Switch by William Bayer Page A

reminded himself, that she was the daughter of a cop. She knew all the strange torments that rotted out cops' minds.
    "What about you?" he asked. "What did you do today?"
    "Thought about you," she said, "and about what you said to me on my machine."
    He had forgotten about that. So much had happened in the afternoon. "Was it okay? Didn't embarrass you?"
    "No." She looked at him. "I loved it." She grinned.
    As he helped her with the dishes she told him about her afternoon. She'd gone to Yankee Stadium, sat in the bleachers, then prowled the aisles taking photographs.
    "You weren't shooting the players."
    "I've already shot a lot of them. Today I was after the fans. The wild ones, you know, all curled with tension, ready to pounce out of their seats when they think they've seen a bad call and a favorite player getting robbed."
    "Aggression."
    She nodded. "Coming home I had a new idea for a book. The title would be Janek's World. I figured it all out. I'd follow you around for months, maybe a year, shooting the world you deal with and your reactions to it—the sordid side of the city through your eyes."
    "That," he said, scrubbing her sauté pan, "would not be a very pretty book."
    He was tempted then to tell her about Switched Heads, how the girls had been used, the awful merciless maniacal mind that had used them, but he hesitated because he didn't want to taint their relationship with the sordid passions of that tale. Anyway, he knew he couldn't tell it coherently. He hadn't sorted it out well enough himself. Perhaps when he knew more it would be all right to tell her; she would want to hear it because she would care about the things which anguished him, and he would want to tell it because speaking the words would help him to understand it better himself. Not now. He would wait and, hopefully, would have the full story for her soon. Hopefully because if he had the full story he would be done with it, which would mean, of course, that he was onto something else, another case as ugly or even uglier.
    They listened to some Coltrane and necked on the bed, then they made love again, and afterward, their bodies slick, they lay back upon the pillows to rest. And then—he didn't know why—he felt swept by a wave of gloom.
    "Hey, Caroline." He didn't dare look into her face. "Why me? This old detective with the pouches under his eyes? Wouldn't you do better with a younger guy, your age or thereabouts? One of those glossy types with thick black hair and a tan, dark glasses, driving a Porsche, in a thousand-dollar leather windbreaker with a gold watch flashing at his cuff. You know what I mean. Jesus—why am I asking that?"
    " Janek , Janek ..." She placed her hand on his chest, just above his heart, and he could feel it thumping inside, beating against her palm. She ran her fingers through his gray chest hair matted by the mixture of their sweat. " Janek ... Janek ..." She spoke his name as if she loved its sound.
    He looked down at her. Her head was resting against him, her cheek against his stomach, and she was looking up at him, her hand still above his heart, her eyes large and serious.
    "Why? Why me? Of all the guys—why me?" He had tried to pose the question first with humor, but now he could hear a strain of self-pity that made him feel ashamed.
    "You're such a cop, you big lunk . So smart about everybody else, so smart and sharp and wise. But you don't know anything about yourself, do you? Or women either. You can figure them at a distance, but you lose sight when they get too close."
    "Maybe."
    "Sure. And now you're feeling sorry for yourself. You just can't believe it, right? This gorgeous doll—I mean what the hell could she ever see in you? You—Jesus! Mr. Middle-age himself. Mr. The-World-Has-Passed-Me-By. She's a broad, right? And everyone knows what broads are interested in. Beefy jocks in sports cars. Muscles, money, clothes and fun. Let's not forget fun, Janek . I mean that's what it's