Read Online Empties by George; Zebrowski - Free Book Online Page B

asked with a smile. “You’re much too nervous to be romantic.”  
    “No, thanks. So you haven’t remembered anything else?”  
    She smiled again, frowned, then said, “Not a thing.”  
    He said, “People often don’t know they have information to give until they try to remember.”  
    “Do you really think I know something? No, of course you don’t. Care to have dinner with me?”  
    He hesitated, and she added quickly, “That is, if you’re free tonight. Who knows, maybe I will remember something, if that helps you any.”  
     
    They ate at the Red Dragon on the West Side. He tried to be good company, but felt suddenly awkward before her seemingly confident expectation that he would like her, even though it was true.  
    He chose egg roll and pepper steak with onions and tomatoes, and she smiled and said, “I can be more adventurous than that,” and ordered dim sum, hot and sour soup, an exotic shrimp dish, and a white wine, and started immediately on the noodles and mustard sauce. The waiter asked them if they’d like a drink before dinner, but she waved him away, saying, “The wine will be enough,” and Benek nodded his agreement. Looking at her and imagining how they must look from a distance, he wondered if she was the business executive and he a less well-dressed subordinate.  
    “So where are you from?” she asked, smiling.  
    He hesitated and she said, “Lie, if you like. Might be more interesting to guess.”  
    “New Jersey,” he said. “And you?”  
    “Right here. I grew up in the house on Tenth Street.”  
    “Is it your sole support?” he asked, and regretted the question. “I don’t mean to pry—just curious.”  
    “Mostly,” she replied. “You’re not planning to marry me for my money, are you?”  
    He answered with a half smile and a silent no.  
    She scowled. Let’s play buried land mines, her eyes seemed to be saying: see if you can say something that won’t set me off in your face. Get through my minefield and maybe I’ll think something of you.  
    “Did you really want to be a cop?” she asked.  
    “It’s what I can do,” he replied. “Did you want to be a landlady?”  
    “It fell into my lap. The income gives me a lot of free time to read and play.”  
    “And that’s what you want out of life?”  
    She sighed. “Nothing much else seems to call to me. Got any ideas?”  
    “Husband and kids?”  
    “Are you offering?” she asked with a mock smile.  
    His egg roll and her soup and dim sum arrived. He cut the egg roll in half, and ate the one end. She started on the soup slowly, then began to spoon it up quickly, glancing up at him with what seemed to be a genuine shyness at odds with her brittle remarks.  
    He didn’t know what to make of her. Carla’s friendly face flashed through his mind, telling him that he might have preferred asking her out instead. They were both, in their different ways, detectives; he could have told Carla about the priest’s mysterious death and she could have filled him in on the medical scams she didn’t like investigating. She might even have liked meeting Frank Gibney eventually; he imagined the three of them sitting here at dinner, talking about frauds and homicides and autopsies, comparing notes. But there had been no fantasies about Carla surrendering to him in the night. There was no lusting after an ambivalent angel.  
    Dierdre reached the bottom of her soup and asked, “Okay, Detective, why are we here?”  
    “Just an impulse, I guess.”  
    “Just kinda like me?” she asked.  
    “You’ve found me out,” he said grimly. “I’m out of control.”  
    “And you just don’t have time to meet anyone outside your usual routines—”  
    Their dinners arrived. She looked at hers with greedy eyes, adjusted her bright red napkin on her lap, positioned her chopsticks in her fingers, grabbed a fat shrimp, and caressed it between her lips before biting off half. He used a