The Mugger 87th Precinct Series, Book 2 - By Ed McBain Page 0,52

ride from Isola across the river. Rain had destroyed that silly notion.

He had drippingly called for Claire at twelve on the dot. The rain had given her a “horrible headache.” Would he mind if they stayed indoors for a little while, just until the Empirin took hold?

Kling did not mind.

Claire had put some good records into the record player and then had lapsed into a heavy silence, which he attributed to the throbbing headache. The rain had oozed against the windowpanes, streaking the city outside. The music had oozed from the record player—Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, Strauss’s Don Quixote, Franck’s Psyche.

Kling almost fell asleep.

They left the apartment at 2:00. The rain had let up somewhat, but it had put a knife-edge on the air, and they sloshed along in a sullen, uncommunicative silence, hating the rain with common enmity, but somehow having allowed the rain to build a solid wedge between them. When Kling suggested a movie, Claire accepted the offer eagerly.

The movie was terrible.

The feature was called Apache Undoing, or some such damn thing, and it starred hordes of painted Hollywood extras who screeched and whooped down upon a small band of blue-clothed soldiers. The handful of soldiers fought off the wily Apaches until almost the end of the movie. By this time, the hordes flung against the small, tired band must have numbered in the tens of thousands. With five minutes to go in the film, another small handful of soldiers arrived, leaving Kling with the distinct impression that the war would go on for another two hours in a subsequent film to be titled Son of Apache Undoing.

The second film on the bill was about a little girl whose mother and father are getting divorced. The little girl goes with them to Reno—Dad conveniently has business there at the same time Mom must establish residence—and through an unvarying progression of mincing postures and bright-eyed, smirking little-girl facial expressions, convinces Mom and Dad to stay together eternally and live in connubial bliss with their mincing, bright-eyed, smirking little smart-aleck daughter.

They left the theater bleary-eyed. It was 6:00.

Kling suggested a drink and dinner. Claire, probably in self-defense, agreed that a drink and dinner would be just dandy along about now.

And so they sat in the restaurant high atop one of the city’s better-known hotels, and they looked through the huge windows that faced the river; across the river there was a sign.

The sign first said: SPRY.

Then it said: SPRY FOR FRYING.

Then it said: SPRY FOR BAKING.

Then it said, again: SPRY.

“What’ll you drink?” Kling asked.

“A whiskey sour, I think,” Claire said.

“No cognac?”

“Later maybe.”

The waiter came over to the table. He looked as romantic as Adolf Hitler.

“Something to drink, sir?” he asked. “A whiskey sour and a martini.” “Lemon peel, sir?” “Olive,” Kling said.

“Thank you, sir. Would you care to see a menu now?” “We’ll wait until after we’ve had our drinks, thank you. All right, Claire?”

“Yes, fine,” she said.

They sat in silence. Kling looked through the windows.

SPRY FOR FRYING.

“Claire?”

“Yes?”

SPRY FOR BAKING.

“It’s been a bust, hasn’t it?”

“Please, Bert.”

“The rain…and that lousy movie. I didn’t want it to be this way. I wanted—”

“I knew this would happen, Bert. I tried to tell you, didn’t I? Didn’t I try to warn you off? Didn’t I tell you I was the dullest girl in the world? Why did you insist, Bert? Now you make me feel like a…like a…”

“I don’t want you to feel any way,” he said. “I was only going to suggest that we…we start afresh. From now. Forgetting everything that’s…that’s happened.”

“Oh, what’s the use?” Claire said.

The waiter came with their drinks. “Whiskey sour for the lady?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He put the drinks on the table. Kling lifted the martini glass.

“To a new beginning,” he said.

“If you want to waste a drink,” she answered, and she drank.

“About last night—” he started.

“I thought this was to be a new beginning.”

“I wanted to explain. I got picked up by two Homicide cops and taken to their lieutenant who warned me to keep away from the Jeannie Paige potato.”

“Are you going to?”

“Yes, of course.” He paused. “I’m curious, I admit, but—”

“I understand.”

“Claire,” he said evenly, “what the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Where do you go when you retreat?”

“What?”

“Where do you—”

“I didn’t think it showed. I’m sorry.”

“It shows,” Kling said. “Who was he?”

Claire looked up sharply. “You’re a better detective than I realized.”

“It doesn’t take much detection,” he said. There was a sad undertone to his voice now, as if her confirmation of his