Free Several Deaths Later by Ed Gorman Page B

now, Tobin and Cindy were bombed, though Cindy kept denying it. "God, Tobin, can't I even have a few drinks and relax?"
        "I wasn't criticizing. I merely mentioned that when you got up to go to the bathroom the last time, you sort of wobbled."
        "Wobbled? I wobbled? I don't wobble, Tobin. I really don't. I don't weigh enough to wobble, for one thing."
        "Now I know you're drunk."
        "How?"
        "Because wobbling doesn't have anything to do with weight."
        "Then what does it have to do with?"
        "I'm not sure but it's definitely not weight."
        "You're the one who's drunk."
        "I am, true enough. But at least I admit it."
        "Well, when I get drunk, Tobin, I'll admit it too." At which point she knocked over her drink. "Don't say anything, Tobin."
        He didn't, and instead turned his attention back to Marty Gerber. As he watched, he got into one of his generous moods-certain nights riding high he felt positively Old Testament patriarchal, sort of like Pa in a biblical version of "Bonanza"-and started concocting all sorts of plans about how he'd write this column about this great young comedian and how, within twenty-four hours of the column appearing, Marty would be signing for his own HBO special.
        Then his good mood waned because he happened to see, far back in the shadows of the restaurant, the makeup girl, Joanna Howard. She sat alone at a tiny table and stared as much at the wall as at the stage. She ate her food quickly, as if she couldn't wait to jump up and leave. She wore a pretty, very formal long-sleeved white blouse and what appeared to be a rather gaudy pink skirt. Her hair was pulled into a severe bun and she wore glasses.
        He said, "You mind if I go say hi to somebody?"
        "Who?"
        "God."
        "What?"
        "That was just supposed to be a rhetorical question."
        "Huh?" She really was plastered. Kansas City was bombed out of her mind.
        "I was supposed to say, 'Do you mind if I go see somebody?' and you were supposed to say 'No, of course not.'"
        "I don't want you to leave me alone."
        "You'll be fine."
        "They'll all start looking at me again."
        "It's because you're so beautiful."
        "I'm not beautiful. I'm volup-" She couldn't say it. "You know what I mean."
        "Well, you are voluptuous, but you've also got a great face."
        "That isn't why they'll look at me. They'll look at me because the captain keeps telling everybody that I killed Ken Norris."
        "You'll be fine. I'll only be gone for a minute."
        "I'll count to sixty and you'd better be back."
        He rose, kissed her on the forehead, and then made his way through the tables.
        A few people gave him the "celebrity stare," one invariably tainted with disappointment. When you first meet someone who's on TV, that person assumes a stature he can't possibly have in reality. Tobin was this five-five guy with red hair-TV hid that fact, or at least made it more interesting than it was.
        When he reached her table and she looked up, she seemed almost frightened. He thought of Cindy and her body language theories. It did not take a Ph.D. in the subject to realize that the way Joanna Howard tried to shrink down meant that she did not want visitors.
        "Hi."
        "Hi," she said.
        "I just wondered if you'd like to join us." He waved in the general vicinity of Cindy. "Oh, no. That's all right."
        He was drunk enough to say it straight out. "You look so lonely."
        "I am lonely." She smiled. "But I don't think sitting at your table is going to help me." She paused. "I'm not trying to be rude."
        "Everybody's having so much fun."
        She shook her head. "Everybody's having so much fun-and Ken Norris is dead less than twenty-four hours." She stared at him in her unscrubbed, earnest way and he felt moved by her gaze at that moment, almost