Free Briarpatch by Ross Thomas

asked.
    â€œThirty.”
    â€œThirty and above calls me Ben.”
    â€œFelicity was what—ten years younger’n you? Twenty-seven?”
    â€œTwenty-eight,” Dill said. “Today was her birthday.”
    â€œAw Christ,” Corcoran said and stopped smiling.
    They chose the same table Dill had sat at earlier that day with the lawyer, Anna Maude Singe. He ordered a cognac from the cocktail waitress. Corcoran asked for a bourbon and water. When she asked him what brand of bourbon, he said he didn’t care. Dill liked the big man’s indifference.
    After the drinks came and Dill had his first sip, he said, “Where’d you meet Felicity?”

    â€œDown at the university. I was a senior and she was a junior and I was having a little trouble with my French One-O-Two because I’d redshirted the year before and—”
    â€œRedshirted?”
    â€œA sports fan you’re not.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI dropped out of school for a year because my knee went snap and by dropping out I maintained my eligibility.”
    â€œTo do what?”
    â€œPlay football.”
    â€œWhen the knee got better. I see.”
    â€œWell, there was a one-year gap between my French One-O-One and the One-O-Two that I needed to graduate, so I asked the head of the French department to suggest a tutor. He suggested Felicity. We went out a few times, but there was no big romance or anything, and after I graduated the Raiders drafted me and I went out there.”
    â€œThere being Oakland, right?”
    â€œOakland then. L.A. now.”
    â€œThey moved?”
    Corcoran scowled. Despite himself, Dill wanted to draw back. Corcoran noticed and smiled. “Don’t mind me, that’s just my professional puzzled-rage scowl. Is there something about football you don’t like?”
    â€œNothing. It’s just that I don’t follow team sports closely, probably because I never played any.”
    â€œNever?” Corcoran seemed almost shocked. “Not even baseball—Little League?”
    â€œNot even that. It takes some conniving, but you can actually go through life without playing on a team.”
    â€œYou’re sort of bullshitting me, aren’t you?”
    â€œA little.”

    Corcoran smiled. “That’s okay. Not many people do. I kind of like it.”
    â€œYou were playing for Oakland.”
    â€œRight. And this time the knee went snap-crackle-pop instead of just snap and that was the end of my career as a promising linebacker. Well, I had my degree in philosophy, a brand new Pontiac GTO, two suits, and no trade—unless I wanted to be a philosopher, which I’m really not too good at. So I came back home and signed on with the cops and there Felicity was. And then it really got started with us and it was very, very good. In fact, it was goddamn near perfect.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    Corcoran snorted. “Captain call-me-Gene Colder is what happened. Felicity and I’d been, well, you know, going together—”
    â€œSeeing each other socially,” Dill said, remembering the old police reporter’s phrase.
    â€œThat’s one way of putting it, but it was a hell of a lot more than that. We’d even talked about getting married—or something close to it anyway.” He looked at Dill curiously. “She never said anything at all about me?”
    â€œNo. Not once. For all I know, she lived like a nun. I never asked because it was none of my business. She never asked about my lady friends for the same reason, I suppose. Otherwise we were fairly close. At least, I thought we were.”
    â€œShe talked about you a lot,” Corcoran said.
    Dill nodded. “So what happened between you two?”
    â€œThat’s just it. Nothing happened. One day everything was great and the next day it was over. She said she needed to talk to me, but we had conflicting shifts that week and she didn’t get