Chapter 22

After we ate Cecelia packed everything away again while I dived back into the threats. Somewhere along the line I became conscious that she had sat down on the floor in the corner between the wall with the window and the wall with the door, and was sitting there as apparently comfortable as a cat, but just when she sat down or just when I noticed I couldn't begin to say. My mind was immersed in the effort to pick out a pattern – any pattern – in the stuff I was looking at.

Finally my brain rebelled – it was too tired, and just wouldn't do any more. I raised my head, realizing that the hours of mental effort had exhausted me. Mind work is just as tiring as physical work, and you often have less to show for it. I had nothing to show for it this time – not one single pattern had jumped out at me, or even hinted that with enough coaxing it might begin to creep out into the light.

I looked over at Cecelia, and saw her eyes on me, bright and black as always. "Are you sufficiently fatigued for the night?" she asked me.

"I think I'm done in for about 38 years," I said. "I done wore my brain plumb out."

"Then put your materials wherever you keep them when you're not present, and let's go home. Darlia is with Letty for the night – indeed, the child packed enough clothing for a week – and I propose that you shower, lie down, and submit to my hands on your back. I suspect you are as tense about the shoulders as a slingshot just prior to releasing the missile."

I rolled my head and shrugged my shoulders, feeling the tightness. "You're right, C – I'm all taut. I like your prescription. I gotta warn you, though – I'll probably fall asleep."

She smiled at me, a smile sufficient to launch sunken ships. "Darvin, as much as I glory in our marital status, my intention for you is precisely that – sleep. We have all the days and nights of our lives in which to love each other in the way you have in mind; tonight you will relax, and if I succeed in my exertions, you shall relax so completely that all you know of me for 10 hours will be dreams."

"Those'll be some wonderful dreams," I said as I gathered papers together. I'd long since heard the CD through three times, and all it had done for me was convince me that this guy was exactly what I'd concluded he was the first day. It hit me suddenly that "the first day" had been the preceding Thursday, and that since the weekend had intervened this was only my third day actually working with the threats. It felt like about 300 years.

I put all the papers in the bottom left drawer of my desk, the closest thing I have to a safe since no one bothers to rip off private detectives – there's nothing there worth stealing, though I had to admit that my furniture was way above the usual PI standard – and locked the desk up. I stood and stretched, and so did Cecelia – though she didn't stretch. She's as muscular as a body builder, though she doesn't have a body builder's bulky form, but muscular or not she's as limber as any willowy young thing ever dreamed of being. She squats, sits, kneels, whatever, all with the grace of a cat – and there is nothing on earth more graceful than a cat.

I put on my hat, took my jacket when Cecelia handed it to me and put it on, and picked my gun up from the top of the desk where I'd put it before locking up the desk. I smiled at Cecelia. "Lead on, MacDuff," I said, and she did. We went into the outer office, my finger flipping the lights off in my office, and then out into the hall. I turned off the outer office lights, locked up the door, and turned to Cecelia.

"I have led, however, briefly," she said, "but I shall do so no longer. This corridor is wide enough, and I shall walk beside you, in my proper place." And she took my left hand in her right, her strong thin fingers squeezing me briefly. And hand in hand we walked down the hall toward the elevators.

At home I did as she ordered – I got out of my clothes and got a shower. She didn't have to tell me to make it hot. As sore and tense as I was I wanted it hot, pounding on my neck and shoulders to help loosen me up. I've hurt less after rolling on the ground with a fighting suspect, though I have to admit that after those tussles the hurts were all over instead of in just one area.

I dried off, realizing as I did so that I'd been so tired I'd forgotten to shave. I may be half Indian, but I have heavy whiskers – a gift from my mother's side of the family – and I usually shave every day while I'm in the shower, going around my mustache by feel. I'd leave it till tomorrow. I slipped on a pair of running shorts, which I wear about as often as Cecelia wears a sleeveless dress, and went out into the bedroom. Cecelia had put on her sleeveless nightgown, and was sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg crooked beneath her.

I looked at her for a moment in the soft light from the lamp on her bedside table. The gentle glow revealed the bumps and hollows of her musculature, and the ridges of veins and tendons. The first thing about her I'd found attractive had been those veins and tendons standing out in her forearms, showing that however skinny she might be, she was definitely in shape. I never have liked women who are skinny but so out of shape they're flabby even so, and Cecelia is definitely not flabby.

She let me watch her in silence for a few seconds, and then said, "Come here, my husband, and lie down. On your face, please. I have some lotion here with the scent of lilacs, and a pair of strong hands; I propose to send you to sleep to one of the few floral fragrances you like."