the papers was making innuendos and implications designed to put him in the bull’s-eye. He wondered if he could trust her.
The fact that he was maybe fifteen years older than her began to unsettle him. He was only forty but he recognized the dirty-old-man syndrome in himself. In some ways, she reminded him of Grace Brooks. In others, he saw Marianne. He watched her coming toward him, toward the car, the way he’d watched Danny’s lovers swaying their hips thirty years ago. He couldn’t shake the drift. He began to smooth his white patch of hair.
She hit a pose in front of him. Her dark eyes weren’t all that dark at all; they were the color of nickel. That glimmer of bemusement was gone, which made him realize he’d been right to hang up on her. She knew she couldn’t run roughshod over him. She couldn’t cover him the way she could cover a school vote on healthier lunches. Now she’d have to try for a new way in. Whatever it was, he knew it was going to hurt.
“That was rather rude of you,” she said.
“I’m a rather rude person on occasion.”
“So am I. I should’ve been more sympathetic. That wasn’t kind of me.”
It wasn’t an apology, but he figured it was about as close as she ever came. She must really be thrilled about his story’s potential to be making such an effort. “So this is the famous Charger. Danny Flynn’s muscle car.”
So there it was.
The needle. The rise.
She’d intoned Danny’s name with just the right emphasis. She’d wanted to find a way into him, and now she had.
You had to give her credit. She’d done a little digging. Thirty years—she’d have had to put some time in at the paper’s morgue. She wasn’t just sitting on a computer letting others do the deep work. She’d gotten dusty.
He stared up from the engine and said, “It’s mine.”
“You think you can get it running again?”
“I will.”
“Some of the tabloids have picked up on the piece, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Covering it from a different angle. They’re running ‘Curse of the Deadly Car’ stories. ‘Murder on the Road,’ that sort of thing. They’ve got photos so they’re lurking about.”
“I know,” Flynn said, “I’ve seen them.”
“Your bad guy might be posing as one.”
“Maybe.”
“It doesn’t worry you much, does it?” she asked. She liked angling her jaw to the right. He wondered if she thought it was her best side. He liked them both.
“It worries me,” he said.
“You handle it well.” She hugged herself and stomped her feet against the ice. “Look, maybe you don’t like me much, but I would like to talk with you further and I’m starting to freeze here, my nose hairs are starting to stick together. I hate that feeling. Can we go inside?”
“I didn’t think ladies ever talked about things like nose hairs.”
“We don’t under normal circumstances, but if the situation calls for it, we can manage pretty well.”
He threw his tools back in the box and slammed the Charger’s hood. For an instant he thought he saw Danny behind the wheel, but he often saw that. It was his own reflection in the windshield.
Small clouds of her breath broke around the back of his neck as he led her up to his second-floor apartment. She was, he guessed, the first person to enter the place besides himself in maybe a year.
He had no furniture in the living room except for a couch, a coffee table and a decent home-entertainment system. The apartment was small but because it was so empty it felt like you could do ballroom dancing in it.
She stared at all his film noir posters, gazing back at Bogie and Bacall, Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, Tyrone Power trying to find his way back from
Nightmare Alley,
John Garfield and Lana Turner in a half embrace having just bumped off her husband in
The Postman Always Rings Twice.
A framed press book for
The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers
hung parallel to a lobby card showing Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte
The fact that he was maybe fifteen years older than her began to unsettle him. He was only forty but he recognized the dirty-old-man syndrome in himself. In some ways, she reminded him of Grace Brooks. In others, he saw Marianne. He watched her coming toward him, toward the car, the way he’d watched Danny’s lovers swaying their hips thirty years ago. He couldn’t shake the drift. He began to smooth his white patch of hair.
She hit a pose in front of him. Her dark eyes weren’t all that dark at all; they were the color of nickel. That glimmer of bemusement was gone, which made him realize he’d been right to hang up on her. She knew she couldn’t run roughshod over him. She couldn’t cover him the way she could cover a school vote on healthier lunches. Now she’d have to try for a new way in. Whatever it was, he knew it was going to hurt.
“That was rather rude of you,” she said.
“I’m a rather rude person on occasion.”
“So am I. I should’ve been more sympathetic. That wasn’t kind of me.”
It wasn’t an apology, but he figured it was about as close as she ever came. She must really be thrilled about his story’s potential to be making such an effort. “So this is the famous Charger. Danny Flynn’s muscle car.”
So there it was.
The needle. The rise.
She’d intoned Danny’s name with just the right emphasis. She’d wanted to find a way into him, and now she had.
You had to give her credit. She’d done a little digging. Thirty years—she’d have had to put some time in at the paper’s morgue. She wasn’t just sitting on a computer letting others do the deep work. She’d gotten dusty.
He stared up from the engine and said, “It’s mine.”
“You think you can get it running again?”
“I will.”
“Some of the tabloids have picked up on the piece, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Covering it from a different angle. They’re running ‘Curse of the Deadly Car’ stories. ‘Murder on the Road,’ that sort of thing. They’ve got photos so they’re lurking about.”
“I know,” Flynn said, “I’ve seen them.”
“Your bad guy might be posing as one.”
“Maybe.”
“It doesn’t worry you much, does it?” she asked. She liked angling her jaw to the right. He wondered if she thought it was her best side. He liked them both.
“It worries me,” he said.
“You handle it well.” She hugged herself and stomped her feet against the ice. “Look, maybe you don’t like me much, but I would like to talk with you further and I’m starting to freeze here, my nose hairs are starting to stick together. I hate that feeling. Can we go inside?”
“I didn’t think ladies ever talked about things like nose hairs.”
“We don’t under normal circumstances, but if the situation calls for it, we can manage pretty well.”
He threw his tools back in the box and slammed the Charger’s hood. For an instant he thought he saw Danny behind the wheel, but he often saw that. It was his own reflection in the windshield.
Small clouds of her breath broke around the back of his neck as he led her up to his second-floor apartment. She was, he guessed, the first person to enter the place besides himself in maybe a year.
He had no furniture in the living room except for a couch, a coffee table and a decent home-entertainment system. The apartment was small but because it was so empty it felt like you could do ballroom dancing in it.
She stared at all his film noir posters, gazing back at Bogie and Bacall, Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, Tyrone Power trying to find his way back from
Nightmare Alley,
John Garfield and Lana Turner in a half embrace having just bumped off her husband in
The Postman Always Rings Twice.
A framed press book for
The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers
hung parallel to a lobby card showing Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte
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