Ed McBain - He Who Hesitates

Roger had never been loved that way.

He opened the restaurant door, and followed them inside.

Abruptly, he thought of the girl Molly.

7

He had walked over to her table across the bar, and she had looked up at him briefly and then gone back to her drink. She was drinking something in a small stemmed glass, a whiskey sour or something, he figured. She looked up at him with disinterest, and then turned back to her drink with disinterest, as if she were equally bored with everything and everyone in the world.

"I'm sorry I stole your table," Roger said, and smiled.

"Forget it," she told him.

He stood by the table, waiting for her to ask him to have a seat, but the girl just kept looking at the open top of her glass, where some white foam was clinging to the inside, a kind of empty despair on her face, a sadness that made her look even more plain than she actually was.

"Well," he said, "I just wanted to apologize," and he started to move away from the table, thinking she wasn't interested after all, didn't want him to sit with her. And then, all at once he realized that the girl probably wasn't used to approaches from men, didn't know how to handle ' a man coming to her table and flirting with her. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to the table again, and said, "Mind if I sit down?"

"Suit yourself," the girl said.

"Thanks."

He sat.

The table was silent again.

"I don't know why you bothered asking," the girl said, looking up briefly from her drink.

"I thought you just sat wherever you pleased."

She lowered her eyes. Her hand came out, her fingers began toying with the stem of the cherry in her glass.

"That was really a mistake," he said. "I really didn't know if anyone was sitting there."

"Mmm, yeah, well," the girl said.

"Would you like another drink?"

"Are you having one?"

"Just a beer. I don't care much for hard liquor."

"I don't, either," the girl said. "Unless it's something sweet. Like this."

"What is that, anyway?" Roger asked.

"A whiskey sour."

"That's what I thought it was." He paused. "How come a whiskey sour is sweet?"

"I ask them to go easy on the lemon."

"Oh."

"Yeah," the girl said.

"Well, would you like another one?"

The girl shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

Roger signaled the waiter. When he came to the table, Roger said, "I'll have a glass of beer, and the lady would like another whiskey sour."

"Easy on the lemon," the girl said to Roger, not the waiter.

"Easy on the lemon," Roger said to the waiter.

"Right," the waiter said, and walked away.

"My name's Roger Broome," Roger said to her. "What's yours?"

"Molly Nolan."

"Irish," he said, almost to himself.

"Yes. What's Broom?"

"English, I think. Or Scotch. Or maybe both mixed," Roger said.

"B-R-O-O-M?"

"No, with an E"

"Oh," she said, as though the "E" made a difference. The table was still again.

"You come here often?" Roger asked.

"First time," Molly said.

"Me, too."

"You live in the neighborhood?"

"No," Roger said. "I'm from upstate."

"I'm from Sacramento," Molly said. "California."

"No kidding?"

"That's right," she said, and smiled. She isn't even pretty when she smiles, Roger thought. Her teeth are too long for her mouth and her lower lip has marks on it from her bite.

"You're a long way from home," he said.

"Don't I know it," she answered.

The waiter came to the table with their drinks. They were silent while he put them down. When he walked away, Roger lifted his glass and extended it toward her.

"Well," he said, "here's to strangers in the city."

"Well, I'm not really a stranger," she said. "I've been here a week already." But she drank to his toast anyway.

"What brought you here?" he asked.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "Opportunity."

"Is there?"

"Not so far. I haven't been able to get a job yet."

"What kind of work are you looking for?"

"Secretarial. I went to a business school on the Coast. I take very good shorthand, and I type sixty words a minute."

"You ought to be able to get a job easy," Roger said.

"You think so?" she asked.

"Sure."

"I'm not very pretty," she said flatly.

"What?"

"I'm not very pretty," she said again. She was staring at the fresh whiskey sour, her fingers toying again with the cherry. "Men want their secretaries to be pretty." She shrugged. "That's what I've found, anyway."

"I don't see what difference it makes," Roger said.

"It makes a lot of difference."

"Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it. I don't have a secretary, but I certainly wouldn't mind hiring someone who looked like you. There's nothing wrong with your looks, Molly."

"Well, thanks," she said, and laughed in embarrassment, without really believing him.

"How'd your folks feel about you coming all the way East?" he asked.

"I don't have any folks."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," he said.

"They both died when I was nineteen. My father died of cancer, and then my mother died six months afterwards. Everybody says it was of a broken heart. Do you think people can die of a broken heart?"

"I don't know," Roger said. "I suppose it's possible."

"Maybe," Molly said, and shrugged. "Anyway, I'm all alone in the world."

"You must have relatives," Roger said.

"I think my mother had a brother in Arizona, but he doesn't even know I exist."

"How come?"

"Oh, my father had an argument with him long before I was born, about a deed or something he said belonged to my mother, I don't know, something to do with land in Arizona. Anyway, my uncle hauled my father into court, and it was a big mess, and my father lost, and everybody stopped speaking to each other right then and there. I don't even know his name. My uncle's, I mean. He doesn't know mine, either."

"That's a shame," Roger said.

"Who cares? I mean, who needs relatives?"

"Well, it's nice to have a family."

"Mmm, yeah, well," Molly said.

They were silent. Roger sipped at his beer.

"Yep, I've been all alone since I was nineteen," Molly said.

"How old are you now?" he asked.

"Thirty-three," she answered unflinchingly. "Decided it was time for a change, figured I'd come East and look around for a better job. So far, I haven't found a goddamn thing."

"You'll find something," Roger assured her.

"I hope so. I'm running out of money. I was staying downtown when I got here last week, but it was costing me twenty dollars a day, so I moved a little further uptown last Friday, and even that was costing me twelve dollars a day. So yesterday I moved to a real dive, but at least I'll be able to hold out a little longer, you know? This city can kill you if you don't watch out. I mean, I left California with two hundred and fifty dollars and a suitcase full of clothes, and that was it. I figured I'd be able to land something pretty quick, but so far . . ." She shrugged. "Well, maybe tomorrow."

"Where'd you say you were staying?" Roger asked.

"The Orquidea, that's a hotel on Ainsley. There's a lot of Spanish people there, but who the hell cares, it's very inexpensive."

"How much are you paying?" Roger asked.

"Seven dollars a night. That's very inexpensive."

"It certainly is."

"It's a nice room, too. I always judge a hotel by how fast they are on room service, and whether or not they get your phone messages right. Not that I've gotten any phone messages since I checked in — after all, it was only yesterday — but I did order a sandwich and a glass of milk from room service last night, and they brought it right up. The service was really very good."

"That's important," Roger said. "Good service."

"Oh, sure it is," Molly said. She paused and then asked, "Where are you staying?"