Harry and Friday strolled up Main Street until they reached a classier stretch—Sephora, J. Crew, Bay Bank …
They looked in the dark shop windows.
“One thing for sure, Harry,” Friday said. “You’re never a boring date.”
They walked in silence. Their footsteps clicking on the empty sidewalk.
“Hated to miss the movie,” Harry said.
More silence.
“Harry—” Friday started.
“I know, I know,” Harry said. “Rossiter. Why do I put up with that mutt? Sometimes he burns my ass. We’d have a righteous bust—”
“Harry,” Friday said, “you were never a cop.”
“—some kid gangsta,” Harry continued, ignoring her. “A hooker with so many track marks on her arm it looked like she was wearing long net gloves. Shoplifter with a porterhouse—not a slab of chuck, porterhouse, why not?—under his jacket.…”
“You didn’t work with Rossiter, you went on ride-arounds.”
“We’d have them dead to rights,” Harry said. “He’d scare the crap out of them—and let them go. If he ever caught them a second time—no mercy. But first time out, he’d let them go. ‘What the hell you doing?’ I asked. He said, ‘The shoplifter maybe he’s got a hungry family, maybe he just hasn’t had a real good meal in a while. Hooker—she’s somebody’s kid. She’s a person. Everybody deserves a break. The gangsta—we’re talking about a teenager, who wants to feel like a man. I told him, Go sign up for Golden Gloves—get knocked down, knock someone else down.…’”
Friday stared at the sidewalk, avoiding looking at Harry.
“Most of the time,” Harry said, “the gangsta’s a rotten punk, the hooker’s a skag, and the guy hugging the Porterhouse is a bum. If they’d all turned out saints, it would’ve been easy to like Rossiter for his attitude, you know. “But they were dregs. And he still saw—wanted to see—something better in them.”
“That’s why you two are friends,” Friday said.
“That’s why I put up with him,” Harry said. “Plus, we go way back.”
“High school,” Friday said. “I know. I was there.”
They walked some more. Now, in silence again, their footsteps echoing again.
Friday tried once more.
“Harry,” she said.
“Yeah, sweetheart?” Harry asked with a Bogart inflection.
Hesitantly, she asked, “Do you ever think about—” She looked away from Harry, up at the clock tower. “Kids?”
“You mean punks?” Harry asked. “Like those jerks? Back there? By the Paramount?”
Friday looked at Harry.
“From that mob?” Harry asked.
“No,” she said. “Kids. Babies.”
Harry nodded knowingly.
“Left on a doorstep,” he said. “They grow up. Orphanage. Foster home. Get in trouble.”
“I mean,” Friday said, “someone’s child.”
“But whose?” Harry asked. “That’s the question. Turns out kid’s real father runs the bank.”
Friday sighed.
“Oh, God,” she said.
“One night,” Harry continued, “the banker’s out slumming. Gives the nod to this sexy young thing in a smoky bar. They end up in a seedy hotel. Next day, she shows up at the banker’s office. To blackmail him.”
“Harry,” Friday said, “just once—”
“He hires a private detective,” Harry said, “who gets the lowdown on the girl—”
“Please,” Friday said.
“—who turns out to be the daughter the banker abandoned years ago.”
Friday stopped.
“Harry, I’m not talking make-believe,” Friday said. “I’m talking about real babies. The kind men and women make when they’re in love. The kind you burp and rock to sleep and diaper and cuddle.”
Harry gave Friday a blank look.
“Where’s the mystery?” he asked.
Friday gazed at Harry sadly.
“What’s the matter?” Harry asked.
“Nothing,” Friday said. “Nothing at all.”
As they strolled, Harry whistled “Stormy Weather.” Friday hummed along, then sang: “Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky / Stormy weather…” “Since my gal and I ain’t together,” Harry sang. “Keeps raining all the time…”
Together they sang, “Life is bare / Gloom and misery everywhere / Stormy weather…”
Harry took Friday in his arms.
They danced.
“Harry,” Friday said.
“Hmm?” Harry said.
“Remember our first date?” Friday asked.
“Tenth grade,” Harry said. “Ice-skating on Porter Lake. Until we were the last ones there. It started snowing. I remember you had snowflakes in your eyelashes.”
“That wasn’t our first date,” Friday said. “Sixth grade. One Sunday morning, it must have been early October, you came over before anyone else was awake. I was still in my nightgown. We sat under the arbor in the backyard and ate grapes from the vine. I thought I’d never be happier.”
“Were you ever?” Harry asked. “Happier?”
“I’m happy now,” Friday said.
They danced on the sidewalk from one pool of streetlamp light to another—circling slower and slower until they swayed in place in each other’s arms. Their faces closer and closer.
Just as they were about to kiss, Harry saw something over Friday’s shoulder.
“Pillette!” Harry said.
He released Friday and headed across the street to the Bay Bank Building.
Friday watched him—and then followed.