his voice. “And may I call you that?”
“If the necessity is so overwhelming,” Genevieve said.
“Why’d you stab your husband, Genevieve?”
“I did not stab him,” Genevieve answered. “He suffered, at best, a surface scratch. I’m sure he’ll convalesce.”
“You speak English beautifully,” the chief of detectives said.
“Your praise, though unsolicited,” Genevieve said, “is nonetheless appreciated. I’ve always tried to avoid dull clichés and transparent repetition.”
“Well, it certainly comes out beautifully,” the chief of detectives said, and Kling detected a new note of sarcasm.
“Any perseverant person can master the English tongue,” Genevieve said. “Application is all that is required. Plus, an abundant amount of native intelligence. And a detestation of the obvious.”
“Like what?”
“I’m sure I could not readily produce any examples.” She paused. “I would have to cogitate on it momentarily. I suggest, instead, that you read some of the various works of literature that have aided me.”
“Books like what?” the chief of detectives asked, and this time the sarcasm was unmistakable. “English for Martians? Or The English Language As A Lethal Weapon?”
“I find sarcastic males vulgar,” Genevieve said.
“Did you find stabbing your husband vulgar?”
“I did not stab him. I scratched him with a knife. I see no reason for promoting this case to federal proportions.”
“Why’d you stab him?”
“Nor do I see,” Genevieve persisted, “any pertinent reasons for discussing my marital affairs before an assemblage of barbarians.” She paused and cleared her throat. “If you would relinquish my wrapper, I assure you I would depart without—”
“Sure,” the chief of detectives said. “Next case.”
And that’s the way it went.
When it was all over, Kling and Brown went downstairs and lighted cigarettes.
“No con man,” Brown said.
“These lineups are a waste of time,” Kling offered. He blew out a stream of smoke. “How’d you like those two handsome bastards?”
Brown shrugged. “Come on,” he said, “we better get back to the squad.”
The two handsome bastards, considering the fact that one of them was a murderer, got off pretty lightly.
Curt Hunter was found guilty and paid a $500 fine, plus damages.
Chris Donaldson was found not guilty.
Both men were, once again, free to roam the city.
Bert Kling expected trouble, and he was getting it.
Usually, he and Claire Townsend got along just jim-dandy. They’d had their quarrels, true, but who was there to claim that the path of true love ever ran smooth? In fact, considering the bad start their romance had had, their love was chugging along on a remarkably even keel. Kling had had a rough time in the beginning trying to dislodge the torch Claire was carrying from the firm grip with which she’d carried it. He’d succeeded. They had passed through the getting-acquainted stages, and had then progressed rapidly through the con man’s legend of going steady, and then through the con man’s formality of getting engaged, and then—if they weren’t careful—they would enter the con man’s legality of getting married, and then the con man’s nightmare of having children.
Provided they could leap this particular hurdle that confronted them on that Wednesday night.
The hurdle was a very high one.
Kling was learning, perhaps a little late to do anything about it, that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
The woman scorned was rather tall by American standards. Not too tall for Kling, but she’d have given the run-of-the-mill, unheroic American male trouble unless she wore flats on her dates. The woman scorned had black hair cut close to her head and brown eyes, which were aglow now with an inner fury, and a good mouth, which was twisted into a somewhat sardonic grin. The woman scorned was slender without being skinny, bosomy without being busty, leggy without being gangly. The woman scorned was, as a matter of fact, damned pretty even when she was venting her fury.
“You know,” she said, “that this probably means no vacation, don’t you?”
“I don’t know that at all,” Kling said. “I have no reason to believe that.”
“You are not, if you’ll pardon my pointing it out, writing up a traffic ticket at the moment.”
“Nor did I intend to sound as if I were,” Kling said, amazed by the high level of their argument, thinking at the same time that Claire looked quite lovely when she was angry and wanting simultaneously to kiss the fury off her mouth.
“I realize that the 87th Precinct is just loaded with super masterminds who have all sorts of priority over a dumb rookie who just got promoted. But, for God’s sake, Bert—”
“Claire—”
“You did crack a murder case, you know! And the commissioner did personally commend you