“The food here, the hat at the checkout,” she says. “What happened to your arm?”
“A dog bit me,” he says.
“You really got rabies?”
“No, no.”
“Cause that’s catching, ain’t it? Rabies?”
At the far end of the counter the old man says, “There’s nobody in the world has nothing wrong with them.”
“It’s only catching if I bite you,” Colley says, and smiles.
“You’re not going to bite me, are you?” the girls says. She is looking at him sideways, like a sultry movie queen in an old television movie, sort of from under partially closed lids. She has one hand on her hip. Behind her the hamburger is sizzling on the griddle.
“No, I’m not going to bite you,” Colley says.
“How you want this hamburger?” she says.
“Medium rare.”
She goes to the griddle, shovels the hamburger off it and puts it on a bun. Then she puts two slices of tomato on it, and some pickles and relish and onions, and she throws a couple of green olives and a piece of celery on the plate and brings it over to him. The hamburger is delicious. He has never tasted anything so delicious in his life. The girl watches him as he eats. It is as if she has never before seen a hungry man eating. She watches each move he makes, she watches the hamburger coming up to his mouth, and his teeth closing over it, she watches him chewing and swallowing, she is making a documentary on what it is like to eat a hamburger.
“You’re not a bit hungry, are you?” she says.
“Nobody,” the old man at the end of the counter says. “Nobody in the world has nothing wrong. Miss?” he says.
“Yes, sir?” she says.
“I would like a check, please.”
“Yes, sir,” she says, and walks over to him.
Colley watches her behind in the tight black slacks. She knows he is looking at her. She exaggerates her walk. She is wearing low-heeled shoes, but she struts over to the old man as if she is wearing rhinestone slippers with three-inch spikes. As she makes out the old man’s ticket, she glances at Colley and smiles. He nods. He is beginning to think he may not go back to New York after all. Where can he go in New York? He goes to his mother’s place, the fuzz’ll be there waiting. He can’t go to Teddy’s house, Teddy’ll slam the door in his face. And the cops have a dossier on all the guys used to be in the Orioles, they’ll be watching Benny’s pad, all the guys, what’s the sense of going back there? Back there is where he killed the cop. At least here in Jersey the cop beef ain’t theirs. All they’re worried about is the diner holdup. He thinks maybe he will explore this little Italian waitress a wee bit further.
He knows he is very good with girls, and he further knows he is very good-looking. But he is also smart enough to know there isn’t a man alive who doesn’t think he himself is good-looking. Man looks in the mirror, he says to himself, “Good morning, you handsome irresistible devil.” He’d catch guys in prison looking at themselves in the mirror, preening. Ugliest sons of bitches in the world, you ran into one of them in a dark alley you’d drop dead of a heart attack just looking at them. Preening. Good morning, you handsome irresistible devil. So he’s smart enough to know that maybe he’s mistaken about how good-looking he is or isn’t, but he knows he has a pretty fair batting average with girls, and he prides himself on the fact that he’s never had to pay for it in his life. That’s not to say he hasn’t fucked whores, because he has. But he’s never paid for it. Never. He is pretty confident that the girl here in the drugstore finds him attractive, and he is also confident that he can make her.
The old man gets off the stool and counts his change. He stares at the change in the palm of his hand and then counts it again. When he approaches the checkout counter, the cashier puts down her confession magazine and looks annoyed because she think’s she’s perhaps going to have to stop reading and do her job instead. But the old man has paid at the lunch counter, and he jerks his thumb back at the waitress, and the cashier nods and picks up the confession magazine, and he goes through the checkout and out of the drugstore.
The waitress is standing in front of Colley now. She has her hands on her hips. “Will there be anything else, sir?” she asks.
“Call me Steve,” he says, using the name he gave the doctor.
“Okay, Steve,” she says, and she makes it sound like they have already agreed to spend a month together in Brazil. “Will there be anything else?”
“Depends what you got in mind,” Colley says, and smiles.
“Right now, I got food in mind,” she says.
“But that’s only right now, huh?” he says. She is smiling, too. They are both smiling and looking into each other’s faces. “How about later, huh?”
“We’ll see about later,” she says.
“How about seeing about later now?” he says.
“You want a cup of coffee?”
“I want to talk about later.”
“Have a cup of coffee first,” she says.
“Okay, I’ll have a cup of coffee and also a piece of that Danish back there. Is that Danish?”
“Cheese Danish,” she says.
“Let me have a little piece of it,” he says.
He watches her as she draws the coffee, and lifts the cover off the Danish tray, and picks up a piece of pastry. He is still watching her when she brings the coffee and the Danish to the counter. She is wearing a smoky sultry look now; she smiles like a harem girl through a gauze mask.
“What’s your name?” he says.
“Marie.”
“Are you Italian, Marie?”
“French,” she says.
“French. Well, well. How old are you, Marie?”
“Old enough, don’t worry,” she says.
“What time do you get out of here, Marie?”
“Six.”
“That late, huh?” The coffee is very hot. He sips at it gingerly and then puts the cup back on the counter. “Six o’clock, huh?”
“Yes.” She is looking at him steadily.
“Maybe I’ll stop back here later,” he says. “What time is it now?” He looks at his wristwatch. “Almost four-thirty,” he says. “That gives me an hour and a half.”
“That’s right,” she says.
“So maybe I’ll stop back later.”
“If it’s maybe,” she says, “forget it.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” he says, but she has already walked away to the end of the counter. She comes around the counter, sits on a stool, picks up the comics from the Sunday News, and begins reading Dick Tracy.
Colley sips at his coffee. He is going to give her plenty of time. He puts the hat on his head and looks at himself in the mirror behind the counter. Not bad. He looks a little bit like Albert L. Donato, the noted Buick dealer. He sips some more coffee. He tilts the hat at a more rakish angle. He winks at himself in the mirror and then glances toward where Marie is still reading the funnies at the end of the counter. She is thoroughly absorbed in Dick Tracy. She is lip-reading her way through Dick Tracy there at the end of the counter.
“Marie?” he says.
She turns toward him as if a stranger has entered the drugstore and she cannot locate the sound of his voice. She has heard someone speaking, but she cannot imagine who it can possibly be, since she is alone in the place with only the cashier and Dick Tracy, and this voice from out of the blue has startled her. She locates Colley at last, sighs, gets up off the stool, comes around the counter, and walks to where he is sitting.
“Hi,” he says.
She says nothing. She stares at him. She is mortally offended.
“Can I have a check, please?” he says.
She begins writing. She does not look at him now. Her pencil scratches out the figures on her pad. He looks at her hand as she writes. The fingernails are bitten to the quick; he likes tense, nervous girls, they are very good in bed.