room that I’ve heard of. And I liked the pictures.” She handed him a sheet from the hotel’s scratch pad with the word Aimee’s and an address.
“Did they have a phone number?”
“They did, and they do. I already called it and made a reservation in the name of Harvey. Presumably you’re Harvey. Now get showered and dressed. You could use a shave, too, Harvey.”
“White tie and tails?”
“A clean shirt would be nice. It doesn’t knock a girl off her feet, but you’ll have to accept me
Till went to his closet to examine his options. He had a fresh sport coat. He looked in his suitcase and found that he still had a couple of clean dress shirts. He showered and shaved twice, making himself as well-groomed and appealing as he could.
He gave himself a last examination in the mirror. He was always startled when he saw that he no longer looked the way he felt. He supposed that he looked like what he was: a man in his forties who had spent his adult life carrying a gun for a living. His eyes looked cold and watchful, and the wrinkles at the corners and on his forehead were no longer faint crinkles, but sculpted lines.
He heard Wendy come into his room, so he stepped to the bathroom door and looked out at her. She was wearing a simple black cocktail dress that fit her perfectly and made her light skin look like porcelain.
“You look great.”
“Thank you.” She gave him a quick, perfunctory curtsy.
He stepped out, took his sport coat off the hanger, and put it on. He looked in the mirror and he adjusted his cuffs and collar, then shrugged to make the coat hang correctly over his gun. He glanced at her in the mirror. “Actually, you look beautiful.”
“Thank you again. You look identifiably human.”
“It’s a step up. I can’t believe that when you were throwing stuff into a suitcase to leave town, you brought a dress like that.”
She looked down at it for a second. “It’s funny how the mind works. I didn’t think I was going to have to pack a bag again, yet at the same time I knew the things I had that I would put in it.”
“In the bag you weren’t going to pack?”
“Yes. I had in my mind an image of everything I would pack and knew just where it was. Does that make sense?”
“I guess it does. You knew what looked good.”
“I don’t know if that was it, exactly. I just had a sense of the things that would make me feel stronger, more able to go places. Maybe something inside me was reminding me that I had to be ready to move on. A little black cocktail dress takes up almost no space.”
He opened the door to the hallway, leaned against it, and stayed there to hold it open for her while he looked up and down the hallway in both directions. Her eye caught his, and he realized that she had seen him scanning. When he spoke, it was to change the subject. “You said you picked this restaurant partly because of the pictures. What were they?”
She smiled. “The food looked believable.”
“Believable?”
“Yes. You know—not a picture of three waiters in tuxedos and a sexy hostess grinning while they set a thirty-pound rib roast and a forty-pound world-record lobster on a table for two. This one had a picture of a nice room, an unassuming piece of grilled halibut, and a glass of wine. I can believe that if we walk in there, we’ll get something not too far from that.”
Till took a few seconds to scan the parking lot before he opened the door for her, but she didn’t say anything about his precautions. He led her to a blue Cadillac.
“Where did you get this car?”
“Same place as the last one. Before we went for our walk I called the agency and had a guy drive this one here and take the other one back.”
“Why?”
“Because I could.” He opened her door for her.
She stopped without getting in. “Is this a bad idea?”
“Going out for dinner?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so. But you’ve been invisible for six years. I haven’t. You tell me.” He held his hand out toward the car seat, and she got in. He walked around the car, taking his time and turning to be sure he had surveyed the area in every direction, then got into the driver’s seat and started the car. “No explosion.”
“Yet.”
He took out the piece of paper she had given him and read the address again, and she said, “Go up that road and turn right at the light.”
“You know the area?”
“The ad had a map.”
As he drove, she gave him the rest of the directions. The darkness of the roads once they were out of downtown Morro Bay made them feel anonymous and safe. The restaurant was beside a country club, so Till passed by it before he realized it must be the right place. He turned around in the road and came back. He was pleased to see that when he turned, there were no headlights coming toward him.
The restaurant was a long, low white building with gray trim. Till drove to the edge of the lot close to it. The brass plaque beside the door said Aimee’s. He parked and they walked inside. As they approached the hostess, he whispered, “Is this the same as the picture?”
“Exactly.”
The hostess seated them and the waiter arrived. Wendy ordered them each a martini. Till said, “How did you know I liked martinis?”
“I could say something witty and unkind, but I’ll just tell the truth. I remembered from six years ago, when we were stuck in that hotel.”
The waiter brought the drinks quickly. Till lifted his icy glass and said, “To better food.”
She clinked her glass against his. “To old friends.” She sipped her martini. “Wow. I forgot how good these taste. I haven’t had a drink in about five years.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I stayed out of restaurants at first, for obvious reasons. And nightclubs were a worse bet. Then, when you have young children, you forget there is such a thing as a martini.”
Till’s appreciation for the restaurant had nothing to do with aesthetics. The room was light with a single entrance, so there weren’t places in the bar for unexpected people to sit without being seen clearly. The windows were all on the side of the building away from the road, a wall of glass overlooking a tee on the golf course. A long fairway stretched down and away into the darkness. He could see a glint of reflected moonlight somewhere out there, so he guessed there must be a lake. It was not impossible for someone to be out there watching the restaurant, but it was extremely unlikely.
He could tell that when Wendy read the menu, she saw more in it than he did. “Interesting.” She pointed at a line of type. “This should be good, if you like warm salads, and I’d love to see what she does with this Thai-French chicken, but I’ve been thinking about paella.”
“You order one, and I’ll get the other.”
“Thanks. I love a man who can take big fat hints.”
“I’m only up to it if you speak slowly and look right at me.”
When the food arrived, they shared the entrees. Wendy tasted the chicken and said, “This is a very nice variation on the sauce that Sybil Weitz used at Veritable in Chicago. I wonder if Aimee worked there.” She sampled the paella and said, “Ooh, she’s good. This looks like a big mishmash—clams, shrimp, lobster, mussels, chorizo, pork, chicken, all flavored with saffron, so how can you miss—but it’s complicated to get it just right because the ingredients are all cooked and seasoned differently.”
“I thought you didn’t care about the cooking side of things.”
