Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

So we did.

Afterwards, I brought her into my bedroom, and before we slept, we made love again. My memory of our other night, five summers before, did not begin to do her justice. I had remembered the passion; I had forgotten the sweetness.

Except this time there were rules: Bonnie’s Rules of Play for the One-Night Stand. No You’re beautiful. No You’re a truly fine person. No I love you. The 340 / SUSAN ISAACS

whole time we were making love, and after, just lying there, talking softly about nothing much, I wanted more than moans, cries, animal grunts, sighs, inane sweet nothings.

But all I could think of to say were the no-nos, words of love and admiration. I thought: Well, she’s certainly mastered the fine points of the game; only an ace at one-night stands could anticipate the need for such rules.

I had to play fair. I didn’t want her to think I was cheap.

So I didn’t call out, I love you. But I tried to show her.

When we finally fell asleep, my head was resting against hers on the pillow. I held both her hands tight in mine, close against my heart.

Magic hour.

Bonnie had made the bed while I took Moose for a run, but she’d folded the sheet over the top of the blanket, and there was too much sheet showing, so when she went into the shower, I fixed it. She spotted it right away. “You remade the bed.”

“It wasn’t right.”

“You’re not supposed to care about order. It’s not masculine.” She was sitting on the bed in her shorts and one of my undershirts. She gripped the mug of coffee the way a guy does; she didn’t use the handle the way a woman is supposed to. “Order is feminine,” she announced. “Chaos is masculine.”

“After last night you’re telling me I’m not masculine?”

“Don’t you ever go to movies?” She held up her hands and positioned her thumbs at right angles to her outstretched fingers, like a director framing a shot. “‘CAMERA TRACKS INTO

COP’S BEDROOM. Total chaos. Suspiciously gray sheet half-off mattress. CLOSE ON night table, where WE SEE gun, empty whiskey bottle, crumpled papers, remains of last week’s Chinese

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takeout and overflowing ashtray.’ So how come you’re neat?”

“Good cops are organized. I like things under control. The real question is: Why are you such a slob?”

“What are you talking about? I’m not a slob.”

I laughed. “Give me a break, Bonnie. I executed a search warrant. You don’t pair your socks. You just throw them into a drawer, along with your bras, which look like a pile of spaghetti. Your teaspoons and tablespoons are all mixed up. Oh, and your papers aren’t in alphabetical order; they don’t make any sense.”

“Neatness doesn’t count. Cleanness counts.”

“You haven’t thrown out a magazine or a paperback in ten years. What kind of person keeps a TV Guide from 1982?”

“Obviously not your kind of person.”

Well, there it was. Ever since we’d woken up, a little before six, Bonnie had been withdrawing from me. Not the injured-female bit, with cold, clipped responses to my questions.

No, Bonnie was all thumbs-in-the-belt-loops, howdy-partner friendly: Gee, OJ and raisin bran would be terrific. Thanks.

Of course she understood she had to stay in the bedroom once I went out, that the windows in the main room weren’t covered and on the off chance someone dropped by…And sure she’d be glad to tell me anything more I wanted to know about Sy. Discuss the whole case? You bet!

She could have been anyone I’d put up for the night—a visiting cop, someone grateful for bed and breakfast, a cheerful, outgoing kind of guy. When she’d finished the last spoonful of milk and put the cereal bowl back on the storm window I’d used as a tray because I didn’t have a tray, she’d smiled and said, real chipper. You know what’s good about you? Your cereal is crisp. I can never keep things from 342 / SUSAN ISAACS

sogging up out here. Back in Ogden, you can keep Cheerios for decades.

“Bonnie, let’s clear the air.”

She smiled a TV weathergirl smile: much too many teeth.

“The air’s clear.” She reached over and picked up my clock; it was still facedown. “Look, it’s almost seven. The night’s over. The sun’s shining.” Her smile faded. Her lips pursed together, serious, prim. “It’s time to work.”

But I kept at it. “I’m not much of a bargain, you know.”

“I know.”

“Something’s missing. I’m defective.” No argument, no agreement. She sat silently, with too-perfect posture. “The thing is, with Lynne I have a chance of coming closer to having a normal life than I ever thought I could.” I waited for Bonnie to cry out: But do you love her? What about me?

She said: “Let’s talk about motive.”

“It’s not that I don’t care about you. You know I do.”

“I’m sure every single person in the Starry Night crew had some grudge against Sy.”

“Bonnie, if we talk, it’ll make it easier for you.”

“Sy cheated people on money, he lied to them about opening credits, he humiliated them in front of fifty people.

So there are seventy, eighty people right there in East Hampton who you’d think had a motive to kill him. And another five or six hundred people he’d hurt or insulted over the years. What do you do in a case like this, where the murder victim is an SOB?”

I’d only been trying to help her. But if she wanted to work, I’d work. “You look for real injury,” I explained. “Was there anyone Sy really harmed, or was about to harm? Not just hurt feelings, where someone might say, ‘I hope Sy Spencer dies.’ I’m talking

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damage that could destroy someone’s life. So that’s the main thing; you look for serious grievances. You rule out people who are just pissed. Pissed doesn’t count. With one exception. Nut jobs. Maybe Sy promised some actor star billing three movies ago and the guy wound up with