Nightlife: A Novel

37

When Catherine got home and picked up her telephone, there was a message tone. She dialed her code and listened. “Catherine, this is Joe Pitt. You said you would go out with me if I came up to Portland. Well, I’m here. Meaning Portland. I’d like to see you tonight, and I’m making reservations for every half hour from eight until ten at different restaurants. Give me a call whenever you come in. I’m at the Westin hotel.” He recited the telephone number, but Catherine was not ready to write it down.

She replayed the message, wrote down the telephone number, and then dialed it. When Pitt answered, she said, “Hi. You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“No. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing in our history together that would give me the least bit of confidence,” he said. “I just haven’t been able to pin you down on when I could come, so I figured I would come now and wait until you have time to go to dinner with me.”

“What a speech. I’d have to be a fool not to go. What should I wear and how much time have I got?”

“Dress up—really fancy. You have five minutes.”

“I might be able to make it to your hotel at eight, so keep the eight-thirty reservation.”

“See you then.”

When she arrived at the hotel, Joe Pitt was standing inside the entrance in a dark suit. Catherine was glad that she had taken him seriously and worn her only recently purchased fancy outfit, a black cocktail dress. She had also put on her white-gold necklace that had been her grandmother’s. Pitt walked outside as soon as he saw her, and told the valet, “Take her car, please, and bring mine.” He handed him a ticket.

She got out and watched her car disappear down the ramp to the garage, and said, “What—you don’t want to be seen in a working woman’s unpretentious Acura?”

“No. I just like driving when I’m on a date, so I rented a car.”

The valet returned with a Cadillac, and she smirked at Joe Pitt. “You can’t impress me with that. I used to pull those things over all the time with a crummy Crown Victoria Interceptor.”

“Me too,” he said. “But I always wished I had one.”

They drove to the restaurant, and the maître d’ conducted them to a table. They ordered their dinners, and ate while they talked about Catherine’s near miss in catching up to Tanya in Flagstaff, and then her failure to head her off in Albuquerque. Joe Pitt said, “I’m sort of surprised you haven’t told me about your day.”

She frowned. “You know about that?”

“Yes,” he said. “But I’d be delighted to listen to the story again if you’d like to tell it.”

“How?” she said. “How do you know already?”

“I called your office at around noon, trying to reach you. I talked to Mike Farber, and he told me about it.”

She looked crestfallen. “That’s why you came? Because you heard about the Olson thing and felt sorry for me?”

“Sorry for you?” he said. “I came because I thought you’d be in a good mood and let me celebrate with you. You’re a hero,” said Joe Pitt. “In the next couple of days the wire services will pick up the newspaper stories, and the networks will pick up the television news.” He sat back to let the waiter clear their plates.

“I hope they run my picture,” said Catherine. “I’ll be able to cash a check at my bank branch without having to show my ID anymore.”

“Probably not. But next time the promotions get handed out, there might be something in the goody bag. They need people like you, and they know it.”

“Why say ‘like you’? I’m me, other people are other people, and we’re not alike.”

“ ‘Like you’ means cops who actually got to a murder victim before the guy killed her. When the brass see a young, beautiful homicide detective who saves an abused victim—probably by minutes—they want to throw a party. You’re the proof that what they’re doing makes sense. With that bandage on your forehead that you’re bravely trying to hide under your hair, you’re a photo op they couldn’t buy for anything.”

“It’s a Band-Aid, and I put it on myself.” She smiled. “Want one?”

“No, thanks.”

“You certainly do bring a better brand of malarkey than you used to.”

“Malarkey? I don’t think I’ve heard that word in about thirty years.”

“Ladies don’t say ‘horseshit.’ ”

“Oh?”

“At least not to somebody who flies a long way and takes them to a nice restaurant.”

“If compliments embarrass you, I’ll stop talking about it.” He lifted his wineglass. “I’ll just drink to your courage and sagacity.”

She lifted her glass of water. “And I to your discerning taste.”

They sipped, and put down their glasses. Pitt looked at her closely. “You never drink. Did you ever?”

“Sure,” she said. “When I was young. Not for a few years, though.”

“Are you an alcoholic?”

She was taken aback. “What?”

“A lot of friends of mine who will never touch a drink are alcoholics. A lot of them are cops. I wondered if you were.”

She felt defensive and angry for a second, but as she looked at him, she detected nothing but honest sympathy. “I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s just say that alcohol does things to me that I don’t particularly want done, so I stopped drinking.”

“Good for you,” he said. “But bad for me. I’ll just have to try to seduce you with my wit and charm alone.”

She smiled. “I guess your strategy doesn’t include surprise. I did like the flattery, though.”

“It was admiration,” he said. “And I really meant it.”

“Now that I know your intentions, I’ll have to be a bit skeptical.”

He looked at her with a serious, contemplative expression. “My intentions have been on the surface since the beginning. I’m not here just to confer with an esteemed colleague. I asked you out on a date.”

“Asking for a date is kind of ambiguous,” she said.

“Maybe to you.”

“To everybody. To the world.”

“It isn’t to me, and only I can say what I meant. When somebody asks you out on a date, you can accept or not, and your acceptance means whatever you want it to mean.”

“And what does your asking mean?”

“It means that I’ve already watched and listened to you and thought about you enough to have made my decision about you. I’m not window-shopping.”

She picked up her glass of water and took a deep swallow. Then she put it down and said, “That’s what it meant when I accepted.”

He looked into her eyes for a few seconds before the smile reappeared on his face. His eyes focused on the waiter and he nodded, and the waiter approached. “Check, please?”

Hours later, Joe Pitt rolled onto his side, leaned on his elbow, and looked down at her on the pillow beside him. “What made you change your mind about me?”

“I haven’t changed my mind about you. You’re exactly the way I always thought you were.”

“You always acted as though you didn’t approve of me, but here you are.”

“Yep. Here I am. I’m lying naked in a hotel bed with a man on a first date. I guess that means I’m pathetic.”

“If you’re fishing for compliments, I can give you a few thousand new ones now. I’ve been holding back.”

“Spare me.”

“You can’t really feel bad about this.”

“No, I’m glad we’re here. I was just afraid you’d want to talk about it.”

“You don’t believe in talking about sex?”

“No, I don’t. There’s nothing anybody can say about it that isn’t embarrassing and stupid. Yes, it was as good for me as it was for you. Yes, you’re the best ever. As if you didn’t know. If I didn’t say that, you’d kill yourself, after all those years of practice.”

“I just want you to be happy—about tonight, about me, about you. No regrets.”

“There is one part I regret. It’s that the minute I let you look at the Poole crime scene, all the old boys were thinking, ‘Hmmm. She’s not bad. I wonder how long it’ll take good old Joe to get her in the sack.’ And here I am. They were right, and I hate that.”

“What old boys?”

“Jim Spengler and the homicide guys in Los Angeles, your buddy Doug Crowley in San Francisco. My own friends up here.”

“Do you think it’s possible to be too conscious about what other people might or might not be thinking?”

“No.”

“Oh. So I take it you don’t do this kind of thing often.”

“Practically never.”

“I hope that will change.”

“If you want it to, it will.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I make big decisions carefully, and with both eyes open. I wouldn’t have done this once if I didn’t think I might be interested in something more lasting.”

“Would you consider having an exclusive relationship with me?”

“That’s pretty quick,” she said.

“I make big decisions with both eyes open too. Will you?”

“Only if you’re willing to do it sincerely,” said Catherine. “If it isn’t working out, we’ll see it right away.”

“Then what?”

“Catch and release.”

“Sounds humane.”

“Practical too. Neither of us has to bury a corpse.”

“Deal,” he said. “As of some hours ago—I don’t have my watch on—you and I have been seeing each other exclusively, with serious intent.” He lay there for a time, staring at the ceiling. “You’ve always insisted on being professional, so we don’t really know anything about each other. We’ll have to start talking about personal things from the start. How many children were you thinking of?”

She pushed him over quickly, rolled onto his chest, and kissed him. “Oh, boy. I’ve got to take you to meet my parents before you come to your senses and get away.”