Robert Parker - Night Passage

“Homicide.”

“Yes.”

Jennifer was silent for a moment thinking about the gap between the world she lived in and the one he worked in.

“Is it like, what? Hill Street Blues ?” she said.

“More like Barney Miller ,” he said.

It was his standard answer, but it was no truer than any other, just self-effacing, which was why he used it. Being a homicide cop wasn’t like anything on television, but there wasn’t much point in trying to explain that to someone who could never know.

“You an actress?” he said.

“Yes. How did you know?”

It was another thing he always said. He had a good chance to be right in Los Angeles, and even if he were wrong, the girl was flattered.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And you have a sort of star quality.”

“Wow, you know the right things to say, don’t you.”

“Just telling the truth,” Jesse said.

“Right now I’m working at the reception desk at CAA,” Jennifer said. “But one of the agents has noticed me and says he’s going to get me some auditions during pilot season.”

“You done any work I might have seen?”

“Mostly nonspeaking parts, crowd scenes, things like that. I’m in a play three nights a week just down the street here. It’s a modern version of a Greek tragedy called The Parcae . I play Clotho.”

“Sounds really interesting,” Jesse said. “I’d like to come see it.”

“I can leave a ticket for you at the box office. All you have to do is let me know the night.”

“How about tonight?” Jesse said.

“Maybe have a bite afterwards?”

“That would be very nice,” she said.

“Good,” Jesse said. “I’ll meet you afterwards in the lobby.”

She smiled and stood and disposed of her tray.

“I you don’t like the play, don’t arrest me,” she said.

“I’ll like the play, Jesse said.

He watched her as she walked away. He knew he’d hate the play, but it was part of what he was willing to pay in order to see that body without the Lycra... At Santa Rosa he crossed the Pecos. It was a pretty ordinary-looking little river to be so famous. What the hell made it so famous? Was it Judge Roy Bean? The law west of the Pecos? Small things pleased him as he drove. He liked seeing the towns that had once marked Route 66: Gallup, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona, Winona. He liked seeing the occasional wind-driven tumbleweed that rolled across the highway. He liked seeing road signs for Indian reservations and places like Fort Defiance. Past Santa Rosa he pulled off of the Interstate to get gas and a ham-and-cheese sandwich at a gas station/restaurant in the middle of the New Mexico wilderness.

It was the only building in sight with views in all directions to the empty horizon. He pumped his own gas, and a skinny girl with pale skin and a tooth missing took his money and sold him a sandwich. He sat in the car and ate the sandwich and drank a Coke and thought about how alone the skinny girl was and wondered about what she did when she wasn’t working the gas station and selling the pre-wrapped sandwiches. Probably went someplace and watched television off a dish. The sense of her aloneness made him feel a little panicky, and he put the car in gear and drove away, finishing his sandwich on the move. As he drove he ran the ball of his thumb over his wedding ring, in a habitual gesture. But of course there was no wedding ring, only the small pale indentation on his third finger where the ring had been. He glanced at the indentation for a moment and brought his eyes back to the road. The sun was behind him now, the car chasing its own elongated shadow east. He wanted to make Tucumcari by dark... The play had been incomprehensible, he remembered. A lot of white makeup and black lipstick and shrieking. He took her up to a place on Cower called Pinot Hollywood that was open late and featured a martini bar. They drank martinis and ate calamari and talked. Or she talked. She chattered easily and without apparent pretense. He listened comfortably, glad not to talk too much, pleased when she asked him a question that he could answer easily, aware that though she talked a lot she was quite adroit at talking about him. After the bar closed he drove her to West Hollywood where she had an apartment on Cynthia Street above Santa Monica Boulevard. It was 2:30 in the morning and the street was still. At the door she asked if he’d like to come in. He said he would. The apartment was living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. It had been built into one corner of the building so that all the rooms were angular and odd shaped. The living room overlooked the street. The bedroom allowed a glimpse of the pool.

“Would you like a drink, Jesse?”

“Sure,” he said.

She was wearing a little black dress with spaghetti straps and backless high-heeled shoes. She put her hands on her hips and smiled at him. Maybe a little theatrical, but she was an actress.

“Let’s have it afterwards,” she said.

Her bedroom was neat. The bed freshly made. She had probably planned, this afternoon, to ask him in. He watched her undress with the same feeling he used to have when, as a small boy, he unwrapped a present. She folded her dress neatly over the back of a chair and lined her shoes carefully together under it. She squirmed out of her underpants and dropped them into the clothes hamper in her closet. She wiped her lipstick off carefully and dropped the tissue in the wastebasket. They made love on top of the spread, and lay together afterward in the dim bedroom listening to the comforting white noise of the air conditioning.

“You’re very fierce, Jesse.”

“I don’t mean to be,” he said.

“No, it’s fine. It’s exciting in fact. But you seem so, um, so still, on the outside and then, you know, wow.”

“You’re pretty exciting,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t like to talk about his emotions.

“I try to be,” she said.

They lay quietly on their backs. His arm under her neck. Her head on his right shoulder.

“I wouldn’t want to make you mad,” Jennifer said.

“You won’t.”

They lay quietly for a while longer, then she got up and put on a longish tee shirt and made them a drink. He felt like a fool sitting naked, but he didn’t want to be so formal as to get fully dressed. He settled for putting his pants on, leaving his gun holstered on top of her dresser. They sat on stools at the tiny counter that separated her kitchen from her living room, and sipped white wine.

“How’d you get to be a cop, Jesse?”

“I was going to be a baseball player,” Jesse said. “Shortstop. Dodgers drafted me out of high school, sent me to Pueblo. I was doing okay and then one night a guy took me out on a double play at second base. I landed funny, tore up my shoulder, ended the career.”

“Oh, how awful,” she said. “Does it bother you still?”

“Not if I don’t have to throw a baseball.”

“Couldn’t you have played where it didn’t matter?”

“No. I hit okay for a shortstop, but I was going to make it on my glove.”

“Glove?”

“I was a much better fielder,” Jesse said, “than I was a hitter.”

“And you couldn’t just field?”

“No.”

“How old were you?”

“Nineteen,” Jesse said. “I came home, worked construction for six months, joined the Marines, got out, took the exam for fire department, police, and DWP. Cops came through first.”

“Do you miss baseball?”

“Every day,” Jesse said.

“Isn’t it kind of depressing being a policeman?” she said. “You know, seeing all that awfulness.”

Again he was aware of how skillfully she turned the conversation to him. He enjoyed her interest, but more than that he admired her skill.