Lawrence Block - Manhattan Noir

She straightened the pen on her napkin-Esther liked things neat. And when she looked up, as ready as she’d ever be, there was Harry heading toward her. And there was the waiter with her drink as well.

“I ordered you a Manhattan,” she told Harry, pointing to his place setting, letting the waiter know the drink was for him, not her, flapping her hand when he tried to put down the little wooden dish of nuts, motioning him to take it away as Harry pulled out the chair and slipped off his scarf, not the one Esther had given him two years ago, this one from Cheryl. “I think I’ll have one, too,” she told the kid. “A man shouldn’t have to drink alone, should he?”

“Still taking care of me, Esther?” Harry said.

“Old habits die hard.”

Harry nodded without looking at her, snapping his fingers for the waiter to come back, handing him his coat and scarf instead of hanging it on the rack himself the way everyone else did.

“You’re looking good, Esther.” Still not looking at her. “New hairdo?”

Esther smiled. “You noticed,” she said, smoothing the same hair style she’d worn for the last seven years.

“So, my girl said I should bring the papers, Esther. I was quite surprised. Have you changed your mind? Have you decided…?”

The kid brought Esther’s Manhattan and gave them each a menu. Esther lifted her glass. “To your future, Harry,” she said, waiting for him to lift his glass, listening to the sound of the glasses as they touched, remembering the champagne she always shared with Harry on their anniversaries, the little robin’s-egg-blue box with the white satin bow he’d slip out of his pocket, at least until the last few anniversaries, the one when he was away, the one he just forgot, and the last one, the one he spent with Cheryl.

Harry picked up his menu, and the moment he put it down, the damn kid appeared, that shit-eating grin on his face.

“I’ll start with the risotto,” Harry told him, more interested in what he was going to eat for dinner than he was in Esther. “And then the steak, medium rare.”

He didn’t even ask Esther what she was going to have. But the kid was looking at her, waiting. That was as good as it was going to get around here, Esther thought, waving her hand back and forth. “Nothing for me.”

“Esther,” Harry said. “Come on. Have a bite.”

“I’m on that diet you kept talking about, Harry.”

“The liquid diet?”

Esther picked up her drink. “Yes, Harry, that one.”

Why was it always Esther who was supposed to go on a diet? Didn’t Harry ever look at himself in the mirror? But Cheryl didn’t mind. She loved Harry just the way he was, old enough to be her father, fat enough to play Santa without padding, and with an income in the neighborhood of two million a year, give or take. Esther figured Harry was doing the giving, Cheryl the taking, as much of it as she could.

If Esther thought Harry would have trouble eating in front of her, she would have been sorely mistaken. But then again, she’d been mistaken about so many things, hadn’t she? And what did it matter now anyway?

After a third Manhattan, the second that Harry knew about, she decided to let Harry pay the bill. The kid didn’t seem so bad anymore. Let Harry leave him a big tip. Esther no longer cared. She excused herself to go to the ladies’ room while Harry looked at the dessert menu. When she got back, no sooner had she sat down when Harry took the agreement out of his pocket and handed it across the table.

“Cheryl and I…” he began, then changed his mind. “I really appreciate this, Esther. And I’m sure you’ll agree I’ve been generous. There’s more than enough-”

He stopped again when she held up a hand. “Water under the bridge, Harry.” She picked up the pen, signed and initialed wherever it was indicated to do so, then folded the document and handed it back to her husband.

“Ready?” he asked, anxious to go now, anxious to get home to Cheryl and show her the signed papers, open a bottle of champagne, toast to their future. Esther nodded. She’d given him what he wanted. That was what this dinner had been about and she’d done it. Esther dabbed on some lip gloss and stood, picking up her coat from the back of her chair, slipping it on without Harry’s assistance, as the kid helped Harry into his coat, a new one, Esther noted, perhaps another gift from Cheryl, a gift paid for with Harry’s money.

Still, she took his arm as they left the restaurant, the way she always used to. It felt good. It felt right, and besides, the streets were slippery and she didn’t want to fall. She’d left her boots back at the apartment. She’d wanted to look nice tonight, her last night with Harry. They walked a block north, to Jane Street, and Esther looked down at the cobblestones showing in patches where the traffic had melted the snow. Twenty-two , she thought as they crossed the street, the one where she’d killed Harry with a loose cobblestone. Why had she been so foolish, living on fantasies of revenge instead of moving on with her life?

“I’d like to go on alone,” she said when they arrived at the next corner.

Harry patted his coat where the signed papers would be in the inside pocket of his jacket. “Thank you, Esther. You always were a good sport.”

“Kiss me goodbye, Harry. Kiss me as if it were the last time.”

Harry bent. Esther got up on her toes. Harry was surprised at the force of her kiss, how tightly she held him, and then at the sight of the tears in her eyes when she finally stepped back.

He headed east, toward the bus stop on Greenwich Street. Esther shook her head. She knew him so well. There probably wasn’t a thing about Harry she didn’t know, including where he’d be generous and exactly where he’d scrimp. As if you could take it with you, she thought, lifting her arm to hail a cab.

Actually, it would be Esther taking it with her, all the money she’d embezzled from him all those years as his bookkeeper, a thousand here, a thousand there. It had added up to quite a sum in the twenty-eight years she’d run her husband’s office and done his books.

Esther checked her watch. Feeling a bit lightheaded, she regretted for the moment that she hadn’t eaten, the food on the plane would be so bad. But then she remembered that her ticket was first class. The food might not be so bad after all, and they’d be pouring champagne even before takeoff. She saw a cab a few blocks away and reached into her purse for the little pot of lip gloss and dropped it, along with the syringe of epinephrine she’d taken from Harry’s pocket when she’d hugged him, between the grates of the sewer, two more things she wouldn’t need again.

The cab pulled up and Esther settled herself in the backseat, telling the driver to take her to JFK. Everything was right on schedule. She had plenty of time to catch her flight, the bus wouldn’t be at the corner of Greenwich and Horatio Streets for another five or six minutes, and by that time Harry would be dead.

Nine , Esther said to herself, eyes closed, smiling, the one first called “Nut Allergy” and then “Nuts to You,” the one in which Esther adds peanut oil to her lip gloss and kills Harry with a kiss. It had always been her very favorite.

Clinton

She felt his eyes on her just about the time the bartender placed a Beck’s coaster on the bar and set her dry Rob Roy on top of it. She wanted to turn and see who was eyeing her, but remained as she was, trying to analyze just what it was she felt. She couldn’t pin it down physically, couldn’t detect a specific prickling of the nerves in the back of her neck. She simply knew she was being watched, and that the watcher was a male.