Chicago.
A long time ago.
He had not made that same mistake tonight.
He had not denied Mai Chim her selfness.
But he wondered if she realized this.
“Whenever I’m done here, Fiona,” Warren said into the phone.
Fiona.
White? Black? Vietnamese?
Ophelia Blair had been very black, a truly beautiful girl. He wondered where she was now, what she was doing. He suspected she had grown up to be an extravagantly beautiful woman. He imagined her living in a luxurious home on Lake Shore Drive. She would be hostessing a formal dinner party, the men in tuxedos, the women in long, shimmering gowns. Ophelia Blair. Who, once upon a time, he’d hurt severely.
He turned his back toward the kitchen counter, where Warren was still on the telephone, and began mixing himself a martini. Had he similarly and stupidly and for exactly the opposite reason hurt Mai Chim tonight? Had he made yet another damn mistake? In trying to do the right thing, had he done the absolutely wrong thing? He dropped an olive into the glass. And another one.
“Warren,” he said, “are you almost finished there?”
“Right this second,” Warren said, and then, into the phone, “See you later,” and hung up.
“There’s one call I have to make,” Matthew said, and carried his martini to the telephone in the study. He took a sip of the drink, pulled the phone to him, and dialed Mai Chim’s number. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?” she said.
“Mai Chim?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Matthew.”
“Oh, hello, Matthew.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “But drunk.”
“Well, maybe a little tipsy.”
“What’s that? Tipsy?”
“Drunk,” he said.
They both laughed.
And suddenly the laughter stopped. And there was silence on the line.
“Thank you for not hurting me,” she said.
He wondered if she knew what she was saying. Wondered if the English word hurt meant to her what it meant to him. Because he felt he had hurt her. Stupidly and foolishly hurt her.
And where there is no common language, there is suspicion. And mistakes. Many mistakes. On both sides.
“Matthew, did someone pay the check?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “You did.”
“Oh, thank God, I couldn’t remember. I thought, oh boy, he’s my guest and I let him pay for it.”
Oh boy. So alien on her tongue. So completely charming.
“I drank too much,” she said. “I’m not used to drinking so much.”
“Please don’t worry about it,” he said.
“I was so afraid, you see.”
He said nothing.
“It was that I thought… if I drink a little, I won’t be so afraid. Of soldiers,” she said.
Soldiers. No thickness of the tongue this time. No slurring. Soldiers.
“Men,” she said softly, and fell silent.
They were both silent.
“We’ll try again,” he said at last.
“Yes, some other time,” she said.
“When we really know each other better,” he said.
“Will we ever know each other better?” she asked.
“I hope so,” he said, and this time he meant it. “I don’t want this to be…”
“Yes, just white and Asian,” she said, and he wondered if they didn’t already know each other much better than they suspected.
“I’ll call you soon,” he said.
“You must come for your raincoat,” she said.
“Rain check,” he said, and smiled.
“Yes, rain check,” she said.
“Sleep well,” he said.
“I still dream of helicopters,” she said.
There was a click on the line.
He picked up the martini glass and went out into the kitchen. Warren was still at the kitchen counter. The glass of scotch was now in his right hand.
“Learning your p’s and q’s?” he asked.
“What?” Matthew said.
Warren indicated the slip of paper tacked to the small cork bulletin board near the phone:
a ã â b c d đ e ê g h i k l m n o ô σ p q r s t u ú v x y
“Oh,” Matthew said. “That’s the Vietnamese alphabet.”
“It’s missing a lot of letters, did you notice that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“That’s why I’m a detective and you’re not. There’s no F, J, or W. No Z, either. But there are three A’s, two D’s and E’s, three O’s, two U’s, and a partridge in a pear tree. What do you call these funny little marks?”
“Diacritical.”
“That serious, huh?” Warren said, and raised his glass in a toast. “We struck out, Matthew,” he said, and drank. “Ahhhh,” he said, “delicious. Weaver isn’t the man who made that phone call.”
“Cheers,” Matthew said sourly, and raised his own glass in a toast. He drank, looked into the glass appreciatively, and then said, “Who’s Fiona?”
“Fiona Gill,” Warren said. “Lady who works in the Tax Collector’s office. She’s the one who told me we had a bad make on that license plate.”
“White? Black?”
“Black. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“You seeing a black lady?” Warren asked.
“No, no.”
“Sounds like it.”
“No.”
But close, Matthew thought.
In American movies, Asian women were permissible substitutes for black women. The white hero was allowed to have a meaningful love affair with an Asian woman, but never with a black woman. This was how courageous American film producers broke the taboo. It was okay for the hero to kiss an Asian woman but if he kissed a black woman, watch it, mister. As for a black man kissing a white woman, that was science fiction. Matthew wondered what it would be like to kiss Mai Chim. Maybe he could get some brave Hollywood movie producer to film their first kiss. Tastefully, of course.
“Want to share the joke?” Warren said, and Matthew realized he was smiling.
“I’m just a little tired,” he said. “What else did Stubbs tell you?”
“Only that the man on the phone sounded famous.”
“Famous?”
“Famous. When he said the word alarmed.”
“How do famous people say alarmed?” Matthew asked.
“You got me, pal,” Warren said, and sighed heavily. “I’d better be on my way, Fiona’s expecting me.” He hesitated, and then said, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about anything?”
“No, thanks a lot.”
“If you change your mind, here’s where I’ll be,” Warren said, and wrote a number onto the pad under the phone. He drained the glass, shook hands with Matthew, and went out. Matthew could hear him starting the Buick outside. In a little while, the sound of its engine faded on the night. Now there was only the hum of the air conditioner. He carried his glass to the counter, sat on one of the stools, and looked at the number Warren had written for him:
