H Is for Homicide

I replied.
    Jimmy's troubled gaze strayed back to Bibianna. He watched her with absorption, rubbing his thumb across his lower lip. He didn't want to believe me. His infatuation with the girl (and that's what she was, a girl) had apparently clouded his perception. After years of dealing with scammers, he'd suddenly decided that this one could change her wicked ways like magic if it suited her. He'd forgotten just how addictive crime can be. Repeat offenders are motivated more by withdrawal symptoms than necessity.
    I'd never seen him caught up like this. In the past, his relationships with women had been easy to track, light-hearted forays with no emotional strings attached. A few laughs, some quick sex, a couple of weeks of companionship. I'm not sure how it appeared from their perspective. The women he dated were often smart but self-deluding, announcing up front that all they were looking for was fun and games when in fact they bonded with him at the drop of a hat and quickly shifted into emotional bait and switch. The turnabout became apparent in the way they looked at him, in their determination to be understanding, nonpossessive, compliant, and considerate. I'd watched eight or ten of these women pass through his life in a period of ten months. All were slim, attractive, bright, and competent – professional women with careers in advertising, sales, graphic arts, TV production. Each would become fixated, hooked by his availability, his casual charm, the sexuality that hovered in the air around him. They'd begin to service him, cooking meals, ironing shirts, subtly demonstrating how much better his life could be if they were somewhere on the premises. They'd begin to quiz him about his past relationships, trying to figure out what the last woman did wrong, trying to delete from their own behavior the qualities that had generated their predecessor's demise. This phase was brief because Jimmy's behavior would remain exactly the same throughout. Personal sacrifice netted these women nothing except, perhaps, a case of housemaid's knee. He was irresponsible, as promiscuous as ever, though he tried to be polite. He never flaunted his indiscretions, but he made no secret of them, either, since nonexclusivity was the agreement he and this latest girlfriend had started out with. Their anger would begin to surface because there was no payoff to the subservience. Each woman, in turn, would start to feel victimized, and Jimmy was the obvious target of the discontent. This, of course, provided him with the perfect justification to pull away from them. Within a month, never much more than two, they'd make some demand, perhaps complain, voicing barely controlled expressions of disappointment and rebuke. The minute that happened, Jimmy Tate was out the door without so much as a "Thank you, ma'am." I'd never seen him look at one of them the way he looked at Bibianna Diaz.
    She returned to the table, where she arranged herself provocatively on Jimmy's lap, straddling him, with her skirt hiked up to her crotch, her breasts so close to his face I thought he'd munch on them like cupcakes. I spent the next half hour having my hearing impaired by the music while Jimmy Tate and Bibianna Diaz exchanged steamy glances, (more or less) making love in an upright position with then-clothes on, the resulting friction scorching all the layers of fabric between them. The air smelled of desire, like the sweet perfume of wet grass after a rainstorm. That or cat spray.
    The band finished one number and began the next, the only slow song I'd heard all night. Bibianna went off to dance with someone else. Jimmy didn't seem to mind. The fact that other men in the bar were seeking out her company apparently lent him stature. It also gave me time to figure out where his head was and whether he represented a help or a hindrance in my attempt to get close to Bibianna. Jimmy held his hand out. "Dance with me," he said.

7
    I PUT MY hand in his and followed. He was one of those men who can make you feel like Ginger Rogers on the dance floor, conveying an entire set of suggestions in the way he applied pressure to the small of my back. He moved automatically while he scanned the bar, his gaze shifting restlessly across the room. It was behavior I recognized. There's really no such thing as an "ex-cop" or a cop who's "off-duty" or "retired." Once trained, once indoctrinated, a cop is always alert, assessing reality in terms of its potential for illegal acts.