Sue Grafton - C is for Corpse

"What," I said.

"When I'm with you, I don't feel self-conscious or like I'm crippled or ugly. I don't know how you do that, but it's nice."

I looked at him for a moment, feeling oddly self-conscious myself "I'll tell you. You remind me of a birthday present somebody's sent through the mail. The papers torn and the box is damaged, but there's still something terrific in there. I enjoy your company."

A half-smile formed and disappeared. He glanced over at the house and then back to me. He had something else on his mind, but he seemed embarrassed to admit to it.

"What," I coaxed.

He tilted his head and the look in his eyes was one I knew. "If I were O.K… if I'd been whole, would you have thought about having a relationship with me? I mean, boy-girl type?"

"You want the truth?"

"Only if it's flattering."

I laughed. "The truth is if I'd run into you before the accident, I'd have been intimidated. You're too good-looking, too rich, and too young. So I gotta say no. If you were 'whole,' as you put it, I probably wouldn't have known you at all. You're really not my type, you know?"

"What is your type?"

"I haven't figured that out yet."

He looked at me for a minute with a quizzical smile forming-

"Would you just say what's on your mind?" I said.

"How can you turn it around and make me feel good that I'm deformed?"

"Oh God, you're not deformed. Now, quit that! I'll talk to you later."

He smiled and slammed the car door, moving back then so I could make the turn-around and head out the far side of the driveway.

I drove back to my place. It was only 5:15. I still had time to get a run in, though I wondered at the wisdom of it. Bobby and I had spent the better part of the day drinking beer and bourbon and bad Chablis, gnawing barbecued spareribs and sourdough bread tough enough to tug your dentures out. I was really more in the mood for a nap than a run, but I thought the self-discipline would serve me right.

I changed into my running clothes and did three miles while I went through the mental gymnastics of getting the case organized. It felt like iffy stuff" and I wasn't quite sure where to start. I thought I better check with Dr. Fraker in the Pathology Department at St. Terry's first, maybe pop in and see Kitty at the same time, and then try the newspaper morgue and go through the tedious business of checking back through local news prior to the accident just to see what was going on at the time. Maybe some event then current would shed light on Bobbys claim that someone had tried to murder him.

I went over to Bosie's at seven for a glass of wine. I was feeling restless and I wondered if Bobby hadn't set something in motion somehow. It was nice having someone to pal around with, nice to while away an afternoon in good company, nice to have someone whose face I looked forward to seeing. I wasn't sure how to categorize our relationship. My affection for him wasn't maternal in any way. Sisterly, perhaps. He seemed like a good friend and I felt for him all the admiration one feels for a good friend. He was fun, and being with him was peaceful. I'd been alone for so long that a relationship of any kind seemed like seductive stuff

I snagged a glass of wine at the bar and then I sat in the back booth and surveyed the place. For a Tuesday night, there was a lively crowd, which is to say, two guys arguing nasally at the bar, and an old couple from the neighborhood sharing a big plate of pancakes layered with ham. Rosie remained at the bar with a cigarette, smoke drifting up around her head in a halo of nicotine and hair spray. She's in her sixties, Hungarian and bossy, a creature of muumuus and dyed auburn tresses, which she wears parted down the center and plastered into place with sprays that have sat on the grocery-store shelves since the beehive hairdo bumbled out of fashion in 1966. Rosie has a long nose, a short upper lip, eyes that she pencils into narrow, suspicious-looking slits. She's short, top-heavy, and opinionated. Also she pouts, which in a woman her age is ludicrous, but effective. Half the time, I don't like her much, but she never ceases to fascinate.

Her establishment has the same crude but cranky appeal. The bar extends along the left wall with a stuffed mar-lin arched above it that I suspect was never really alive. A big color TV sits on the far end of the bar, sound off, images dancing about like transmissions from another planet where life is vibrant and lunatic. The place always smells of beer, cigarette smoke, and cooking grease that should have been thrown out last week. There are six or seven tables in the center of the room surrounded by chrome-and-plastic chairs out of somebody's 1940s dinette set. The eight booths along the right wall have been fashioned out of plywood and stained the color of walnut, complete with tasteless suggestions carved in by ruffians who apparently had had a go at the ladies' room, too. It's possible that Rosie doesn't read English well enough to divine the true meaning of these primitive slogans. It's also possible that they express her sentiments exactly. Hard to know with her.

I glanced over at her and discovered that she was sitting bolt upright and very still, squinting narrowly at the front door. I followed her gaze. Henry had just come in with his new lady friend, Lila Sams. Rosie's antennae had apparently gone up automatically, like My Favorite Martian in drag. Henry found a table that seemed reasonably clean and pulled out a chair. Lila sat down and settled her big plastic bag on her lap like a small dog. She was wearing a bright cotton dress in a snazzy print, bold red poppies on a ground of blue, and her hair looked as if it had been poufed at the beauty parlor that very afternoon. Henry sat down, glancing back at the booth, where he knows I usually sit. I gave a little finger wave and he waved back. Lila's head swiveled in my direction and her smile took on a look of false delight.

Rosie, meanwhile, had set her evening paper aside and had left her stool, gliding through the bar like a shark. I could only surmise that she and Lila had met before. I looked on with interest. This might be almost as entertaining as Godzilla Meets Bambi, at my local cinema. From my vantage point, of course, the whole encounter took place in pantomime.

Rosie had her order pad out. She stood and stared at Henry, behaving as though he were alone, which is exactly how she treats me when I come in with a friend. Rosie doesn't speak to strangers. She doesn't make eye contact with anyone she hasn't known for some time. This is especially true when the "anyones" are women. Lila was all aflutter. Henry conferred with her and ordered for them both. Much discussion ensued. I gathered that Lila had made some request that didn't suit Rosie's notion of gourmet Hungarian cuisine. Maybe Lila wanted the peppers left out or something roasted instead of fried. Lila looked like the sort of woman who'd have lots of dietary taboos. Rosie only had the one. You ate it the way she served it or you went somewhere else. Lila apparently couldn't believe that she couldn't be catered to. Shrill and quarrelsome noises arose, all Lila's. Rosie didn't say a word. It was her place. She could do anything she wanted to. The two men at the bar who'd been arguing about politics turned to watch the show. The couple eating the sonkas palacsinta paused simultaneously, forks in midair.

Lila flounced her chair back. I thought for a minute she meant to hit Rosie with her purse. Instead, she delivered what looked like a scathing remark and marched toward the door with Henry scrambling after her. Rosie remained unruffled, smiling secretly as cats do in the midst of mouse dreams. The customers in the place, all five of us, got very quiet, tending studiously to our own private thoughts lest Rosie turn on us inexplicably and eighty-six us for life.