"I know why you use them. I'm glad we talked to each other. It's okay." He was trying to soothe her; she seemed seconds away from an emotional explosion. Nudger glimpsed something dark in her that had a hold on her, a voracious thing that fed on her insides and waited for opportune moments to inflict pain.
She picked up her glass and sipped more cold water. That seemed to calm the thing.
"Have you had dinner?" Nudger asked.
She shook her head no. There was a beaten quality about her that saddened him and evoked pity.
"I know a little bar near here called Zigzag's," he told her. "They serve great hamburgers. They have live music after eight o'clock. I hear it's really something."
She pursed her lips and he thought she was going to refuse him. But she said, "Let me change out of this dress, okay?"
"Okay," he said, smiling.
She smiled back, a bit whimsically, and followed her noble nose into the bedroom.
When she returned a few minutes later she was wearing very practical Levi's, the same brown sandals, and a white cotton blouse. The Levi's weren't form-fitting, but she had enough form to look good in them nonetheless.
"You're much prettier than just average," Nudger told her, as they walked from the apartment. He meant it. She seemed pleased, maybe amused, by the directness of the compliment.
As they descended the stairs, Nudger was becoming more at ease, more confident. Claudia in the flesh was becoming real to him in a way that Claudia on the phone could never be, exerting a pull on him that was sensuous and easy to understand. This was far from the darkness of their phone conversations. This might turn out to be a monumental rendezvous, yet at the same time an ordinary date, something he could comprehend, cope with, and enjoy. Normality.
On the second landing, she turned to him and held up her wrists to the light streaming through the cracked window.
"See the scars?" she said. "They're from when I tried to kill myself."
Zigzag's actually did serve hamburgers, Nudger was relieved to discover. He and Claudia sat in a dim booth near the back of the place, beyond the bar. When a barmaid came over, Claudia asked for a whiskey sour and excused herself to go to the restroom. Nudger ordered a beer for himself and a hamburger and french fries for each of them, slyly instructing the barmaid to have the kitchen hold the onions. "The future's not ours to see," according to Plato. Or was it Doris Day?
The drinks were on the table when Claudia returned. Nudger watched her walk across the room, claiming the attention of a few of the male clientele. Hers was a subtle magnetism. She was the sort of woman that wasn't striking, yet seemed more pleasing to the eye with each glance. Her features were unremarkable, but in harmony.
As she sat down, Nudger said, "I ordered burgers and fries. Now you owe me. Want to tell me about Ralph?"
Claudia didn't go deaf this time. She sampled her whiskey sour and seemed to find it to her liking, then said, "He's my former loving husband, is all."
Nudger knew that wasn't all, but that it had better be all for now. "Where do you work?" he asked. A mundane enough question. He downed half of his icy beer and waited for a mundane answer.
"I'm a waitress at Kimball's Restaurant."
"A four-star eatery. Gourmet food."
"Are you a gourmet?" she asked.
"No, I'm more of a great white shark. I like most any kind of food. Only my stomach is more particular. Tell me about waitressing. Do you enjoy it?"
"It makes your feet sore and you have to take a lot of abuse from some of the customers. On weekends, when I serve more liquor, the tips are good, but the abuse quotient rises too. There are worse jobs." She raised her glass again. She didn't seem to be a practiced drinker, and there were no physical signs of the lush about her. "Tell me about detectiv- ing, Nudger."
"Oh, it's pretty much what I'm doing now, asking questions. We detectives are a curious lot."
" 'Curious' can be an adjective used to describe an unusual object," she said.
"I know, teacher. It's been applied that way to me."
She looked at him with a faintly startled expression.
"Which daughter is how old?" he asked.
"Nora's the twelve-year-old; Joan's ten."
"Are they beautiful in the manner of their mother?"
"More beautiful. In their own manner."
The hamburgers arrived, beautiful in their own beef- and-bun way. They were as tasty as they looked, and the fries were greasy and salty, the way Nudger unfortunately liked them. He ordered another beer. Claudia asked the barmaid if she could have some onions for her hamburger.
Nudger said nothing more probing than "Please pass the catsup" until they'd finished eating. He asked Claudia if she wanted another whiskey sour, and she said she'd prefer coffee. That was easy enough to get at Zigzag's, even though the barmaid was taking a break. The same young, bald- headed bartender who had been on duty earlier today brought over two steaming white mugs on a tray.
"I see you found her," he said to Nudger, placing the mugs before them and clearing the table of dishes and glasses.
"What did he mean?" Claudia asked, watching the bald- headed man walk away.
Nudger shrugged. "I don't know. Bartender talk, I guess."
They sat saying little over their coffee, oddly at ease in each other's company, until the live music began at eight o'clock. A slightly raised stage that Nudger hadn't noticed was abruptly bathed in red and green light, and two middle- aged men with punk haircuts and steel guitars began to twang and sing insolently of petty injustices. Nudger winced and looked across the table at Claudia. She grinned. They agreed that the hard rock at Zigzag's wasn't in the same class as the hamburgers.
The barmaid had disappeared for good, apparently, so Nudger walked over to the bald-headed barkeep and paid the check. Zigzag's was becoming crowded despite the Hard Timers, as the two middle-aged punk rockers called themselves, so Nudger moved in front of Claudia, clearing a way to the door.
"I mean t'git down an' be mean!" screamed the Hard Timers in perfect discord. One of them did a screeching slide on the guitar.
Nudger and Claudia emerged from the din, tobacco smoke, and dimness into an evening that had cooled off and conjured up stars. The door swung shut and muted the music to loud.
Claudia politely thanked Nudger for dinner. First-date patter.
"Walk a while?" he asked.
She hesitated, then nodded.
He took the curbside like a gentleman and set off in a direction away from her apartment building. He didn't want the evening to end prematurely, still heavy with unanswered questions.
For a long time they were quiet as they walked, listening to the counterpoint rhythm of their footfalls. Nudger liked it that way but couldn't figure out why. There was much he wanted to know about Claudia. On the other hand, maybe he was finding out something very important this way. It seemed that there could never be an awkward silence between them. Could love be mute as well as blind?
It was Claudia who finally spoke. "You said you were a private investigator. Am I part of a case you're working on?"
"Only indirectly. The nightlines are part of the case. That's why I was talking on the lines the night we made contact; I was trying to get a feel for what was going over the wires."
"Then you don't talk regularly on the lines." She seemed pleased.
"No. Do you?"
"More often than I'd like. I can't sleep. The early morning hours are a lonely time. Occasionally I just have to talk to someone. Regardless of their reason for listening, they provide human contact."
Nudger smiled at her as they stepped down from a high curb. "You're clean and attractive. Aren't there more conventional ways to find human contact?"