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“Why did they do that to him? Keep stabbing him, I mean? My God, they hacked him!”

“That’s not unusual with murders involving sexual deviates,” Peter Wohl said. “There’s often a viciousness, I guess is the word, in what they do to each other.”

She shuddered.

“He was such a nice little man,” she said. She sighed and shuddered, and added, “Bad things are supposed to come in threes. God, I hope that isn’t true. I can’t take anything else!”

“You’re going to be all right,” Peter said.

When they were inside the apartment, he turned the radio on, to WFLN-FM, the classical music station, and then smi

led at her.

“I won’t ask you if I can take your jacket,” he said. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Made in the highlands of Scotland,” she said.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be right with you.”

He went in the kitchen, got ice, and carried it to the bar. He took his jacket off without thinking about it, and made drinks. He carried them to her.

“Until tonight, I always thought there was something menacing about a man carrying a gun,” she said. “Now I find it pleasantly reassuring.”

“The theory is that a policeman is never really off duty,” he said.

“Like Dutch?” she said.

“You want to talk about Dutch?” he asked.

“Quickly changing the subject,” Louise said. “This is not what I would have expected, apartment-wise, for a policeman,” she said, gesturing around the apartment. “Or even for Peter Wohl, private citizen.”

“It was professionally decorated,” he said. “I once had a girl friend who was an interior decorator.”

“Had?”

“Had.”

“Then I suppose it’s safe to say I like the naked lady and the red leather chairs, but I think the white rug and most of the furniture looks like it belongs in a whorehouse.”

He laughed delightedly.

She looked at her drink.

“I don’t really want this,” she said. “What I really would like is something to eat.”

“How about a world-famous Peter Wohl Taylor ham and egg sandwich?”

“Hold the egg,” Louise said.

He went into the kitchen and took a roll of Taylor ham from the refrigerator and put it on his cutting board and began to slice it.

He fried the Taylor ham, made toast, and spread it with Durkee’s Dressing.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“Milk?” she asked.

“Milk,” he replied. He put the sandwiches on plates, and set places at his tiny kitchen table, then filled two glasses with milk and put them on the table.