“We’ll go,” she whispered, her breath light against my lips, “anywhere you want.” And then she shrugged off her robe, putting her arms around me. I could feel my heart drumming in my chest and her own answered, and I was thinking to myself, Was that all it took? A simple murder and some blackmail? And then she was kissing me, moving her hands across me, and the only thing I was thinking was, Finally, finally, finally.

Afterward, upstairs in her bed, Lou shook a cigarette out of her case and lit it, stretching like a cat and flipping herself upside down before taking a drag. The smoke drifted down for half a beat, toward the carpet, and then back up. I touched her toe, near my head, and Lou smiled.

“How ugly is this bed?” Lou lifted her head, which had been purpling from hanging off the edge of the mattress, and watched herself make small circles with dusty feet on the virginal white of her headboard. A lock of hair had fallen into the corner of her mouth, and she didn’t bother to move it.

My limbs were full and drowsy and my head was cloudy—from the gin, from Lou, the tangy taste of her still on my lips. “We could torch it,” I said. “On our way out of town.”

“Yeah,” Lou said dreamily, walking her feet across the quilted satin, back and forth, a half-assed Charleston. “We could.”

I sat up in bed, tucking the sheets under my armpits. We should’ve been on the road hours before, as soon as she’d agreed, but I couldn’t make myself regret what had happened. “The money,” I said, and Lou looked at me, cricking her neck upward to meet my eyes. “We have to go back by my apartment for the rest of Carrigan’s cash. And then we could go—Palm Springs, maybe. For the night. We can come up with a better plan tomorrow.”

Lou nodded slowly, her eyes unfocused. She liked the plan, I could tell. The desert drive, the night wind in our hair. Lou flipped over, onto her stomach, making a figure-four shape. Her toes dug into the pale flesh at the back of her knee. She placed her chin onto her overlapped hands and stared at me, then nodded, another of her quick decisions.

“I’ll drive,” she said, suddenly all brisk business. She sat up, letting the sheet fall, and I caught my breath—she was so beautiful. Statues were made of bodies like hers.

“But first, let me make some coffee to help me sober up for the trip. You stay there,” she said with a wink as I tried to sit up, reach for her. “I like this view.” She crept down the stairs, not bothering to cover her nakedness with a stitch of clothing.