Again, the woman did not answer. Roger kept looking at the menu, not wanting to seem as if he were eavesdropping.
"Well, sure, you always do," the detective said.
The funny thing, Roger thought, without looking up from the menu, was that the detective was doing all the talking. But more than that, he seemed to be holding a conversation, saying things that sounded as if they were answers to something the woman had said each time, only the woman hadn't said a single word.
"Here are the drinks," the detective said, and Roger put down his menu and looked up as a waiter in a red jacket brought what looked like two whiskey-sodas to the table. The detective picked up his glass and held it in the air and the woman clinked her glass against his, but neither of the two said a word. The woman took a short sip of her drink and then put it down. Glancing briefly at their table, Roger saw that she was wearing a wedding band and an engagement ring. The woman, then, was the detective's wife.
The detective took a long swallow of his drink, and then put the glass down. "Good," he said.
His wife nodded and said nothing. Roger turned away and picked up the menu again.
"Did Fanny finally get there?" the detective asked.
Again, there was a long pause. Roger frowned behind his menu, waiting.
"Did she give you any reason?" the detective said.
Another pause.
"What kind of excuse is that?" the detective said.
Roger put down his menu and turned.
The woman's elbows were on the table, her hands were poised in front of and a trifle below her face. Her fingers were long and slender. The nails were manicured and polished a bright red. As she moved her hands in a fluid, swift series of gestures, the nails danced like tiny flames.
For a moment, Roger didn't know what she was doing. Was she kidding, was that it?
And then he saw her face behind the hands.
Her face was more lovely than he realized, the black hair combed sleekly back from the woman's forehead, the black eyebrows arched high over deep brown eyes, no, one eyebrow was dropping now, dipping low over her left eye in a sinister frown, the woman's mouth was curling into a sneer, her nostrils were dilating, her hands moved differently now, they moved in the exaggerated slick oiliness of a silent movie villain, the woman's fingers touched her upper lip, twirled an imaginary mustache, the detective laughed, the mask of villainy dropped from her face, her eyes sparkled with humor, the white teeth flashed behind her lips, the smile broke on her face like the sound of bells, and all the while her long slender fingers moved, the detective watching her hands, and then shifting his attention to her face again, the entire face in constant motion, her mouth and her eyes augmenting the music of her hands, the sound of her hands, her face open and honest and naive, the face of a little girl, mugging, exaggerating, acting, explaining. Why, she's talking with her face and her hands! Roger thought, and suddenly realized the woman was a deaf-mute.
He turned away because he didn't want her to think he was staring at her handicap.
But the detective was laughing. His wife had apparently finished her story about Fanny, whoever that was, and now the detective was laughing fit to bust, sputtering and choking and damn near slapping the table top, so that Roger himself was forced to smile and even the waiter, who had padded up the table to take Roger's order, smiled with him.
"I'd just like some eggs," Roger said.
"Oui, monsieur, how would you like your eggs?"
"Gee, I don't know," Roger said.
"Would monsieur care for an omelette, perhaps?"
"Oh, yes," Roger said. "Yes, that's good. What kind of omelettes do you have?"
"Cheese, mushroom, onion, jell"
"Mushroom," Roger said. "That sounds good. A mushroom omelette. And some coffee. With it, please."
"Oui, monsieur," the waiter said. "Any salad?"
"No. No, thanks."
"Oui, monsieur," the waiter said, and moved away from the table.
". . . began talking to Meyer at first and Meyer listened for a few minutes and then asked the priest if he would mind telling this to me instead. I was pretty surprised when he came over to my desk, because we don't usually get priests up there, honey not that it isn't a very religious place, and holy and all that."
He grinned at his wife, and she returned the grin. God she's beautiful, Roger thought.
"Anyway, I introduced myself, and it turns out the pries is Italian, too, so we went through the Are you Italian, too? routine for a couple of minutes, and we traced my ancestry back to the old country, it turned out the priest wasn't born anywhere near my parents, but anyway he gits down at the desk and he's got a slight dilemma, so I say, What's the dilemma, Father, meanwhile thinking my own dilemma is I haven't been inside a church since I was a kid, suppose he asks me to say five Hail Marys?
"The priest tells me that he had a woman in the confessional this morning, and the woman confessed to the usual number of minor sins and then, unexpectedly, said she had bought a gun which was in her purse at the moment, right there in the confession box, and she was going to take it to the shop where her husband worked and wait for him to come out on his lunch hour when she would shoot him dead. She was telling this to the priest because she expected to shoot herself immediately afterwards, and she wanted the priest's absolution in advance.
"Well, honey, the priest didn't know what to tell her. He could see she was very upset, and that she wouldn't sit still for a lecture on what a big sin murder was. She hadn't come there to ask the priest's permission, you understand, all she wanted was his forgiveness. She wanted to be blessed in advance for knocking off her husband, and then for taking her own life. Well, the priest took a chance and told the woman it would be nice if they prayed together a little, and then while they were praying he sneaked in a little subliminal commercial about how sinful it was to kill, Thou Shalt Not Kill, the fifth commandment, and then he explained how she was about to commit a double mortal sin by first putting her husband on ice and then doing a job on herself, didn't she have any children? No, the woman said.
"Well, the priest wasn't too happy to learn she was childless because children are usually a good thing to play on. So he very quickly said Haven't you got parents or brothers or sisters who'll be worrying about you, and the woman said Yes she had parents but she didn't give a damn what they thought and then said Forgive me, Father, because she'd just cursed in the confessional box, no less church. The priest forgave her and they continued to pray together for a little while, with the priest furiously wondering what he could do to stop this woman from polishing off hubby as he came out of his shop with his lunch box under his arm.
"That was why he'd come up to the office, hon. He told me that a priest, of course, is sworn to keep the sanctity of the confessional, which is exactly what was causing his dilemma. Had the woman confessed to anything, or hadn't she? How can a person confess to a sin that hasn't been committed yet? Was the thought the same thing as the act? If so, the world was full of thoughtful sinners. If not, then the woman hadn't done anything and her confession wasn't a confession at all. And if it wasn't a confession, then what sanctity was the priest protecting? If it wasn't a bona fide confession, then why wasn't it perfectly all right for him to go to the police and tell them all about the woman's plans?
"It's perfectly all right, Father, I said to him, Now what's the woman's name, and where does her husband work? Well, I couldn't get to him quite that fast. He wanted to discuss all the philosophical and metaphysical aspects of the difference between contemplated sin and committed sin, while all the while the clock on the wall was ticking away, and lunchtime was getting closer and closer, and that poor woman's husband was also getting closer and closer to a couple of holes in the head. I finally convinced him by saying I thought he had come to the police for the same reason the woman had gone to him, and when he said What reason was that? I told him I thought he wanted to be absolved. What do you mean absolved? he said. I told him he wanted to be absolved of possibly causing the death of two people by remaining silent when he wasn't even positive of the doctrine involved, the same way the woman wanted to be absolved. I told him I thought both of them wanted those deaths to be stopped and that was why the woman had gone to him, and that was why he had come to me, so what was the woman's name, and where did her husband work? This was a quarter to twelve. He finally told me, and I had a patrol car sent out to pick her up. We can't book her for anything since she hasn't committed a crime or even attempted one, and there's no such thing as suspicion of anything in this city. But we can hold her for a while until she cools off, and maybe scare her a little . . . Oh, wait a minute."