Six oclo the m. Hes awakened by voices from the back of the house, from outside. A woman laughing.
He gets out of bed and walks to the big sed-floor windows overlooking the garden below.
In the garden, separated from the oh him by a high wooden fence, a man and a womaretched out on the flagstones, making love. The fence slashes them in half diagonally. The woman lies on top of the man, her dark-red skirt bunched about her hips. Simon t see the color of her hair.
He rubs his eyes and goes to the refrigerator. Reaches for a bottle of white wine which sits, corkless, in the re?frigerator door. He pours wio a tumbler, tastes it, makes a face, and walks bato the bedroom for his cigarettes.
Behind him the mans voice says "Hey, hey, hey."
Six oclock? And the flagstones t be wonderfully fortable. Ardent lovers must these lovers be.
The building hes living in is one hundred and seven years old. The window wall in the back has separated from the party wall and light be seeween them.
Simon, early in the m, stuffs spackle into the opening, and, two hours later, sloshes a little white paint over it. Not bad fover work, he thinks.
The big closet has a large jagged hole in the ceiling, little tufts of insulation floating at its edges. He decides to do nothing about this; he wont be here forever. Hes been told not to use either of the fireplaces because the eys have not been ed for years.
He closes up his paint and washes out his brush. Now, breakfast. Popovers from the deli with rare cheeses.
On his way out to the deli to get the group breakfast he hears giggling from the front room. Did you sleep well? And you? And you? Outside, oreet, some?ones screaming.
Peering from the front window he sees two meing a cop with a nightstid fists. The cop is a blaan, slight of build. Theres blood on the back of her head. Simon throws open the window and yells "Hey!" -- a prodigious shout, the shout that kills. The astonished men look around, then take off in two different dires. Simon runs out the door and rushes dowairs.
The cop is trying to pull herself to her feet by the iron railing in front of the building and at the same time wiping blood from the scalp wound out of her eyes. Simon places his hands under her arms, half-drags her to the steps, sits her down.
"Motherfuckers," she says. "Goddamn mother?fuckers."
"Sit still," he says. "Ill call an ambulance."
"Dont need no ambulance. Wheres my stick?"
Simorieves it for her. Shes produced a handker?chief and is holding it to her head.
"Wheres my cap?"
He finds the uniform cap and hands it to her. She stuffs the handkerchief ihe cap and places it on her head. She leans forward, half-rises, then moans and sits down again.
"Motherfuckers."
"You wao call the prect?"
"No. Ill be fine. Just gimme a minute."
Shes pretty, maybe twe or twenty-nine.
"Those creeps had more muscle than I figured them for," she says. "Perps lookin for something to make happen. Shake em down and youll find burglar tools. They dress up all raggedy and you think theyre not as young as they really are. Got my damn stick away from me."
"You wao walk you down to the hospital?"
"Im gonna walk in just a minute."
She pulls a radio from her back pocket and calls in, telling the prect about "two white males, lookin to do a break-in," and the location.
"Thank you," she says to Simon. "Yo