Jack O'Connell - Box Nine

“Oh,” she says, “just about anything. I’m going to go with the Monday Special and a black coffee.”

Woo raises his eyes to ask for more details.

“It’s sort of this fried-rice goulash. Mostly vegetarian. Water chestnuts, onion, pepper, pineapple. You know what I’m saying.”

“Do they use MSG?” Woo asks.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they do,” Lenore says.

“Doesn’t affect you?”

“I think it gives me a boost.”

“I think I’ll have the tuna melt,” Woo says.

Lenore calls the order over to Lon, who starts putting it together immediately. She wonders if he’s upset about her bringing another man into the place. She’s never taken Zarelli here. Now she’s glad about that.

“The reason I asked if we could have lunch,” Woo says, lowering his voice substantially to indicate his seriousness, “is because I sensed a certain degree of, perhaps, hostility, at the briefing.”

“You did,” Lenore says blandly, showing a real disinterest. She wonders as she answers if a guy who’s an expert on language can figure out what she’s really thinking.

“Yes,” Woo says. “I was thinking that, possibly, we could talk about that. In light of the seriousness of the situation and the fact that, whether either one of us likes it or not, I’ll be consulting on this case, and most likely spending a good deal of time in your company, well, I was thinking that the way to proceed at this point might be to clear up any acrimony right at the start.”

“Acrimony,” Lenore says.

“Let me make a guess here,” Woo says. “Permit me some groundless speculation for a moment, please. I was watching you this morning and I was wondering how many reasons could there be for your distaste of that meeting, and the presence of Agent Lehmann and Mayor Welby and myself …”

“Lehmann I know,” Lenore interrupts. “Believe me, I’ve got my reasons for being hostile to Lehmann.”

“All right, fine,” Woo says. “That still leaves the mayor and myself. Let me just tell you what I was thinking on the drive over here. I was thinking you’d be justified in some resentment. That some resentment of this morning’s proceedings would be only logical. I was thinking how I might feel in your position. This is your line of work, your expertise, your city. You’ve got a long and proven history in dealing with narcotics and Bangkok Park. You’ve taken quite a few risks over the years, done what was asked of you and then, perhaps, a bit more. And this morning an image-obsessed politician and an ivory-tower academic come into your life and tell you what’s new and what you’re to do about it. It’s patently unjust.”

Lon brings their food to the counter and Lenore, without taking her eyes off Woo, leans out and grabs the plates and brings them down to their table. She’s got a frozen and bemused look on her face. She grabs the pepper shaker and puts a blanket of black powder over her rice, then mixes it up with her fork, still staring at him, until Woo starts to fidget and clear his throat.

“What?” he finally says. “Have I offended you somehow?”

Lenore shakes her head no, slowly, a logy swing from side to side. Woo finds her bizarre, decides the lunch date was a mistake.

“You are slick, Dr. Woo,” she says. “Very sharp, a very slick character.”

“I don’t understand,” Woo says, fingering his tuna melt.

“No, no,” Lenore says, “don’t get me wrong here. This is refreshing. Trust me. I could tell you stories. The men I’ve known. God. No one has made this much of an effort in ages. I mean, I’m used to Zarelli trying to tease me like a sixteen-year-old, for Christ sake. I mean, this is an event. Really, Doc, you’ve achieved the effect you were going for. The closest I come to being flattered these days is from the Spanish pimps down Club 62.”

“I’m not sure I …” Woo begins, but Lenore waves his words away.

“No, I swear to you, Freddy, this is a compliment. Hey, this is the high point of the month, you know.”

Woo says, “Lenore …” then just leaves his lips open slightly and she can see his tongue resting like a pink carpet in the valley of his mouth.

Lenore begins to laugh quieriy, a low, guttural, staccato laugh that actually scares Woo a little. She takes in a mouthful of rice, sits back in her seat, and chews slowly, nodding and staring at him. Then, finally, she swallows and says, “Here’s how I see it, Freddy. I don’t really care one way or the other about you or the mayor being at the briefing this morning. Just doesn’t matter to me. I have other things to think about. The mayor just wasted a little of everyone’s time, but no big deal. And you, I guess, might actually prove useful. At least that’s what Lehmann and DEA seem to think. And Lehmann is an asshole, but he’s not stupid. I’d like to say he was, but it’s just not the case.”

She takes another helping of rice and pineapple, chews, swallows, breathes, and continues.

“But your version of things is very workable. You’ve got logic on your side and you bet that that was enough. Good bet. I would have sized things up in roughly the same way if I were in your shoes, so to speak. You figure you’ll call me hostile, then, before I can get defensive, you’ll acknowledge the correctness of my hostility, sort of putting us on the same side of the fence. Instant-comrades kind of thing. It’s a nice maneuver. Got a lot of things going for it. It’s kind of compressed, you know. Uses a domino effect. You call out a personality flaw in me, defuse it by labeling the reasons it’s justified, disarm my reaction to it by allying yourself on my side of the fence, and come off like a real sensitive guy, all in one shot. Very good. Let me ask you, is that your standard approach for picking up women? Because I’m sure, God knows, it’s effective, but it just seems like a little bit of overkill, you know. Like using a howitzer to kill a housefly. Haven’t you ever just offered to buy someone a drink? What got to you, anyway? What, did you figure that same ‘hostility’ that annoyed you so much in the briefing room would be a real different thing in the sack?”

She stares at him. She holds her fork out, halfway across the table, like a crude weapon. She can almost see his brain struggling to make a fast decision, whether to continue trying to feign innocence or turn the whole thing into a laugh on him, a “you’ve got my number,” “we can be buddies now” strategy.

He tries a third ploy. He says, “You’re a stunning woman.”

Lenore says, “Yeah, I’m a real piece of work.”

Woo picks up his tuna melt, takes a tiny bite, puts it back on his plate, and wipes his mouth with the paper napkin. They’re both quiet, sizing up the situation. Then Woo says, “What I mean is that you’re correct. I thought I was telling the truth about the nature of your feelings toward the outsiders at this morning’s meeting. I honestly did. But, more importantly, that was secondary to my hopes of seducing you …”

“Seducing you,” Lenore repeats, too loud. “God, listen to how you talk. You’re a real winner, Freddy.”

“Fred,” he says. “Just Fred, please.”

She ignores him, spears a water chestnut and a pepper with her fork.

Woo takes a breath and goes on. “But what I find thrilling, right now, exciting, significant, is the fact that you intuited the actual intention, the hidden meanings, behind my words. You peeled back the first layer, what you wish to think of as a facade, though, again, I promise you it was an honest opinion on my part, but you stripped it away to expose the primary meaning of my message, the core of what I was attempting to communicate. You’re a natural, Detective Thomas.”

“My head is just growing by the minute.”