Free Corkscrew by Donald E. Westlake

Is it windy?'
    'No, not really.'
    'I'll bring a scarf,' she decided, and he thought about strangulations with a scarf. Isadora Duncan. He didn't see how that would work.
    He helped her with her coat, and they left the apartment to wait for the elevator. Trying to find conversation, he said, 'I was thinking, those furnished apartments like that, they're mostly rented to corporate types.'
    'And divorcing women who live alone,' she said, as the elevator arrived. They boarded, she pushed L, and as they descended she said, 'Women who really want to live where there's a doorman.'
    'I guess so.'
    'Believe me,' she said, 'a doorman is just as good as a husband any day. More reliable, usually.'
    'You can feel safe,' he said.
    'I always feel safe,' she said.
    When they crossed the lobby, he kept Lucie between himself and the doorman, who looked up, recognized the tenant, and said, 'You wan a taxi?'
    'No, we're hiking,' she said.
    Looking back at his novela, the doorman pushed a button that opened the glass door as they reached it. They went outside and she said, 'Which way?'
    'Over to Columbus, I guess, and up.'
    They crossed Broadway at the corner and headed down the side street. 'Oh, it's a great night,' she said. 'I can smell winter, can't you?'
    'Yes, I can.'
    'Oh, God, then Christmas,' she said, and made a disgusted sound. 'Family.'
    'You don't like your family?'
    'I like them where they are. And I like me where I am.'
    'Where are they?'
    'A place called Carmody, outside St Louis.' She sounded affectedly weary when she said, 'You fly to St Louis, and some relative has to drive and drive to pick you up and take you home, and then four days later they have to drive you all the way back, and you fly in another airplane, and you say, 'Please, God, never again,' but there's no escape.'
    'What's wrong with your family?'
    'Oh, nothing, really, nothing,' she said.
    They turned north on Columbus, the herds of headlights descending the avenue toward them, one with every cycle of green, and she said, 'If I'd stayed in Carmody, married somebody I went to high school with, they'd all be just great, and I suppose I'd be a nicer person, too. But I went away, I'm more than fifteen years away, and we don't think like each other any more. I can't
stand
the television they watch. Their jokes are so stale and old, and they
insist
on telling them. And they never understand a word I say, of course. I've been in New York all this time. I was married to the rat for seven years, and when you're married to
him
you go first class, my dear, you meet the elegant and the swellegant. It's not just that I'm a big girl now, I'm a big city girl now. But enough about me, tell me, what do
you
think of me?'
    'I think you're funny,' he said, a bit surprised to find that was true. I'm not going to like her, I hope, he thought. I don't have to make Bryce's mistake and fall in love with her, all I have to do is like her, and everything's messed up.
    'Funny,' she echoed. 'That's been my goal all these years, to have somebody too cheap to take a taxi think I'm funny.'
    Oh, good, he thought, let's have more of that, and they reached the restaurant. 'Here we are,' he said.
     
     
    They sat at one of the tables in the raised section at the rear, where they could look out and down at the bar, already half full, the pretty brunette bartender in constant motion. Later on, there'd be live jazz, and the bar would fill entirely, and there'd be a second bartender.
    After they'd ordered, Lucie turned to him and said, 'So how long have you been divorced?'
    Startled, he said, 'What?'
    'Oh, come on,' she said, 'everybody our age has been married, and you're not a faggot, and if you're taking me out you're not married any more, so you're divorced. I mean, this is not as brilliant reasoning as you and my dynasty horse.'
    'I'm not divorced,' he said. 'Like you, you aren't divorced.'
    'Oh, I get it,' she said. '
En train
, the separation in place, the lawyers at the trough. You know, a