Free Fall in Crimson by John D. MacDonald

features, a good grin. And he wasn't very big. He was a dandy match for Anne Renzetti. Five foot two fits pretty well with five foot seven. He put his hands on Anne's shoulders, kissed her on the cheek, and then with a gesture very much like a magician's best trick, he reached behind him and pulled a large glowing blonde. She topped the good doctor by an inch or two. They both wore the same jack-o'-lantern toothy grin, and over the lobby sounds I heard a portion of his introduction of her: ". . . my wife, Marcie Jean . . ."
    Anne's shoulders did not slump. I'll give her that much. And I think her smile stayed pretty much in place, because she was still wearing it when she turned around and came back, leading them toward the desk. I sensed that this was no time to ask for an introduction to the doctor and his bride. Anne kept smiling while the doctor registered. She pointed out the location of his room on a chart. A bellhop went with them to cart their luggage through the gardens to their room.
    The two girls behind the desk had arranged to disappear. They recognized the storm warnings.
    Anne leaned back against the counter, her arms crossed, staring at me and through me, a glare that pierced me through and through, at chest level.
    "Honeymoon!" she said in a half whisper. "Big dumb blond dumpling comes out of nowhere and nails him. And I put two bottles of chilled champagne up there in the room. Shit! Hope the shower never stops dripping."
    "Pretty hard to stop a good drip in a shower." She slowly came back to here-and-now and focused on me. She tilted her head a little bit to one side and looked me over with great care.
    She moistened her lips and swallowed. "What did you say your damn name is? McGee? You are a sizable son of a bitch, aren't you?"
    "Wouldn't try to deny it."
    She looked at me. She was all a-hum with ready. She was up to the splash rails with electric ready. Everything was working: all the blood and juices from eyeballs to polished toenails.
    "You better comfort me with apples, fella. Or is it roses? And stay me with flagons, whatever that means. Always wondered. And for God's sake you better be discreet or it'll undermine any authority I have left around here."
    "Appointing me an instrument of revenge?"
    "Do you particularly mind?"
    "I'm thinking it over."
    "Thanks a lot! Take your time. Take four more seconds, damn it."
    "Three. Two. One. Bingo."
    "My place," she said. "Nineish."
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    "Try to remember my name."
    She tried to smile but the smile turned upside down, the underlip poked out, the eyes filled, and she spun and darted away toward her office, the proud straight back finally curving in defeat.
    I was on time, after wondering all the rest of the day whether to show up or not. It made me feel ridiculously girlish. Despite all the new freedoms everybody claims they have, I still feel strange when I am the aggressee. One wants to blush and simper. I was dubious about my own rationalization. She seemed a nice person, and her morale had taken one hell of a scruffing whem the Doc had walked in with his surprise bride. What would be the further damage if even the casual semi-stranger didn't want her as a gift?
    Anyway, it seemed to me that after a day of thinking about it, she would have cooled on the whole idea. It had been an abrupt self-destructive impulse that had made her proposition me so directly. She might not even be at her cabana on stilts. And if she was there, and if she said she had reconsidered and it was a dumb idea and all, then it would be time for both of us to disengage gracefully.
    She was there. A thread of light shone out under her cabana door. When I knocked the light went out, and she came out onto the porch, shaded from the starlight, carrying two glasses and the ice bucket, and a towel with which to twist out the champagne cork. She wore dark slacks and a white turtleneck against the night-breeze off the Gulf. She said, in too merry a voice,
    "Champagne for you too, pal, so