Hit List - Lawrence Block [96]
“The way we always do.”
“The way we always did from the first day,” she said, “and I had this script written. Like I go, I thought we were going to get to spend a night in a hotel. And you go, yeah, so did I. And I go, well, we still can, you know. We’ve even got luggage.”
“I do that sometimes,” he said. “Make up scenes in my head.”
“Did you make any up about us?”
“A few.”
“I don’t know if I’d have had the nerve,” she said. “To actually say let’s go to a hotel. I barely had the nerve to come to your room.”
“But you did.”
“But I did. What if I hadn’t? Would you have come looking for me?”
“I probably would have phoned.”
“Would they have given you my room number?”
“Three-fourteen,” he said. “I paid attention when you checked in.”
“That’s how I got yours! And you got mine the same way. So it wasn’t just my idea.”
“No, we were definitely on the same page.”
“That makes me feel better. I never did anything like this before. God, I can’t believe I said that! But it happens to be the truth. I’m a nice Italian girl, I went to parochial school, I don’t do this sort of thing. I never once cheated, and believe me, I’ve had opportunities.”
“I believe you.”
“I picked you out the first day, but just because I had the feeling you’d be interesting to talk to. Then at lunch I was like, he’s a nice man. And in a day or two it got to be, he’s a very attractive man. By the time the trial started I was having fantasies.”
“Fantasies?”
“Sitting across the table and thinking of all the things I wanted to do to you.”
“Well,” he said, “now you’ve done them.”
“Hmmm.”
“What?”
“Well,” she said, “not quite all of them.”
“Oh?”
“I have quite an imagination. Who the hell am I to even think of some of these things? I mean, I’m from Staten Island.”
“I thought Inwood.”
“I moved to Inwood when I got married. But where I consider myself from is Staten Island.”
“I’m from Missouri,” Keller said.
“You are? I thought . . . oh, it’s an expression, isn’t it?”
“Right,” he said. “Show me.”
“I guess I’d better get back to my room.”
“Why?”
“Well, what if somebody calls?”
“Did you give anybody the number?”
“No. I guess I could stay, couldn’t I? Do you want me to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’d like to, because this one night is all we’re going to have. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“We read the verdict and I turn into a pumpkin.”
“Some pumpkin.”
“Well, a legal secretary and a faithful wife. I never did anything like this before. I’m not saying I’ll never do it again.”
“You’ll probably do it again in about twenty minutes.”
“I mean after tonight, silly. With the right person and the right circumstances and the right provocation at home it might happen again. But maybe not.”
“Maybe if you get picked for another jury sometime.”
“Maybe. But for you and me it’s ships passing in the night. I think that’s the way it’s got to be.”
“I think you’re right.”
“And you know something? Otherwise we’d wear it out. I was even thinking we could stretch the deliberations so that we got to stay here a second night. But a second night wouldn’t be the same, would it?”
“Not to mention the fact that the other jurors would kill us,” he said.
“You don’t think any of them are doing the same thing we are?”
“Well, I’ve got my suspicions about two of them.”
“Really?”
“Bittner and Chin,” he said. “A match made in heaven.”
“Oh, you,” she said. “I thought you were serious. What a bad boy you are. I think you’ll have to be punished. Hey, what have we here? You really are a bad boy, aren’t you? I thought I was going to have to wait twenty minutes.”
“It’s remarkable what a night’s sleep can do,” Keller said. “When I woke up this morning it seemed crystal clear to me that Huberman did everything the prosecution says he did. I don’t think it matters whether it’s the same VCR throughout. The man’s charged with selling a stolen VCR to a police officer, and they did a good job of proving it. I think the VCR he sold to Mapes is the same one that’s on the evidence table now, because a property clerk might borrow a camcorder, which is something you would use