He wondered if the sudden warm feeling he had was caused by the gin or the thoughts he was having of Mary.
They both sipped their drinks.
She took a slender chrome case from the small black purse and pulled a cigarette from it.
Bayer quickly scanned the bar, found a nearby basket of matches, took a pack from it and lit her cigarette.
“Thank you,” she said after delicately exhaling the smoke over her shoulder.
He smiled, then sipped at his martini, trying to fill what was beginning to feel like an awkward silence.
He tasted something different this sip, and, when he looked at the glass rim, saw that he had tou
ched the point where Mary had sipped and left a little lipstick.
I’d like to have more of that.
But what do I say now?
“Didn’t I see you earlier?” Mary asked.
Thank God!
Bayer smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “By the elevators.”
“That’s right. You were coming in with another man.”
“Just a friend,” Bayer said, not worried about revealing anything about their mission.
He and Koch, when they were on the U-boat, had come up with the simple cover story of being two friends traveling to New York, where they would be joining in the war effort.
As with the best of cover stories, it was close to the truth. They felt somewhat like friends now. They were traveling to New York. And they would be “joining in the war effort”—though they found more than a little humor in the twist on that.
“It appeared that you had a friend, too,” Bayer said.
“She’s on a date.”
“Oh?”
Mary smiled sweetly, but he noticed her hand holding the cigarette shook a little.
In a nervous voice, she asked, “Are you interested in a date?”
That bastard Koch was right!
“A date?” he repeated tentatively.
She picked up her martini and, as she sipped, looked over the rim at him and nodded.
Damn!
He reached for his glass and took a sip and suddenly grinned.
She took the matchbook that was in front of him, opened it, and on the inside cover wrote: “10/30.”
“Till midnight,” she said, her voice inviting and her left pinky first pointing to the ten-dollar fee then to the one for thirty dollars, “or for all night.”
He looked at the matchbook, then looked into her eyes.