From the Corner of His Eye

necking like two crazy kids. Junior would disrobe her on the sofa, caressing her smooth pliant body, her skin buttery in the lamplight, and then he would carry her, naked, to the dark bedroom upstairs.
        Avoiding the graveled driveway, on which he was more likely to scuff his freshly polished loafers, he approached the house across the lawn, beneath the moon-sifting branches of a great pine that made itself useless for Christmas by spreading as majestically as an oak.
        He supposed Victoria might have a visitor. Perhaps a relative or a girlfriend. Not a man. No. She knew who her man was, and she would have no other while she waited for the chance to surrender to him and to consummate the relationship that had begun with the spoon and the ice in the hospital ten days previously.
        Most likely, if Victoria was entertaining, the visitor's car would have been parked in the driveway.
        Junior considered slipping quietly around the house, peering in windows, to be sure she was alone, before approaching directly. If she saw him, however, his wonderful surprise would be spoiled.
        Nothing in life was risk free, so he hesitated only a moment: at the foot of the porch steps before climbing them and knocking on the door.
        Music played within. An up-tempo number. Possibly swing. He couldn't quite identify the tune.
        As Junior was about to knock again, the door flew inward, and over Sinatra having fun with "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street," Victoria said, "You're early, I didn't hear your car-" She was speaking as she pulled the door open, and she cut herself off in midsentence When she stepped up to the threshold and saw who stood before her.
        She looked surprised, all right, but her expression wasn't the one that Junior had painted on the canvas of his imagination. Her surprise had no delight in it, and she didn't at once break into a radiant smile.
        For an instant, she appeared to be frowning. Then he realized this couldn't be a frown. It must be a smoldering look of desire.
        In tailored black slacks and a form-hugging, apple-green cotton sweater, Victoria Bressler fulfilled all the voluptuous promise that Junior had suspected lay under her looser-fitting nurse's uniform. The V-necked sweater suggested a glorious depth of cleavage, though only a tasteful hint of it was on display; nothing about this beauty could be called cheap.
        "What do you want?" she asked.
        Her voice was flat and a little hard. Another man might have mistaken her tone for disapproval, for impatience, even for quiet anger.
        Junior knew that she must be teasing him. Her sense of play was delicious. Such deviltry in her scintillant blue eyes, such sauciness.
        He held forth the single red rose. "For you. Not that it compares. No flower could."
        Still relishing her little pretense of rejection, Victoria did not touch the rose. "What kind of woman do you think I am?"
        "The exquisite kind," he replied, glad that he had read so many books on the art of seduction and therefore knew precisely the right thing to say.
        Grimacing, she said, "I told the police about your disgusting little come-on with the ice spoon."
        Thrusting the red rose at her again, insistently pressing it against her hand to distract her, Junior swung the Merlot, and just as Sinatra sang the word sugar with a bounce, the bottle smacked Victoria in the center of her forehead.

Chapter 33
        
        OUR LADY OF SORROWS, quiet and welcoming in the Bright Beach night, humble in dimension, without groin vaults and grand columns and cavernous transepts, restrained in ornamentation, was as familiar to Maria Elena Gonzalez-and as comforting-as her own home. God was everywhere in the world, but here in particular. Maria felt happier the instant she stepped through the entrance door into the narthex.
        The Benediction service had concluded, and the worshipers had departed. Gone, too, were the priest and the altar boys.
        After adjusting the hairpin that held her lace mantilla, Maria passed from the narthex into the nave She dipped two fingers in the holy water that glimmered in the marble font, and crossed herself.
        The air was spicy with incense and with the fragrance of the lemon oil polish used on the wooden pews.
        At the front, a soft spotlight a focused on the life-size crucifix. The only additional illumination came from