crowned king. And Tommy, in turn, was embarrassed as he accepted the gifts because there is nothing more difficult to do than accept a gift with style, and Tommy was too young to have acquired style. “Thank you,” he muttered over and over again. “Thank you, thank you.”
The champagne corks kept exploding.
“The trouble with this stuff,” Birnbaum says, “is it makes you want to go to the bathroom.”
“So go,” Tony said.
“I will.”
“Right upstairs. The bedroom at the end of the—”
“No, no. Too crowded up there,” Birnbaum said. “I’ll run over to my own house.”
“What? And miss the wedding?”
“It’ll take a minute. It’ll be quick. Don’t worry, Tony, I’ll be back. Just try to keep me away.”
“All right, Birnbaum. Hurry! Hurry!”
Birnbaum cocked his head to one side and started off through the bushes to his house on the next lot.
At the far end of the table, unobserved by either Angela or Tommy who were busy accepting gifts and good wishes, a pair of hands deposited a pair of small bottles filled with red wine. The bottles of wine were each tied with big bows. One bow was pink, the other was blue.
The pink bow had attached to it a card that read:
The blue bow had attached to it a similar card that, had Tommy seen it, might have struck a responsive chord. It is doubtful, however, that he would have recognized the handwriting as being identical with that on a card he’d received earlier in the day.
The card attached to the blue bow read, simply:
“Come with me,” Jonesy said to Christine.
“I came here with someone, you know,” Christine said coyly. She was rather enjoying the game and, oddly because she had not wanted to come, she was enjoying the wedding, too. But particularly, she was enjoying the look of dismay that spread over Cotton’s face whenever he saw her dancing with Sam Jones. The look was priceless. She enjoyed it more than the music, and more than the champagne, and more than the exploding corks, and the wonderful free feeling of gaiety that pervaded the outdoor reception.
“I know you came with someone. He’s bigger than me, too,” Jonesy said, “but I don’t care. Come on.”
“Where are you taking me?” Christine said, giggling as Jonesy pulled her by the hand into the bushes at the side of the house. “Jonesy! Really now!”
“Come, come, come,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He dragged her deeper into the bushes onto a path that had been stamped down through constant walking through the short grass.
“What do you want to show me?”
“Let’s get a little further away from the festivities first,” he said. His hand on hers was tight. He pulled her along the path as if urgently propelled. Christine was not frightened. She was, in truth, slightly excited. She thought she knew what was coming, and she thought she would not resist what was coming. It would serve Cotton right if a handsome young stranger dragged her into the bushes like a caveman and kissed her soundly and completely.
No, she would not resist.
There was something very nice about the attention Sam Jones had showered upon her all afternoon, something reminiscent of a time when she’d been very young, when outdoor parties were standard fare every weekend during the summer. Now, running over the short grass with him, she looked forward to the kiss she knew was coming. She felt very youthful all at once, a young girl running through a tree-shaded lane, her feet dancing over the sunlight-speckled trampled path at the far end of the lot.
Jonesy stopped suddenly.
“Here,” he said. “This should be far enough away, don’t you think?”
“For what?” Christine asked. Oddly, her heart was pounding in her chest.
“Don’t you know?” Jonesy said. He pulled her toward him, his back to the Carella property. Christine felt suddenly breathless. She lifted her mouth for his kiss, and someone suddenly screamed, and she felt goose pimples erupt over every inch of her body, and then she realized it was Jonesy who was screaming, screaming in a wildly masculine voice, and she pulled away from him and looked into his face and then turned to follow his glazed stare.
Not seven feet from where they were standing, a man lay face downward on the path. The man’s back was covered with blood. The man was not breathing.
“Oh my God!” Jonesy said. “It’s Birnbaum!”
The telephone in the squadroom was ringing insistently.
Hal Willis, alone, unbent from his doubled-over position alongside the water cooler and shouted, “All right,