35 Heat by Ed McBain

Author:Ed McBain
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Police Procedural, Fiction, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 161218166X
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2011-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

The air conditioner was humming in the second-floor bedroom of the brownstone. The room was cool, but Kling could not sleep. It was 2:00 in the morning, and he wasn’t due back at work till 4:00 this afternoon, but he’d hoped to get up early again in the morning, in time to leave the apartment when Augusta did. He wanted to see if she visited her pal on Hopper Street again. Wanted to see if visiting her pal was a regular lunch-hour thing with her, quick matinee every day of the week when she wasn’t out screwing around instead of eating in a Chinese restaurant. He was tempted to confront her with it now, tell her he’d followed her to Hopper Street, tell her he’d seen her go into the building at 641 Hopper Street, ask her what possible business she could have had in that building. Get it over with here and now. He remembered what Carella had advised him.

“Augusta?” he whispered.

“Mm.”

“Gussie?”

“Mm.”

“You awake?”

“No,” she said, and rolled over.

“Gussie, I want to talk to you.”

“Go t’sleep,” Augusta mumbled.

“Gussie?”

“Sleep,” she said.

“Honey, this is important,” he said.

“Shit.”

“Honey…”

“Shit, shit, shit,” she said, and sat up and snapped on the bedside lamp. “What is it?” she said, and looked at the clock on the table. “Bert, it’s two o’clock, I have a sitting at eight-thirty, can’t this wait?”

“I really feel I have to talk to you now,” he said.

“I have to get up at six-thirty!” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but, Gussie, this has really been bothering me.”

“All right, what is it?” she said, and sighed. She took a pack of cigarettes from beside the clock, shook one free, and lighted it.

“I’m worried,” he said.

“Worried? What do you mean?” she said

“About us,” he said.

“Us?”

“I think we’re drifting apart.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said.

“I think we are.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Well, we…for one thing, we don’t make love as often as we used to.”

“I’ve got my period,” Augusta said. “You know that.”

“I know that, but…well, that didn’t used to matter in the past. When we were first married.”

“Well,” she said, and hesitated. “I thought we were doing fine.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head.

“Is it the sex, is that it? I mean, that you think we don’t have enough sex?”

“That’s only part of it,” he said.

“Because if you, you know, if you’d like me to…”

“No, no.”

“I thought we were doing fine,” she said again, and shrugged, and stubbed out the cigarette.

“You know this girl who’s with the agency?” he said. Here it is, he thought. Here we go.

“What girl?”

“Little blonde girl. She models junior stuff.”

“Monica?”

“Yeah.”

“Monica Thorpe? What about her?”

“She was out there at the beach that night of the party. On the Fourth. Do you remember?”

“So?”

“We got to talking,” Kling said.

“Uh-huh,” Augusta said, and reached for the pack of cigarettes again. Lighting one, she said, “Must’ve been fascinating, talking to that nitwit.”

“You smoke an awful lot, do you know that?” Kling said.

“Is that another complaint?” Augusta asked. “No sex, too much smoking, are we going

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