“You’d be sorry.”
“Thanks.”
She picked up her cigarettes and turned away.
I swung around so I could see the mirror over the bar. Marilyn was watching her with the cold, unwinking stare of a snake regarding a young bird that has just fluttered to the ground.
I kept on shooting balls in the machine, used up my two free games, started feeding in coins.
Hale was really going to town. He’d worked up a lot of enthusiasm now, making gestures with his hands, looking in Marilyn’s eyes, occasionally letting his glance stray down to the bare shoulders.
I went back to the table.
Emory Hale was saying, “—ex ceed ingly fascinating.”
Marilyn was giving him the steady eye. She said, “I’m glad you think so because I find mature people so much more interesting than the men of my own age. Somehow those younger men can’t seem to hold my attention. After a little while they bore me to distraction. Now why is that, Emory? Is there something wrong with me?”
He beamed across at her. At that particular moment he didn’t know I was anywhere in the country and she couldn’t see me without turning.