pushing it a little bit."
"In China they Chink out every meal, so I guess we'll both survive."
"Tomorrow," he told her, "I may Chink out again. I got to interrogate a Chinese pimp."
She said she'd like to photograph him conducting an interrogation.
"To catch my aggression?"
"Sure. Especially when you bang him around. You do bang them around, I hope. My dad used to tell me how cops know how to hit a guy, work him over real good, without leaving any marks."
"Yeah. Back in 1902. I knew you were a cop-hater. Cops' kids always are."
"I think cops are the best, finest, gentlest men around." She was serious and he was only sorry he didn't agree.
"What attracts you to aggression?"
"Just my hang-up, I suppose."
"Only men, right?"
"Female aggression might be interesting, but in the book I'm sticking to the men."
"Is this book going to be a put-down?"
"Of your gender?" She laughed. "No. Not at all. There's an elegance about male aggression. The poses. The stance. The eyes. The look. It's the best part of being human. We're social animals. Aggression makes the world work. And so, too, I guess, does gentleness, but that's another book."
"I can imagine," he said, looking at her closely, "that you could do a book on that."
"Mothers cuddling babies. Lovers kissing tenderly. It's been done to death, and anyway it's too maudlin for me just now."
The food came steaming and they attacked it greedily. He complimented her on her dexterity with chopsticks. She told him she'd had quite a bit of experience using them during her two years in Saigon. He asked her what it had been like out there, especially at the end during the final siege and the collapse, and as she talked about it, told him her war stories, it occurred to him that she was recounting her adventures the same way as a man. A very engaging trait, he thought, since she was most attractively feminine. He knew that young women were different now, that their lives could be as adventurous as a man's without their turning masculine. He'd seen it occasionally in young female detectives, but this was the first time he'd experienced it socially, a thought that made him feel old, as if the world had passed him by.
She was sympathetic when he expressed this feeling, and also mildly amused. She said she figured him for early fifties, and when he confirmed that he was fifty-one she said she didn't think that was old at all.
"Al was what? Sixty-six or something. He was old, and he'd retired. He lived in the past, in his old cases, but you're engaged with the world now. No, the world hasn't passed you by, Janek . I have the feeling you're right on top of things, and very much in your prime."
He liked her for saying that, liked her more than he wanted to admit, and now he wanted to examine that liking, growing in him at such an exceptionally rapid rate, because he was feeling something he hadn't felt in years, and it frightened him a little because it had been so long.
He had been conscious for some time that all his relationships were tainted by his work. The searching look he applied to people, his constant quest for motives, strengths and weaknesses, figuring how to play someone, seize psychological advantage, manipulate, interrogate, break a person downâall of that, which was the essence of being a good detective, seemed to work against any possibility of intimacy. He had wondered if normal relationships were possible when everything from buying a newspaper to making love to a woman seemed to be part of some vast investigation that circumscribed his life. It was as if he could never escape his work. Except now, sitting in this restaurant with Caroline, he was feeling something else.
Attraction? She was very attractive, of course, but he felt something more. His liking of her fogged his instincts. She was no longer just a good-looking woman but someone he felt tender toward. And since he knew she could not possibly feel the same way toward him, he warned himself to be
"In China they Chink out every meal, so I guess we'll both survive."
"Tomorrow," he told her, "I may Chink out again. I got to interrogate a Chinese pimp."
She said she'd like to photograph him conducting an interrogation.
"To catch my aggression?"
"Sure. Especially when you bang him around. You do bang them around, I hope. My dad used to tell me how cops know how to hit a guy, work him over real good, without leaving any marks."
"Yeah. Back in 1902. I knew you were a cop-hater. Cops' kids always are."
"I think cops are the best, finest, gentlest men around." She was serious and he was only sorry he didn't agree.
"What attracts you to aggression?"
"Just my hang-up, I suppose."
"Only men, right?"
"Female aggression might be interesting, but in the book I'm sticking to the men."
"Is this book going to be a put-down?"
"Of your gender?" She laughed. "No. Not at all. There's an elegance about male aggression. The poses. The stance. The eyes. The look. It's the best part of being human. We're social animals. Aggression makes the world work. And so, too, I guess, does gentleness, but that's another book."
"I can imagine," he said, looking at her closely, "that you could do a book on that."
"Mothers cuddling babies. Lovers kissing tenderly. It's been done to death, and anyway it's too maudlin for me just now."
The food came steaming and they attacked it greedily. He complimented her on her dexterity with chopsticks. She told him she'd had quite a bit of experience using them during her two years in Saigon. He asked her what it had been like out there, especially at the end during the final siege and the collapse, and as she talked about it, told him her war stories, it occurred to him that she was recounting her adventures the same way as a man. A very engaging trait, he thought, since she was most attractively feminine. He knew that young women were different now, that their lives could be as adventurous as a man's without their turning masculine. He'd seen it occasionally in young female detectives, but this was the first time he'd experienced it socially, a thought that made him feel old, as if the world had passed him by.
She was sympathetic when he expressed this feeling, and also mildly amused. She said she figured him for early fifties, and when he confirmed that he was fifty-one she said she didn't think that was old at all.
"Al was what? Sixty-six or something. He was old, and he'd retired. He lived in the past, in his old cases, but you're engaged with the world now. No, the world hasn't passed you by, Janek . I have the feeling you're right on top of things, and very much in your prime."
He liked her for saying that, liked her more than he wanted to admit, and now he wanted to examine that liking, growing in him at such an exceptionally rapid rate, because he was feeling something he hadn't felt in years, and it frightened him a little because it had been so long.
He had been conscious for some time that all his relationships were tainted by his work. The searching look he applied to people, his constant quest for motives, strengths and weaknesses, figuring how to play someone, seize psychological advantage, manipulate, interrogate, break a person downâall of that, which was the essence of being a good detective, seemed to work against any possibility of intimacy. He had wondered if normal relationships were possible when everything from buying a newspaper to making love to a woman seemed to be part of some vast investigation that circumscribed his life. It was as if he could never escape his work. Except now, sitting in this restaurant with Caroline, he was feeling something else.
Attraction? She was very attractive, of course, but he felt something more. His liking of her fogged his instincts. She was no longer just a good-looking woman but someone he felt tender toward. And since he knew she could not possibly feel the same way toward him, he warned himself to be
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