“I haven’t heard your beeper go off. Must be a slow night.”

Raymond touched his napkin to his mustache and gave her a smile. “No, it hasn’t, huh?” And said to the girl from the News, “One time Milly heard my beeper three tables away. I had it on me and didn’t even hear it.”

“You weren’t feeling no pain either,” the waitress said. “I come over to the table. I said isn’t that your beeper? He didn’t even hear it.” She picked up his empty glass. “Can I get you something else?”

The girl from the News didn’t answer or seem interested. She was lighting another cigarette, leaving a good half of her New York strip sirloin untouched. She already had coffee. Raymond said he’d have another shell of beer and asked Milly if she’d wrap up the piece of steak.

The girl from the News said, “I don’t want it.”

He said, “Well, somebody’ll probably take it.”

“You have a dog?”

“I’ll eat it for breakfast. Here’s the thing,” Raymond said, trying to show a little interest. “A man wouldn’t say to me, ‘I think you’re afraid of women.’ Or ask me if I think women are devious. Women ask questions like that. I don’t know why, but they do.”

“Your wife said you never talked about your work.”

His wife-The girl from the News kept winging at him, coming in from blind sides.

Raymond said, “I hope you’re a psychiatrist along with being a reporter-you’re getting into something now. In the first place she’s not my wife anymore, we’re divorced. Is that what you’re writing about, police divorce rate?”

“She feels you didn’t say much about anything, but especially your work.”

“You talked to Mary Alice?” Sounding almost astonished. “When’d you talk to her?”

“The other day. How come you don’t have children?”

“Because we don’t, that’s all.”