“I thought this was to be a new beginning.”
“I wanted to explain. I got picked up by two Homicide cops and taken to their lieutenant who warned me to keep away from the Jeannie Paige potato.”
“Are you going to?”
“Yes, of course.” He paused. “I’m curious, I admit, but—”
“I understand.”
“Claire,” he said evenly, “what the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Where do you go when you retreat?”
“What?”
“Where do you—”
“I didn’t think it showed. I’m sorry.”
“It shows,” Kling said. “Who was he?”
Claire looked up sharply. “You’re a better detective than I realized.”
“It doesn’t take much detection,” he said. There was a sad undertone to his voice now, as if her confirmation of his suspicions had suddenly taken all the fight out of him. “I don’t mind you carrying a torch. Lots of girls—”
“It’s not that,” she interrupted.
“Lots of girls do,” he continued. “A guy drops them cold, or else it just peters out the way romances sometimes—”
“It’s not that!” she said sharply, and when he looked across the table at her, her eyes were filmed with tears.
“Hey, listen, I—”
“Please, Bert, I don’t want to—”
“But you said it was a guy. You said—”
“All right,” she answered. “All right, Bert.” She bit down on her lip. “All right, there was a guy. And I was crazy in love with him. I was seventeen — just like Jeannie Paige — and he was nineteen.”
Kling waited. Claire lifted her drink and drained the glass. She swallowed hard and then sighed, and Kling watched her, waiting.
“I met him at Club Tempo. We hit it off right away. Do you know how such things happen, Bert? It happened that way with us. We made a lot of plans, big plans. We were young, and we were strong, and we were in love.”
“I… I don’t understand,” he said.
“He was killed in Korea.”
Across the river, the sign blared, SPRY FOR FRYING.
The table was very silent. Claire stared at the tablecloth. Kling folded his hands nervously.
“So don’t ask me why I go down to Tempo and make a fool of myself with kids like Hud and Tommy. I’m looking for him all over again, Bert, can’t you see that? I’m looking for his face, and his youth, and—”
Cruelly, Bert Kling said, “You won’t find him.”
“I—”
“You won’t find him. You’re a fool for trying. He’s dead and buried. He’s—”
“I don’t want to listen to you,” Claire said. “Take me home, please.”
“No,” he said. “He’s dead and buried, and you’re burying yourself alive; you’re making a martyr of yourself; you’re wearing a widow’s weeds at twenty! What the hell’s the matter with you? Don’t you know that people die every day? Don’t you know?”
“Shut up!” she said.
“Don’t you know you’re killing yourself? Over a kid’s puppy love, over a—”
“Shut up!” she said again, and this time her voice was on the edge of hysteria, and some of the diners around them turned at her outburst.
“Okay!” Kling said tightly. “Okay, bury yourself! Bury your beauty, and try to hide your sparkle! Wear black every day of the week for all I give a damn! But I think you’re a phony! I think you’re a fourteen-carat phony!” He paused and then said angrily, “Let’s get the hell out of this goldfish bowl!”
He started to rise, signaling for the waiter at the same time. Claire sat motionless opposite him. And then, quite suddenly, she began to cry. The tears started slowly at first, forcing their way past clenched eyelids, trickling silently down her cheeks. And then her shoulders began to heave, and she sat as still as a stone, her hands clasped in her lap, her shoulders heaving, sobbing silently while the tears coursed down her face. He had never seen such honest misery before. He turned his face away. He did not want to watch her.
“You are ready to order, sir?” the waiter asked, sidling up to the table.
“Two more of the same,” Bert said. The waiter started off, and he caught at his arm. “No. Change the whiskey sour to a double shot of Canadian Club.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said, padding off.
“I don’t want another drink,” Claire muttered.
“You’ll have one.”
“I don’t want one.” She erupted into tears again, and this time Kling watched her. She sobbed steadily for several moments, and then the tears stopped as suddenly as they had begun, leaving her face looking as clean as a city street does after a sudden summer storm.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be.”
“I should have cried a long time ago.”
“Yes.”
The waiter brought the drinks.
Kling lifted his glass. To a new beginning,” he said.
Claire studied him. It took her a long while to reach for the double hooker before her. Finally, her hand closed around the glass. She lifted it and touched the rim to Kling’s glass. To a new beginning,” she said. She threw off the shot quickly.
“That’s strong,” she said.
“It’ll do you good.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Bert. I shouldn’t have burdened you with my troubles.”
“Offhand, can you think of anyone who’d accept them so readily?”
“No,” she said immediately. She smiled tiredly.
“That’s better.”
She looked across at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. The tears had put a sparkle into her eyes. “It… it may take time, Bert,” she said. Her voice came from a long way off.
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” he said. And then, almost afraid she would laugh at him, he added, “All I’ve been doing is killing time, Claire, waiting for you to come along.”
She seemed ready to cry again. He reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
“You’re… you’re very good, Bert,” she said, her voice growing thin, the way a voice does before it collapses into tears. “You’re good, and kind, and gentle, and you’re quite beautiful, do you know that? I… I think you’re very beautiful.”
“You should see me when my hair is combed,” he said, smiling, squeezing her hand.
“I’m not joking,” she said. “You always think I’m joking, and you really shouldn’t because I’m… I’m a serious girl.”
“I know.”
“So—”
He shifted his position abruptly, grimacing.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, suddenly concerned.
“No. This goddamn pistol” He shifted again.
“Pistol?”
“Yes. In my back pocket. We have to carry them, you know. Even off duty.”
“Not really? A gun? You have a gun in your pocket?”
“Sure.”
She leaned closer to him. Her eyes were clear now, as if they had never known tears or sadness. They sparkled with interest. “May I see it?”
“Sure.” He reached down, unbuttoned his jacket, and then pulled the gun with its leather holster from his hip pocket. He put it on the table. “Don’t touch it, or it’ll go off in your face.”
“It looks menacing.”
“It is menacing. I’m the deadliest shot in the 87th Precinct.”
“Are you really?”
“‘Kling the King,’ they call me.”
She laughed suddenly.
“I can shoot any damn elephant in the world at a distance of three feet,” Kling expanded.
Her laugh grew. He watched her laughing. She seemed unaware of the transformation.
“Do you know what I feel like doing?” he said.
“What?”
“I feel like taking this gun and shooting out that goddamned Spry sign across the river.”