“Yvette was born in Quebec, so my father had nothing to be ashamed of there.”
“You have other brothers and sisters?”
He looked away but answered, “No.”
She was studying him, he knew, seeing the evasion. He pretended to be engaging in the cop’s habit he had already observed in her — the habit of staying aware of one’s surroundings, of the people who moved in and out of any room. But he knew she was watching only him.
He tried to impartially consider what she was seeing. That he was older, undoubtedly. She was about eight or ten years his junior — somewhere in her early thirties. She was probably deciding he was too old for her. While he was tall and slender — too thin, some would say — he was not at all handsome. His features were harsh. He was intelligent, but not a conversationalist, not a charmer. It occurred to him that most women would have liked a quieter place to dine, decorated with something other than airplane parts.
“It’s not a very fancy place—” he began.
“It’s comfortable.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “The food is plain here, but good. The steaks are the best in Las Piernas. I should have asked before — are you a vegetarian?”
She shook her head. He signaled to Marie, who quickly came to take their orders. They waited in silence until she brought their wine. Searching for another topic of conversation, he said, “Tell me about your family.”
“I have two brothers, one fifteen years older, the other, twelve years older — they refer to me as ‘the retirement package.’ My parents were both forty-five when I was born — they’re no longer living. I’m close to my brothers, though. They both live in Santa Barbara.”
He studied her, just as she had studied him, all the while wondering why he had no gift for flirtation. After years of spurning overtures, of letting subtle and not-so-subtle invitations go unanswered — he found himself curiously unwilling to waste this chance. There was something waiting to begin here, but how to make that beginning? He might compliment her on her green eyes and dark hair — tell her that he liked the way she wore her hair tonight, perhaps? Not pinned up, as usual, but falling in soft curls across her shoulders. But why should she care what he liked, after all? Did any woman really want a man to say such things? Certainly, no woman would want a man to tell her that her skin was the color of walnuts. Walnuts were wrinkly things — nuts, for God’s sake. What a poet you are, Lefebvre! A real smooth operator. Still, to his eye, her skin was just that lovely, creamy brown color—
He realized she had stopped talking and was looking at him with — impatience?
“You’re wondering what I am,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“I’m used to it.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh.” She blushed.
You see? he told himself. Walnuts do not blush. Of all the things—
“I saw you looking at my skin.”
Now he blushed.
She smiled. “You were thinking, let’s see…”
For an awful moment, he wondered if she would somehow guess.
“You wouldn’t put it like Hitch did,” she went on. “So you wouldn’t say, ‘What kind of goddamned mutt are you, anyway?’”
“Mutt?” he repeated blankly.
“I admired his directness, actually. So much better than being told I’m ‘exotic.’”
The look on his face must have made her realize that he hadn’t been thinking about her ethnicity at all, because she faltered, then said, “Oh,” again — this time, a sound of both pleasure and embarrassment.
“I wasn’t—”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I mean, I see that now.” She hesitated, then rapidly forged ahead. “You’re lucky to know both French and English. Even though your last name is French, when people read your ID card, they probably don’t expect you to speak the language—”
“They don’t even know how to say my last name,” he said, looking mildly amused. “And I know I cannot ever teach most of them to say it — the sounds aren’t found in English, so…” He shrugged. “I’m known as ‘Leyfeb,’ ‘Le-fever,’ ‘La-five,’ ‘Luh-fave.’ Usually I tell them it almost rhymes with ‘ever,’ and then they’re really confused.”
“Tell me how to say it.”
“The way my cousins in Maine say it? Or the way my father said it?”
“The way you say it.”
He smiled. “Phil.”
“No, come on.”
“Okay. ‘Luh-fevre.’ A short e, then a soft ‘vre’ sound.” He repeated it.
She tried it.
“Almost. You’re rolling the r — you’re making it Spanish.” He said his name a few more times.
She repeated it back until he said, “Yes, now you have it. Now — you were about to tell me more about your name. Rosario.”
“You rolled the r’s perfectly! You speak Spanish, don’t you? English, French, and Spanish?”
“Yes, but just those three.”
“Just those three,” she said mournfully.
“The French of Quebec, the English of California, and the Spanish of Baja California. There are undoubtedly Europeans who would tell you I don’t speak any of those languages properly.”
“When people read ‘Rosario’ on my badge, they definitely expect me to speak Spanish. I’m trying to learn Spanish, but the last people in my family who spoke the language came to California not long after Junípero Serra.”
“But you are not only Hispanic,” he said.
“That’s exactly it. Without telling you my whole family history, let’s just say I’m one of those people who could mark about four boxes when asked to indicate ethnic origins. African American, Chumash Indian, Spanish, Mexican, Irish, Greek… Maybe Hitch is right — I’m a mutt.”
“An American,” he said. “Like me — true no matter what side of the border I was born on, I suppose.”
She smiled. “Yes.”
They were silent again, but this time it was more companionable. She asked him how he came to know of this place, and he told her about being a military pilot and saving for the Cessna, searching for just the right one, and finding it — becoming more animated as he talked about flying.
When they had finished eating, he looked across at her and said, “Thanks for coming here with me.”
“My pleasure.”
Another silence stretched out, then she asked, “Phil, what was bothering you tonight — at the hospital?”
He frowned. “It’s this — probably half the department knows every detail that can be known about Whitey Dane’s appearance and habits, right?”
“Sure,” she said, surprised by the question. “All of us who’ve been part of the investigations connected to him, anyway.”
“And he has a number of affectations, right?”
“Like the patch, you mean? I’ve heard he’s not actually missing an eye,” she said. “I’ve even heard that he used to wear the patch on the other eye.”
“It’s not just the patch. For example, he sometimes wears vests.”
“Yes, usually. Complete with a watch on a chain.”
“Not a wristwatch.” He said it flatly.
“Not in a million years. You must have read about that in the files — he carries an old Hamilton railroad pocket watch on a gold chain and tucks it into a vest pocket. Makes a big show of winding it and taking it out and looking at it.”
“He’s never been seen wearing an electronic watch?”
“No — like you say, one of his affectations. Like the patch.”
Again he was silent.
She waited.
“Don’t mention to anyone that I asked about a watch, all right?”
“Sure.”
“It could be… it could cause a lot of problems, and be dangerous to Seth.”
“What?”
“Just don’t talk about it — not to anyone, not even Hitch.”
“I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t,” she said with some exasperation. “What’s this all about?”