“You’re not a beggar.”
“How about a charity case?”
“Not that either.”
A menu was produced.
She opened it, studied the selections, then closed it.
“Would you order for me? A piece of meat and a potato, please.”
“I’m going to have a medium-rare Porterhouse and a baked potato and corn on the cob. Would that be all right?”
“May your charity case ask questions?”
“You’re not a charity case!”
“I had the feeling that Major Connell is not going to reimburse you for what you’ve spent—and are spending—on me. Doesn’t that make me a charity case?”
“What you are is a very beautiful woman with whom I’m having dinner.”
She started to reply but was interrupted by the delivery of the Jack Daniel’s.
“This is what we call ‘sipping whiskey,’” Cronley said. “You take small sips. Not big swallows, I mean.”
He demonstrated.
She picked up her glass and took a tiny sip.
“Well?” he said.
“If I took a big swallow of this, I’d be on the floor.”
“Then don’t drink it. Order some wine.”
“Tell me what a Porterhouse is,” she said, and took another tiny sip of the Jack Daniel’s.
“It’s a beefsteak. A big one. With the bone. On one side of the bone is a small tender part, the filet mignon, and on the other, a larger steak, called—depending on where you are—a Kansas City filet or a New York strip.”
“That sounds wonderful. You know about meat, I see.”
“I was raised on a cattle ranch in Texas.”
“You were a cowboy?”
“Until I was fourteen. Then I became a roughneck.”
“A what?”
“Someone who works on oil rigs. Drilling for oil. Midland sits on what they call the Permian Basin. A very large oil deposit.”
This is where I should skillfully and subtly work into the conversation that the F-Bar-Z ranch, which cattle ranch has been in the family for three generations—four, counting mine—extends over four sections, and the last time I looked there were two hundred and thirteen horsehead pumps on it extracting oil from the Permian Basin.
Then I should modestly make sure she understands that I am the heir apparent to what is known as an oil fortune. Which is true.
But I don’t think she’d believe me, for one thing. And if she did, she’d think I was telling her that to get into her pants.
I would happily trade my left nut to get into her pants, but I don’t want to do it that way.