“I didn’t say that—”
Jan paused to allow the petite waitress to carefully place the chilled clear martini before Reardon. He nodded his thanks, started to sip his drink, looking at Jan’s face over the rim; whatever he saw there made him suddenly upend his glass, taking the potent drink in one gulp. At the cash register Mr. Noguchi shuddered; even his uncle’s nephew by marriage, a noted lush, treated martinis with more respect. Jan forced her face to be expressionless, paying no attention to Reardon’s action.
“—I was merely trying to say that people who want to drink will always find one excuse or another. If we got married you’d still want a third martini — or a fourth or a fifth — for completely different reasons.”
“Such as?”
“I have no idea, but I don’t think you’d have any great trouble inventing an excuse if you wanted one. Any more than Gabriella’s brother has to invent an excuse when he wants drugs.” She smiled faintly. “In fact, your excuse might well be that because we were married, you wanted a drink.”
Reardon stared at her. His frown lost its sardonic, light quality; there was a touch of anger in his eyes and in his voice, a reaction from his quick temper that he always tried to control, particularly when he was with Jan. Usually his sense of humor saved him, but there were times when his temper escaped. Dondero wondered if they could actually be overlooking his presence; they both were beginning to speak as if he really weren’t there.
“What is this thing about drinking, for God’s sake?” Reardon said tightly. “I—”
“Don’t shout.”
“Damn it, I’m not shouting!” He suddenly realized that his voice was louder than necessary and lowered it. “What is this thing on drinking, suddenly? I don’t drink any more now than I did when we first met, and you know it.” He barely refrained from snorting. “If you want reasons not to marry me, stick with the ones you already have. Put me in the morgue in your imagination, but for God’s sake don’t put me in the DT ward! Drinking! Good God!”
Jan started to say something and stopped. Then she took a deep, shuddering breath and started again.
“Jim, let’s drop the entire subject, shall we? What’s wrong with keeping on just as we are? Why this sudden urge to get married? Oh, I know it isn’t sudden, but you know what I mean.” The faint smile returned again. “Are you trying to make an honest woman of me?”
Dondero started to get up but Reardon’s hand pulled him down again.
“I think we should get married because we’ve gone together long enough to know we love each other,” Reardon said quietly, his anger dissipated as quickly as it had formed. “We know we’re good in bed together. We know there isn’t anyone else for either of us and the chances are there never will be. We know each other’s bad habits and they don’t scare us or disgust us, and that’s a big thing. We know, or ought to know, that it’s simply ridiculous to maintain two apartments and spend our time either at one or the other every night. And if we ever want to have children, it’s time we got married. We’re not getting any younger. So can you give me one good reason not to get married?” He released Dondero’s arm in order to hold up his hand hurriedly. “Hold it before you answer — I mean, other than that you don’t like my job? Because I don’t believe for a minute my drinking has anything to do with it.”
“I didn’t say it did,” Jan said with almost quiet desperation. “Anyway, your job is enough. Or at least it is right now. Maybe some time in the future I’ll get tired of working, get tired of being independent, get tired of making my own way in life in a man’s world — then maybe I’ll even consider being a policeman’s wife.” She shook her head slowly. “But I’m not ready to give all that up just yet.”
“Damn it, Jan, who’s asking you to quit your job or your profession? I know architecture is important to you.” He paused for emphasis, anger beginning to return to his gray eyes. “But if you want to come right down to it, if you loved me enough, you wouldn’t let your job stand in the way of our getting married—” Reardon cut off the words.
Jan smiled at him with false sweetness. Dondero knew what was coming.
“So you heard those last words of yours, did you, Jim? Because that’s the answer. Say them over to yourself a few times. Listen to them. If you loved me enough, you wouldn’t let your job stand in the way of our getting married.” Her smile disappeared; she came to her feet abruptly. “If you don’t mind, I’m tired. I’ll catch a cab. Thank you for a delicious dinner.”
“Damn it, Jan, you don’t have to thank me for dinner and you don’t have to catch any cab—” He fumbled for his wallet.
“I’ll stop by Gabriella’s,” Jan said. “We can cry on each other’s shoulder...”
Dondero wisely kept quiet. Reardon was standing.
“Jan, for heaven’s sake! Just a moment! This is ridiculous!” Reardon padded to the cash register in his stockinged feet, tossed down a bill. Jan was already putting her shoes on in the small alcove set aside for that purpose. Reardon came in, reaching for his shoes as Jan straightened up.
“Good night, Jim. Call me tomorrow, will you?”
“Jan, will you stop being silly? My Lord, if we can’t have a slight discussion without your losing your temper and walking out in a huff—”
Even Dondero, waiting his turn at the shoes, could have told him it was the wrong tone and the wrong words. The two watched her walk down the steps to the street, her back stiff as a ramrod. Mr. Noguchi looked after her sadly. Reardon walked over, separated a tip from the balance of his change, and pocketed the rest. Mr. Noguchi and Dondero watched him silently.
“Women!” Reardon said with a growl, and started to pull on his raincoat. “Don, let’s go!”
Mr. Noguchi continued to look at his old friend without expression. Women? Between his children and his wife’s sister’s children and his son’s wife’s family, he had twelve working for him, including his sister-in-law herself, who worked in the kitchen, but not counting his wife, who came in two mornings a week to do the bookkeeping. And the lieutenant thought he had trouble with one? True, the lieutenant’s Miss Jan was a beautiful and talented woman, but still — twelve to one? Those were good odds to Mr. Noguchi — a gambler at heart — but unfortunately he was on the wrong end of them.
Wednesday — 9:30 p.m.
Dondero, loath to leave a friend in misery, but equally disenchanted with watching him suffer, had gone down to the basement cafeteria of the Hall of Justice for coffee...
Lieutenant Reardon stared from the window of his office on the fourth floor of the building that housed the San Francisco Police, looking out at the lights of the city, hazed by the thick fog climbing the hills to merge with the heavy overcast. The thought of going home after his argument with Jan had been very unattractive; the return to the Hall of Justice had been automatic. It was his home away from home and he wished, not for the first time — nor the hundred and first time — that Jan might understand and appreciate what being a policeman meant to him. She spoke of her friend Gabriella with a brother on drugs as if he were the only person, or he and Gabriella the only people, on earth with problems. Problems? Hell! Jan ought to know that starting out in life the way he had — an orphan raised by the grace of God and far fewer helping hands than there should have been in this affluent society — he was damned lucky not to be on the other side of the fence, together with Gabriella’s brother and a million more. The police force had saved him, and Jan should be the first to appreciate it, instead of judging him and his actions by the mores of her background.
His train of thought was beginning to smack of self-pity and he dropped it abruptly, trying to bring his attention to the stack of work piled haphazardly in his In basket, slopping over onto his desk. Despite his frame of mind he could not help but smile: Jan didn’t know it, but the greatest danger most policemen faced at headquarters was losing their eyesight from reading reports, or suffering from muscle cramp from writing them. In any event, the chances were he wouldn’t get a hell of a lot of work done tonight, but it was still better than sitting home staring at the wall, or worse, at the TV — or even worse than that, climbing into an empty bed simply because he was stupid enough to keep pushing the question of marriage.