Elmore Leonard - City Primeval

“I THINK YOU’RE AFRAID OF WOMEN,”the girl from the News said. “I think that’s the root of the problem.”

Raymond Cruz wasn’t sure whose problem she was referring to, if it was supposed to be his problem or hers.

She said, “Do you think women are devious?”

“You mean women reporters?”

“Women in general.”

Sitting in Carl’s Chop House surrounded by an expanse of empty white tablecloths, their waitress off somewhere, Raymond Cruz wondered if it was worth the free drinks and dinner or the effort required to give thoughtful answers.

“No,” he said.

“You don’t feel intimidated by women?”

“No, I’ve always liked women.”

“At certain times,” the girl from the News said. “Otherwise, I’d say you’re indifferent to women. They don’t fit into your male world.”

Wherever she was going the girl writer with the degree from Michigan and four years with The Detroit News seemed to be getting there. It was ten past one in the morning. Her face glistened, her wine glass was smudged with prints and lipstick. The edge remained in her tone and she no longer listened to answers. Raymond Cruz was tired. He forgot what he was going to say next-and was rescued by their waitress, smiling through sequined glasses.

“I haven’t heard your beeper go off. Must be a slow night.”

Raymond touched his napkin to his mustache and gave her a smile. “No, it hasn’t, huh?” And said to the girl from the News , “One time Milly heard my beeper three tables away. I had it on me and didn’t even hear it.”

“You weren’t feeling no pain either,” the waitress said. “I come over to the table. I said isn’t that your beeper? He didn’t even hear it.” She picked up his empty glass. “Can I get you something else?”

The girl from the News didn’t answer or seem interested. She was lighting another cigarette, leaving a good half of her New York strip sirloin untouched. She already had coffee. Raymond said he’d have another shell of beer and asked Milly if she’d wrap up the piece of steak.

The girl from the News said, “I don’t want it.”

He said, “Well, somebody’ll probably take it.”

“You have a dog?”

“I’ll eat it for breakfast. Here’s the thing,” Raymond said, trying to show a little interest. “A man wouldn’t say to me, ‘I think you’re afraid of women.’ Or ask me if I think women are devious. Women ask questions like that. I don’t know why, but they do.”

“Your wife said you never talked about your work.”

His wife -The girl from the News kept winging at him, coming in from blind sides.

Raymond said, “I hope you’re a psychiatrist along with being a reporter-you’re getting into something now. In the first place she’s not my wife anymore, we’re divorced. Is that what you’re writing about, police divorce rate?”

“She feels you didn’t say much about anything, but especially your work.”

“You talked to Mary Alice?” Sounding almost astonished. “When’d you talk to her?”

“The other day. How come you don’t have children?”

“Because we don’t, that’s all.”

“She said you seldom if ever showed any emotion or told her how you felt. Men in other professions, they have a problem at work, they’re not getting along with a customer or their boss, they come home and tell their wives about it. Then the wife gives hubby a few sympathetic strokes-poor baby-it’s why he tells her.”

The waitress with the gray hair and sequined glasses, Milly, placing his shell of beer on the table, said, “Where’s your buddy?”

The girl from the News jabbed her cigarette out. She sat back and looked off across the field of tablecloths.

“Who, Jerry?”

“The kinda sandy-haired one with the mustache.”

“Yeah, Jerry. He was gonna try and make it. You haven’t seen him, huh?”

“No, I don’t think he’s been in. I wouldn’t swear to it though. Who gets the doggie bag?”

The girl from the News waited.

“Just put it there,” Raymond said. “She doesn’t take it, I will.”

“I have a name,” the girl from the News said as the waitress walked away. Then hunched toward him and said, “I think your values are totally out of sync with reality.”

Raymond sipped his beer, trying to relate her two statements. He saw her nose in sharp focus, the sheen of her skin heightened by tension. She was annoyed and for a moment he felt good about it. But it was a satisfaction he didn’t need and he said, “What’re you mad at?”

“I think you’re still playing a role,” the girl said. “You did the Serpico thing in Narcotics. You thought Vice was fun-”

“I said some funny things happened.”

“Now you’re into another role, the Lieutenant of Homicide.”

“Acting Lieutenant. I’m filling in.”

“I want to ask you about that. How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Yeah, that’s what it said in your file, but you don’t look that old. Tell me… how do you get along with the guys in your squad?”

“Fine. Why?”

“Do you… handle them without any trouble?”

“What do you mean, ‘handle them’?”

“You don’t seem very forceful to me.”

Tell her you have to go to the Men’s, Raymond thought.

“Too mild-mannered-” She stopped and then said, with some enthusiasm, making a great discovery, “ That’s it-you’re trying to look older, aren’t you? The big mustache, conservative navy-blue suit-but you know how you come off?”

“How?”

“Like someone posing in an old tintype photo, old-timey.”

Raymond leaned on the table, interested. “No kidding, that’s what you see?”

“Like you’re trying to look like young Wyatt Earp,” the girl from the News said, watching him closely. “You relate to that, don’t you? The no-bullshit Old West lawman.”

“Well,” Raymond said, “you know where Holy Trinity is? South of here, not far from Tiger Stadium? That’s where I grew up. We played cowboys and Indians over on Belle Isle, shot at each other with B-B guns. I was born in McAllen, Texas, but I don’t remember much about living there.”

“I thought I heard an accent every once in a while,” the girl from the News said. “You’re Mexican then, not Puerto Rican?”

Raymond sat back again. “You think I was made acting lieutenant as part of Affirmative Action? Get the minorities in?”

“Don’t be so sensitive. I asked a simple question. Are you of Mexican descent?”

“What’re you, Jewish or Italian?”

“Forget it,” the girl from the News said.

Raymond raised a finger at her. “See, a man wouldn’t say that either. ‘Forget it.’ ”

“Don’t point at me.” The girl’s anger rising that quickly. “Why wouldn’t a man say it, because he’d be afraid of you?”

“Or he’d be more polite. I mean why act tough?”

“ I don’t carry a gun,” the girl from the News said, “and I’m not playing the role, you are. Like John Wayne or somebody. Clint Eastwood. Don’t you relate to that type? Want to be like them?”

“Do I want to be an actor?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m in homicide,” Raymond said. “I don’t have to make up anything; it’s usually dramatic enough the way it is.”

“Wow, is that revealing.” She stared with a look that said she knew something he didn’t. “You’re almost in contact with your center. You catch a glimpse of it and the transference is immediate. I have to be this way because of my job-”