and I had to solve them in order to get out from under. So to speak.”
“Solve them?”
“Come on, eventually I did, after maybe a misstep or two along the way,” I said. “Anyway, my point is you’re suggesting I get actively involved before there’s a corpse.”
“My point is there won’t be a corpse if you get actively involved.”
“Let me just ponder that.”
“While you’re pondering,” Annie said, “keep this in mind. It’s Alex we’re protecting, Alex our friend and your tenant and someone who is in a state of something like severe dislocation.”
“Sure, but maybe when he’s located again, gets over his grief and everything, he’ll drop this notion of revenge and the rest of it.”
Annie said nothing for a minute. The sheets rustled again. She had drawn her legs up. I thought she was resting her chin on her knees, but the bedroom was too dark to tell.
“That’s a chance we shouldn’t take,” Annie said finally. “Alex might not come to his senses in time.”
“He’s a very sensible person. Got a good job in Queen’s Park, never late with the rent, no loud parties unless we’re invited.…”
“Crang,” Annie said, “quit stalling.”
“Okay, I agree, we have to do something.”
“That’s my guy.” Annie slid under the covers and sneaked her arm around my waist. “Now,” she said, “we have to find out first where Alex is going to start looking for this man he thinks gave Ian the disease.”
“My reading is Alex isn’t about to cut us in on that piece of information.”
“That’s where you could be wrong,” Annie said. As she spoke, she was stroking my stomach in an absentminded way, probably too caught up in the conversation to realize she was stroking.
“Why could I be wrong about that?” I asked.
“Because Alex could use your expertise. You know how to hunt down people and that sort of quasi-criminal stuff. He’ll be glad of your advice.”
“Alex seemed pretty steely and independent tonight.”
“That might’ve just been bravado,” Annie said. She was stroking my stomach counter-clockwise. “When he gets down to the real business of trying to locate the man he says he’s going to kill, that’s the time he’ll need some trained help.”
“And that’s when I make my move?” I said. “Offer Alex the benefit of my wisdom?”
“Exactly,” Annie said.
The rotations with her hand dropped lower on my stomach.
“Hey,” Annie said, “what’s this we have down here?”
“Tumescence.”
“If we’re going to make love,” Annie said, “there’re two matters to take care of first.”
“Yeah?”
“Number one, finish talking about the plan to keep Alex out of trouble.”
“We’re finished,” I said. “The order of action is, I offer my services to Alex, and in the process, I winkle some hints out of him about where he’s going to search for the alleged guilty party, the guy who infected Ian with AIDS, and I get to this party first and tell him to move out of town pronto.”
“Why are you speaking so quickly?”
“Shows you what a fast study I am.”
“Well, yes, that’s the plan I have in mind,” Annie said. “But there has to be more detail.”
“Let me talk to Alex, and later on we’ll regroup for the detail.”
Annie hesitated. “I guess so,” she said.
“What’s the other matter we have to take care of before we make love?”
“On this one, buster, you’re on your own.”
“I
