'Got a minute?'
'Sure,' she said. 'What's up?'
'I've got some ideas about our Deaf Man.'
'I'm all ears,' she said.
Willis laughed.
'Wanna meet for a cup of coffee or something?'
'Sure,' she said, and for some reason looked at her watch again.
'Horton's on Max?'
'Give me ten.'
'See you.'
There was a click on the line.
She looked at the receiver.
Gave a little puzzled shrug.
Shrugged aside the shrug.
Put the receiver back on its cradle, went into the bedroom to see what she looked like in the mirror there, decided she looked good enough for coffee at Horton's, looked at her watch again, and left the apartment.
HORTON'S ON MAX was one of a chain of coffee joints that took their separate names from the streets or avenues of their locations. Hence there was a Horton's on Howes and a Horton's on Rae and a Horton's on Granger and a Horton's on Mapes and so forth. The Horton's on Max took its name from its corner location on Maximilian Street, which had been named after Ferdinand Maximilian, the deposed emperor of Mexico,
who — at dawn on the nineteenth of June, 1867 — was executed by firing squad on El Cerro de las Campanas . . .
'That means 'The Hill of the Bells'' in English,' Willis told her.
Maximilian Street was not located on or near any hill, nor was there a church close by that might have sounded bells every hour on the hour and therefore provided a modicum of credibility to naming the street after a long-forgotten and scarcely mourned Mexican emperor. But the street had been named during a heatedly fought mayoral election, when a brief influx of Mexican immigrants to this part of the city seemed to presage (wrongly as it turned out) a full-scale invasion of wetbacks. Ever mindful of the power of the ballot box, the city's incumbent mayor dug into his history books and — seemingly ignorant of the fact that Maximilian had been imported from Austria and was largely despised - changed the name of the erstwhile 'Thimble Street' (but that was another story) to the more acceptable to Mexicans (he thought) 'Maximilian Street.'
The theme of 'independence' being a favorite one in any American election . . .
'The other one being 'patriotism,'' Willis said.
. . . perhaps the incumbent mayor was thinking of Maximilian's last words before the bullets thudded home: 'I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!'
'But I digress,' Willis said.
'How come you know so much about Mexico?' Eileen asked.
Willis hesitated. Then he said, 'Well, Marilyn spent a lot of time in Mexico, you know.'
'Yes, I knew that.'
'Yes,' he said, and fell silent.
They were sipping cappuccino in a corner window, sitting in armchairs opposite each other.
'You okay with that now?' she asked.
She was talking about Marilyn Hollis getting shot to death by a pair of Argentinian hit men.
'Are you ever okay with something like that?' he asked, and suddenly reached across the table to touch her cheek. 'Are you okay with this?' he asked.
He was talking about the faint scar on her cheek where she'd been cut by the son of a bitch who'd later raped her.
'As okay as I'll ever be,' she said.
'So,' he said, and pulled back his hand, and nodded. He hesitated for what seemed a long time. Then he asked, 'Is there still anything between you and Bert?'
'No,' she said. 'No. Why?'
'Just wanted to make sure I wasn't . . .'
'Yes?'
He shook his head.
'Wasn't what?'
You know.'
She looked at him, nodded. There was another long
silence.
'Remember that time in the sleeping bag?' she asked.
'Oh, God, yes!'
Their first encounter with the Deaf Man. The stakeout in Grover Park. Eileen and Willis sharing a sleeping bag as pretend lovers. A decoy lunch pail on one of the benches, cut scraps of newspaper inside it, instead of the fifty thousand bucks the Deaf Man had demanded.
The 'passionate couple' assignment had been the choice one; Hawes and Willis had drawn straws for it, and Willis had won. He'd worked with Eileen only once before then, on a mugging case. Now they were lying side by side, in somewhat close proximity, in a sleeping bag.
'We're supposed to be kissing,' be told Eileen.
'My lips are getting chapped,' she said.
'Your lips are very nice,' he said.
'We're supposed to be here on business.'
'Mmmm,' he answered.
'Get your hand off my behind.'
'Oh, is that your behind?'
'Listen,' she said.
'I hear it,' he said. 'Somebody's coming. You'd better kiss me.'
She kissed him.
'What's that?' Willis asked suddenly.
'Do not be afraid, guapa, it is only my pistol,' Eileen said, and laughed.
Remembering now, sipping their coffees, they looked at each other across the round table between them. Eileen licked foam from her lips.
'I didn't know what guapa meant,' Willis said.
'Rabbit,' Eileen said.
'I know that now.'
'The line was from For Whom the Bell Tolls. The sleeping bag scene between Robert and what's her name.'
'Ingrid Bergman.'
'I meant in the book.'
'I forget.'
'Ah, how soon we forget,' she said.
They looked at each other again.
'What are these ideas you've got about the Deaf Man?' she asked.
'I don't have any ideas about the Deaf Man,' he said. None at all. Not a clue.'
'Then
'I lied.'
'You didn't have to,' she said, and reached across the table and took his hand. 'But promise me something, Hal.'
'Yes?'
'Never lie to me again.'
