Til Death by Ed McBain Page B

Tony shouted, and the cork exploded from the bottle at the same instant, white bubbles following it out of the green neck, spilling onto Tony’s thick fingers. Birnbaum clapped Tony on the back, and they began laughing uproariously. The band was playing louder, and Jody Lewis was running all over the lawn popping his flash bulbs, capturing the bride and groom for posterity. He followed them to the long bridal table where the ancient and time-honored custom of collecting the connubial loot was about to take place. Angela made a beautiful hostess for the receiving line. Tommy sat beside her, grinning from ear to ear, and Jody Lewis kept the shutter clicking as the relatives filed past to kiss the bride and wish her luck, to shake hands with the groom and congratulate him. During the shaking of hands, a gratuity, a present, a ten-dollar bill or a twenty-dollar bill in an envelope was pressed into Tommy’s hand.
    “Congratulations,” the well-wishers said, slightly embarrassed by the handing over of money, a civilized gesture with all the inherent savagery of primitive times, the spoils offered to thenewly crowned king. And Tommy, in turn, was embarrassed as he accepted the gifts because there is nothing more difficult to do than accept a gift with style, and Tommy was too young to have acquired style. “Thank you,” he muttered over and over again. “Thank you, thank you.”
    The champagne corks kept exploding.
    “The trouble with this stuff,” Birnbaum says, “is it makes you want to go to the bathroom.”
    “So go,” Tony said.
    “I will.”
    “Right upstairs. The bedroom at the end of the—”
    “No, no. Too crowded up there,” Birnbaum said. “I’ll run over to my own house.”
    “What? And miss the wedding?”
    “It’ll take a minute. It’ll be quick. Don’t worry, Tony, I’ll be back. Just try to keep me away.”
    “All right, Birnbaum. Hurry! Hurry!”
    Birnbaum cocked his head to one side and started off through the bushes to his house on the next lot.
    At the far end of the table, unobserved by either Angela or Tommy who were busy accepting gifts and good wishes, a pair of hands deposited a pair of small bottles filled with red wine. The bottles of wine were each tied with big bows. One bow was pink, the other was blue.
    The pink bow had attached to it a card that read:

    The blue bow had attached to it a similar card that, had Tommy seen it, might have struck a responsive chord. It is doubtful, however, that he would have recognized the handwriting as being identical with that on a card he’d received earlier in the day.
    The card attached to the blue bow read, simply:

    “Come with me,” Jonesy said to Christine.
    “I came here with someone, you know,” Christine said coyly. She was rather enjoying the game and, oddly because she had not wanted to come, she was enjoying the wedding, too. But particularly, she was enjoying the look of dismay that spread over Cotton’s face whenever he saw her dancing with Sam Jones. The look was priceless. She enjoyed it more than the music, and more than the champagne, and more than the exploding corks, and the wonderful free feeling of gaiety that pervaded the outdoor reception.
    “I know you came with someone. He’s bigger than me, too,” Jonesy said, “but I don’t care. Come on.”
    “Where are you taking me?” Christine said, giggling as Jonesy pulled her by the hand into the bushes at the side of the house. “Jonesy! Really now!”
    “Come, come, come,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He dragged her deeper into the bushes onto a path that had been stamped down through constant walking through the short grass.
    “What do you want to show me?”
    “Let’s get a little further away from the festivities first,” he said. His hand on hers was tight. He pulled her along the path as if urgently propelled. Christine was not frightened. She was, in truth, slightly excited. She thought she knew what was coming, and she thought she