“There’s some sort of significance, obviously. Stan actually changed his name legally to Colt. And he always carries a Colt automatic in his films.”
“What was his name before?”
“Coleman.”
“Stan Colt, nee Stanley Coleman?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatever works, I guess,” Matt said, chuckling. “To answer your question, I suppose there is a certain romance to ‘Colt.’ They call the old Colt. 44 revolver ‘The Gun That Won the West,’ and then the Colt Model 1911-the big brother of my pistol-was the service weapon right through Vietnam. Now the services use a nine-millimeter Beretta.”
“You ever shoot anybody with that pistol?”
“Not with that one.”
“But you have shot someone?”
“Why don’t we just drop this subject right here?” Matt flared.
“Sorry,” she said, offended and sarcastic.
He found a plastic bag of shrimp in the refrigerator, took it to the sink, tore the bag open, and started to peel them.
After a long moment, Terry went and stood beside him and took a handful of shrimp.
He glanced at her but said nothing.
They peeled shrimp in silence for perhaps three minutes, and then Matt said, “That’s not the first time you’ve peeled shrimp.”
“How can you tell?”
“Most people don’t know how to squeeze the tail that way.”
“My dad has a boat. We have a place on Catalina Island. I practically grew up peeling shrimp.”
“Your father’s a movie star? Producer? Executive?”
“Lawyer,” she said. “With connections in the industry. Enough to get me my first job with GAM.”
“So’s mine,” Matt said. “A lawyer with connections.”
"Daffy told me-when she was selling me on the blind date.”
“Actually, he’s my adoptive father,” Matt said, as he took a large skillet from an overhead rack.
“Your parents were divorced? Mine too.”
“My father was killed before I was born,” Matt said. “He was a cop, a sergeant named John X. Moffitt, and he answered a silent alarm and got himself shot. My mother married my dad-that sounds funny, doesn’t it? — about six months later. He’d lost his wife in a car crash. A really good guy. He adopted me legally.”
“Is that why you’re a policeman? Because of your father?”
“That’s one of the reasons, certainly,” Matt said, as he unwrapped a stick of butter. “I like being a cop.”
“Daffy doesn’t approve,” Terry said.
“I know. Daffy would be delighted-because of Chad-if I married a nice young woman, such as yourself, went to law school, and took my proper role in society.”
“Yeah,” Terry replied thoughtfully. “I picked up a little of that. Tell me about your promotion.”