Free West 47th by Gerald A Browne

however, if he made something up she wouldn’t let him be brief; she’d want details and he’d have to keep on inventing and the fibs would pile up and that wasn’t how he wanted to spend the better part of the night.
    He wanted to go home and lie with her, remain perfectly still while she traced him with fingers and mouth, as she loved to do and as he loved her to do, drawing the precise picture of him in her mind, drawing that part of him that would occupy her so nicely.
    His memory suggested the Kalali robbery and murder.
    There was that, and it suited the moment perfectly, Mitch thought. It had the components but wouldn’t take up much time because he’d stick to what he knew about it.
    Which, at this point, wasn’t much.

Chapter 5
    The following morning there was no guitar playing while Mitch shaved.
    He’d awakened at five and, although the face of his bedside clock suggested that he doze off for another couple of hours, he knew when he got up for the bathroom he was up for the day.
    He’d slept fewer hours than usual but it had been a deeper sleep. Perhaps he hadn’t even once changed position; his pillow wasn’t punished, was still plump and showed only a head-size impression.
    Such a good sleep no doubt because of good, long lovemaking.
    Last night had been one of those like-minded times for him and Maddie, when their sexual wants not only coincided but were, as well, simultaneously above the reach of restraint, up in that lover’s stratosphere where lust also has its place.
    â€œHow does that feel?”
    â€œMarvelous.”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œSoon as I get my breath.”
    â€œIt doesn’t hurt too much?”
    â€œYou can’t hurt me now. Nothing you can do will hurt now.”
    He shaved with the bathroom door shut, ran the water from the tap only when needed and only with enough force to rinse his razor. He took a brief, gentle shower and dressed as quietly as possible. Everything not to disturb her, conscientious of how supersensitive her hearing was.
    He went noiselessly to her side of the bed for a goodbye look at her. His love in the black within her black. Her usual sleeping attitude, legs knifed up to herself, chin to her chest, one hand beneath a cheek. As though she were contained within the invisible shell of an egg. His love, her system had been so swamped with the neurotransmitters of pleasure that she was still under their influence.
    He watched and listened to her breathing. The shallow breaths of sleep. He wished he could leave her a note declaring his love in some unique, adequately expressive way.
    He went down the thirty-four floors and through the Sherry Netherland’s breccia marble lobby. The uniformed doorman gave the brass-framed revolving door a vigorous spin. Mitch hopped into a quarter section of it and came out on Fifth Avenue.
    The flag of Japan next to the flag of Germany limp over there above the entrance to the Plaza.
    The gold embellishments on the building down the way, the one that had been confiscated from Imelda Marcos, celebrating the sun.
    A taxi swerved in, offered itself to Mitch. He waved it on, glanced up at the Sherry’s landmark clock, saw twenty to six and headed downtown at a pace that conveyed important destination.
    Twelve minutes later he was in his office.
    As he usually first did, he stood at the window and sighted down 47th. He wasn’t able to see the entire street from this vantage, only about half the north side and none of the south; however that was enough for him to take in the temperament of it. It was as though each day his imagination expected the street to change, to be upheaved or thronged in a panic or roiled from end to end with visible avarice.
    At times, depending upon what mood he was viewing the street through, he thought possibly his regard for it didn’t exceed by much what he felt about insurance companies.
    At the moment 47th’s disposition was