The Russian Takedown: Chapter 3

I thought Friday would nev­er come.  I don’t remem­ber feel­ing that gid­dy in a long damn time.  What the hell was wrong with me.  It was just a date between two adults, not like the first prom for a pre-pubes­cent teen.

I bus­ied myself get­ting togeth­er the things I need­ed for the meal.  I had decid­ed on Chicken Basque, a light chick­en dish pre­pared with ver­mouth, a mixed green tossed sal­ad with cher­ry toma­toes, dou­ble-baked pota­toes with sour cream, and for dessert, a choco­late brown­ie with rocky road ice cream and white choco­late chips sprin­kled on top.  I sure hoped she was­n’t aller­gic to choco­late!  With that dessert and an aller­gy, I could wind up killing the sheriff.

I picked up a bot­tle of Peter Vella White Zinfandel wine to go with din­ner and found some Ecuadoran cof­fee for after din­ner.  I also got a bot­tle of Sangria, some­thing light to open the evening before eating.

All-in-all the din­ner was­n’t gourmet din­ing by any means, but I had hopes that it would at least make a pleas­ant pre­sen­ta­tion with­out being pretentious.

By Thursday, I had secured every­thing I need­ed to pre­pare the din­ner and had brushed up on the recipes for the chick­en and pota­toes to make sure I had the tim­ing down correctly.

I was glad that I had recent­ly pur­chased a new set of Dansk Variation Five flat­ware and a set of Noritake din­ner­ware to sup­ple­ment the every­day stuff.

It looked like I was set.

All that Friday I bus­ied myself mak­ing the final prepa­ra­tions for din­ner, mak­ing sure I was ready to start the oven at the right time to fin­ish the cook­ing around seven-thirty.

That after­noon I shaved, show­ered, and dressed in my best casu­al oxford shirt and kha­ki trousers and fid­get­ed time away, try­ing to read to pass the time but not real­ly absorb­ing any­thing I was read­ing.  I con­stant­ly had visions of get­ting a call at the last minute from Pearl telling me that an emer­gency had come up and she would­n’t be able to make it.

Five o’clock passed. Six. Still no call. A few min­utes before sev­en I saw beams of light com­ing through the front win­dows, signs of a car com­ing up the dri­ve. I walked hur­ried­ly to the door.  The front porch light had been on already, and I walked out to greet her as she exit­ed her vehi­cle.  I noticed that she had dri­ven the depart­ment SUV, appar­ent­ly in case she got called out while here.

She sparkled!  Or maybe it was just antic­i­pa­tion on my part, but I had sel­dom seen her look­ing bet­ter.  Her hair was let down in its nat­ur­al state, bare­ly brush­ing her shoul­ders.  She car­ried a small purse (I could­n’t help but won­der if she had a pis­tol in it) and wore a light three-quar­ter-length coat to ward off the fall chill of the night.  I had only seen her in high heels once or twice before at social gath­er­ings, but she had no trou­ble nego­ti­at­ing the walk to the house with grace.

“Hi, Pearl,” I said, cheer­i­ly as she reached the front steps and I extend­ed my hand to aid her on the steps.

“Hi, Michael.  Thanks,” in response to my extend­ed hand as she took it and stepped onto the porch.

As she neared, the night air waft­ed a faint scent of per­fume to me, not over­pow­er­ing, mild­ly mel­liflu­ous.  Is there some­thing incon­gru­ous about a sher­iff wear­ing perfume?

I released her hand as she was safe­ly on the porch and turned to open the storm door for her.  After we were both inside the house and the storm door had closed auto­mat­i­cal­ly behind us, I pushed the oth­er door closed.

“Let me take your coat,” I offered, step­ping behind her.

She undid the but­tons and shift­ed the small clutch purse from hand to hand as she removed each arm.

“I’m kin­da sur­prised you did­n’t come in uni­form,” I start­ed, “You said you need­ed to be pre­pared to be called out on short notice.  I can’t imag­ine you going to a crime or crash scene dressed as you are.”

“Not to wor­ry,” she respond­ed light­ly.  “I’ve got a uni­form in the car and can change if I have to.”

“I should have known you’d come pre­pared,” as I extend­ed an arm, indi­cat­ing a chair for her (not the Eames).

She sat in the prof­fered easy chair oppo­site the Eames, and demure­ly crossed her — light­ly tanned, no stock­ings — legs while plac­ing her small purse on the chair­side table.

“Dinner’s almost ready.  I thought we’d have a glass of wine to start the evening.  Some Sangria?”

“Sure.  Anything I can do to help with the dinner?’

“Well, I’d nev­er allow a guest to help pre­pare the din­ner, and I’ve timed every­thing out so the oven bell should go off about the time we fin­ish the wine.  Table’s all set, so there’s noth­ing left to do,” I said as I opened the refrig­er­a­tor door and with­drew the bot­tle of Sangria.

I returned to the liv­ing room with two glass­es of wine, hand­ed one to her, and took the seat oppo­site her.

“Very light,” she opined after tak­ing the first sip.  “I don’t often drink Sangria.  Not sure why, but it just nev­er seems to come up.  Guess there are so many oth­er wines avail­able to try.”

“Neither do I,” I said.  “Probably for the same reasons.”

“Well,” she added, “I real­ly like your new place.  I assume it’s a good deal dif­fer­ent from the old place.”

“Vastly,” I replied.  “This one was designed from the ground up to fit my tastes.  The old place was prob­a­bly not tai­lored to any­one in par­tic­u­lar, just built as a farm­house.  When I bought it, it was just com­fort­able, noth­ing more.  Martin … you know Martin Gibson, the architect?”

“Just casu­al­ly.  I’ve met him once or twice.”

“Well, Martin real­ly quizzed me on how I like things, what my tastes are, etc.  And then he put it all togeth­er with ideas to make it com­fort­able and adapt­able.  I think he did a fan­tas­tic job.”

“It has a com­fort­able feel to it, no doubt about it.  I assume you’ve got some great views through these large windows.”

It was already dark out­side.  The win­dows were reflect­ing the inner lights and two faces that had turned simul­ta­ne­ous­ly toward the darkness.

“Yeah.  Great views.  That’s why the fur­ni­ture is arranged as it is.”

A light chime sound­ed in the background.

 “Oh, there’s the oven timer.  Sounds like din­ner is ready.”

I rose, head­ed to the kitchen to remove the chick­en from the oven, and placed the cook­ing dish on the table while Pearl con­tin­ued to fin­ish her glass of Sangria.  While she wait­ed, I placed the sal­ads and baked pota­toes on the table, uncorked the bot­tle of Zinfandel, and poured two glasses.

“Well, come on Pearl.”

She rose from the chair bring­ing her glass with her.  I pulled out her chair and held it for her as she sat.

“So gal­lant,” she kidded.

“I expect any gen­tle­man would do the same,” I respond­ed, mov­ing her now-emp­ty glass of Sangria to the kitchen counter and tak­ing my seat oppo­site her.