Ed McBain - He Who Hesitates

"The three of us."

"What? Oh, yes, the old man down there."

"He's really my duena," Amelia said.

"What's that?"

"A duena? That's Spanish for chaperone. In Spain, when a young girl goes out with a boy, she has to take along a duena, usually an aunt or some other relative. My father told me about that. He's Spanish, you know, did I tell you?"

"Yes."

"I mean, he's not Puerto Rican," Amelia said.

"What's the difference?"

"Oh, in this city, there's a big difference. In this city it's pretty bad to be colored, but the worst thing you can possibly be is Puerto Rican."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know,' Amelia said, and shrugged. "I guess it's more fashionable to hate Puerto Ricans now." She laughed, and Roger laughed with her. "My father's name is Juan. Juan Perez. We always kid around with him, we ask him how his Colombian coffee beans are coming along. You know, have you ever seen that television commercial? It's Juan Valdez, actually, but it's close enough. My father loves when we kid around with him that way. He always says his coffee beans are doing fine because he's got them under the tree that is his Spanish sun hat. He really is from Spain, you know, from a little town outside Madrid. Brihuega. Did you ever hear of it?"

"Brihuega Basin, do you mean?"

"No, Brihuega."

"Oh yes, Brihuega Depot."

"No, Brihuega."

"Near Huddlesworth, right?"

"Near Madrid."

"Where they fight camels."

"No, bulls."

"I knew I had it," Roger said, and Amelia laughed. "Well, now that we're here," he said, "what are we supposed to do?"

Amelia shrugged. "We could neck, I suppose."

"Is that what you want to do?"

"No, not really. It's a little too early in the day. I got to admit, though . . ."

"Yes?"

"I'm very curious about what it's like to kiss a white man."

"Me, too."

"A colored girl, you mean."

"Yes."

"Yes."

They were both silent. The wind caught at their overcoats, flattening the material against their bodies as they looked out over the water. At the far end of the boardwalk, the old man was still motionless, like a salt-sodden statue frozen into position by a sudden winter.

"Do you think the old man would mind?" Amelia asked.

"I don't think so."

"Well . . ." she said.

"Well . . ."

"Well, let's."

She turned her face up to his, and he put his arms around her and then bent and kissed her mouth. He kissed her very gently. He thought of Molly the night before and then he moved away from her and stared down at her face and she caught her breath with a short sharp sigh and then smiled mysteriously and shrugged and said, "I like it."

"Yes."

"You think the old man would mind if we did it again?"

"I don't think so," Roger said.

They kissed again. Her lips were very wet. He moved slightly away from her and looked down at her. She was staring up at him with her dark brown eyes serious and questioning.

"This is sort of crazy," she whispered.

"Yes."

"Standing here on a boardwalk with that wind howling in."

"Yes."

"Kissing," she said. Her voice was very low.

"Yes."

"And that old man watching."

"He isn't watching," Roger said.

"On the edge of the world," Amelia said. And suddenly, "I don't even know who you are."

"My name is Roger Broome."

"Yes, but who?"

"What would you like to know?"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

"I'm twenty-two." She paused. "How do I know . . ." She stopped, and shook her head.

"What?"

"How do I know you're not ... a ..." She shrugged. "A... Well, you wanted to know where the police station was."

"That's right."

"To meet a friend, you said. But then you came back to the drugstore and you hadn't met this friend of yours at all, so how do I know . . . Well, how do I know you're not in some kind of trouble?"

"Do I look like somebody who's in trouble?"

"I don't know what a white man in trouble looks like. I've seen lots of colored people in trouble. If you're colored, you're always in trouble, from the day you're born. But I don't know the look of a white man in trouble. I don't know what his eyes look like."

"Look at my eyes."

"Yes?"

"What do you see?"

"Green. No, amber. I don't know, what color are they? Hazel?"

"Yes, hazel, like my mother's. What else do you see?"

"Flecks. Yellow, I guess."

"What else?"

"Myself. I see myself reflected, like in tiny funhouse mirrors."

"Do you see trouble?"

"Not unless I'm trouble," Amelia said. She paused. "Am I trouble?"

He thought again of Molly and immediately said, "No."

"You said that too fast."

"Don't look at me that way," he said.

"What way?"

"As if ... you're afraid of me all at once."

"Don't be silly. Why should I be afraid of you?"

"You have no reason to—"

"I'm five feet four inches tall, and I weigh a hundred and seventeen pounds. All you are is six feet nine—"

"Six-five," Roger corrected.

"Sure, and you weigh two hundred pounds and you could break me in half just by—"

"Two hundred and ten."

" — snapping your fingers, and here we are all alone on a godforsaken boardwalk—"

"There's an old man down there."

" — in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the ocean in front of us, and those deserted buildings behind us, so why should I be afraid? Who's afraid?"

"Right," he said, and smiled.

"Right," she agreed. "You could strangle me or drown me or beat me to death, and nobody'd know about it for the next ten years."

"If ever," Roger said.

"Mmm."

"Of course, there's always the old man down there."

"Yeah, he's some protection," Amelia said. "He's probably half-blind. I'm beginning to wonder if he's real, as a matter of fact. He hasn't moved since we got here."

"Do you want to go?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. And then, quickly, "But not because I'm afraid of you. Only because I'm cold."

"Where would you like to go?"

"Back to the city."

"Where?"

"Do you have a room?" she asked.

"Yes."

Amelia shrugged. "We could go there, I guess. Get out of the cold."

"Maybe," Roger said.

They turned their backs to the ocean and began walking up the boardwalk, out of the amusement park. She looped her hand through his arm, and then rested her head on his shoulder, and he thought how pretty she was, and he felt the pressure of her fingers on his arm, and he remembered again the way he had never got any of the pretty girls in his life, and here was one now, very pretty, but of course she was colored. It bothered him that she was colored. He told himself that it was a shame she was colored because she was really the first pretty girl he had ever known in his life, well, Molly had been pretty last night, but only after a while. That was the funny part of it; she hadn't started out to be pretty. This girl, this colored girl holding his arm, her head on his shoulder, this girl was pretty. She had pretty eyes and a pretty smile and good breasts and clean legs, it was too bad she was colored. It was really too bad she was colored, though her color was a very pleasant warm brown. Listen, you can't go losing your head over a colored girl, he told himself.

"Listen," he said.

"Yes."

"I think we'd better get back and maybe ... uh ... maybe you ought to go back to the drugstore."

"What?" she said.

"I think you ought to go back to work. For the afternoon, anyway."

"What?" she said again.

"And then I can ... uh ... pick you up later, maybe, after work, and ... uh ... maybe we can have supper together, all right?"

She stopped dead on the boardwalk with the wind tearing at the blue kerchief wrapped around her head and tied tightly under her chin. Her eyes were serious and defiant. She kept both hands gripped over the brass clasp at the top of her handbag. Her hands were motionless. She stared up at him with her brown eyes flashing and the blue kerchief flapping in the wind, her body rigid and motionless.