She never
even saw them coming. Two slaps. Wham!
Wham!
She tried
not to tremble. Hemingway (not the
writer, just a man) stood over her, and regret and shame were already showing,
even as he tried to maintain his sudden tough guy act, the one a thousand other
people, but until now never before a woman, had experienced.
“Tell me!”
Would it
have hurt more, to give him what he wanted?
She couldn’t say. The shock of
the moment reverberated, more than the slaps.
This was a man who had confided in her, made himself vulnerable, and she
had reciprocated, then.
“I’m…”
The anger
was gone for a moment, and she felt some relief, but then it was back
again. He looked primed to slap her
again, or perhaps worse. Instead he
turned in horror of what he’d done, and walked away. He left in silence.
Later, when
the detective came, as she sat in the quiet precinct office, she was aware that
all he saw when he looked at her were the splotches the slaps have left
behind. His name was Ellroy, and she
knew him mostly by reputation. She
couldn’t think of a single reason why he would be associated with Hemingway. He was for all appearances a totally opposite
character. At least, he had been. He had a look in his eyes now that was absent
from the snapshots in the papers. It was
familiar. She’d seen it on Hemingway,
too.
“Look, Miss
Denning…”
“I couldn’t
tell him. I couldn’t. It would have shattered everything.”
“Even worse
than what he did?”
She could
think of no further response. Even if he
didn’t know it, Hemingway suddenly had an ally in this man. She asked for some paper, a pen, and wrote
down what she couldn’t speak. Every
letter stabbed at her. Slapped,
maybe.
She pushed
the note across the desk, and Ellroy glanced at it. His eyes flashed further horror, and she was
left in her silence.
