and we sat down in silence and had breakfast.
There was something wrong with this particular silence. Ray Kirschmann’s young partner Loren would have slapped his battered nightstick against his palm and said something inarticulate about vibrations, and maybe that would have been as good an explanation as any. Perhaps I read something in the tilt of her head, the set of her chin. I didn’t know exactly what it was but something was not at all right.
I said, “What’s the matter, Ruth?”
“Ruth,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Dear Ruth. That’s a play.”
“Baby Ruth,” I said. “That’s a candy bar.”
“Ruth Ruth Ruth. You said that last night. And this morning, too. At the very end.”
“You said ‘Sweet fucking shit I’m coming,’ but I hadn’t planned on throwing it in your face for breakfast. If you don’t like your name why don’t you change it?”
“I like my name fine.”
“Then what’s the trouble?”
“Shit. Look, Bernie, if you keep calling me Ruth I’m going to start calling you Roger.”
“Huh?”
“As in Armitage.”
“Oh,” I said. Then my eyes widened a bit and my jaw slackened and I said Oh again, but with a little more conviction, and she gave a slow nod.
“Your name isn’t Ruth Hightower.”
“Too true.” She averted her eyes. “Well, you were calling yourself Roger and I knew that wasn’t your name and I thought we ought to start on an equal footing. And then we got it straightened out who you were and it just seemed easier for me to go on being Ruth. There was never a convenient time to tell you.”
“Until now.”
“If you’re going to murmur a name into my ear at intimate moments I’d just as soon you got the name right.”
“I guess I can understand that. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, what’s your name? Take plenty of time, kid. Make sure you come up with one that’ll sound nice in a husky whisper.”
“That’s not nice.”
“Not nice! Here I am feeling like an utter zip, cooing some alias into your pink shell-like ear, and you tell me I’m not nice?” I turned her face so that I could see her eyes. There were tears welling up in their corners. “Hey,” I said. “Hey, come on now.”
She blinked furiously but the tears did not go away. She blinked some more, then erased the tears with the back of her hand. “I’m all right,” she said.
“Of course you are.”
“My name’s Ellie.”
“For Eleanor?”
“For Elaine, but Ellie’ll do just fine.”
“Ellie what? Not Hightower, I don’t suppose.”
“Ellie Christopher.”
“Pretty name.”
“Thank you.”
“I think it suits you. But then I thought Ruth Hightower suited you pretty well, so who am I to say? What do I know? Is Christopher your married name?”
“No. I took my maiden name back after the divorce.”
“What was your husband’s name?”
“What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you angry with me, Bernie?”
“Why should I be angry?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
I went on not answering it and finished my coffee, then got to my feet. “We’ve both got things to do,” I said. “I want to go to my apartment.”
“I don’t know if that’s safe.”
I didn’t either but I didn’t feel like talking about it. I couldn’t believe the cops would have my place staked out, not at this point, and a phone call would let me know if there was anyone on the premises at the moment. And I really wanted clean clothes, and I had the feeling it would be nice to have my case money on hand. Things were almost ready to come to a head and the five grand I’d tucked away at my place might turn out to be useful.
“Things to do,” I said. “You want to go back to your place and change your clothes, freshen up, that sort of thing. And feed your cats.”
“I suppose so.”
“And empty the catbox and put out fresh kitty litter, all those things. Take the garbage out to the incinerator. The little day-to-day chores that eat up so much of a person’s time.”
“Bernie—”
“Do you really have cats? Abyssinians? And are their names really Esther and Ahasuerus?”
“Esther and Mordecai.”
“There’s a lot I don’t know about you, isn’t there?”
“Not so very damned much. I don’t see what you’re so thoroughly pissed about.”
I didn’t either, exactly. But I glared at her anyway.
“Give me a little room, huh? I’m just a neighborhood kid who wandered in one morning to water the plants.”
“Well, you don’t owe me anything, that’s for sure.”
“Bernie—”
“I’ll meet you at the Childs on Eighth Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street,” I said. “That’ll be a few doors from his hotel. Do you still want to