a transfer to a beat in Bethtown, either. I’m talking about OUT! You are going to be out in the street. You are going to be out and cold. And don’t think I can’t do it.”
“Sir, I didn’t think—”
“I know the commissioner the way I know the back of my own hand. The commissioner would sell his wife if I asked him to; that’s the way I know the commissioner. So don’t for one second think the commissioner wouldn’t toss a snot-nosed patrolman right out on his ear if I asked him to. Don’t for a minute think that, Sherlock.”
“Sir—”
“And don’t for a minute think I’m kidding, Sherlock, because I never kid around where it concerns murder. You’re fooling with murder, do you realize that? You’ve been barging around asking questions, and God alone knows who you’ve scared into hiding, and God alone knows how much of our careful work you’ve fouled up! SO LAY OFF! Go walk your goddamn beat! If I get another squeal about you—”
“Sir?”
“WHAT IS IT?”
“Who called you, sir?”
“That’s none of your goddamn business!” Hawthorne shouted.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get out of my office. You make me sick. Get out of my office.”
“Yes, sir,” Kling said. He turned and went to the door.
“AND DON’T FOOL WITH MURDER!” Hawthorne shouted after him.
He called Claire at 11:10. The phone rang six times, and he was ready to hang up, afraid he’d caught her asleep, when the receiver was lifted.
“Hello?” she said. Her voice was sleepy.
“Claire?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Did I wake you?”
“Yes.” There was a pause, and then her voice became a bit more lively. “Bert? Is that you?”
“Yes. Claire, I’m sorry I—”
“The last time I got stood up was when I was sixteen and had a—”
“Claire, I didn’t stand you up, honest. Some Homicide cops—”
“It felt like being stood up. I waited in the newspaper office until a quarter to eight, God knows why. Why didn’t you call?”
“They wouldn’t let me use the phone.” Kling paused. “Besides, I didn’t know how I could reach you.”
Claire was silent.
“Claire?”
“I’m here,” she said wearily.
“Can I see you tomorrow? We’ll spend the day together. I’m off tomorrow.”
Again, there was silence.
“Claire?”
“I heard you.”
“Well?”
“Bert, why don’t we call it quits, huh? Let’s consider what happened tonight an ill omen and just forget the whole thing, shall we?”
“No,” he said.
“Bert—”
“No! I’ll pick you up at noon, all right?”
Silence.
“Claire?”
“All right. Yes,” she said. “Noon.”
“I’ll explain then. I…I got into a little trouble.”
“All right.”
“Noon?”
“Yes.”
“Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Good night, Claire.”
“Good night, Bert.”
“I’m sorry I woke you.”
“That’s all right. I’d just dozed off, anyway.”
“Well…good night, Claire.”
“Good night, Bert.”
He wanted to say more, but he heard the click of the receiver being replaced in the cradle. He sighed, left the phone booth, and ordered a steak with mushrooms, french-fried onions, two baked potatoes, a huge salad with Roquefort dressing, and a glass of milk. He finished off the meal with three more glasses of milk and a slab of chocolate cream pie.
On the way out of the restaurant, he bought a candy bar.
Then he went home to sleep.
A common and much believed fallacy in popular literature is the one that links romantic waiters with starry-eyed couples who are obviously in love. The waiter hovers over the table, suggesting special dishes (“Per’aps the pheasant under ground glass for ze lady, yas?”), kissing his fingers, or wringing his hands against his chest while his heart bursts with romance.
Bert Kling had been in a good many restaurants in the city, as boy and man, with a good many young ladies ranging from the plain to the beautiful. He had come to the conclusion a long while back that most waiters in most restaurants had nothing more romantic on their minds than an order of scrambled eggs with lox.
He did not for a moment believe that he and Claire looked starry-eyed with love, but they were without doubt a nice-enough-looking couple, and they were in a fashionable restaurant that overlooked the River Harb, high atop one of the city’s better-known hotels. And, even discounting the absence of the starry-eyed (which he was fast coming to believe were nothing more than a Jon Whitcomb creation—ah, once a man begins to doubt…), he felt that any waiter with more than a stone for a heart should have recognized and aided the fumbling and primitive ritual of two people who were trying to get to know each other.
The day, by any standards, had not been what Kling would have called a rousing success.
He had planned on a picnic in Bethtown, with its attendant ferry