She reached out and grabbed my hand. It was a perfectly natural gesture, but the sentimentality of it made me uncomfortable: It spoke too well of her need to make me the solution to her problems. “I don’t think so. It’s not callous to be strong enough to not care what other people think.” I shook my head. “You’re making me sound too good to be true.” “You are good.” It was a painful signpost of her inexperience-or my skepticism. I turned my hand so that I held hers in mine. “What I am is a crusty old cop. Some of what you’re talking about comes from my just not giving a damn anymore. And the rest is flat out wrong. I care about what people think; I have concerns about coming across well and not looking like a fool. Everyone does. I want you to like me, for instance, but that’s just a normal thing for men and women to do-for anyone to do.” Her face softened. “I do like you. I think I liked you before we even met, just from what I heard from Buster. And now that we have met, I know I was right.” I was angry at myself. Subconsciously, I’d been playing her up, encouraging her. I’d been enjoying the attention, using it to soothe my frazzled ego.
“Laura, you don’t really know me. I live alone for good reasons.
I’m narrow-minded in a lot of ways and I’m selfish as hell-can’t share worth a damn. Don’t look to me for examples of how to run your life; look to yourself and find out what it is you want out of life. Like you said, you’ve got no kids, nothing really to tie you down. If leaving Tommy is what’s best, then do it, but if you think the two of you still have a chance, then maybe it’s worth fixing up.” “I don’t know if I’d be good at that,” she muttered, staring at her plate.
“Come on. You said you lacked courage. That’s baloney-you beat your alcoholism, didn’t you?” “For the moment.” “Did Tommy help at all?” “Not much. Tommy doesn’t do anything much.” Her face became hard.
“I’d try to make it work if he was interested. Hell, I’d make it %157
rk if anyone was interested.” With that, like quicksilver, she was king softly into my eyes.
I felt like a tugboat pushing an ocean liner away from the rocks.
Tommy’s not the man for you, Laura, then find someone who is. don’t tie yourself into knots for the first nice guy who comes along. at’Il bite you in the nose in the long run.” “Do you like me?” I was getting a little frustrated with this. “Of course I like you, but set in my ways.
You’re stuck on me because you’re unhappy with mmy.” I’d been harsher than I’d intended. Indeed, even as I spoke them, alf-regretted my own words. To a guy my age, the palpable yearning an attractive younger woman was a seductive proposition, as pleasto my vanity as it was foolish and misguided to my inner moral pass. In any case, I had pricked whatever bubble had been swelling ween us. She took her hand back and began finishing her meal. I took her cue and attacked my chili again, but the taste had gone of it somehow. After a couple of mouthfuls, I put down my spoon quit. As I looked up, I saw Edward Sarris staring at me from across room.
Moments later, he walked up to the table. “Enjoying your meal?” Laura froze in midbite. Sarris smiled. “Please, continue.” She did, though obviously with limited enthusiasm. I gestured to seat beside me. “Join us?” “No, thank you.” He leaned against the table opposite us instead, hands in his pants pockets, his ankles crossed the perfect picture leisure.
“So, business or pleasure?” “The meal was a pleasure, the fact that we had it here was, I admit, oncession to curiosity.” “Nicely put. So, what do you think?” He pulled out a hand and tured around the room.
“It’s pretty similar to the way The Common se Restaurant is set up in Island Pond, but, as they say, imitation he highest form of flattery.”
“I think it’s materialistic as hell. How do you justify it, given your ‘Iosophy?” “Of which you know next to nothing, I might add.” “Okay, but isn’t there some truth to that?” “Perhaps. What you fail to recognize is that we deal with principle ed with pragmatism. We intend to outlive you to the end of this ented world, and to do that we must live on the fringes of your rId, not utterly apart from it.” %158 “I hear you collect all valuables from entering members and that you have insurance on all your buildings. How’s that fit in?” “I doubt you are truly curious how that ‘fits,’ as you put it. Suffice it to say it’s perfectly legal and that you needn’t waste your time trying to prove I’m a despot leading a bunch of deranged half-wits to poverty.” “I have heard that.” “I don’t doubt it. You’ve probably also heard about sacrifices in the night.” “What about Julie Wingate? Have you seen her around?” “No, I’m afraid not.” His manner was consistently relaxed on the outside, ice-cold on the inside. I had to give him high marks for composure. So far, he had avoided all the easy cliches-no temper tantrums, no outright refusals, no bald-faced lies that I could immediately expose, although I knew in my bones his last comment was pure baloney.
“I hear you’re not cooperating in locating her.” His eyebrows shot up.
“Really?” “You claim you can’t force your followers to help us out, and they won’t move a muscle without your okay.” I glanced at the man behind the counter. “Or one of your lieutenants.” “The first half of that is true; not the second.” “That’s not what we just witnessed. We asked our waitress a simple question, and she immediately was replaced by that man over there.” He followed my pointed finger. “She didn’t know the answer to your question, I suppose.” “I asked her if she knew Julie. Surely she knew the answer to that.” He smiled. “It would seem so. I have no explanation.” It was a wonderful answer, a total roadblock disguised as beguiling truthfulness.
It occurred to me that until we had some concrete evidence that the Order was involved in all this, Sarris would be happy to play verbal footsie ‘til the cows came home. As he’d said earlier, he was quite good at it. I glanced at Laura. “You finished?” She nodded.
Sarris looked disappointed. “No dessert?” “Not this time.” I put a twenty on the table, more than enough to cover the bill and tip.
He reached for the money. “Let me get you your change.” “No, keep it.”
I rose and helped Laura into her coat. Sarris unhooked mine and handed it to me. “After this is all over, Lieutenant Gunther, I’d like it if you could come back informally.
%159 re antagonists now, to be sure, but I have enjoyed our conversas”’
“Seems like all I do is ask questions and all you say is, ‘No ment.’”
“Surely, you’ve glimpsed better than that.” “I haven’t glimpsed much of anything.” Laura preceded me through the door. We stopped on the walkway ide and adjusted our coats against the chill, which, compared to the th of the restaurant, had a pleasant bite to it. “You two guys sure have strange conversations. I can’t figure out u like each other or not.” “I don’t like him but he has a certain style.” She shivered slightly, getting used to the cold. “He gives me the ps. Thanks for dinner, though. It was nice.” “Let me walk you back to your car.”
“Okay.” I stuck out my arm in a Cary Grant gesture. She didn’t know to her arm through mine, and instead patted my elbow awkwardly rent movies.