Ed McBain - Poison

He wanted tonight to be a very special one. Marilyn's coming-out party, so to speak. Her introduction to two people he liked and admired, both of them working detectives. And, perhaps more important, their introduction to her. He knew Carella well enough to be certain he hadn't revealed to the other cops on the squad anything about Marilyn's past. The lieutenant, yes, Carella would have felt duty-bound to tell him that Willis had moved in with a former hooker whom Carella considered a murder suspect. But beyond the lieutenant, no. Carella was a working cop, not a gossip. Carella was a friend.

There were secrets at this table.

Marilyn's secret was that she'd been a hooker.

Eileen's secret was that she'd been raped and slashed in the line of duty.

There were also mysteries at this table.

Willis wondered if two experienced, eagle-eyed detectives would take one look at Marilyn and know what she'd been.

Kling wondered if Marilyn would ask questions that would again trigger memories of what had been the most horrible night in Eileen's life. He wished Willis hadn't mentioned her work as a decoy.

Willis wished nobody would ask Marilyn what sort of work she did.

"What sort of work do you do?" Eileen asked.

"I'm independently wealthy," Marilyn said breezily, and then said, "How about the orange chicken?"

Eileen looked at Kling.

"How does a person get to be independently wealthy?" Kling asked.

"I have a rich father," Marilyn said, and smiled.

Kling was thinking he'd once been married to a woman who earned a hell of a lot more money than he did. He wondered if Willis was serious about this girl. If so, did she know how much a Detective/Third earned?

"What do they do?" Marilyn asked. "Just turn you out on the street?"

"Sort of," Eileen said. "Would anyone like the crispy fish?"

"I'd be terrified," Marilyn said.

I am terrified, Eileen thought. Ever since that night, I've been scared to death.

"You get used to it," she said, and again brought her hand up to her cheek.

"Why don't we just order the special dinner?" Kling said. "Do you think that'd be too much to eat?"

"I'm starved," Marilyn said.

"Sure, let's do that," Willis said, and signaled to the waiter.

The waiter padded to the table.

"The special dinner for four," Willis said. "And another round of drinks, please."

"I go on at midnight," Kling said. "No more for me."

"Oh, come on," Eileen said.

"No, really," Kling said, and covered the top of his glass with his palm.

"The night shift's a good time for cooping," Eileen said. "Have another drink."

"What's cooping?" Marilyn asked.

"Sleeping on the job," Willis said.

"Special dinner for four," the waiter said. "More drinks." And walked off.

"Why do Chinese waiters always sound surly?" Marilyn asked. "Have you noticed that?"

"Because they are surly," Kling said.

"Racist remark," Eileen said.

"Who me? I have nothing against Chinks," Kling said.

"Compounding the felony," Eileen said.

Marilyn wondered if they were going to use police jargon all night long.

Eileen wondered if Marilyn knew Kling had used the word "Chinks" deliberately, as a reverse joke.

"That was deliberate," she said.

"What was?" Marilyn asked.

"Him saying 'Chinks.' "

"Actually, I like Chinks," Kling said. "Japs, too. We have a Jap on the squad."

"That, too," Eileen said. "Deliberate. His sense of humor."

"I have no sense of humor," Kling said, dead-panned.

"Have you ever wondered why there are no blue-eyed Chinese?" Willis said.

"Mendel's Law," Marilyn said. "If you mate a black cat and a white cat, you get one white kitten, one black kitten, and two grey kittens."

"What's that got to do with blue-eyed Chinese?" Willis asked.

"Brown eyes are dominant, blue eyes are recessive. If everybody in a country has brown eyes, then everybody's children will also have brown eyes. Well, that isn't quite true. It doesn't always work with people the way it works with fruit flies or cats, unless everybody's got dominant genes to begin with. For example, my father had brown eyes and my mother had blue eyes, but there must have been some recessive blues in previous generations. When two recessives get together, you get another recessive, which is what I am, a recessive blue."

"How do you happen to know that?" Willis asked.

"I saved a clipping on it," Marilyn said.

He wondered why she had saved a clipping for an electric distiller. He had not yet asked her. She had told him the moment he walked into the house this afternoon that she'd broken the news to Endicott. Met him for lunch, told him she didn't want to see him again. So he'd put off asking her about the distiller, even though Carella's last report had mentioned that one way to make homemade nicotine was by distilling tobacco.

"Are both your parents dead?" Kling said.

Uh-oh, Willis thought. Cop catching a discrepancy. She'd used the present tense in talking about her father earlier: I have a rich father. And just now she'd switched to past tense: My father had brown eyes.

Kling was waiting for an answer. Not probing, not a cop on the job, no suspicion here, just puzzlement. Waiting for clarification.

"Yes," Marilyn said.

"Because earlier," Eileen said, "I got the impression your father was still alive."

Another county heard from, Willis thought.

"No, he died several years ago. He left me quite a bit of money," Marilyn said, and lowered her eyes.

"I thought that was only in fairy tales," Eileen said.

"Sometimes in real life, too," Marilyn said.

"I used to love reading Grimm's fairy tales," Eileen said, somewhat wistfully, as if talking about an uncomplicated time long ago.

"Did you know that Jakob Grimm… the one who wrote the fairy tales… is the same Grimm who formulated Grimm's Law?"

Fancy footwork, Willis thought. Reverse the field, change the subject. Nice work, Marilyn.

"What's Grimm's Law?" Kling asked.

"Section 314.76," Eileen said. "Consorting with fairies."

"Sexist remark," Kling said.

"Something to do with p's becoming b's, and v's becoming w's or vice-versa, I forget which," Marilyn said. "It was in a clipping I saved. In German, of course, the German language."

"The clipping was in German?" Eileen said.

"No, no, the law. Grimm's Law. It pertained to the German language. He was German, you know."

"What's taking him so long with those drinks?" Willis said, and signaled to the waiter.

"Drinks coming," the waiter said, and went into the kitchen.

"See?" Kling said. "Surly as a boil."

"Maybe he doesn't understand English," Eileen said.

"Does anybody here speak Chinese?" Kling said.

"Marilyn speaks fluent Spanish," Willis said, and then immediately thought Jackass! You're opening the wrong can of peas!

"I wish I spoke fluent Spanish," Kling said. "Come in handy around the precinct."

"Well, you know a few words," Eileen said.

"Oh, sure, you pick them up, but that's not fluent. Where'd you learn it?" he asked Marilyn. "In school?"

"Yes," she said at once.

"Here in the city?" Eileen asked.

"No. In Los Angeles."

Getting in deeper and deeper, Willis thought.

"Did you go to college out there?"

"No. I learned it in high school."

Deeper and deeper and deeper.

"It's a much simpler language than English, actually," Marilyn said, sidestepping again. "I'd hate to be a foreigner learning English, wouldn't you? All those words that sound alike and are spelled differently? Like joke and oak and folk. Or all the words that have the same spelling but are pronounced differently? Like bough and though and rough. I'd go crazy."