Empties by George; Zebrowski

their care.  
    A note from Gibney read:  
     
    Bill,
    One of my assistants brought this to work with him. Our practical joker strikes again!
    Frank  
     
    He opened a drawer to put away the envelope and looked at Dierdre Matera’s purse. He’d drop it off to her before meeting Gibney for lunch tomorrow, he told himself as he closed the drawer and locked it, then sat back, wondering about his feelings for her. They simply came. Near sleep that night they put on an erotic siren show, which he tried to ignore, feeling like a fool.  
     
     

 
     
    6
     
     
    At eleven the next morning he was a peasant calling on a great lady. She would reward him or not for the return of her purse. He was not especially conscious of his fear of women, but he recalled the one in high school who kept questioning about what he was going to do with his life as if interviewing him for the position of worthy husband and father. Another, in the midst of a heavy make out session, unzipped her pants and whispered to him, “I don’t know what’s right anymore,” and he had glimpsed the abyss before him, as all the roads away from it disappeared. Surrender to the male suddenly seemed all too brief, the sweet thrall replaced by its true purpose. The preying mantis bit off the male’s head as soon as the genetic deposit was made, turning him into an immediate source of food. Among human beings it was called divorce and alimony, he had heard said, with child support being a kind of continuing deposit.  
    He pressed the bell, imagining the texture of her skin beneath the suit she had worn at the church, and was surprised by her bare image, as vivid in his mind as if he had seen it.  
    “Who is it?” she answered over the speaker. Her voice sounded pleasant, suggesting a mood very different from that of their first meeting, and he felt stupidly hopeful.  
    “Detective Benek. You left your purse at the church.”  
    “Oh, yes! I’ve been looking for it. Come inside.”  
    The door buzzed open. He went through and down the hallway. She opened the inner door and stood aside as he came in.  
    “How silly of me,” she said, smiling. “I’d completely forgotten I had it with me! I’d put my keys in my pocket—I was just going for a walk. Must have also picked up my purse when I didn’t have to.”  
    Looking well rested, she seemed to have recovered from her collapse at the church, Benek noted as she closed the door and faced him. “Come sit down,” she said as if she had overheard his thoughts and decided how he should feel about her.  
    She led him into the small living room at the back of the apartment. He sat down in one of the two high-backed chairs by the windows, and glanced out at the slate-covered backyard. “Can I get you a beer?” she asked, looking lovely with her hair down to her shoulders.  
    “I’m on duty,” he said. “A Coke will be fine.”  
    She smiled and turned away. He examined her as she went into the kitchen, noticing that she seemed heavier in slacks than he had imagined, then looked away before she could catch him at it. Out in the yard a gust of wind swept dust across the black tiles. He noticed a blotch on the tall, wooden fence separating the yard from its neighbor. The stain looked as if someone had struck the wood with something greasy.  
    He turned back to the living room. The chairs were upholstered in a light brown fabric. The walls were off-white, the room tidy and clean, unmarked by any of the daily debris of life. Except for the old-fashioned, oversized sofa with its pattern of yellow flowers, it seemed an oddly impersonal room.  
    She came back with the cola and a small bowl of cheese twists. “Hope you like these,” she said, placing them on the end table. “Would you like a glass? It’s the least I can do for getting my purse back.”  
    “Don’t bother.” He grimaced inwardly; her looks and manner did not go with junk food. He took a sip from the bottle and said, “I hate