Cop Out Read Free

fries? Live it up.”
    â€œI’m not hungry. Just coffee.”
    Furia shrugged. He had stripped off his gloves and he began to drum on the table with his neat little nails. His Mediterranean eyes were glazed. In the glare of the fluorescents his skin had a greenish shine.
    The diner was jumping with soul music, orders, dishes, talk. There was a lively smell of frying onions and meat. Furia drank it in. The overcast in his eyes was from pride at his achievement and regret that these squares could not know his power. Goldie had seen it before, a recklessness that would later rush to relieve itself. She had her own needs, which involved perpetual thought. His violence kept her squirming.
    â€œHey, you,” Furia said. The girl with the versatile rump was delivering a trayful of grinders to the next booth. “We ain’t got all year.”
    Goldie shut her eyes. When she opened them the girl was clearing the dirty dishes from their table. She was leaning far over, her left breast over Furia’s hands.
    â€œI’ll be right back, folks.” She flicked a rag over the table and seesawed away.
    â€œThat chick is stacked what I mean,” Furia said. “As good as you, Goldie.”
    â€œI think she recognized me,” Goldie said.
    â€œYou think. You’re always thinking.”
    â€œI’m not sure. She could have. She was starting high school when I left New Bradford. Her name is Briggs, Marie Briggs. Let’s split, Fure.”
    â€œYou make me throw up. And she did? It’s a free country, ain’t it? Two people having a bite?”
    â€œWhy take chances?”
    â€œWho’s taking chances?”
    â€œYou are. With that bag between your legs. And packing the gun.”
    â€œWe’ll take off when I’ve ate my steak.” His lips were thinning down. “Now knock it off, she’s coming back. Steak medium-well, side order fries, two black. And don’t take all night.”
    The waitress wrote it down. “You’re not having anything but coffee, Miss?”
    â€œI just told you, didn’t I?” Furia said with a stare.
    She left fast. His stare warmed as he watched her behind. “No wonder Hinch got his tongue hanging out. I could go for a piece of that myself.”
    Flying all right.
    â€œFure—”
    â€œShe don’t know you from her old lady’s mustache.” His tone said that the subject was closed. Goldie shut her eyes again.
    When his steak came it was too rare. Another time he would have turned nasty and fired it back. As it was he ate it, grousing. Steaks were a problem with him. Cooks always thought the waitress had heard wrong. He hated bloody meat. I ain’t no goddam dog, he would say.
    He hacked off massive chunks, including the fat, and bolted them. The fork never left his fist. Goldie sipped carefully. Her skin was one big itch. Psycho-something, a doctor had told her. He had sounded like some shrink and she had never gone back. It had been worse recently.
    Hinch was working away on the girl behind the counter, she was beginning to look sore.
    One of these days I’m going to ditch these creeps.
    At eleven o’clock, as Furia was stabbing his last slice of potato, the shortorder man turned on the radio. Goldie, on her feet, sat down again.
    â€œNow what?”
    â€œThat’s the station at Tonekeneke Falls, WRUD, with the late news.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œFure, I have this feeling.”
    â€œYou and your feels,” Furia said. “You’re goosier than an old broad tonight. Let’s hit it.”
    â€œWill it hurt to listen a minute?”
    He sat back comfortably and began to pick his teeth with the edge of a matchpacket cover. “First you can’t wait to blow the dump—”
    He stopped. The announcer was saying: “—this bulletin. Thomas F. Howland, bookkeeper of the Aztec Paper Products company branch in New Bradford, was found in his office a