Ed McBain - The Mugger

The second film on the bill was about a little girl whose mother and father are getting divorced. The little girl goes with them to Reno — Dad conveniently has business there at the same time Mom must establish residence — and through an unvarying progression of mincing postures and bright-eyed, smirking little-girl facial expressions, convinces Mom and Dad to stay together eternally and live in connubial bliss with their mincing, bright-eyed, smirking little smart-assed daughter.

They left the theater bleary-eyed. It was 6:00.

Kling suggested a drink and dinner. Claire, probably in self-defense, agreed that a drink and dinner would be just dandy along about now.

And so they sat in the restaurant high atop one of the city’s better-known hotels, and they looked through the huge windows that faced the river; across the river there was a sign.

The sign first said: SPRY.

Then it said: SPRY FOR FRYING.

Then it said: SPRY FOR BAKING.

Then it said, again: SPRY.

“What’ll you drink?” Kling asked.

“A whiskey sour, I think,” Claire said.

“No cognac?”

“Later maybe.”

The waiter came over to the table. He looked as romantic as Adolf Hitler.

“Something to drink, sir?” he asked. “A whiskey sour and a martini.” “Lemon peel, sir?” “Olive,” Kling said.

“Thank you, sir. Would you care to see a menu now?” “We’ll wait until after we’ve had our drinks, thank you. All right, Claire?”

“Yes, fine,” she said.

They sat in silence. Kling looked through the windows.

SPRY FOR FRYING.

“Claire?”

“Yes?”

SPRY FOR BAKING.

“It’s been a bust, hasn’t it?”

“Please, Bert.”

“The rain… and that lousy movie. I didn’t want it to be this way. I wanted—”

“I knew this would happen, Bert. I tried to tell you, didn’t I? Didn’t I try to warn you off? Didn’t I tell you I was the dullest girl in the world? Why did you insist, Bert? Now you make me feel like a… like a…”

“I don’t want you to feel any way,” he said. “I was only going to suggest that we… we start afresh. From now. Forgetting everything that’s… that’s happened.”

“Oh, what’s the use?” Claire said.

The waiter came with their drinks. “Whiskey sour for the lady?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He put the drinks on the table. Kling lifted the martini glass.

“To a new beginning,” he said.

“If you want to waste a drink,” she answered, and she drank.

“About last night—” he started.

“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.